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Friday, May 21, 2021

Solomon Gundy

I love my library.  They fund raise by having a donated book sale every Tuesday afternoon. I always go directly to the cookbooks. I found two gems. They cost me $1.50. I am interested in Caribbean Food. Since I live in Philadelphia, capital of Food Nation, my local Bodega stocks Salt Cod which seems like a reasonable substitution. 

Solomon Gundy is a Jamaican Salad. The name of the salad is a transformation of Salmagundi or vice versa. Salmagundi is also an Art Club in New York City. Somehow the Name transformed. 

Salmagundi is a whole meal salad created in the 17th century. One takes cold cooked Meat, Seafood, Vegetables, Fruit, Flowers, Nuts and Oil and Vinegar and combines them. Sort of odd bits salad. In Jamaica they used 'pickled' fish. This and that. 

Here are two vintage recipes verbatim. I prefer the second recipe which actually helped me understand the first recipe.  This is a really good appetizer or lunch. Persevere. 

Traditional Jamaican Cookery by Norman Benghiat, Penguin Handbooks, 1985.

Solomon Gundy

2 lb. (1kg) pickled shad
1/2 lb. (250kg) pickled cod
1/2 lb. pickled mackerel
2 onions
2 hot peppers, preferably Scotch bonnet if possible, chopped
1/2 cup salad oil
12 pimento berries
vinegar

Place the shad, herring and mackerel in a large bowl. Cover them with cold water and leave to soak for at least 4 hours to get rid of excess salt. Discard this water and add enough boiling water to cover the fish completely. Leave for 5 minutes, then again discard the water.

Remove the skin and heads from the fish, and as many of the bones as possible. Either put the flesh of the fish through a food mill with the onions and hot peppers, or chop the fish, onions and peppers very finely. Mix very well. Add the oil, the whole pimento berries and enough vinegar to make a paste. Store in sterilized jars. It will keep indefinitely. Serve on crackers or thin slices of bread. If shad is unavailable, use increased quantities of the other fish.

Cooking the Caribbean Way by Mary Slater, Paul Hamlyn Ltd., 1965

Salamagundi (sic)

4 Servings:

4 large Pickled Herring
1 breast of cold Chicken, cooked and minced
3 Apples, minced
3 Onions, cooked and minced
1 hard boiled Egg
Lettuce
Radishes
Tomatoes
Salt and Pepper

Slit each Herring along the side, being careful not to take the cut right to the head or the tail, keeping Fish intact. Carefully scrape out the flesh and remove the bones. Clean the Fish skin, pound the flesh with Chicken, Apples, Onions and season with Salt and Pepper. Pack the mixture inside the Fish skins until they look full and plump.

Old Jamaican recipes tell you to garnish with Barberries and Samphire, but failing these, a bed of Lettuce and a garnish of sliced Radishes, Tomatoes and Egg are very good indeed.





Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Cinnamon Pecan Tea Cakes

These Tea Cakes are exquisite. The recipe makes one dozen. These little cupcakes are so good I would take them to tea with the Queen.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Sugar
2 cups Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/2 cup Butter
1 Egg, beaten
1 cup Milk
3/4 cup Raisins

Topping Ingredients:

1/2 cup light Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped Pecans

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, Cream the Sugar and Butter together. Add the beaten Egg and mix well. Whisk or sift the dry ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients and the Milk alternately to the creamed Butter mixture. Stir in Raisins.

Thoroughly combine the topping ingredients. Spoon the batter into greased muffin cups and sprinkle with the topping. Bake 20 minutes or until done.

Notes: I have taken all kinds of liberties with this simple recipe. If I do not have nuts, I use oatmeal. My children hate raisins, so I use dried cranberries or leave the raisins out. These cakes still turn out delicious. You can keep this batter in the refrigerator covered tightly and it will keep three weeks. I never keep the batter because these cakes disappear as fast as I can make them. Just be sure to leave the butter out until it is really soft and all the rest is easy.


Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Giovanni's Fig Tree - UPDATE

UPDATE: I wrote this in 2013 and time brings changes. Messy and Picky Blog cannot be found. Go HERE for more great photos. The Messy and Picky article can still be found in pdf format.


Whoopee! You can grow Figs in Philadelphia. I just paid off my mortgage. This is the year I am going to buy myself a brand new Paradiso Fig Tree to celebrate.

My Nonno (Grandfather) grew Figs and Wine Grapes in a small backyard in Trenton in cold New Jersey. I have fond memories of warm ripe Figs picked off our own Fig Tree. Mr. Giovanni from South Philadelphia is an inspiration. You can read about his enormous Fig Tree, his history and see more photographs at a great Philadelphia food blog Messy and Picky. 

At the link you will find the recipe for Strawberry and Fig Jam from Marisa McClellan. There are so many Fig Trees in South Philadelphia that our city is an urban foragers dream. See more fabulous Fig recipes and read about the South Philly Food Co-op Garden Tour. Philly is Foody Nation.

Giovanni's figs are available for purchase at Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market by the 12th St entrance for $4 per half dozen. More / larger photos in this flickr set.

Fair Food Farmstand
Tu – Sat: 8a – 6p
Su: 9a – 5p
Mon: Closed, but starting October 5, 8a – 6p
215.627.2029
Reading Terminal Market
12th & Arch Sts


Monday, May 10, 2021

Bookies ... of the Library Kind

CLICK ME !
I hoard books. I have entirely too many of them. And I can rarely part with any one of them.

I found a site about books that I am hereby recommending BOOKRIOT.

What sold me on the site enough to subscribe and send you there was an article on literary gifts. Click the picture to go there. I have a daughter who reads. Oh how she reads. Guess what she is getting for Christmas.

The second attribute that sold me on the site was an article about cookbooks as historical and sociological sources. I love it when I find a fellow traveler.

E. H. Kern writes:
At my parents’ house, in the room where the book scorpions live, there is a cookbook from 1886. The title is Cookbook for Housekeepers. A Manual to the Current Practices of Fine Cooking and Everything That They Include. This cookbook was first published in 1822 and by 1886 it had been printed in fifteen editions.
The fact that Cookbook for Housekeepers exists tells the story of the nineteenth-century European class system. The book is not intended for the lady of the house, but for the cook working in her kitchen with a kitchen staff. 
And then I found my way to this Poster just googling 'literary gifts.' Bless my google finger. I have to have one. You can find a poster you love HERE. I have no monetary interest in these recommendations, Bookies. Enjoy.