Mock Terrapin Soup, Uncommon Nonsense

Last week I ventured into the unchartered territory of mock terrapin soup. Now you might be asking what exactly is mock terrapin soup, and who would eat it? Well, I can tell you what it is, but I am still not sure if I can find anyone to eat it.

Our mock terrapin- beef (what is not for dinner tonight)

    

  Apparently terrapin soup was very popular in the 19th century. So popular in fact that terrapins (turtles) were severely over-hunted.

    Without terrapins, those crafty folks turned to a mock terrapin soup. Mock terrapin in our case is a lean beef, but I found an ancient NY Times recipe that called for beef liver and other recipes call for brains, so I guess it could be worse. If you google mock terrapin soup, you will also come upon some beautiful terrapin soup bowls. The terrapin soup was so popular that a whole silver genre grew up around it. I will take some of these.

Not some of that....

adding my butter to my beef

Lewis Carrol based the mock turtle on the soup. "'Well, I've never heard it before', said the Mock Turtle, 'but it sounds uncommon nonsense'." -Lewis Carroll.  That sums up how I feel about the soup.

      How would I describe this soup. In one word: nasty. Based upon the ingredients, which consists of an odd mixture of boiled beef, butter, cream , milk, flour, mustard, and nutmeg (substituted for mace), I thought I was not going to like it. Thankfully I halved the receipt. Another problem with the receipt, I would let the beef stock cool down quite a bit before you add the milk. As could be predicted, my milk curdled. I should have foreseen that, but I was just following the vague instructions provided. I don't think this soup could have been grosser. Thank goodness Andrew is a another brave taste tester. He confirmed my thoughts of gross! Maybe I should look for some real turtle for the cooter soup recipe! Perhaps that is what this recipe is missing. I did have a friend stop by while I was cooking and I explained I was making mock terrapin soup, and he laughed and said he grew up eating turtle soup during his childhood in Tennessee. Apparently, there are some terrapins around to eat, and some people still willing to eat them!

On another note, Mrs. Alston Pringle dominates the soup section with her contributions of mock terrapin soup, calf''s head soup, white soup, and onion soup. And don't get your hopes up, I am not Johnny Knoxville, I will not be trying calf's head soup.  Mrs. John Simonds (Frances Rees) put above the receipt this quote about Mrs. Alston Pringle, "Mrs. Alston Pringle's reputation as a fine cook was so well established that it is still spoken of almost reverentially. In fact, a colored cook who worked in her household once remarked, 'When she puts in de buttah, ah turns ma back'." 

Luckily for us this receipt just contains 1/4 pound of butter and 1/2 pint of cream. 

   So here is my usual dorky history research about the person behind the receipt. I was curious as to who this revered fine cook, Mrs. Alston Pringle was. A quick google search brought up a Mary Motte Alston Pringle, who lived from 1803-1884 and who was married to William Bull Pringle. I believe Mary Motte Alston Pringle was the daughter of Mary Brewton Motte and Col. William Alston and granddaughter of Rebecca Brewton Motte, who is perhaps the most famous woman of the Revolutionary War in SC. At first I thought Mary Motte Alston Pringle must be our woman. But than I realized if it is a Mrs. Alston Pringle, perhaps it is a daughter in law of Mary Pringle, since Mary Motte Alston Pringle had 13 children and also since a 19th century lady would be known by her husband's name, and not her own.  Regardless of the mystery, below is  summary of the Alston-Pringle matriarch. It makes me want to read the book. And to further solve my cooking mystery.

To quote from the website about Richard Cote's book on Mary Motte Alston Pringle,  Mary's World: Love, War, and Family Ties in 19th Century Charleston by Richard N. Cote

 "Born to affluence and opportunity in the South's Golden Age, Mary Motte Alston Pringle (1803-1884) represented    the epitome of Southern white womanhood. Her husband was a wealthy rice planter who owned four plantations and 337 slaves. Her thirteen children included two Harvard scholars, seven world travelers, three socialite daughters, a U.S. Navy war hero, six Confederate soldiers, one possible Union collaborator, a Confederate firebrand trapped in the North, an expatriate bon vivant in France, and two adventuresome California pioneers. Mary's World illuminates in lavish detail the world and psyche of this wealthy, well-educated, well-intentioned woman and her family in the antebellum South."

Mary Pringle's grave. This woman was was rich, had  2 children at an ivy league, war heroes, socialite daughters...whew....I am feeling quite inadequate! And maybe she or her daughter in law was an excellent cook!

    The Alston-Pringle families owned the famous Miles Brewton home. Mrs. Rebecca Motte inherited the mansion when her brother died at sea and it was passed on through her grandchildren to the Pringle family. If you have ever been past the house, you will surely recognize it.

Here is some background from the Charleston County Library website:

His sister, Mrs. Rebecca Brewton Motte, resided here during the Revolution, when it became the headquarters for Sir Henry Clinton and Lords Rawdon and Cornwallis. Tradition says Mrs. Motte locked her three young daughters in the attic while the British were in the house. Another tradition says a British officer etched Clinton's profile and the picture of a full-rigged ship on one of the marble mantels. Mrs. Motte's three daughters married, respectively, John Middleton of Lee's Legion (see 14 George St.), Gen. Thomas Pinckney (ditto), and Capt. William Alston of Marion's Brigade. Alston bought the house after his marriage and made it his town residence for nearly 50 years. He raised thoroughbred horses at his Waccamaw plantation, which was visited in 1791 by President George Washington. The house was inherited by Alston's daughter Mrs. William Bull Pringle, during whose ownership the house was occupied in 1865 as the headquarters of Union Generals Mead and Hatch. The house has continued to be owned and lived in by members of the related Brewton-Motte-Alston-Pringle-Manigault families. (Simons & Lapham, Early Architecture, p. 36-50; Chamberlain & Chamberlain, Southern lnteriors, p. 104-106; Iseley & Cauthen,Charleston Interiors, p. 48-50; Smith & Smith, Dwelling Houses, p. 93-110; Deas, Early Ironwork, p. 40-41; Whiffin, American Architecture, p. 7; Rogers, Charleston in the Age of the Pinckneys, p. 69-70; Ravenel,Architects, p. 49-53; Severens, Southern Architecture, p. 66-68; Stockton, DYKYC, Feb. 17, 1975; Stoney,This is Charleston, p. 61.)

If anyone has a tip as to which Alston Pringle this receipt refers to, let me know! hope you enjoyed your history lesson and your warning to stay away from those mock terrapins!

xoxo

christine

Another Charleston Receipts Blog to Read!

Hello readers!
  I hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving. It was my first thanksgiving not in South Carolina, but luckily for me, a bit of the South came to visit. My sister and her in laws rented an apartment on the upper west side (a block from Lauren's old apartment) and we enjoyed the parade and catching up. I confess I did not employ Charleston Receipts recipes for the Thanksgiving feast. But I did stick at least to the Junior League theme by using Birmingham Junior League cookbooks (who make my next to favorite junior league cookbooks).
  Speaking of Junior League, the Charleston Junior League is also busy celebrating their wonderful cookbook and they have a blog, Cooking in the South, devoted to its receipts as well. I hope everyone adds it to their blogger readers!
  And get excited, tonight I made mock terrapin soup. And yes, it really did feel like a science experiment. You will have to stay tuned to find out how that one went. Ingredients- boiled beef, cream, butter, nutmeg, mustard. I bet you can guess! At least I didn't have to kill a turtle!

Caesar Salad, Pg. 211

The "Ice Cream" section of Charleston Receipts is longer than the "Salad" chapter. Shocker.

Undaunted, I charged forth this evening in my quest to initiate a post-Thanksgiving health kick with this cookbook in hand. (Definitely too much road trip fast food, too many leftovers, and way too much wine over the holidays.)

I chose Mrs. John McGowan's receipt for Caesar Salad, the "Charleston Adaptation." It was definitely delicious. Healthy, not so much.

"Drain on brown paper, until crisp."

There are fried croutons (yum.) Anchovies packed in olive oil (yum.) Parmesan Cheese (double yum.) A couple of raw eggs (trust me, it works.) Oh yeah, and lettuce, too.

The receipt called for tarragon vinegar and I found some with actual tarragon in it!

I served the salad with a rotisserie chicken (as Ina would say, "How easy is that?") and my husband loved it. He doesn't even like anchovies, but this salad doesn't have a fishy taste at all. I used my food processor to combine the lemon juice, anchovies, egg, tarragon vinegar and oil to ensure that the dressing was as smooth as possible. Next time, I may reserve a few of the anchovies, rough chop them and throw in the larger pieces into the salad. I do love anchovies.

Finished product

Bottom line - I don't want to attempt to calculate this receipt's calorie count (let alone the sodium), but it did offer up a vegetable in a raw, crunchy, non-casserole form. Anything is an improvement over the Thanksgiving smorgasbord.

On a final note, we have 13 followers - at least a third of whom are family members, but after returning to Spartanburg this past week for the holidays, I can't tell you how many of our faithful readers approached me complimenting us on this blog! Thank you all for reading!

-Lauren

Well...I liked the Crust.

scooping out some pumpkin guts, unaware of the disaster ahead

Yep, that sums up this pie. Meaning my guests only liked the crust of a store boughten pie dough. Which also means, I experienced my 2nd week of a row of Charleston Receipts failure.
  This week, an in anticipation of my sister and her in-laws visiting me in NYC for thanksgiving I decided to make Mrs. S. Edward Izard Jr.'s (Ann Kirk) Pumpkin Pie. It appeared straightforward and I thought if it turned out well I would make it for the Baileys when they visited next week. Well, glad I gave this one a test run!

steaming the pumpkin for mashing

 
   I really have no idea what went wrong here. I followed the receipt to a T. I must admit that I have never stewed a pumpkin and have always relied on Libbys Pumpkin Pie Mix. Last year, if you recall, there was a random shortage of Libbys Pumpkin Pie. So I scavenged 3 grocery stores in Spartanburg looking for the magical stuff. I ended up with a lot of canned pumpkin. We had pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, and pumpkin roulade. What can I say, my father and I love pumpkin. We went twice last weekend to Shake Shake for pumpkin pie concretes.

Overflowing!

Leftover Pumpkin Pie Filling, I think enough for another pie itself!

    So I really have no idea what went wrong. I think I stewed the pumpkin properly. I scooped out the guts. I believe I used the proper sugar pumpkin required for pies. I knew that when I added the 2 cups of milk I was going to have a problem. It was WAY too much liquid. Perhaps the pie should have been deep dish. Not sure, but when I poured the ingredients in the pie shell (premade, I admit) it poured all over and out of the dish. There is no way it would all fit. It was a HUGE mess. And unfortunately the beaten eggs, I believe due to their slimy texture, were the first to run out of the pie. I literally put the pie in the oven and scooped some eggs out of the spillover from the baking sheet I put below and put it back in the pie in the oven.
  The receipt did not mention how long I should cook the pie. I can't recall how long I baked it for. All I know is that I was about to go to bed and give up on this disaster and it finally looked finished. But it took an unusually long time and created a mess! And tasted not so yummy.
  So long story short. I tried making the pie the old fashioned way. And I honestly I miss my Miss Libby's. Oh well. Can't say I didn't try!

just a glance at some of the mess of prepping for a pumpkin pie

I have no idea what that gross white stuff is, egg perhaps?

xoxo

christine

Likker Pudding, Not To Our Liking

the finished product, twenty minutes before it was thrown away

So this week I decided to make Mrs. W.T. Hartman's(Betty Blaydes)Likker Pudding. I figured, well I love sweet potatoes, I love liquor, what is there not to like? Well, a lot apparently. While Lauren had great success last week, I had no such luck this week.
    First, it takes forever and a day. I am not sure if this could have been accomplished with a food processor or not, but if it can, do it. I don't own one (I only own pyrex dishes, a skillet, and very dull knives to whip up culinary wonders with). When you grate a sweet potato, whatever you do, don't cut it in half to grate. I thought it would be easier to hold and grate that way. It is not. It is much, much easier to grate if you just keep the entire peeled potato whole. I learned this the hard way after spending 45 minutes grating and also loosing a thumbnail and almost my thumb!

some rum to add

  Once you have all the potatoes ready, it still takes 2 hours to bake. 2 hours is a long time in my book for something involving sweet potatoes.
   And the main reason I think I did not like it was actually the liquor. I made a dish very similar to this one for thanksgiving last year. I think it was from the 'Pon Top Edisto cookbook. It also involved sweet potatoes and liquor. I made the mistake of using the only bourbon I could find, which was fighting cock. Let's just say that is the only thing anyone could taste, meaning my father was the only one who liked the potatoes. I used rum this time, but I ran across the same problem. I don't really like dark liquor, so it shouldn't be a surprise to me that I would not like it. But poor Andrew dutifully took a bite and said, "this is really sweet". And I replied, "It is awful, I know, you can only taste the liquor, and I didn't even put it all in." And he agreed and looked relieved that he did not have to eat it.

   So this is where the Likker Puddign ended up: the trash! And it takes a lot for me to throw away something that took 3 hours of my time. It was that bad!

likker pudding meets its maker

Chocolate Souffle, Pg. 242

Best Charleston Receipt. Ever.

Let the pictures speak for themselves:

These are stiff peaks if I've ever seen them.

Pre-Bake - the ingredients made enough for four perfectly-sized ramekins.

Rising....You can do it! You can do it!

Post-Bake. Aren't they beautiful? I was so proud!

Spongy. Delicious. As good as it looks.

Buy this cookbook for this receipt. It was awesome! And it worked perfectly!

For some reason, I thought you were always supposed to cook souffles in water baths, so I put these in a makeshift one. I ended up cooking them about 15 minutes longer than the receipt suggested, but when I talked to my dad (the chef!) about it, he said I shouldn't have used the water bath because the souffles need the dry heat to rise.

Anyway, I'll definitely be making this one again. Thank you, Mrs. Mary Huguenin Bailey!

-Lauren

Baked Squash, pg. 179

yellow squash

It is fall up here in the big apple. Well sorta. The leaves are a beautiful golden, while the weather this week has been muggy, sticky, and feeling not quite like autumn. But the fall veggies at the grocery have been inspiring me. I decided to make Mrs. Gerald Thomas's (Lottie Johnson) baked squash. Now I honestly have never even eaten squash. Never appealed to me. But since I am trying to be more grown up and to eat more veggies (albeit veggies stuffed with butter, bread crumbs and bacon), I thought this oh so fall dish fit the bill.
   I was a bit worried that I did not get the right kind of squash. I saw some huge beautiful squash for sale at the Whole Foods in Chelsea and I started loading up on these beauties and a sugar pumpkin for a pie. But then I saw the express line snaking its way through the grocery and retreated quickly. Those squash would have to be gold coated for me to wait in that kind of line. Ok, maybe not since I am currently changing diapers for money and gold covered squash probably would be a financial boon. But you get my point. It was a terrible line. So off to gourmet garage for the smaller squash (I need an entire post on grocery shopping here. It is simply a huge ordeal that takes forever!).

squash guts

   The squash at Gourmet Garage were much smaller. I decided to google squash to make sure I was somewhat on the right track. Not sure if you knew this, but there are a ton of different kind of squash. The receipt asks for yellow squash. Not sure if they meant that variety literally, but that is what I ended up with. and I think it works best. The beautiful large squash at Whole Foods I believe would have been too big.

pork tenderloin, rice pilaf, and baked squash- easy weeknight fall meal

  The receipt is pretty straight forward. Andrew liked it with the addition of green peppers, and I liked the bacon in it. It was easy and is something that could be made ahead and baked right before dinner which is nice. Verdict on the squash: they are ok. I was not blown away by the dish so probably will not make again. But it was easy, and even when cut in half it made a lot.
   Hope everyone has a happy halloween! I don't even have a costume yet and it is my favorite holiday!! Off to figure that out!

French Dressing, Pg. 218

There are a few receipts for "French Dressing" in the cookbook, and I noticed for the first time tonight that I chose the only one not attributed to a League member. I'll never know who to credit for this tasty condiment - a mystery for the ages!

Full Disclosure: I make most of my salad dressings. Just chalk it up to the Martha in me. More than anything, though, it's the fact that I usually get sick of a full bottle before it runs out. (How many half-opened bottles of salad dressing do you have in your fridge???)

Not to mention that it's super-cheap to make on your own. Anyway, enough expostulating on the merits of homemade dressing and to the specific receipt at hand.

These were some of the veggies I used with the dressing.

This French Dressing isn't at all similar to the orange-colored one readily available in most grocery stores. This receipt, made with salt, sugar, mustard, black pepper, celery salt, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, olive oil and vinegar, was a mellow yellow. I used extra virgin olive oil, which I'll switch out for regular olive oil next time because the olive-y taste was too strong in this batch. I also ended up adding more vinegar and mustard and a touch of honey. I generally like more vinegar in my dressing than most people.

I poured the dressing over steamed green beans, which I ate cold. I obviously ate it with lettuce. I went a little overboard with veggies at the farmer's market and made good use of the dressing all week. The receipt made a hefty batch. 

So hefty, in fact, that I predictably grew sick of it. I'll definitely make it again, I'll probably just halve the ingredients. 

On to the next culinary adventure!

-Lauren

Huguenot Torte....is it Really French? Or Even Southern?

This week I decided to tackle the Huguenot Torte. Apples are in season and looking so delicious I felt I needed to make something with them. The great thing about the Huguenot torte is other than the apples, I had everything already in the pantry. And pantry might even be an exaggeration as my apartment has one cabinet to store food. The torte is very easy to make. It is sorta like a cheater's apple pie. And last but not least, it was quite tasty.  I still prefer an apple pie, but this had a crispy top and sticky apple goodness to it. And the recipe suggest serving it with whipped cream, but I would suggest ice cream instead to counterbalance the stickyness, and nothing is better than warm sugary apples and vanilla ice cream. I would not serve it cold, because it must be hard as a rock this morning with the sugar in it. Also, I halved the receipt as I was only feeding 3 boys, and one of whom refused to even try my desserts (calling you out Andrew!).

Before the torte goes in the oven!

  When I made this dessert I figured it must be a very old receipt passed down from one of the numerous Huguenot families that made Charleston their home after fleeing France. I have always found huguenot history fascinating, and aren't we glad we have some streets with funny names to tell immediately when someone is from "off". But this my ladies is a huguenot imposter! Sit down for this crazy news, but the huguenot torte Mrs. Cornelius Huguenin (Evelyn Anderson) contributed is really the Ozark pudding. This interesting NY Times article features the Huguenot tort and traces its origins. Apparently French desserts do not contain baking soda, so that gave it away as a faux french. The culinary food historian John Tyler went so far as to track down Ms. Huguenin in a nursing home and inquired to the name. Apparently Ms. Huguenin had eaten Ozark pudding while on a trip to Texas, and decided to make it and submit it to Charleston Receipts under the name Huguenot Torte.
   I have to quote Amanda Hesser in the Times article, because she sums up the dessert very well:
 "When I tasted Huguenot torte, a recipe that ran in The Times in 1965, I had but one thought: Why isn't everyone making this weekly? The torte is easy to assemble, goes on a transformative journey as it cooks and pleases everyone who tastes it. The silky batter, which blends apples, pecans and vanilla, billows in the oven, then just when it seems as if it might spill over the sides of its pan, it begins retracting until it sinks down into itself like a crater. You and your guests will get past the slight appearance problem when you taste the warm finished cake: the brown crust is like the ideal macaroon, and the center has the gooey, custardlike texture of a proper pecan pie."

my finished project

The Time's Presentation of how it should look like

 I think this is one I will make again, but next time I will get to tell the guests it's unique history and remind any ladies submitting recipes to the local church bazaar cookbook or junior league cookbook that in 50 years someone might track them down to learn, now just why did you call it that?

-christine

Mrs. Ralph Izard's "Awendaw"

 miss emma gaillard witsell, this must feed a very very hungry 6-8 people!

Last week I decided to explore the chapter titled: Hominy & Rice, Cheese & Eggs. I loved the quote at the beginning that said- "Never call it 'Hominy Grits'/Or you will give Charlestonians fits!'

   I made this to accompany chicken saltimbocca  (by Virginia Willis from Bon Appetit Ya'll) with a blue cheese salad and parmesean cheese twists. It was a perfect mix of salty goodness and sweet salad. Nothing beats the combo of country ham and grits!

This was a dish I will definitely make again. It was really easy. It was super super filling and the 2 hungry boys I fed could not even go back for seconds, which was great because I ate it for breakfast the whole week. It keeps well for leftovers. It is thicker than a usual grits casserole due to the addition of cornmeal and eggs. I added some cheddar on top of mine (because I can never ever resist!). As usual, the receipt did not specify how long to cook the hominy, but I compared it to the baked hominy receipt, and decided about an hour should be good.

seriously, this is how much I had leftover after 3 people.

Ok, ya'll will have to endure my inner history dork for this receipt. When I saw the namesake for this receipt, Mrs. Ralph Izard, it had me thinking about if this was the Mrs. Ralph Izard I have seen frequently in portraits. One of my favorite coffee table books is In Pursuit of Refinement, Charlestonians Abroad, 1740-1860. I have a small obsession with portraits and this book has all the 18th century heavy hitter portrait artists. The cover of the book is this beautiful portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Izard by John Singleton Copley. I plan to have my portrait  like this in my living room one day. ha. Can you imagine?

Did this pretty lady invent this delish hominy recipe? hmmm

And here is another beautiful portrait of Mrs. Ralph Izard by Gainsborough that is at the Met.

  However, this Mrs. Ralph Izard (Alice Delancey) is from New York. Did a Yankee create our awendaw hominy? We do have other Mrs. Ralph Izards in the history books. Besides this senator's wife, we have his son. The other Mrs. Ralph Izard, (maiden name Eliza Lucas Middleton Pinckney) might be the creator of yummy dish. This is a mystery for the ages....
  Stay tuned, next week I think I am going to attempt Chicken Country Captain, or maybe even risk some grease burns and fry me up some chicken!

-christine