Guest Post: Jo Wake, Victorian Cooking

Today it's my pleasure to introduce to you another guest poster, A-Z participant Jo Wake whose blog is: JO ON FOOD, MY TRAVELS AND A SCENT OF CHOCOLATE.  

Please sample her unique point of view: we need to slow down and cook the old-fashioned way for great results worthy of the guest we entertain.

 VICTORIAN COOKING

Through Bob Scotney of Bob’s Home for Writing, I have discovered a wonderful series of videos. Bob was primarily writing about Victorian kitchens, but I was more interested in the cooking as well as the reason for the existence of cookery books such as Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery published in 1935 which I have mentioned many times in my blog. Today when anyone makes something which requires stock, they use a can or a packet of bouillon, most home cooks these days have no idea of how the stock is made in the first place. I too have fallen into this practice, I use age as my excuse, but I suppose time constraints are the principle reason this practice has fallen out of use. The ollowing video makes me want to go back to basics, although I probably wouldn’t go so far as using a tammy cloth. This is a link to a fascinating video which is the first of a series on Victorian Kitchens: 

I found this video very exciting and will watch the whole series. My mother was just such a cook as Mrs. Mott although she never worked in the big houses nor did she ever use an old range as featured in the video (as far as I am aware). I had never heard of tammying, which looks like a lot of hard work, I thought using a sieve was bad enough. But this is what the art of cookery is all about. Not just defrosting something and shoving it in the microwave. We have lost so much of the art of producing good food and so much is done for us anyway. Because of that, we lose the pride of achievement which comes from producing a good meal as well as the ability to produce food which tastes so much better than this package stuff. Wise Geek has an article on the tammy cloth. This is why Matt and I love to entertain, it allows us to stretch our cookery skills to produce really excellent meals which we generally don’t eat every day.

I am having a day of stealing, this recipe was from Viveca’s My Guilty Pleasures and I asked her if I could use it. Very different recipe, and one I shall certainly try.

Baked Root Layer Cake, serve 6-8

350g/12oz carrots

350g/12oz parsnips

350g/12oz celeriac

30ml (2tbsp) clear honey

30ml (2tbsp) lemon juice

85g/3oz butter

fresh thyme

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 200C/ 390F/Gas 6. Peel and coarsely grate the carrots, parsnip and celeriac, keeping each vegetable separate bowls.

2. Warm honey, lemon juice and butter on low heat until melted. Season with salt and pepper add some picked thyme leafs. Pour a third of the honey butter mixture over each vegetable and coat well.

3. Line a shallow 20cm/8in spring form cake tin with non-stick baking parchment. Spoon carrots into the tin, spread evenly and press down, repeat with parsnips and finish off with celeriac the same way.

4. Cover with buttered foil and bake for 35 min, then remove the foil and bake for a further 10 min until brown on top.

5. Leave to stand for 10 min then turn out – cut in wedges and garnish with picked thyme sprigs.

Have a great day

Labels: Baked Root Layer Cake, Tammy Cloth, Victorian Cooking