Hoopskirts

Pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, from Mr Francatelli's recipe Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday - traditionally a day of fried cakes, doughnuts, and pancakes, all ways to use up fats before the 40-day fast of Lent.  I did not grow up celebrating the day, and, as a result, have no traditional food associations.  When my children were little I started looking for ways to celebrate ordinary and traditional days.  Shrove Tuesday seemed like a fun thing to celebrate!   Not being much of a Mardi Gras person and being a huge fan of breakfast, I settled on pancakes.   When I moved to the Chicago area I had discovered puffed pancakes  - the German apple pancake and the Dutch Baby, and over the years my Shrove Tuesday dinners moved in that direction. This year I was thinking a Dutch baby pancake sounded about perfect for our meal.  AND THEN... .... I read a cookbook by Mr. Charles Francatelli.  If you have watched the PBS series Victoria,  the...

It's nearly the end of August (already!) and that means it's corn season.  I am very fond of corn...very, so when I saw this recipe from The Ladies' Indispensable Assistant of 1852 (New York), I knew I wanted to try it. I had no idea what to expect of these,and they turned out to be an amazing surprise!  They were absolutely delicious.  As I was cooking them, I realized that these green corn cakes remind me very much of potato pancakes, both in the way the looked and in their finished consistency (of course these tasted of corn, not potato). The Original Recipe To start, we need to understand that "green" corn is simply fresh, ripe corn as opposed to dried corn.  Green corn should not be interpreted to mean underripe, inedible corn. Obviously, the number of ears of corn required will depend upon the size of the corn available to you.  I used approximately 5 years of good, large fresh corn. A period teacup translates to about 6 oz in mo...

This past weekend was our first reenactment event of the season. Since it was a living history and there was very little scheduled, I knew I would have time to experiment with a new recipe. Now, I must confess that I am one of those people who does try new recipes on company. I know you should try it out first, but I seldom do. Perhaps I reason I'll have less leftovers that way. In this case, I felt somewhat confident of success because the recipe was already adapted and tried by others. I also brought extra food "just in case." The apple pancake recipe I tried came via the blog "Four Pounds Flour" http://www.fourpoundsflour.com/ In a chain of adaptations,the recipe was adapted from Old Sturbridge Village's Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook, 3rd ed , which adapted the recipe from The New England Economical Housekeeper of 1845. I made a couple of small changes myself. Still following me? Here's the original recipe from 1845 Apple Pancake...