Tag Team

OGIC hearts Michael Ruhlman and cannot lie. As she runs through his collected works, she is kind enough to offer the following:

I'm looking forward to his about-to-arrive Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing (though not quite as much as a certain fishy friend who is himself an inveterate salter, smoker, and curer and will no doubt make his thoughts known in the fullness of time).

Thanks to the Codmother, it ended up under the tree, and will soon be joining me in the Upstate, and will be with me as I prowl the environs in search of likely hogs. Also more forthcoming on Pampille's Table. In different ways,  both Ruhlman's Charcuterie and Pampille's Table raise the question of how to adapt classic receipts for these more skittish and precise latter days. For anyone, like OGIC or me, who considers cookbooks worth sitting down and reading, the same spatial and temporal gaps that make make reading fun can make cooking difficult. Cookbooks that presuppose servants, but no refrigeration, can be more fun to read than the latest coffee-table smut  from  Alford and Duguid, but can create difficulties in the kitchen. For instance, consider this sausage  from Mrs.  Beecher's Domestic Receipt-Book (1846):

"To twenty-five pounds of chopped meant,  which should be one-third fat, and two-thirds lean, put twenty spoonfuls of sage, twenty-five of salt, ten of pepper, and four of summer savory."

That's it. Hope you're hungry. Obviously, the vagueness of "spoonfuls" aside, one could divide this to reasonable proportions, depending on the size of your family/entourage. Anyone seeking to spur a Beecher sister renaissance in the kitchen would do well to pare down the quantities. However, for a reader interested in that cookbook as a cultural artifact, this adaptation would change the experience. Junior League cookbooks illustrate the value of the unadapted receipt. Charleston Receipts, the Secretariat of the genre, opens with beverages, the first of which is St. Cecilia Punch:

6 Lemons 
1 Quart Brandy
1 Pineapple
1 1/2 pounds sugar
1 quart green tea
1 pint heavy rum
1 quart peach brandy
4 quarts champagne
2 quarts carbonated water
Slice lemons thin and cover with brandy. Allow to steep for 24 hours. Several hours before ready to serve, slice the pineapple into the bowl with the lemon slices, then add the sugar, tea, rum, and peach brandy, stir well, when ready to serve, add the champagne and water. 80-90 servings.

Now I have no idea what "heavy rum" is, but it is important to know that the ladies in Charleston consider it important to have punch receipts to hand that serve 80-90 folks in this case, not to mention others in the same section for 300-350, 600-650, and many in the 40-50 range. I'm unlikely to make this, or a full batch of Charleston Light Dragoon Punch anytime soon, but reading this receipt informs my approach to the receipts from the book I do plan to make.   I'd rather guess that "heavy" means "dark" and take my chances on the math, than have someone adapt it for me. Even the sainted MFK Fisher, introduced to me by the aforementioned OGIC, struggles with this issue in her translation of Brillat-Savarin. This question of translation/adaptation is a significant issue in Pampille's Table, of which more soon.