• Welcome to the Receipts of the Blue & Gray. - The receipts you will find here are original Antebellum, and Civil War period receipts, as originally published between the years 1796 and 1880. One exception, is: Newspaper Clippings & Periodical Receipts are limited to a publishing period from 1858 to 1866.

    Some receipts from this era attempted to give medicinal advice. Many dangerous, and in some cases, deadly, "cures" were given, reflecting the primitive knowledge of that time period. Don't assume everything you read here is safe to try! Recipes and Receipts posted here are for Historic Research Purposes, enjoy them, learn from them, discuss them!

    ★ If you attempt to try one of these recipes / receipts, you do so at your own risk! ★

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Receipts of the Blue & Gray

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(from Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery, by Eliza Leslie, 1851) Ingredients: cider, enough to fill a very large kettle, plus some reserve fine juicy apples powdered cinnamon cloves nutmeg Instructions: This is a compound of apples and cider boiled together till of the consistence of soft butter. It is a very good article on the tea table, or at luncheon. It can only be made of sweet new cider fresh from the press, and not yet fermented. Fill a very large kettle with cider, and boil it till reduced to one half the original quantity. Then have ready some fine juicy apples pared, cored, and quartered; and put as many into the kettle as can be kept moist by the cider. Stir it frequently, and when the apples are stewed quite soft, take...
(from Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree, 1878) Ingredients: 3 lbs. apples 2 lbs. sugar 1 pint vinegar 1 tsp. mace 1 tbsp. beaten cinnamon 1 dozen cloves 2 tsp. allspice 1 tbsp. beaten ginger 1 tbsp. celery-seed Instructions: 3 pounds apples. 2 pounds sugar. 1 pint vinegar. 1 teaspoonful mace. 1 tablespoonful beaten cinnamon. 1 dozen cloves. 2 teaspoonfuls allspice. 1 tablespoonful beaten ginger. 1 tablespoonful celery-seed. Boil until the apples are perfectly clear. - Mrs. J. A. S.
(from the Albany Patriot on Page 4, by J.R.S. of Rome, Georgia, October 22, 1861, and also from the Southern Federal Union, of Milledgeville, Georgia, November 5, 1861) Ingredients: 100 lbs. of beef for pickling 6 gallons of water 9 lbs. of salt 3 lbs. brown sugar 1 qt. brown molassas 3 oz. salt petre 1 oz. red pepper 1 oz. potash Instructions: For pickling 100 pounds of beef. Take six gallons of water, nine pounds of salt, three pounds of brown sugar one quart of molasses, 3 oz. of salt petre, 1 oz. red pepper, and one ounce potash. Boil and skim it well and let it stand until entirely cold; then having rubbed your meat with fine salt and packed and closely filed in a water tight cask, pour brine over it - after standing six...
(from Godey's Ladies Magazine, edited by L.A. Godey, Sarah J. Hale, 1861) Ingredients: peaches sugar Instructions: DIRECTIONS FOR PRESERVING FRUITS, ETC. Peaches.— The following is the best plan for preserving peaches in cans: — Take the peaches, either just ripe or fully ripe — this does not matter; pare them, and, if you desire to pre-serve them whole, throw them into cold water as they are pared, to prevent them from losing color. When everything is ready, place them in the can, adding merely as much sugar to each layer as is sufficient to render them palatable; set the can in a vessel containing hot water, and allow it to remain in boiling water until the fruit becomes heated through; this will require, if a quart can be used...
(from The Great Western Cook Book, Or Table Receipts: Adapted to Western Housewifery, by Anna Maria Collins, 1857) Ingredients: 1 peck of peppers 1 large cabbage head 1 dozen large onions 4 - 5 young cucumbers 1 oz. allspice 1 oz. ginger 1/2 oz. cloves 1 oz. cinnamon 2 oz. white, or black mustard-seed cold, stong vinegar Instructions: Cut out the part that holds the stem, be very particular to cut them even, scrape them out, and lay them in salt and water two or three days; then wash them well in cold water, then lay them to drain. If you have a peck of peppers, prepare a large cabbage head thus: cut it up as you do for cold-slaw, very fine; use none but the whole part of the cabbage; a dozen large onions minced very fine, four or...
(from Southern Watchman Newspaper, of Athens, Georgia, September 9, 1863) Ingredients: about 25 gallons of sorghum juice - "enough for 2-1/2 gallons of syrup" (10 gallons of juice boils down to make 1 gallon of syrup) 1/2 bushel of damson plums Instructions: A gentleman of Jackson County, who has tried the experiment recently, informs us the best damson preserves he ever tasted can be made with sorghum syrup, as follows: Put into a boiler juice enough to make 2 1/2 gallons of syrup - to this add, when it begins to thicken, or is half boiled down, half a bushel of plums. Boil until rather thicker than usual. Of course an iron vessel will not do. This looks to be more of a commercial method. I'm not sure how many homeowners will...
(from Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree, 1878) Ingredients: 1 lb. fruit (peaches, pears, quinces, and apples) 1/2 lb. sugar 1/2 pint vinegar cinnamon mace Instructions: 1 pound fruit. 1/2 pound sugar 1/2 pint vinegar. Dissolve sugar and vinegar together; put a small quantity of fruit; boil until you can stick a straw through it. Season with cinnamon and mace. Rescald the vinegar, and pour over the fruit for nine mornings. - Mrs. Dr. J. Photo by photos-public-domain
(from The Great Western Cook Book, Or Table Receipts: Adapted to Western Housewifery, by Anna Maria Collins, 1857) (Peaches "Sweet & Sour") Ingredients: 6 lbs. peaches 4 lbs. brown sugar 6 quarts strong vinegar a few races of ginger 1 oz. cinnamon Instructions: Peaches are best peeled and sliced, when put up in this manner; take six pounds of peeled peaches and lay them immediately after they are peeled in small jars. Take four pounds of brown sugar, six quarts of strong vinegar, a few races of ginger, an ounce of cinnamon; boil it well, and after it forms a syrup, let it cool, and then pour it over the peaches. They will be fit to eat in four weeks.
(from The Dictionary of Daily Wants, Etc. by Robert Kemp Philip, 1859) Ingredients: pears juice of a lemon hot thick syrup brandy Instructions: Take pears when not too ripe, and set them over the fire in a sufficient quantity of cold water, letting them simmer but not boil. When they are sufficiently softened to yield readily to the pressure of the finger, take them out, peel them carefully, prick them with a pin, and put them on again in fresh water, with the juice of a lemon; let them boil rapidly, and when they are sufficiently done, so that a pin will pass readily through them without the least resistance, take them out, and put them into cold water. In the meantime, have ready some hot thick syrup, and having well drained the...
(from The American Frugal Housewife, by Lydia Maria Child, 1832) Ingredients: peppers salt and water scalding vinegar 1 bag of mustard-seed to improve Instructions: Put peppers into strong salt and water, until they become yellow; then turn them green by keeping them in warm salt and water, shifting them every two days. Then drain them, and pour scalding vinegar over them. A bag of mustard-seed is an improvement. If there is mother in vinegar, scald and strain it.
(from The Young Housekeeper's Friend, by Mrs. Mary Hooker Cornelius, 1859) Ingredients: Tomatoes, whole Salt Vinegar Pepper Mustard seed, whole Shallot vinegar Instructions: Take ripe tomatoes that are firm; pierce them through in several places with a needle; put them in a suitable vessel, disseminating between them a little salt, cover them, and let them remain in it for two days; then take them out, wipe them dry, and put them in a jar of plain cold vinegar, with a little black pepper, whole mustard seeds, and enough eschalot vinegar to give them a sufficient flavor. Cover the jar securely.
(from The American Frugal Housewife, by Lydia Maria Child, 1832) Ingredients: cucumbers salt water brine vinegar pepper allspice mustard-seed flag-root horseradish alum Instructions: Cucumbers should be in weak brine three or four days after they are picked; then they should be put in a tin or wooden pail of clean water, and kept slightly warm in the kitchen corner for two or three days. Then take as much vinegar as you think your pickle jar will hold; scald it with pepper, allspice, mustard-seed, flag-root, horseradish, &c., if you happen to have them; half of them will spice the pickles very well. Throw in a bit of alum as big as a walnut; this serves to make pickles hard. Skim the vinegar clean, and pour it scalding hot upon the...
(from the Southern Watchman, Athens, Georgia, January 8, 1862) Ingredients: molasses meat to be preserved Instructions: In many receipts for preserving hams, molasses is one of the principal ingredients, but Mr. Margueritte, in an article in L'invention, asserts that meat may be preserved by molasses alone in the most perfect manner, and with the following important advantages: it has an agreeable flavor, it produces no scurvy or other disorders which will result from the use of salt food, and it may be prepared at a moderate price. The process consists simply in cutting the meat into pieces of moderate size and dropping them into molasses, such as it is obtained from the sugar manufactories or refineries. By the natural process of...
(from The Cook's Oracle: And Housekeeper's Manual, by William Kitchiner, 1822) Ingredients: 12 oysters two drachms of salt flour Instructions: Open the oysters carefully, so as not to cut them except in dividing the gristle which attaches the shells; put them into a mortar, and when you have got as many as you can conveniently pound at once, add about two drachms of salt to a dozen oysters; pound them, and rub them through the back of a hair-sieve, and put them into a mortar again, with as much flour (which has been previously thoroughly dried) as will make them into a paste; roll it out several times, and, lastly, flour it, and roll it out the thickness of a half-crown, and divide it into pieces about an inch square; lay them in a...
(from A Collection of Tried Receipts, Both Foreign and Domestic by Chadwick, J., 1853) Ingredients: watermelon salt water after soaking... 1 lb. of sugar per lb. of watermelon ginger or lemon-peel Instructions: Pare the melon and take out the inside. Soak in salt and water three days changing each day. Then scald in pure water. Drain it perfectly dry. Allow one pound of sugar to one pound of watermelon. Make a syrup of the sugar, and flavor with ginger or lemon-peel. While on vacation in southern Pennsylvania last week I stumbled on something I wasn't familiar with - preserved watermelon rind (also called pickled watermelon rind). The local farmers market I visited had a few varieties, so bought the smallest jar the 'original'...
(From The Cook's Oracle by William Kitchiner, MD, 1829) Ingredients: Purple cabbage Salt Pickle for red beets (recipe below) Instructions: Get a fine purple cabbage, take off the outside leaves, quarter it, take out the stalk (core), shred the leaves into a colander, sprinkle them with salt, let them remain till the morrow, drain them dry, put them into a jar, and cover them with pickle for beet roots. Pickle for beet roots Add to a quart of vinegar an ounce of ground pepper, half an ounce of ginger pounded, same of salt, and of a horseradish cut in thin slices; and you may warm it, if you like, with a few capsicums, or s little Cayenne; put these ingredients into a jar; stop it close, and let them steep three days on a trivet...
(from Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree, 1878) Ingredients: 8 lbs. apples 4 lbs. sugar 1 quart vinegar 1 oz. stick cinnamon 1/2 oz. cloves Instructions: 8 pounds apples pared, 4 pounds sugar, 1 quart vinegar, 1 ounce stick cinnamon, 1/2 ounce cloves. Boil the sugar, vinegar, and spices together, put in the apples when boiling, and let them remain until tender, then take them out and put them in a jar, boil the syrup down, and pour over them.
(from Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree, 1878) Ingredients: 8 pounds apples pared 4 pounds sugar 1 quart vinegar 1 ounce stick cinnamon 1/2 ounce cloves Instructions: Boil the sugar, vinegar, and spices together, put in the apples when boiling, and let them remain until tender, then take them out and put them in a jar, boil the syrup down, and pour over them. Photo by Abhijit Tembhekar, CC2.0
(from The Southern Gardener and Receipt-book: Containing Valuable Information, Original and Otherwise by Mary L. Edgeworth, 1860) Ingredients: 1 bushel of tomatoes 1 tbsp. cayenne pepper 1 tbsp. black pepper 1 tsp. salt 1/2 oz. clove 1 oz. mace suet buckskin Instructions: Pour boiling water over a bushel of tomatoes and then skin them; then boil them well; after which add a table-spoonful each of cayenne and black pepper; a tea-spoonful of salt; half an ounce of clove; one ounce of mace; mix well, and put tomatoes in jars and pour a coating of suet over them, and tie buckskin over the tops. Prepared in this way they will keep for a year. I decided to post this recipe today as it is the first day of fall and all of you northerners...
(from Housekeeping in Old Virginia, by Marion Cabell Tyree, 1878) Ingredients: For every 100 lbs. beef: 6 lbs. salt 2 lbs. brown sugar 2 oz. saltpetre 3 or 4 oz. soda 1 oz. red pepper 4 gallons water Instructions: For every hundred pounds of beef, take : 6 pounds salt. 2 pounds brown sugar. 2 ounces saltpetre. 3 or 4 ounces soda. 1 ounce red pepper. The whole to be dissolved in four gallons of water. The beef must be closely packed in a barrel, and the mixture poured over so as to cover it. Let it stand a week or ten days, or longer if the weather is cold ; then pour off the brine, boil it, and skim off the blood. Let it cool, and pour back on the beef. Warranted to keep. Mrs. Dr. S. Corporal's Kitchen As St. Patrick's Day...
(from The Virginia House-wife, by Mary Randolph, 1825) Ingredients: a piece of thin brisket, or plate 2 large spoonsful of pounded saltpetre 1 gill molasses 1 quart salt Instructions: Take a piece of thin brisket or plate, cut out the ribs nicely, rub it on both sides well with two large spoonsful of pounded saltpetre; pour on it a gill of molasses and a quart of salt; rub them both in; put it in a vessel just large enough to hold it, but not tight, for the bloody brine must run off as it makes, or the meat will spoil. Let it be well covered, top, bottom and sides, with the molasses and salt. In four days you may boil it, tied up in a cloth with the salt, &c. about it: when done, take the skin off nicely, and serve it up. If you...
(from Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery, by Eliza Leslie, 1838) Ingredients: ripe apricots 1 lb. loaf-sugar per lb. of apricots Instructions: Take ripe apricots; scald them, peel them, cut them in half, and extract the stones. Then weigh the apricots, and to each pound allow a pound of loaf-sugar. Put them into a tureen or large pan, in alternate layers of apricots and sugar; cover them, and let them stand all night. Next morning put all together into a preserving kettle, and boil them moderately a quarter of an hour. Then take them out, spread them on dishes, and let them stand till next day. Then boil them again in the same syrup another quarter of an hour. Afterwards, spread them out to cool, put them into glass jars, and pour the...
(from The Carolina Housewife, Or, House and Home, by Sarah Rutledge, 1847) Ingredients: 1 lb. of 1/2 ripe figs 3/4 lb. sugar stick cinnamon Instructions: Pick your figs when a little more than half ripe; peel them very thin, and to a pound of fruit put three- quarter of a pound of sugar; make a syrup, and put the figs into it, with a good deal of stick cinnamon; let them boil till clear, stirring frequently. The first week in November is National Fig week, so thought I do a thread on figs. The fig is actually a flower that is inverted into itself. The seeds are the real fruit. The fig goes back hundreds and hundreds of years in history. It was shown in records of the Sumerians and Assyrians. The cultivated fig industry started...
(from The Kitchen Directory, and American Housewife, by Anne Howe, 1841) Ingredients: mellow peaches French brandy 3/4 lb. brown sugar per lb. of peaches Instructions: Procure peaches that are mellow, but not dead ripe - draw a pin round the seam of the peaches, so as to pierce the skin - cover them with French brandy, and let them remain a week - then make a syrup, allowing three-quarters of a pound of brown sugar to a pound of the peaches. Clarify the syrup, then boil the peaches in it. When tender, take them out of the syrup, let it remain till cool, then mix it with the brandy, and turn the whole on to the peaches.
(from Housekeeping in the Blue Grass, by the Paris Ladies of the Presbyterian Church, 1875) Ingredients: 18 cucumbers sliced lengthwise 18 onions 4 heads of cabbage sliced salt ground cinnamon cloves ginger pepper white & black mustard mace to taste turmeric two gallons of vinegar two cups of sugar Instructions: One and one half dozen cucumbers sliced lengthwise, and one and one half dozen onions, four heads of cabbage sliced; put in a basket a layer of each, then a layer of salt; hang up to drip twenty-four hours; ground cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, white and black mustard, mace to taste; turmeric enough to color; two gallons of vinegar, two cups of sugar; boil sugar and vinegar together, pour over four mornings. --Mrs...
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