The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-08-20
ideas TOR 0Mormen.

The idea that there Is q native cookery
In the United States may strike some
readers with surprise, says the "Delinea-
tor" 1t would seem as if every dish was
imported, and the army of cookkbooks
which have appeared In the last twenty
years add to this supposition. This score
of years may indeed be called the renais-
sanca of cookery as an art. and it's doc
trines are based largely on the teachings
of the French, who understand better
than any other nation the secret of eco
nomical, paiatable cooking. But although
French methods of cooking, French dish
es and French serving are popular and
reign supreme on occasions of ceremony,
there is a large underestimate of native
cookery which has ever held it's place in
u majority of homes. Some of this has its
origin in native food materials, almost
unknown and unused by our French
teachers. Indian corn or maize is a hap
Ply Illustration of this point. But, until
recently indian corn has not had a high
place in the dietary of the Nation. Pos
sibly this is owing to the fact that it was
the mainstay of the c~olonists in the years
when they were fighting both discourage
ment and savages, and so many memories
of hardship are associated with it that in
better days its familiarity bred for it an
undeserved contempt.
The Southern housewife uses the white
corn almost entirely, and fashions out of it
a multitude of toothsome, n~ourishing
breads, pones and rolls, without which no
Southern home could think its daily bill of
fare complete. From Maryland to Florida
one will meet corn breads, made accord
ing TO recipes handed down from one col
ored "auntie' to another. and the princi-
pal difference from similar breads made
by Northern women is the skill with
which sweet milk and sour milk or butter
milk are used together. Western women
use either white or yellow meal, accord
ing to the crops in their vicinity, but the
Eastern and Northern fields yield wholly
the yellow corn. Out of the coarsely
cracked white corn hominy is made. and
other dishes, the former a case of French
methods in cooking applied to native food
materials. While Southern homes a
hominy Northern ones have samp.
80
This is truly a native dish, even to the
name. for the Indians taught the Pilgrim
Fathers how to crack the corn, and in
many a New England home it holds its
when the grain has been safely harvest
ed. Samp, however, is not to be confused
with mush or hasty pudding, which is
made from yellow corn meal. Hasty pud-
ding is either eaten hot with milk or else
cut in slices when cold, fried brown and
served with syrup. So universal was
once this dish that grave Legislatures de-
fined by law the amount of meal to be
used in making hasty pudding, lest miser-
ly masters should underfeed their SER
wants and apprentices. Corn meal also
serves a useful part in homely desserts
and appears in buildings which are not toe
heavy after the simple main part of an
ordinary dinner.
The German, Russian and Italian peas
ants have their black bread, and in cities
in this country where the foreign ele-
ment is large baker and -delicatessen
shops frequently sell the rye loaves. But
Nowhere in Europe will you find our con-
ical loaves of brown bread. This is an
other native Puritan food, and is made
all over the country, although it had its
birth in New England. Sometimes it is
made of rye -four and Indian meal, some
times of meal and graham flour, again
of the three, or substituting bolted f1our
for the graham or whole wheat. 1t is
1%AN Win eO1A f
with yeast, soda and cream of tartar or
baking powder, and baked or steamed
long hours, but it is always the same
nourishing Boston Brown Bread" It's
name has caused it to serve as the basis
for many a cheap joke because its use
has been persistent for years,in that city.
But it and its associate, baked beans, are
far from being an empty joke to a hun
~ -o,;o .Jo1- xa+ mo-.
with pleasure their savory odor and well
come their fine bronze color, never met
in France, Spain or italy, despite the free
use of beans in those countries!
Many of the native dishes are the result
of the ingenuity of the pioneers wife, who,
with courage and faithfulness, strove to
make the family food varied. Long before
the millers prepared cereals women on the
Western farms utilized their wheat as wen
as corn, and by laborious cracking and
cooking, made nourishing breakfast and
supper dishes. Even now amid the great
wheat field of the far West. a healthful
food is made from wheat to the great
saving of the farmers ready money. The
wheat kernels are Drowned. ground and
used like coffee. and the flavor, though
different, is pleasant.
The Western housewives often had trou-
Bile to get material for pies. and out of
this lack grew many receipts. They had
no apple orchards, but pumpkins luxuri-
ated in the corn fields. so their nimble
wits suggested that they stew, sweeten
and flavor the pumpkin with a triflle of
vinegar and 10. a very fair counterfeit of
a dried apple pie. These same women pre-
served tomatoes for the same use and
made elderberries serve for blueberries.
The receipts for molasses. mock mince
and maple sugar pies, the latter still in
use in New England. which are found in
the cookbooks, are survivals of this time
of need and ingenuity. The Italians fry
the flower of the pumpkin, but it was in
the hands of the American woman that
the pumpkin pie blossomed in its perfec-
ton.
Southern homes could boast of greater
abundance of materials, and as a result
Southern receipts are always more lavish.
A curious method of making mince pies
is yet followed in the Carolinas. and this
description was supplied by an old lady
who lived nearly ninety years, a possible
result OF eating her own cooking. The
r,sat chosen tOf. these pies WAS the head.