Civil War era recipes

[Littlestown]

I thought a collection of Civil War era recipes would be a nice addition. From other posts, I see that a lot of you are interested in cook books and recipes. I have been collecting for years. Two Civil War era recipes that are good to eat and of historic value are Mary Todd's White Cake and General Robert E. Lee's Cake.
Mary Todd's White Cake was Abraham Lincoln's favorite cake. She first made it for him while they were courting. She continued to serve the cake during all their married life including their White House years. This confection was originated by Monsieur Giron, a Lexington caterer, on the occasion of Lafayette's visit to Lexington, Ky. in 1825. The Todds, a very prominent Lexington family, got the recipe and made it their own. Mary Todd especially liked it.
The Recipe:
1 C butter
2 C sugar
3 C flour
1 C milk
1 C finely chopped almonds
3 t. baking powder
Whites of 6 eggs
1 t vaniila
Cream butter and sugar, sift flour and baking powder together 3 times, and add to butter and sugar, alternating with the milk. Stir in the almonds and beat well. Then fold in the stiffly beaten whites and the vanilla. Pour into well greased and floured pan. Can be large tube pan or 2 9x 1 1/2 inch round pans. Bake at 375 degrees for one hour or the cake tests done. The tube pan can take longer. Turn out on wire rack and cool. The tube pan makes a large cake. Than frost with white icing.
Frosting for Mary Todd's Cake
2 C sugar
2 egg whites, beaten stiff with pinch of salt
1/2 C diced candied pineapple
1 C water
1 t vanilla
1/2 C crystallized cherries, cut in halves
Boil sugar and water until syrup spins a 5-inch thread. Fold in slowly to the well beaten whites adding a tablespoon at a time until 4 have been used. Now add the remaining syrup slowly pouring it in a thin stream. Beat by hand until all is used and the mixture stands in peaks. Add the flavoring and fold in pineapple and cherries. Spread on the cake. by Donna

I attended a Ladies' Tea today where this cake was served. It was delicious!

 

[donna]

Civil War Tomato Steak Recipe

2 pounds beef, cut it in small strips
7 medium tomatoes
1 teaspoon each: sugar and salt
1 whole clove
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon chopped onion

Take the beef; cut it in small strips, and put it into the pot with tomatoes. Stew it very slowly. Add sugar, salt, a little clove, and, just before you take it up. butter.

If you have tomato ketchup, add a little and add the chopped onion. Very tender beef is, of course, to be preferred; but that which is tough becomes more palatable in this than in almost any other way.

From: Mrs. Cornelius, "The Young Housekeeper's Friend" (1863 )

 

[donna]

In book I am reading now, "Johnny Green of the Orphan Brigade", learned a new recipe that the soldiers ate. It is Ash Cake. As Green describes it " Corn meal mixed with salt and water, put between two cabbage leaves and cooked in the red hot ashes".

 

[Mina_LeBrun]

A version of this is in Gone With the Wind and I've heard it refered to as bayonnet bread too. (Because it can be cooked on a bayonnet.)

 

[LondonLizzy]

A question: during the time of the war, presumably sugar was in short supply? Was what was available, white or brown sugar?

 

[johan_steele]

Both white & brown sugar were available as well as beet sugar. What was available depended upon where you were. Add Honey, Molasses & Sorghum to the mix as well.

 

[Zylphy]

Both white & brown sugar were available as well as beet sugar. What was available depended upon where you were. Add Honey, Molasses & Sorghum to the mix as well.

Johan, was sugar sold at that time in loaves or cakes? I remember learning that prior to the War sugar was sold in that form; and that, as with bricks of tea, the sugar could be ground off a little bit at a time for use. We were told that some of the sugar came wrapped in purple or blue? paper, and that when the sugar was used up, the paper was soaked in water for the dye it contained, so that could be used as well. Did they still do this at the time of the Civil War?

 

[johan_steele]

That is beyond my scope, I know that they were typically selling sugar in cakes, some funnel & pyramid shapped. Past that my wife is the knowledgeable one.

Johan, was sugar sold at that time in loaves or cakes? I remember learning that prior to the War sugar was sold in that form; and that, as with bricks of tea, the sugar could be ground off a little bit at a time for use. We were told that some of the sugar came wrapped in purple or blue? paper, and that when the sugar was used up, the paper was soaked in water for the dye it contained, so that could be used as well. Did they still do this at the time of the Civil War?

 

[Nathanb1]

Strangely enough, I was watching Wagon Train yesterday afternoon and there was an episode about some survivors of Andersonville who were going to kill another guy who ratted them out or something when they were attempting to escape.....I sort of dozed off.....but one of the men had stolen some sugar from Charlie Wooster's store of food, and I noticed it was in a cake and quite brown. I was sort of impressed.

Not that it was that way during the war, but it was interesting that you brought it up tonight!

 

[Zylphy]

That is beyond my scope, I know that they were typically selling sugar in cakes, some funnel & pyramid shapped. Past that my wife is the knowledgeable one.

Knowing that much is certainly a help though! Thanks!

 

[Zylphy]

Strangely enough, I was watching Wagon Train yesterday afternoon and there was an episode about some survivors of Andersonville who were going to kill another guy who ratted them out or something when they were attempting to escape.....I sort of dozed off.....but one of the men had stolen some sugar from Charlie Wooster's store of food, and I noticed it was in a cake and quite brown. I was sort of impressed.

Not that it was that way during the war, but it was interesting that you brought it up tonight!

Heh... perhaps it's the Great Collective Historical Consciousness at work, somewhere out there in the Ether. I have never seen the show "Wagon Train", so that is interesting!

 

[Nathanb1]

More than you ever wanted to know about making it. http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/jackson/sugar.html

By the way--one of the "architects" of the convict-leasing idea was none other than T.J. Goree, Longstreet's young aide, who became head of the Texas prison system. He was dedicated to the idea that the prison system should pay for itself and that inmates were better off working than sitting in a cell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TJ_Goree


Edit: Aha! Found this--looks like you might have had either available, as Shane said, depending on where you were and probably how much money you had:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcandy.html

 

[Zylphy]

More than you ever wanted to know about making it. http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/jackson/sugar.html

By the way--one of the "architects" of the convict-leasing idea was none other than T.J. Goree, Longstreet's young aide, who became head of the Texas prison system. He was dedicated to the idea that the prison system should pay for itself and that inmates were better off working than sitting in a cell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TJ_Goree


Edit: Aha! Found this--looks like you might have had either available, as Shane said, depending on where you were and probably how much money you had:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcandy.html

Wow, that is a lot of information; thank you! The section about the Lake Jackson Plantation and the Leased Convict Labor was actually probably a good idea in theory I think. Had they actually treated the prisoners more humanely (I realize I am coming at this from a 21st Cenury perspective), it might have lasted longer than the 1880s, maybe?

 

[Elaine Kessinger]

"HOW SWEET IT IS!"
A HISTORY OF SUGAR and SUGAR REFINING IN THE UNITED STATES
INCLUDING A GLOSSARY OF SWEETENERS
by Virginia Mescher

 

[Zylphy]

"HOW SWEET IT IS!"
A HISTORY OF SUGAR and SUGAR REFINING IN THE UNITED STATES
INCLUDING A GLOSSARY OF SWEETENERS
by Virginia Mescher

Elaine, more great info, thank you! I saved the article to my desktop for reference I do so wish that school had been this interesting!

 

[Nathanb1]

I don't even know if piloncillo is available in your part of the country, but it gives a unique taste to food....I suspect if you were a Confederate in Texas it might have been available at that time...

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Articles/Ethnic-Unique-Foods-Ingredients-645/piloncillo.aspx

 

[Zylphy]

I don't even know if piloncillo is available in your part of the country, but it gives a unique taste to food....I suspect if you were a Confederate in Texas it might have been available at that time...

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Articles/Ethnic-Unique-Foods-Ingredients-645/piloncillo.aspx

That's cool; thank you! I wonder if I might actually be able to find that around here; there is a Latin American grocery store called "La Favorita" in the small shopping center across the street from me. They have all kinds of good stuff, so I'll ask... maybe they have piloncillo! I know that I really like regular raw brown sugar in my coffee when I want to splurge.... making a cafe con leche with whole milk and piloncillo sounds REALLY good right now!!

 

[LondonLizzy]

Both white & brown sugar were available as well as beet sugar. What was available depended upon where you were. Add Honey, Molasses & Sorghum to the mix as well.

Thanks! What is sorghum?

 

[Elaine Kessinger]

From:
"How Sweet It Is:A History Of Sugar and Sugar Refining In the United States, Including a Glossary Of Sweetners" by Virginia Mescher

SORGHUM — Another source of sweetening, newly introduced into the United States in the midnineteenth
century, was sorghum or Chinese cane (Sorgo) or the African cane (Imphee). It was
introduced in France by Count de Montighy in 1851, and it was granted a patent in the United States
in 1854. An advantage of sorghum was that it could grow in colder climates than sugar cane and
was produced as far North as Minnesota and Wisconsin. Sorghum was processed much like sugar
cane, but only syrup was produced. In the 1860 census, 6,749,123 gallons were produced in the United States. During the Civil War, when little domestic sugar was made and the imported supply
was diminished, sorghum was common in the South. Even in the North sorghum was grown and
used, because sugar products were more difficult to import during the war. A number of wartime
diaries and post war articles about wartime conditions, recount the growing and processing and the
use of sorghum. The taste is stronger and more bitter than that of either molasses or golden syrup.
It is still grown and is available in some speciality food stores and historic sites. Sometimes, in the
countryside in the fall, there will be roadside stands selling sorghum.

 

[donna]

Many Southern recipes that call for molasses originated during the Civil War when the Confederate government rationed luxury items, such as sugar. Union blockades prevented the importation of sugar from Louisiana , Florida and the Caribbean to ports in the Carolinas and Virginia. To meet the challenge of cooking without sugar, many recipes called for Molasses. "Long Sweeting" as people called molasses in Charleston County, South Carolina during the Civil War, was used to make molasses sticky buns. Molasses sticky buns were made of a rich biscuit dough, rolled thin, spread with molasses and butter, rolled up like a jelly roll, then sliced thin, placed on a biscuit tin and baked.

Here is a recipe for Molasses Sticky Buns from "Sweet Recipes"

3/4 cup scaled milk
1/3*cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 packages active dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water
1 egg
4 cups shifted flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Combine milk, sugar, 1/3 cup butter and salt in bowl. Dissolve yeast in warm water; add yeast, egg and 1 cup flour to milk mixture. Beat until smooth. Gradually add enough flour to make a soft dough. Turn onto floured surface and knead. Place in a greased bowl; turn dough over to grease top. Cover; let rise until doubled in size.

Combine molasses, 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/3 cup butter. Heat until butter melts. Spread mixture in 2 greased 9 inch round cake pans. Sprinkle with pecans.

Combine 1 cup brown sugar, raisins and cinnamon, and set aside.

Divide dough in half. Roll each half into 12 x 8 inch rectangle. Sprinkle with half of brown sugar mixture. Roll up like a jelly roll, starting at long side. Cut into 12 slices and arrange in cake pans. Let rise until doubled.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Invert pans on plates and remove.

Makes 24 Molasses Sticky Buns.