In a discussion in the comments to another post, we drifted to the subject of food, and I mentioned a cookbook, The Picayune Creole Cook Book, 2nd ed., 1971. The original was published in 1901. We own a copy, and I was amazed at the quantity of food that was suggested in the menu section.
Menu for Wednesday
BREAKFAST
Prunes or iced figs (in season)
Wheatena, milk.
Broiled tenderloin trout, sauce à la tartare
Potato chips. Olives.
Broiled ham. Scrambled eggs.
French toast, butter.
Café au lait.
The Daily Picayune
LUNCHEON
Caviar au canapés.
Cold duck. Lettuce salad. Rice croquettes.
White Mountain cake
Compote of Peaches. Cheese.
Tea. Milk.
DINNER
Bayou cook oysters.
Spanish olives. Celery.
Consommé de vollaile.
Broiled sheepshead. Sauce à la Maître d'Hotel.
Potatoes à la Duchesse.
Lamb cutlets breaded, sauce soubise.
String beans. Stuffed cabbage.
Spinach with hard boiled eggs.
Roast leg of mutton, mint sauce.
Roquette salad, French dressing.
Lemon pudding.
Roquefort.
Strawberry ice. Fruit. Nuts.
Café noir.
Luncheon was rather light, but look at the breakfast and dinner! By the way, the broiled sheepshead in the dinner menu is a fish, not an actual sheep's head on a platter.
We've used recipes from this cookbook, and they are delicious - not always easy to prepare, but worth the effort in the end.
Wow, Mimi, that's what I call "high off (on?) the hog"! Looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteI miss southern food...haven't found a good place up here in Yankee country.
That's a lot of food! Did people eat like that every day? How large were the portions? I'm feeling letharigic simply reading that menu.
ReplyDeleteGlad you told us about the sheepshead - until I got to that point in the post I was thinking that the dinner menu was just a bit lamb-heavy. Definitely a dinner menu that calls for kitchen help, but no individual item on it is in itself difficult to prepare. Lamb now seems strange in a Cajun context. Did they graze on the wetlands in those days - salt-marsh raised lamb is particularly prized in France. I have never encountered mint sauce in this country except at my own table - and that rarely! Love sauce soubise, a thick onion sauce.
ReplyDeleteThe breakfast menu is different to, but actually no more complex than, a "standard" English breakfast.
More menus, please.
Y'all gotta realize that I was not around in 1901.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother was an excellent Creole cook, and she served food in abundance, but not in the quantity that the cookbook suggests. She did cook and serve three hot meals a day.
Lapin, we ate lamb often. Farmers keep sheep around here. We eat the lamb with mint jelly.
Mon dieu!
ReplyDeleteEd, yes. LOL.
ReplyDeletere: Picayune - our DIL lived there
ReplyDeleteAnn, yes. Picayune, Mississippi? It's not too far away.
ReplyDeleteIn 1901 lots of people (white, anyway) had servants to do all that cooking.
ReplyDeleteI eat a banana every morning for breakfast; I can't imagine eating all that stuff!!
ReplyDeleteOrmonde, that's true.
ReplyDeletePadre Mickey, a banana? I need a little more than that. Some in my family eat no breakfast at all, but I wake up hungry, and I must have my caffeine fix.
I agree with the caffeine fix part. Must have my coffee.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the menu you are planning looks great. What should we bring?
Dennis, you know quite well what you can bring. There's surely enough food.
ReplyDeleteAnd I want the best vintages.