Because Janie asked for Regency-era recipes, I have translated one for everyone’s entertainment! (Remember, at Risky Regencies, we aim to please.)
So here’s an eighteenth century recipe for a Christmas pie which you might make if you’re peckish one afternoon:
TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS PIE (with modern editorial comments)
1. Bone a large turkey, a goose, a large fowl, a partridge, and a pigeon. (When you’re done, you can give the bones to your children to play with.)
2. Open all of these birds down the back.
3. Season the inside of the turkey with mace, nutmeg, cloves, white pepper, and salt.
4. Put the goose inside the turkey, and season the inside of the goose in similar fashion.
5. In the same way, place the fowl in the goose, the partridge in the pear tree (sorry, got confused there a second! I mean the partridge in the fowl, of course), and the pigeon in the partridge, seasoning all the way.
6. Close them all up, and try your best to make it look just like one simple innocent turkey going about his business without lots of other folks inside him.
7. Case and bone a hare, and cut it into pieces along with six woodcocks, and five golden rings (sorry, lost myself again there — I mean a boned moor game bird, of course!)
8. Take ten pounds of butter and a bushel of flour, and mush it into a paste. (This should take about two minutes. If it takes longer, you need to work out at the gym more often.)
9. Shape this into a gigantic pie crust.
10. Put some seasoning inside the crust. (No, it doesn’t say what kind. I suggest cinnamon, because I know how to spell it. But maybe instant coffee would be nice too.)
11. Place Frankenstein’s turkey inside the crust, in a supine position.
12. Put the hare by the turkey’s left wing, and the game birds by its right. Or vice versa. It doesn’t really matter. Come to think of it, isn’t it about time the left wing and the right wing started unifying? So why don’t you just take the hare pieces (no, not hairpieces!) and game pieces (no, I don’t mean checkers) and mix them all up, and then just throw them in randomly.
13. Sprinkle seasoning over all. (Again, it doesn’t specify. Maybe nacho cheese seasoning?)
14. Put four pounds of butter on the top.
15. Make a top crust.
16. Put egg whites on the crust, cover the crust with paper (I suggest you not use the Sunday paper, because of the dyes), and bake it in a hot oven for six hours.
Enjoy!
The question for today is: What’s your favorite holiday food? Your least favorite?
Cara
Cara King — www.caraking.com
My Lady Gamester — which contains no Christmas pie of any kind, honest!
Um, I think that christmas pie there would be my least favorite. . . LOL My favorite is the stuffing. Love it, love it, love it. I mean, the turkey pretty much is just there to cook the stuffing. 🙂 And the desserts of course.
Least favorite. . . well, I never touch the cranberry sauce, and when I was younger I think for christmas dinner there was sardines or something that I avoided (I’m pretty sure there was some strange fish there, unless it’s just been that long). . . for the most part it’s all stuff I do consume. Just not the cranberry stuff. 🙂
Lois
Frankenstein turkey! LOL! Glad I’m not eating it. Favorite, the chocolate steamed pudding. Least favorite? Pecan pie.
LOL on the Christmas pie!
LOL again on the strange fish, Lois! My family is Lithuanian and it’s the custom (with other nationalities, too, I think) to do a meatless Christmas eve dinner. There are sardines and also smoked eel which I have always been told is delicious but never tried.
My favorite holiday food, hands down, is cookies. All sorts. A Lithuanian kind of honey spice cookie called “medauninkai”, gingerbread, macaroons, you name it, I will bake and/or eat it.
Last year around this time I blogged about a period recipe I adapted for Banbury Cakes, a buttery pastry filled with blackcurrent jelly. Yum!
I did not care for the ginger cakes from the Jane Austen Cookbook. The dough was stiff and difficult to work with and it was too gingery for my family. Next time I may try it with more butter and a bit less ginger.
That Christmas pie sounds awful. I wouldn’t eat that.
Favorite- Turkey with gravy
Least favorite-pumpkin pie
I think I have to agree that Christmas pie would NOT be a favorite! 🙂 It sounds like the terducken a friend’s New Orleans-born mother-in-law makes. I’m not too fond of eggnog or pumpkin pie, either. My favorites always seem to involve sweets–chocolate-cocnut bonbons, fudge, brittle, etc. Ummmm–chocolate….
I would not eat pumpkin pie but I love turkey and stuffing.
I love cranberry sauce, turkey, stuffing but do not care for pecan pie at all.
OMG, it’s Turducken pie!!!
I’ve made a turkey stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a game hen, sutffed with a quail, stuffed with an oyster.
It was awesome.
I’m with you, Kalen. Although I would never attempt it (I so am Not A Cook), I actually thought the Christmas Pie sounded tasty!
All my years of growing up my aunt who lived with us most of that time took several days off work (she was a government secretary)and baked cookies. This was funny because she NEVER ate sweets, so the cookies were for the rest of us. As adults do, she made some truly awful ones with mincemeat or something, but most were delicious. Then with my mother we girls made cut out sugar cookies decorated with colored frosting and sprinkles. Yum.
I have made the cut out cookies with my kids, who always were more interested in eating than making–my non-cooking genes, I suppose, but I never braved the variety my aunt made.
Someday I’d love to do a Regency trilogy based on my mother and two aunts, three sisters who were very close their whole lives. It might be wierd to write the love scenes, come to think of it….
Cheers!
A Twelfth Night Tale by Diane Gaston in Mistletoe Kisses in bookstores now
I’ve never even heard of turducken pie! And I’m fascinated, Kalen, to hear you’ve actually made one! Or, rather, sounds like you made turduckenhenquaoyster pie…. 🙂
My fave food myself would be either mincemeat pie or pumpkin pie… Though stuffing is right up there.
My least fave would be whatever vegetable a relative brings… Okay, yes, I like some vegetables, but I don’t do stewed spinach!
One thing that sounds gross but I like — is a German dish called goetta. Ground pork and beef mixed with oatmeal and fried. My mother’s family used to have it for winter breakfast sometimes, and it’s really yummy… Sometimes now my mom will make some up to give to her siblings at the holidays, so they can have a little taste of their childhoods…
Cara
My favorite is the stuffing and especially after the meal many of my family have the ‘bun with turkey, dressing and condiments’ and find this almost better than the big meal. I add cranberry sauce to the bun and a brother-in-law does pickles instead and lots of pepper.
My least favorite is I can’t think of anything. I eat it all, honest. If I have to pick one just so I have answered it would be the beverage(only because I don’t need it with the meal).
I love white turkey meat, stuffing, veggies of all kinds but do not care for pumpkin pie.
Gee, that pie recipe looks so simple… let me just whip one right up! Not! LOL
My holiday fave is mom’s specialty, called Neopolitan Surprise. It’s a heavenly concotion with layers of chocolate pudding, sweetened cream cheese, and cool whip in a nutty crust.
Least favorite is probably the cranberries. They’re either mushy, or the canned jellied type still has the rings on it from the can – ho unappetizing!
Favorite holiday food would have to be my mom’s apple-sausage stuffing, though pecan pie and homemade divinity and pralines are right up there.
Least favorite? That green bean casserole with the canned green beans is pretty gross, and there’s nothing worse than dry turkey. My husband and I are taking over the turkey for Thanksgiving at my mom’s this year, so we’ll get to brine it and be the ones who declare it done, so maybe we can avoid turkey sawdust this year.
Our turducken wasn’t a pie. But it was pretty cool.
I think my favorite thing is mushroom bread pudding:
MUSHROOM BREAD PUDDING
Ingredients 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 pound assorted wild mushrooms, chopped
1/2 pound cultivated crimini mushrooms, chopped
2 teaspoons fresh thyme, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon (optional)
1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill (optional)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
5 large eggs
1 cup whole milk
2/3 cup heavy cream
6 cups trimmed and cubed ( 3/4-inch cubes) day-old French or Italian bread (5 to 6 ounces)
INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter pan. Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet. Add the onion and saute till soft and translucent. Add the garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons butter, then the wild and cultivated mushrooms and saute until soft. Increase the heat and continue to cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add the herbs, salt and pepper, then set aside to cool slightly. Lightly whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add the milk and cream, whisking until blended. Add the mushroom mixture and bread cubes. Season again and stir to blend. Bake the puddings for 35-40 minutes, or until the tip of a knife inserted in the middle of a pudding comes out clean. For optimum flavor, serve warm or at room temperature. Refrigerate for up to 2 days. To reheat, wrap puddings in aluminum foil, set in a preheated 325 degrees oven for about 10 minutes, or until hot.
OMG! That’s hysterical.
But I am going to look that up. OMG!
I love to cook.
This year, I am trying to do a Colonial/Regency Christmas, including decorations. But I don’t know about the Frankenstein Bird Pie. Giggling.
Is there really a Jane Austen Cookbook? Why, that’s a dumb questions. I’ll come back to this post and cross-post.
THANKS!
Cara:
Yikes, what a recipe! My favorite holiday treat is (no surprise) prosecco with pomegranate juice. By the fire, Christmas night, with my opened gifts strewn around. Hopefully someone has gotten me a book I really want and I stroke the cover a lot while I drink the sparkly red beverage. Mm.
Least favorite holiday food? Not much, really. I like most everything, although I would definitely eschew the sardines mentioned above. Blech.
My favorite food is the turkey after the regular meal — my dad and I would pick off the last pieces and dip in mustard (especially liked the dark meat). We were the only two who used mustard and it was our time together. Miss that now that he’s gone. And since we’re often at someone else’s house, we have to cook a turkey just for us so I have those last pieces. My boys like to nibble but no mustard eater with either of them.
Not sure what would be my least favorite — we grew up with tasty treats and I brought many of them to our new family. Sometimes have had mince pie served by a relative. . . not a choice I would pick.
I once made spiced beef, which is a traditional English food at Christmas. Fortunately I didn’t have to stuff animals inside each other, but you encrust the meat with coarse salt and spices and let it age for two or three weeks, turning it around every day, then cook it, then compress it until it turns into an object somewhat resembling a brick, and tasting a bit like beef jerky.
It turned out OK, but the recipe failed to warm me of a few things. For instance, that the meat would ooze like crazy, leading me to wonder for three weeks whether it was all going Terribly Terribly Wrong. Also that the turmeric would be absorbed by the fat in the beef, giving the whole thing a rather startling greenish tinge. 🙂
Somewhere during this procedure, it suddenly occurred to me that pretty much all of the traditional English dishes at Christmas are preserved foods. Spiced beef; plum pudding (with lots of brandy, often made a year in advance); Christmas pies with hard crusts, that acted like a form of canning; Stilton cheese. Then I smacked myself and said: D’Oh! Christmas. Winter. Preserved food. Got it!
Todd-who-is-a-little-slow-sometimes
Now that I think of it…
…this recipe reminds me of summers in my childhood. My dad, sitting around playing the ukulele (yes, I’m afraid he really did), while we kids all sang:
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat,
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog,
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat,
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird,
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her;
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
But I don’t know why she swallowed the fly…
Perhaps she’ll die.
Coincidence? Maybe. But I notice it still rhymes if we change the last two lines:
But I don’t know why she swallowed the fly…
Let’s make a pie!
Todd-who-finds-this-coincidence-very-disturbing
Loving all the recipes – sorry! receipts. Let’s get this right:) My favourite Christmas thing would have to be the traditional Christmas pudding. DH and I both love it, and I have a wonderful receipt(!) for brandy custard given to me by an old family friend.
Kalen – that one for various birds stuffed inside other birds goes right back to the Middle Ages. You’re supposed to start with a swan – and stick all the feathers back on it for presentation!
One of my favourite all time recipes though is the one in Larousse which starts: Rat – rodent which was elevated to the level of a comestible during the siege of Paris in 1870 . . . it then goes on to give a recipe for grilled rat from the Gironde region involving a little oil and plenty of shallots. Maybe not for Christmas?
Elizabeth Rolls
http://www.elizabethrolls.com
Mmmmm–prosecco with pomegranate juice. Thanks for the temptation, Megan!
Ya’ll have me thinking about food now . . . I even did a food post for the RWA eNotes that comes out today. Or maybe it’s just that I’m gearing up to make hasenpfeffer for a 16th century party this weekend. LOL!
HASENPFEFFER (for the true meat eaters)
1 rabbit, cut into pieces
1 TBL olive oil
1 bay leaf, crumbled
1 clove garlic, minced
several whole cloves
1 TBL Bacon, diced
1 small carrots, chopped
2 cups mushrooms
½ cup vinegar
1½ cup water
1 cup sour cream
Heat oil in a sauce pan. When hot add bay leaf, garlic, cloves, bacon, carrots and mushrooms. Sauté 5 minutes. Add rabbit and simmer until browned.
Mix water and vinegar and pour over meat. Cover pan and simmer until tender. Remove meat and whisk sour cream into pan stock. Pour sauce over rabbit and serve.
OMG, that sounds so good, Kalen! I love everything in it. Next time I want a coronary, I’m definitely making
HASENPFEFFER!
(Okay, to be honest, I eat heart-attack-friendly food all the time. Yum yum.)
Cara
Yummy!!! Homemade stuffing…
Yuk! Mom’s turnips. (You’re supposed to grow up and like vegetables…I dont know what happened to me!)
For me, one of the nicest things is visiting family and friends and seeing the different feasts laid out each year. Its always different, but similiar, so it adds that feeling of constantcy. I make a big breakfast for my family each year—fresh berries, muffins, grapes, tangerines, date nut bread with rasberry jam and cream cheese on top, raisin toast and juice and hot coffee with cream. We pick on all this while we open our gifts and enjoy our morning. Later, my husband cooks the bacon and eggs. Later on in the day we visit relatives, and its either a big sit down lasanga for all of us….or a turkey with all the trimmings….(I pass on the turnips, as you know.) I enjoy looking forward to mom’s cooking, and my sisters…or my sister in law’s…who ever it is. They all have their specialties which you can only get when you go to their house. You might not know what present you’ll get…but you can imagine the food!
Now I cant wait for Christmas!
Cara, yum! What a delicious meat pie!
Cara, perhaps a spinach curry from India will do the trick as far as veggies go. Heh.
I noticed that most of the blog commentators don’t like sweet pies. Oh, my goodness gracious! I love pumpkin pies, apple pies, pecan pies, mincemeat pies… Any combination of flour, sugar, butter, fruits, nuts, and cream—and I’ll eat it with joy.
Megan, if anyone made a pomegranate pie, I’m sure I would love that, too.
Amanda, coconut macaroons… Especially the ones with chocolate at the bottom…
Todd, we did try the plum pudding one year, not a year in advance as recommended, just 15 days before. It was so good! I love how the fruit absorbs the brandy.
Elizabeth, er, thanks for that stomach-turning rat recipe.
Kalen, all those birds inside birds. Wow! Hats off to you for attempting such a culinary feat.
Keira-who-can’t-cook-to-save-her-life-or-anyone-else’s
Favorite: pies, meat, sweet potatoes… just about everything
Least Favorite: cooking the meal
Cara, where can I get that stove/oven/room-heater like cool black thing you have in your post? Can I put that on my Christmas wish list, do you think?
(The word verification for the post is dnkyc. Is that a hint? Am I braying up the wrong tree for asking for that kitchen implement for Christmas?)
Hmmm, I like all the Christmas food, and I love to drink eggnog.
And I agree with you, this recipe for Christmas pie is not my thing either.