A Whole Pint of Yeast? A Definition of Mid 19th Century Yeast

Many Civil War Era recipes call for a lot of yeast. While the proportions seem ludicrous to us, there were many liquid based forms of yeast that are no longer used anymore. While much of their yeast was still in the liquid form, they did have cakes of yeast and dry yeast also; therefore, many of these recipes relied on the cook to know which kind to use given the proportions in the recipe. During the 1850s, yeast was used in cakes and confectioneries as well as in bread. Today we tend to think yeast gives a sour flavor and prefer to only use yeast in bread.





Here is a recipe for yeast that is easy to make today. It was reprinted in Godey's Lady's Book in 1860 but was featured in many publications before that:

"How to Make Yeast

Boil one pound of good flour, quarter of a pound of brown sugar, and a little salt in two gallons of water, for one hour. When milk-warm, bottle it and cork it close. It will be ready for use in twenty-four hours. One pint of this yeast will make eighteen pounds of bread."  

Other recipes at the time suggest that you allow the yeast to cool before bottling, leave some room at the top for froth, and to not cork it too tight.

Some recipes that call for yeast (liquid and not):

From The Art of Cookery by John Mallard, 1836

 

From The Improved Housewife, 1851

From Mrs. Hale's New Cook Book, 1857

From the United States Cook Book by William Vollmer, 1856

There will be a continuation of this post sometime later this week. This yeast is something I might try when cooking over an open fire. I feel strange letting things boil for hours on a modern stove top. I would like to try it though because different kinds of yeasts have different tastes and I would love to get the flavor of things as close as I possibly can.  

Researching Consumes Your Life!

I haven't been posting as much lately because I've been busy with homework and I've been doing a lot of research for my cookbook! For those of you that don't know, my future cookbook is a Colonial American cookbook but I am including sections on cooking techniques as well as a good bit of history.

What a complex topic! As soon as one question is answered, hundreds of others pop up. I am not one to stop researching until I have *exhausted* all sources of information. Like many books, not all of the research I have already will fit in one book. I'm working on ways to fit a lot of information in a small amount of space. Also, I know a lot of people are interested in the minute details of all of this but many just want the overview, so I have to try to include or exclude enough information to please both. 

German

On top of this, I am not limiting the recipes to just English recipes as lots of other groups were in America at the time. Although the minority, many of these groups had their own cultural dishes that have avoided inclusion in many books on the subject due to the fact that they were not written in English.

Dutch

Just in Pennsylvania we had Swedes, Dutch, German, Welsh, Scots, Irish, Native Americans, and African American as well as English. Although these groups made up the minority, certain areas consisted entirely these groups, such as Germantown. I feel that these recipes would be helpful for people to get a fuller picture of New World foodways. 

A Colonial Recipe for the Poorer Classes: Colonial Beef Stew

Most of the Colonial Recipes that we still have today were recipes written for the upper class. Cookbooks were generally written for people who wanted to cook the recipes that they had tasted at fancy dinner parties hosted by the wealthiest ladies in town. Even though cooks, and in some cases servants, wrote cookbooks, they were intended for the wealthy using ingredients that the wealthy had ample access to. This recipe was intended to be an inexpensive meal that would make meat go farther, especially among the poorer classes or in places with little meat.

Jonas Hanway, who recorded this recipe, was a British philanthropist who recorded his displeasure with the way that many English people cooked, claiming that they were wasteful.  He suggested that people make economical meals instead of meat heavy, extravagant ones.

This recipe was probably similar to ones used in taverns and other establishments that tried to feed a lot of people in the cheapest way possible.   

Ingredients:

- 18 Cups Water
- 1 Pound Beef, cut into pieces
- 2 Cups Split Peas
- 3 Potatoes, scrubbed, peeled and chopped
- 3 ounces Ground Rice (not the same as rice flour)
- 3 Large Leeks, cleaned and sliced
- 2 Heads of Celery, cut into pieces
- Salt to taste

Instructions: 

Put the sliced meat in a large pot, brown for about 8 minutes. Add the water, Split Peas, Potatoes, and Ground Rice and let boil 2 hours then add Leeks, and Celery. Let simmer for 10 minutes and salt to taste.

Making Homemade Pizza

Believe it or not, I have never made homemade pizza before. I've made tiny pizzas on pitas and pizzas that you take home and heat up, but I have never made a pizza with a real made-at-home crust.




 

Up until now, I was really spoiled. I had tasty $5.00 pizzas very close to my house. But the shop closed down and now the only pizza shops around serve horribly thin crusted, bland tasting pizza-like oddities for over $10.00. (When I say thin crusted, I mean thin crusted! We bought one with 1/2 a centimeter crust.) Not that we get pizza very often, but on occasion, we just crave it. Last time we went to the beach, we ordered the most delicious pizza. The crust was good the sauce was so good we were considering sneaking into their backroom for the secret recipe. Anyway, this had us craving pizza and with nowhere to get it, we decided to try it for ourselves. I put baby portable mushrooms on my and my mom's side and Andy put green peppers and sausage on his. It turned out very yummy, not quite the pizza we had at the beach, but better than any pizza around here. 


The Dough:

- 1 cup of Warm Water (105°F-115°F)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Dry Yeast
- 1 Tablespoon Honey
- 2 teaspoons Salt
- 3 1/2 Cups Flour
- Olive oil for brushing over the top.

Put the water into a measuring cup,(make sure it is of temperature or you will kill the yeast like I always do.) Add the yeast and honey and stir it a few times. When the sugar dissolves, add the salt. Put the flour in a medium-sized mixing bowl and make a well in the center of it. Pour the yeast mixture into the well. Stir with a wooden spoon until it is too hard to mix, then use your hands. You may need more or less flour, keep adding it until the dough does not stick to your hands. Knead about 5 minutes. When done, roll it into a ball and brush olive oil over the top to keep it moist. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit under a lamp to rise for 1 hour. (I got this tip from Jodi at Curious Acorn.  Before she told me that, I was always letting my doughs rise in crazy places.)

The Sauce:

- 15 ounces Crushed Tomatoes
- 1/2 Tablespoon Sugar
- 4 Cloves of Fresh Garlic, Chopped and Smashed.
- 1 teaspoon Oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt
- 1 teaspoon Rosemary

We mixed this together and let it sit while we rolled out the dough.  The rolling pin that we have is useless, you are supposed to fill it full of water and freeze it to use it and it has never done anything but leak onto my dough. We've been using an old fashioned soda bottle, which worked surprisingly well.

The dough works best if you turn up the sides a little at the ends so the toppings don't fall off while cooking. I forgot to do this, but most of the toppings stayed put. We cooked the mushrooms and the sausage before baking to remove excess juice. Cover the dough in a thin layer of sauce, leaving a one inch border around the outside edge.

Add cheese and other toppings and bake it in a preheated oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes. We don't have a baking stone but the pizza still turned out yummy on an oiled metal tray.   

I know making pizza is probably very old to many of you but it was a lot of fun. We don't normally eat pizza very often so it was a fun yummy treat and I expected it to be a lot harder considering the vast amounts of horrible pizzas out there.

Common Mistakes that New Researchers Make

Thanks to the digital age, primary documents are quickly becoming available to anyone who wants to access them. Unfortunately, a growing issue that is a result of this accessibility, is that people who have never researched anything before are unknowingly sharing unsound research with others.  It is great to have so many people interested in evaluating history for themselves without the lens of a historian but there are some common pitfalls that new or amateur researchers make.

Common Mistakes to Avoid:

-Not doing enough research and making theories.  Some people find one piece of evidence for something to support a claim and end their research. One piece of evidence is not research; it is a piece of data. Research is the culmination of a lot of evaluated data. (See next mistake.)

-Finding one source that gives evidence for something without evaluating the source. When one researches thoroughly, they find evidence and spend a lot more time studying the source of the evidence. How common a view would it have been? How widely spread was the publication? Did the author have any ulterior motives? Does the information only pertain to a certain area, religious or political group, or country?  Was the piece supposed to be satirical? 

-Having a firm hypothesis and making the research fit the hypothesis. This includes not including research that would negate your thesis. Ethical researchers will make note of the evidence that goes against their theories as well as the evidence that does. This is so readers can evaluate the source documents themselves and see if they agree with a researcher’s conclusions. Good researchers use “working hypotheses” which can change when new information is uncovered. Good researchers must be willing to change their views. There is no shame in being wrong but there is shame in trying to skew research to fit a hypothesis. 

-Ignoring research done by others. It is very important to be cognizant of the research that others have done on your topic. It is not good manners to ignore the hard work that others have done before you and it is silly to present your research to your field if you have nothing particularly new to share. Your research should build on or negate the works of others as well as introduce new information, if possible.  Reading the works of others alerts you to resources you might not have find yourself and keeps you up to date.  

 I'm sure there are more but these are the ones I notice most and remember doing myself. I am very much a supporter of amateur historians because they typically research things that are very interesting that don't tend to get a lot of professional attention. I like to encourage people to try their hand at research if they are inclined because local history and material culture tend to only get attention from amateurs and it is some of the most interesting history to learn about. But we have to keep the research well founded, bad research gives amateur historians a bad reputation.