In 2010 or thereabouts, a tiny little cookbook came to us via Peter’s Mum and immediately became a household favorite.
It was published in 1903 for what was the first generation of middle-to-upper class British housewives who couldn’t afford to hire kitchen staff, but still wanted to serve food suitable to a high-class household. These cooks were also beginning to come into possession of the first generation of true labor-saving devices — the initial gas and electric ranges, the first refrigerators — and were looking for recipes to take advantage of them. So along came Harriet DeSalis, and with this group of readers in mind, wrote Savouries A La Mode.
The cookbook was a huge hit — no surprise, when the recipes worked so well. Dipping into it, one finds recipes that make the mouth water and make the chronic cook (at least this one) itch to get into the kitchen and see how they turn out. It became the first of a series that went on well into the early part of the 20th century and sold hundreds of thousands of copies over numerous editions.
They’re all in public domain now, those original editions of Savouries and its sequels, which is what moved me to scan that first book and make it available via the now-sunsetting European Cuisines website. (The PDF is currently located on Box.com, from which you can download it.) But the other reason I scanned it was so I don’t have to hunt down the cookbook proper, when the urge strikes, but can just load the PDF onto the iPad and work from that in the kitchen.
Anyway: this recipe, and its cookie-press version (also soon to be reposted here) have appeared on almost all Peter’s and my blogs over the years. Now, though, their new proper home will be here, and all those other links and pages will redirect over this way.
I’ll be bringing in the full scan of the cookbook to live here, too, as soon as I can overcome some slightly weird uploading issues. Please bear with me while I take care of that, and the associated link-forwarding issues.
Meanwhile, I commend this recipe to you, as it is really good, and I keep making it and then wishing I’d doubled the batch…
This is a “recipe card” recipe for viewing or printing. There’s also a PDF version of it here, if you prefer to download that.
(Please ignore the URL on the bottom of the image, as it needs to be updated.)
They”ll be listed here, bear with us
Stuff we’ve seen and found interesting, things we want, things you might want, who knows…?
Other people’s recipes that have worked really well
