A Glossary of food terms:

donna

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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May 12, 2010
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Now Florida but always a Kentuckian
Thought I would add a glossary. This helps to understand terms used in recipes and in this period.

American reflector: A spitted oven rack on which meat, fowl, fish oe fruit could be roasted before the fire.

Apron: A thick fold of skin.

Arrowroot. A light starch used in puddings, pie fillings, and dessert mixtures. It is made from the rootstock of a tropical plant that was first grown in the West Indies and is now cultivated in nearly all tropical countries.

Ash-pone. A coarse corn bread baked in ashes, made chiefly in the South.

Baking powder. It was introduced in 1856, and combined saleratus (baking soda) and cream of tarter and was a great convenience to housewives.

Balm. Any of the various aromatic plants of the genus Melissa.
 
Bannock. A cake of Indian meal fried in lard (from the Scottish bread baked in flat loaves).

Barding. Covering very lean birds with a layer of fat.

Barm. The froth or foam rising on fermented malt liquors.

Beards. The gills of certain bivalve mollusks.

Beef Dodger. A cornmeal cake filled with minced beef, popular in the South.

Berries. The eggs of a crustacean.

Bitter Almond. A variety of the common almond having bitter kernels that yield a very poisonous oil (prussic acid). It is used as a flavoring in European countries but is not available in the U.S.

Bouilli. French meaning boiled.

Brace. A pair of like things; for example, a brace of partridges.

Bruise. To pound into fragments; crush.
 
Capsicum. An herb or shrub of the nightshade family, including the common red pepper, that produces pods which are prepared as condiments or gastric stimulants also called bird peppers.

Carmine. A crimson pigment derived from cochineal.

Carrageen. A dark purple cartilaginous seaweed that when dried and bleached is known as "Irish Moss" and is used in making blanc mange.

Caudle. A warm drink of gruel with wine, eggs, sugar, and spices, for invalids.
 
collar. To roll up and tie and cook with herbs and spices; to corn.

comfits and confitures. A sweetmeat or confection.

cracknel. A hard, brittle biscuit.

fine. To clarify or clear.

frit. (French) To fry.

ghee. A butterlike substance made by melting, boiling, straining, and cooling the butterfat or buffalo milk in India or a clarified butter.

gill. Liquid measure equal to 1/4 pint.

gravy. Broth or stock.
 
Hog and Hominy. A southern dish of pork and boiled corn. Often a staple of the poor.

Hogshead. In liquid measurement, especially of wine, a large cask, especially one with the capacity of 63 to 140 gallons.

Indian meal. An older name for corn meal.

Lisbon sugar. A kind of soft sugar.

Loaf sugar. A conical mass of concentrated sugar.

Milk-warm. It means luke warm.

Non pareil. A small flat chocolate disk covered with sugar pellets; also the sugar pellets themselves.
 
panada. A prepared dish containing soaked bread crumbs.

pearlash. Commercial potassium carbonate (purified potash). It was discovered in the 1790s and used before the introduction of baking soda to make dough rise.

pipkin. A small earthenware jar.

pottle. An old measure equal to a half gallon.

rasp. To grate or scrape.

saleratus. Soda bicarbonate (baking soda), introduced about 1840. It required the addition of cream of tarter to work.

sherbert. A refreshing drink made of diluted fruit juice.

sippets. A piece of toast or bread to sop up gravy or sauce.

slice. Slotted spoon or spatula.

souse. To steep in a mixture, as in pickling.

treacle. Molasses.

trundle. A roll.

Glossary from "Civil War Recipes" Receipts from the pages of Godey's Lady's Book Lily May Spaulding and John Spaulding, Editors.
 
Here are some more quaint cooking terms.

"Searce the sugar" referred to maple or brown sugar and meant sieve out all lumps and make fine.


Pie Coffin" was a term used to define the case of the pie-shell.

"Cart an egg" meant beating it.

"Sallet" often used for a mixture of greens or a salad.

"Beat with birchen twigs" was a term used in the "wooden era" when wire beaters were scarse.

"Pompoon" was used for pumpkin.

"Butter the size of a walnut" was one of the first attempts at exact measurements.

From "The Shaker Cook Book, Not By Bread Alone' by Caroline B. Piercy.
 
Here are a few more terms
.

Barrel: Used as a unit of measurement, from thirty-one to forty-two gallons.

Bushel: A unit of dry measurement equivalent to four pecks, thirty-two quarts or eight gallons.

Confederate beef. In the first years of the war, a term by Union soldiers to refer to the Confederate cows and horses that they took for food. After the summer 1863 Siege of Vicksburg, however, this term was more often used to refer to the mules eaten by the Southern defenders of the city.

Creeper. A term used by New England soldiers for a small iron skillet.

Indian apple. A perennial American herb and its yellowish, egg-shaped fruit. Also called May apple.

Irish Potato. The white potato brought to the United States by Irish immigrants.

Junk: A slang term used by sailors for salt beef.

Moist sugar: Brown sugar.

From: "Everyday Life During the Civil War" by Michael J. Varhola. 1999.
 
Mucket: A large tin mug or kettle with a hinged top that soldiers used for cooking and eating their food. Such implements either had a handle like a traditional mug, a wire handle like a bucket or both.

Mud lark: Humorous term used by soldiers to refer to domestic pigs they killed and ate. Presumably, the farmers who owned these pigs were not as amused as the soldiers.

Peck: A unit of dry measurement equal to eight quarts. Also used colloquially to mean "a lot".

From: "Everyday Life During the Civil War" by Michael J. Varhola.
 
Tagine: the ultimate slow cooker.

These conical cooking pots are from Morocco and are similar to a Dutch Oven. The base is shallow and topped with a cone-shaped lid. The base is heated directly on the stove, giving the cook not only the ability to sear meat, but also to finely tune the temperature.
Once the ingredients are seared and liquid is added, the lid is placed on the base, the heat is adjusted to maintain a simmer and the cook can walk away.
 
Herbs and Spices:

Herbs are the leaves and seeds of succulent plants grown in temperate climates. Spices are the seed, bark, roots, pods, and flowers of plants grown in the tropics. Cayenne pepper, the one exception, grows all over the world. Spices offer a wide range of seasonings, from the subtle flavor of a dash of nutmeg in a custard to the hot, spicy taste of Indian curry. Herbs, on the other hand, offer a subtle, gentle way to season foods. The herbs also provide vitamins and minerals.
 
"A certain amount", an established ingredient measurement used commonly in the South.

"Candystew", the making of candy, most often a gathering where fsmily and friends come together.

"Dinner", the mid-day meal. Do not confuse this with supper.

"Granny doadler", a large irregular biscuit. When you have cut out your biscuits and re-roll and cut out you still have a bit of dough left which is not big enough to roll out and cut biscuits from, but will make one biscuit which is larger and not shaped as well as the others which were cut out. This biscuit was called "the granny doadler" by country folks in Tennessee and parts of Kentucky. It is a term handed down.

My husband's family who are from middle Kentucky call it the "dog biscuit".

"Long oven", a moderately heated oven. Takes a while to cook. You can keep your arm in the long oven longer than a short oven.

"Short oven", a very hot oven. A short oven cooks in very short time. Some say you can not keep your arm in a short oven for a long time. One wonders why you would ever put your arm in an oven, why to check the temperature. Another old time country saying.

Slow oven", same as "long oven".

"Supper", the evening meal.

From " Glossary USGenNet" at http://tngenweb.org/tntable/tabgloss.htm
 
"Middling", the middle of a side of meat, especially , salt pork or bacon, some times called middling bacon or side meat.

"Sourwood honey," an Appalachian delicacy. This is honey that gets its flavor from the blossom of the sourwood tree.

"This, that and t'other", a shorthand recipe ingredient list. When you ask your "cousin", just what goes in that delight she is preparing, she will answer back "'this, that and t'other". This is especially true in Tennessee. Of course, there, all the ladies know exactly what it means, and would not need to ask the question in the first place.

From: Glossary USGenNet.
 
Soup Stock Pot. Every early homemaker had a soup stock pot, a large masonry crock usually kept cool in the spring-fed ice house. Into the crock went all meat and vegetable juices and scraps and leftovers such as celery tops, potato water and peelings, etc. These scraps would be kept in the crock to make the "kettle foods", soups, stews and chowders.
 
Since been writing about Beef Jerky and Jerked Beef, thought add this definition of Jerked Beef.

"Jerked Beef" is beef dried in the open air without using salt. Other jerked meat included venison."

From: "The Language of the Civil War" by John D. Wright
 
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