Apple pie

Sometimes you get old recipes right the first time: you decipher the flowery language, you make the right substitutions, you determine the correct proportions. And sometimes, well, you don't.

This is a story of when I got it wrong.

We begin in apple season. I've been buying apples nonstop at the farmers' market every Saturday, and sometimes my friend asks me to pick up her farm share for the week and I wind up with a dozen more apples besides. A few weeks ago, I found myself with more apples than I knew what to do with. So I decided to make a pie. Easy, right?

I turn to my newest cookbook, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Mrs. Hannah Glasse, originally published in 1747 and updated in 1805. Hot off the presses! Verbatim, here is what she tells me about how to make apple pie:

"Make a good puff paste crust, lay some round the sides of the dish, pare and quarter apples, and take out the cores, lay a row of apples [t]hick, throw in half the sugar you design for your pie, mince a little lemon peel fine, throw over, and squeeze a little lemon over them, then a few cloves, here and there one, then the rest of your apples, and the rest of your sugar. You must sweeten to your palate, and squeeze a little more lemon. Boil the peeling of the apples and the cores in some fair water, with a blade of mace, till it is very good; strain it, and boil the syrup with a little sugar, till there is but very little and good, pour it into your pie, put on your upper-crust and bake it. You may put in a little quince or marmalade, if you please."

This raises several--okay, many--questions. First, I need to find that puff paste recipe. Second, how many apples? What kind? I suppose I can wing the seasonings, but really, how much sugar should I design for my pie? (And why on earth is this recipe so poetic?)

The recipe for puff paste is no help:

"Take a quarter of a peck of flour, rub in a pound of butter very fine, make it up in a light paste with cold water, just stiff enough to work it up; then roll it out about as thick as a crown-piece, put a layer of butter all over, sprinkle on a little flour, double it up and roll it out again; double it, and roll it out seven or eight times; then it is fit for all sorts of pies and tarts that require a puff-paste."

Upon doing a bit of research, I discover that a quarter of a peck of flour is 2 dry quarts of flour, or 8 cups. This tells me several things: First, this will make WAY more puff paste than I possibly need for one pie. Second, this is probably because most women make a lot of pies and tarts at once (on baking day, for example), unlike our silly modern methods of making one pie at a time when we want it. Third, I need to know how thick a crown-piece is.

Happily, I have some help in the form of Fresh from the Past, a collection of modernized recipes from 18th-century London. The book contains recipes very similar to Mrs. Glasse's puff paste and apple pie, so I set to a makeshift sort of preparation, combining and substituting where I see fit. For example, I design 1/4 cup and 2/3 cup sugar for my pie (divided for that layered effect) as recommended by the modern book. The most troubling part is where I make a syrup of the apple peels, water, and sugar. Most likely this is meant to extract some of the pectin to help the pie gel, but my syrup winds up more watery than pectin-y. Nevertheless, I pour it over the apples, cover the whole thing with a top crust, and bake. Thanks to the mace and cloves, the pie smells heavenly.

And it tastes heavenly, too. The problem? The watery syrup turns the whole dish into pie soup. It never gels, perhaps too because I used a mixture of sweet and tart apples rather than sticking entirely to tart Granny Smiths.

Josh makes a lot of fun of the pie, and I vow to redeem myself later with a new pie. (It's semi-successful.) And I settle down to enjoy the tasty pie soup served over Greek yogurt, which I highly recommend should this happen to you.

Afternoon Adventure: The Tavern Club

Happy December! I've just returned from a whirlwind trip home to Cleveland for Thanksgiving, and it was wonderful to see family and take long walks and eat lots of delicious (modern) food. Around the holidays we often reflect on the past--not only our recent past and childhoods, but the "family past," stories about my grandfather's grandparents and early Cleveland. Occasionally trips downtown are involved. Yes, I come by my history obsession genetically.

This time around, my sister and I had the chance to visit the Tavern Club, a venerable men's club in downtown Cleveland. Our grandfather is a long-standing member of the club (and he owns the striped tie to prove it!), and he escorted us to the club's yearly Father-Daughter Tea the evening after Thanksgiving. This is the one time women are allowed in the club, and while we weren't allowed to take documentary photos, I took careful mental notes to report back to you.

(Cleveland Area History, 1904)

Back in the 1890s, when Cleveland hadn't yet experienced its troubles of the mid-twentieth century and was still home to millionaires like John D. Rockefeller, many well-to-do men belonged to clubs. As Warren Corning Wick, chronicler of Millionaires' Row, noted,

"Membership in these clubs was carefully noted in code next to a man's listing in the Blue Book, the Bible of high society."

Just as in England (where Cleveland men most likely got the idea), a man's club told a lot about him. And in the 1890s, the sons of prominent Cleveland families decided that none of the available clubs were quite right; they were too stuffy, too grown-up, with not enough emphasis on horse-racing and squash. So they got together and founded the Tavern Club in a humble house, though it quickly moved to its official, current building in 1904. The new building, "an adaptation of Elizabethian architecture," included squash courts upstairs, lockers, and plenty of dark rooms for playing poker and smoking cigars. While the squash courts have been improved, the building still looks remarkably like it did in 1904.

Founder and first president Henry K. Devereux (Heritage Pursuit)

My grandfather gave us the grand tour, and we took our time poking around. Dark wood paneling and chinoiserie accents make you feel immediately like you're in a turn-of-the-century club, and there's a massive fireplace surrounded by comfy leather chairs in almost every room. The walls are covered with tasteful paintings of female nudes (it is a men's club, after all), 1916-era photographs labeled with inside jokes, and portraits of club presidents and squash team champions. The bar on the first floor is plastered with old stock certificates, supposedly dating from the stock market crash in 1929--the certificates were worthless, so members papered the walls with them instead. Upstairs you can peek in the marble bathrooms, and in the basement wooden lockers remain from the days of Prohibition, where men could store a personal bottle of spirits away from home.

The whole building felt like such an old-boys' club. As my grandfather put it, it's the kind of place where "deserving young men" could get away from the rigors of business and relax with their closest friends in a congenial atmosphere. What's even more fascinating is how the club has survived, because it's such a hold-over from the days when men and women relaxed in segregated circles. I'm not sure you'd find any all-male clubs being founded in America today. More's the pity: despite the exclusivity, the Tavern Club was a cozy place to while away a late November afternoon.


Works cited: My Recollections of Old Cleveland by Warren Corning Wick. Excerpt from Cleveland Town Topics, May 7, 1904.

Colonial Cookbook: The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy

Meet Mrs. Hannah Glasse. By day, she is a plain English housewife, struggling to scrape by in the mid-1700s. By night, however, she works on her revolutionary new idea: a cookbook designed for the masses of untrained servants working in fine English homes.

source: Wikipedia

By 1746, when Glasse began to write The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, a growing middle class was settling into the cities of England. Hoping to set themselves up comfortably, they hired servants, but very few of those servants actually knew how to cook. Glasse aimed to fill that void with her cookbook, offering a collection of original recipes and those rewritten from other sources. She was clear about her motives: "I do not pretend to teach professed Cooks, my design being to instruct the ignorant and unlearned...and that in so full and plain a manner, that the most ignorant Person, who can but read, will know how to do Cookery well," she stated in her introduction.

And instruct she did. According to food historian Karen Hess, Glasse's book sold well in England and her colonies in North America following its publication in 1747. Many noted Americans owned copies (including Thomas Jefferson and George Washington), despite their growing discontent with Mother England. In the mid-18th century, many Americans still relied on English foods, as they still saw themselves as British subjects. Yet ingredients found only in North America crept into their English recipes, as Glasse's special "American Mode of Cooking" section proves.

And we see "American" ingredients and recipes in this book because I'm using the 1805 edition. By this point, foods in America began to take on a more distinctly "American" flavor, just as the newly-minted nation began to form its unique identity. This edition comes at a major turning point in American history, and the recipes and ingredients reflect that, harking back to the colonists' European origins while looking ahead to New World foods.

I'll try to highlight that cross-section with the recipes I choose from Glasse's book, but of course you can expect some recipes just for fun, too. How could I have resisted those stewed pears?


Works cited: "Hannah Glasse: The original domestic goddess" (Independent). British Library. Karen Hess introduction.

Historical links, lately

Happy Friday! I'm planning to enjoy some unexpectedly warm November weather with plenty of walks outside and reconnecting with friends. And of course, some kind of extravagant baking/cooking project will be involved. Fall chestnuts, I have my eye on you.

Hope your weekend is relaxing and fun. In the meantime, here are some fun historical links from around the web...

Houseplants throughout history. Make your own Hanging Gardens of Babylon!

The wonder of the mechanical apple peeler-slicer-corer, fresh from the 1880s. Also, that pie sounds amazing.

Wednesday, November 13 was National Indian Pudding Day. And last year I made Indian pudding! It's as good as NPR makes it sound.

Dry your fruits and veggies colonial-style.

These colorized old photos are stunning.

Happy weekending!

Spiced, stewed pears

Thank you for all your wonderful comments on our news! It can be scary to put big announcements out into this void of the internet, so it meant a lot to read your good wishes.

We're knee-deep in fall over here in New England. Leaves turning color, crisp and clear afternoons, days growing shorter. Sometimes I think that New England is my favorite place to be come fall. Though the leaves turn brilliant orange and red in Ohio, the days are never as consistently clear and blue, thanks to our moody Lake Erie. Plus, as a history teacher, fall and colonial history seem to go hand-in-hand for me, and there's so much history to be mined here in Rhode Island. Walking by a low stone wall puts me in mind of a colonial homestead, the stones demarcating property lines from faraway neighbors. And teaching colonial history come fall, as I'm doing this year, just feels right. (Maybe it's the Thanksgiving/Pilgrim connection, which is basically ingrained by this point.)

At any rate, I'm going to pursue some colonial studies of my own on this little blog for a while. We've looked at 18th-century Williamsburg before, thanks to the Williamsburg Art of Cookery, but now we're going to get serious. We're hauling out the real, original recipes. Even if the results are less than savory.

Luckily, one of the first recipes I tried turned out beautifully.

Pears are delicious on their own, and oh-so-fall and wintry. Since I was little, some relatives have been sending us a big box of pears and grapefruit for Christmas every year, which my dad would store in the cold cellar of our house. When he felt like topping off a meal with fresh, crisp fruit, he'd trek down to the basement and return with a perfectly-chilled pear, and he'd slice it up for all of us to sample. It's still one of my favorite holiday (and post-holiday) traditions.

But Mrs. Hannah Glasse, writer of one of colonial America's most popular cookbook The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, takes those pears and raises me one. You peel and quarter the pears, then bathe them in a delicious mixture of red wine, cloves, sugar, and lemon peel. Bake until the pears are soft and blushing, and they taste like November straight out of the oven. There's nothing better.


Spiced, Stewed Pears
(adapted from The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy)

3 pears, peeled and quartered
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup red wine
1 tbsp lemon peel
4-6 cloves (varies depending on how much spice you want)

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a small bowl, mix the sugar and wine together until sugar dissolves.

Place the pears in a ceramic or glass baking dish and pour the wine mixture over them. Scatter the lemon peel and cloves (more if you like intense spice, less for a milder flavor) over the mixture. Bake for 40 minutes, stirring the pears once halfway through.

Dining at Downton: Champagne julep

There's something I've been keeping under my hat for a while, and it's time you knew: Josh and I are engaged!

We're thrilled, and despite all the chaos of starting a new school year, we couldn't be happier. We're also trying to get used to calling each other "fiance," which feels pretty weird. (Did anyone else find that?)

As we've been telling our families and friends, they have been very kindly responding with good wishes and congratulations...and Champagne. Lots of Champagne. It's pretty funny, actually, and we've been enjoying it quite a bit, when we can open the bottle. (Josh struggled greatly to open the bottle of Prosecco we used to make the following cocktail. In the end, the cork shot through two rooms and landed behind the couch. It boggles the mind!)

that dastardly cork

I can't help but think that the Crawley family would have toasted with Champagne when Matthew and Mary announced their long-awaited engagement on Downton Abbey. We never saw the family's response (because, let's face it, Matthew and Mary smooching in the falling snow is all you really needed by that point), but Champagne would have been an appropriate toast. So let's extend our little celebration to the internet via a 1920s Champagne julep, straight from The Savoy Cocktail Book.

Personally, I find this to be kind of a silly cocktail, as it's basically Champagne with sugar. Nevertheless, it's an easy and refreshing drink to make, especially if you're distracted by exciting news. Simply add Champagne (or Prosecco, as I did) to a glass with a teaspoonful of sugar, stir, and garnish with fruit or mint. And toast to your favorite celebratory news.

Champagne Julep
(slightly adapted from The Savoy Cocktail Book, via Savoy Stomp)

1 bottle of Champagne or Prosecco
2 tsp of sugar, divided
mint, to garnish
ice

Pour 1 tsp of sugar each into 2 long tumblers. Pour enough Champagne into each glass to fill, and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add ice and bruised mint. Enjoy, and top off with Champagne as needed.

Research comes from the unlikeliest of places

As evidenced by my various afternoon adventures, I love visiting historic sites. I will drag Josh to living history museums just to pretend I'm living in colonial New England (more on that soon). When my parents called to say they were planning a weekend in upstate New York, and that they hoped to visit some painters' houses and one of the Roosevelt sites, I dropped everything to join them. Nothing says vacation to me like poking around perfectly preserved homes from another era.

But why? Yes, I'm a huge history nerd, but what exactly do I love about it? (As Josh keeps asking me.)

First, I love feeling like I'm stepping into another era. There's no better way than to actually stand in the house where the Vanderbilts entertained, or to look out at the views the servants at The Elms saw. Sure, reading historical fiction transports me to another era, as does obsessively watching Downton Abbey, but there's no replacement for seeing a 1920s refrigerator in person. And that kind of visual only fuels my imagination when I'm reading.

That brings me to the main reason why I love historic houses: each visit is a treasure trove of research. Maybe the information won't be useful for my current projects, but I can always file it away in the back of my mind, or jot down an idea in my notebook, to call up later. Guides are often bursting with strange factoids--our guide at the Vanderbilt Mansion, for example, reminded us that the Vanderbilts could build what they did because they didn't have to pay income tax. (It hadn't been invented yet.) These bits of information can spark a new idea or flesh out a current one.

During that weekend in New York, my parents and I visited the homes and studios of the Hudson River School landscape painters Frederic Church and Thomas Cole. I was finishing a draft of a historical YA novel about a young woman who longs to be a painter, and I was struggling to add enough specific details that would make her world come to life. Turns out that visiting these two homes was exactly what I needed. I got to look at Thomas Cole's paintbox, which he took with him on his regular 12-mile hikes across the mountains. Cole punched studs into his personal trunk to decorate it, and Frederic Church, himself a student of Cole, filled his home with paintings he collected during his world travels. I even learned when paints began to be sold in tubes rather than as powders.

These kinds of details are gold to writers of historical fiction, and they're tough to find in regular research routes. Plus there's no replacement for soaking in the feel of an artist's home; the very atmosphere of a place can inform your work.

If you like to visit historic homes, what do you love about it? Any places to recommend?


Top two photos of Thomas Cole house; bottom three of Frederic Church house.