To Dress A Dish Of Mushrooms - 18th Century Cooking

well we're back in the kitchen and we have with us a guest frequent guest and a great friend of the show michael dragoo and hey this is this one's kind of interesting it's it's simple and it's complex and it's called to dress a dish of mushrooms mushrooms sounds great thanks for joining us today [Music] okay number one mushroom yes she means of course mushrooms lettuce from the late 1600s so they may have called the man and this is from Martha Washington's yet bulk of cookery and this actually is originally was a manuscript book that she had in her possession Martha Washington when she married her first husband Daniel Custis he gave her this cookbook passed down in his family as a wedding gift a lot of the recipes from Martha Washington's cookbook come from the 17th century so they're maybe even old fashioned for the 18th century and you you know style of writing is different phrasing is different so they're they're they're a fun book and there's a great book there's a version of it that you can find that's called Martha Washington's book of cookery it's done by Karen Hess and she's a modern food historian she does a tremendous job in this cookbook of interpreting these very difficult to interpret recipe and she doesn't modernize them she doesn't make them right right for American tastes she explains what the phrase is what the obscure words meant so excellent book I definitely recommend it if you're interested in 17th and 18th century cooking definitely go to check it out on Amazon you will find it'll be wonderful book this one is a ragu right of it is no no no not it's a what did she go again is it's we are just dressing yes we're going to cook some mushrooms and we're going to add some things to it to make another plug and so she mentions in this recipe like a preparing these mushrooms cutting the red out of them and all kinds of things well we don't know if these are dried mushrooms out of the lager if they are fresh we don't know what types varieties or sizes if they're being we just don't know why she's doing it she removing the gills sometimes she's she's peeling them sometimes I purchased several different varieties of from the local market market and I'm going to use those that's what everybody else can find okay wonderful so regular market mushrooms how do we get started with this I've already washed them I've trimmed them up a little bit and I'm gonna cut him in half she asks that we cook them just fry them in the pan okay and that's what we're gonna start doing okay so we're cooking with our brazier with with charcoal right here in the kitchen now obviously you cannot do this as a safety issue in the 18th century and in this situation the doors are open the windows are open to carry all the smoke away I mean normally we cook over here at the heart and the hearth won't draw unless air can come into the building anyway and very frequently in the 18th century they cooked over once they cooked over a little braziers just like this in their kitchen and is a very frequent kind of a situation safety wise you can't do this you're obviously just going to cook it over your regular stove home or you're going to cook outside like they might have done in the 18th century in a summer kitchen in her original recipe she's actually very worried about all the moisture coming out of these mushrooms and them filling it up and kind of stewing them good and these particular mushrooms we are not having that problem she actually says keep drawing the water off if water builds up in the pan water is not building up in the pan so we're just we have a is equal to Phi M up we have spirited cold so we're steaming asserted okay so the other thing that effects could be the same yeah right if you'd hand me that piece of onion onion one of the pieces to this Potter you get this onion is just adding a little extra flavor it's not part of the finished dish if you want to add the salt and pepper and just to satisfy the regular viewers a little nutmeg oh not Meg she calls for not an arrogance rest know I would add it if you'd go first so we have some nutmeg which will dump we make this eighteenth-century okay our next step is to get the onions out and then just slowly add a cream so we're going to add some cream yeah we're just going to let thicken thank you and then just to your taste Oh a little parsley a little parcel you wanna I just coarsely chop it I'm not the base and a parsley but I'm just brilliant that's good there you go looks great we're just gonna let that slowly simmer imagine this with chanterelles or morels you know you could be very specific I've got four different kinds here but when I was test driving this I've done this a couple times for demonstrations um I just I let it go until it gets a little thick sometimes I've added does some corn flour some corn starch um he I know but I it depends on the weather and how much time I'm tired it's a it's a great side for any kind of meat I last time I did it I did it with pork chops on the side it was just wonderful this looks delicious let's let's go ahead and serve this up without your thing here's our finished dish okay well laughs oh I want to see you either bad I let it because I love this it doesn't have fish in it it's like lemon there you go wonderful as it really is could use a little more nutmeg I think just the right amount of salt yep I might add a little pepper to it even add a little more battle more yep Wow super flavors really very quick and simple to create I'm hoping his picture comments on the stove right for a vegetarians out there you could do this with almond milk even in the time period with the milk or the cream using this could be a Lenten dish in the time period so actually so quite a versatile dish wonderful wonderful flavors thank you so much for bringing this particular one to us disappearing before I know it's it's going quick thank you so much though for bringing this particular one and it's been great so I really want to thank everyone out there for all you trying to support that you when you you know ask questions or there's been so much sharing on the channel lately in that it's growing to channel like crazy so you guys are doing that and I really want to thank you for you know what you're doing for the channel and spreading the word of what we're doing here we have a lot of fun and you know we learn a lot as we're doing it and apparently you guys are enjoying it too so thank you so much for your amazing support and I want to thank you for coming along with us as we savor the flavors in the aromas of the 18th century

Channel: Townsends

Views: 288,809

Rating: 4.9691172 out of 5

Keywords: townsends, jas townsend and son, reenacting, history, 18th century, 19th century, jon townsend, 18th century cooking, mushrooms, cream, martha washington

Id: 5Vdzd4LgmNw

Length: 7min 8sec (428 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2017