Now that I am mostly done with my seasonal canning, I can spend my time inventing different catsups. I hadn't had much luck finding recipes online until it occurred to me to search old cookbooks on Internet Archive, so I am now doing that. Opposition research, you know.
In the process, however, I keep seeing things I want to tell people about, so this is now a thread for that. You guys should help, and also tell me if you find any catsup receipts.
I'll start off with "Stewed Cucumbers," from Just a few tried and true receipts : being a manuscript cookbook printed and sold for the benefit of the Providence Day Nursery Association and social settlement work in the city of Providence, Rhode Island by Metcalf, Isabel Harris
Quote:
STEWED CUCUMBERS
A seasonable dish may be prepared by paring cucumbers, cutting them in half lengthwise, boiling them gently till tender in salted water, laying them on toast, and pouring over them white sauce or drawn butter, to which a cup of milk has been added.
OMG this one looks really good, as do a lot of the potato recipes. Needs just a little garlic, maybe. Why haven't I had these before?
Quote:
POTATO BALLS.
BOSTON COOK BOOK.
One pint of hot mashed potatoes highly seasoned with salt, pepper, celery salt, chopped parsley and butter, moisten if needed with a little hot milk or cream, beat one egg light and add part of it to the potato, shape into round, smooth balls, brush over with the remainder of the egg and bake on a but- tered tin until brown. Be very careful and not get them too moist.
I have a medieval cookbook ... somewhere in the house, quite possibly in a box. I will certaunelie spende ye next dayes searchynge for it for thine interest, or maybe not.
I've made some things from it. But you have to scale down the quantities a bit, unless you are cooking for a major household. "Take three dozen capons and seethe; caste thereto one barrel of turnyppes and one of onyones; ..."
OMG, I didn't even notice the spoiler at first, but I only had to look up like three words anyways, so HA.
Although, no danged way I'm making something like that for BREAKFAST any day of the year. Sometimes, I pretend to be asleep for a while after I wake up just to get out of making the coffee.
Fun fact: I was a charter member of the Pee Wee Herman fan club. Had a secret membership card and a code name and everything. I was sooooo mad when my wallet got stolen with that in it. Plus, you know, money and ID and credit cards.
LEMON PICKLE OR CATSUP.
Either divide six small lemons into quarters, remove all the pips that are in sight, and strew three ounces of salt upon them, and keep them turned in it for a week, or, merely make deep incisions in them, and proceed as directed for pickled lemons. When they have stood in a warm place for eight days, put into a stone jar two ounces and a half of finely-scraped horseradish, and two ounces of eschalots, or one and a half of garlic; to these add the lemons with all their liquor, and pour on them a pint and a half of boiling vinegar in which half an ounce of bruised ginger, a quarter of an ounce of whole white pepper, and two blades of mace have been sinunered for two or three minutes. The pickle will be fit for use in two or three months, but may stand four or five before it is strained off.
Small lemons, 6 ; salt, 3 oz. : 8 days. Horseradish, 2£ oz. ; eschalots, 2 oz., or garlic 1| oz. ; vinegar, 1 J pint; ginger, ^ oz. ; v T hole white pepper, 1 oz. ; mace, 2 blades : 3 to 6 months.
Obs. — These highly-flavoured compounds are still much in favour with a certain class of housekeepers ; but they belong exclusively to English cookery : they are altogether opposed to the practice of the French cuisine, as well as to that of other foreign countries.
I just found my paternal grandmother's copy of the Boston Cooking School Cookbook (a wedding gift to her back in 1921.) that's been in a box since we moved back to Colorado.
I will see what I can dig up.
__________________
“Logic is a defined process for going wrong with Confidence and certainty.” —CF Kettering
I was hoping to find my grandmother's cookbook from my mom's side, Mom must still have it. But I found one from my paternal Nana and it's...well. Interesting.
Not an old-timey receipt exactly, but part of my vintage alt-catsup style experiments:
Last summer/fall, I fermented a bunch of 'rummage relish' out of produce from my CSA that I needed to use up. Basically, I just diced up a bunch of things like zucchini (courgettes), carrots, onion, peppers, and man I don't even remember what all else, but I made a few different batches with just whatever. Then I put them in a brine and fermented them for like a month or so.
Afterward, I pureed it up with an immersion blender, simmered it on the stove, adding little bits of cider vinegar and blackstrap molasses to taste, and cooked it down until it was roughly ketchup consistency.
So it's kind of a hybrid thing, where it's good for dipping like modern ketchup, but also for cooking, like fish or mushroom sauce or other old style catsups. (I am making a distinction between ketchup and catsup, in case you guys hadn't noticed.)
But anyhows, it is really really good in soups and things like that so far, and gives them a big hit of umami and a little acid, like a vegan Worcestershire or bouillon.
I'm pretty happy with it. It's like a secret ingredient except only secret because nobody even cares about my projects.
Old-Timey Receipts of Note
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