How to Make Vinegar Like a Victorian by Kristin Holt

by Kristin Holt, USA Today Bestselling Author

of Sweet Romance set in the Victorian American West

Where does vinegar come from? 

The grocery store, of course. Even pioneer women could purchase vinegar at their nearest town general store or grocery. Yet knowing the twin Victorian virtues of THRIFT and ECONOMY, it's evident many penny-pinching homemakers would have taken the advice in cook books of their day (yes, spelled as two words back then) and in their city newspapers. Thrifty advice: Make Your Own.

How?

Why, with ingredients and tools you have lying about the homestead, my dear. Things like rainwater, apple peels, cider, yeast, molasses, and brown paper. Never forget the brown paper. 

Why?

Beyond the economy of making your own vinegar, what if you live a long way from your corner store? With all those long hours of daylight, homesteading women had plenty of time (hear my sarcasm) to make their own vinegar. 

Let's explore a few short recipes, beginning with one shared in 1852:

Vinegar Recipe explaining use of brown paper strips. The Perry County Democrat of Bloomfield, PA. November 24, 1852.

The instructions, ingredients, and method are worth revisiting, especially in the absence of this 1852 Pennsylvania newspaper clipping. Here's a careful transcription:

Making Vinegar.--Vinegar, according to a writer in the Genesee Farmer, is cheaply made. We re-publish his recipe: "To eight gallons of clear rain water, add three quarts of molasses; put into a good cask, shake well, and add two or three spoonfuls of good yeast cakes. If in summer, place the cask in the sun; if in winter, near the chimney, where it may be warm. In ten or fifteen days, add to the liquor a sheet of brown paper, torn in strips, dipped in molasses, and good vinegar will be produced. The paper will, in this way, form what is called the 'mother,' or life of the vinegar."

In 1860, Scientific American's recipe for vinegar appealed to the editors (??) of  The Mountaineer (Salt Lake City, Utah Territory), and they reprinted it. This one starts with forty gallons of rain water. Note that the key ingredient in this vinegar recipe is acetic acid.

Vinegar Recipe calls for Acetic Acid. Published in The Mountaineer of SLC, Utah Territory. April 14, 1860.

Pretty cool, isn't it?

Now, it seems, some people will buy anything. Including a simple recipe for vinegar. In 1873, some dude sold a vinegar recipe to anyone who'd send him 50 cents.

Vinegar Recipe for sale (50 cents), Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, NY. November 26, 1873.

This 1883 recipe appeared in Our New Cook Book and Household Recipes, providing a good vinegar that costs only a pint of honey... and another that requires only apple peelings and hard work.

Vinegar recipes: one calls for honey, another for daily apple peels. Published in Our New Cook Book and Household Receipts, 1883.

The following Corn Vinegar Recipe calls for field corn as a 'starter,' and also references a "mother that has formed on other vinegar...." I understand contextually, but have never seen one.

Wikipedia Image: Mother of Vinegar: "Wikipedia image: Mother of Vinegar. "Mother of vinegar is a substance composed of a form of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria that develops on fermenting alcoholic liquids, which turns alcohol into acetic acid with the help of oxygen from the air. It is added to wine, cider, or other alcoholic liquids to produce vinegar."

Note to Victorian-era housekeepers. Do not throw away the muck in the vinegar. You'll wish you had it later.

Corn Vinegar Recipe published in New England Farmer of Boston, Mass. September 25, 1886.

Ah! At last! Cider Vinegar-- something that sounds more familiar to our 2020 palates.

Cider Vinegar by the drip method. Published in The Daily Journal of New Bern, North Carolina. August 5, 1888.

After comparing and contrasting this small collection of vinegar how-to-make-your-own recipes, United States Victorian-era style, I do believe I'll continue to buy mine at the store. But the ideas are percolating, brewing, about vinegar trouble to put my characters through...

Thanks for reading!

Come see a few related articles both here on Sweet Americana Sweethearts and on my own site, KristinHolt.com.

 

Copyright Ⓒ 2019 Kristin Holt LC

Victorian-American Christmas Figgy (or Plum) Pudding Recipes by Kristin Holt

by Kristin Holt

USA Today Bestselling- and RONE Award Winning-Author

Christmas is around the corner, again, and I'm reminded of those family recipes whose aromas evoke myriad memories of holidays gone by. My living grandmother will be 100 on her next birthday. She still made her famous Christmas Pudding (essentially Plum Pudding) every year until she hit age 90. I still miss its one-of-a-kind flavor... a treat so rich it needed the whipping cream to cut the hard sauce and "pudding" (cake).

Today I want to share a handful of vintage recipes for English Plum Pudding, Fig Pudding, and other Christmas pudding delicacies. Sources are listed in publication order, and citations are noted in image footers or quotation block final lines. All were published in the United States, and all were originally presented in the late-nineteenth century.

1885:

 

English Plum Pudding, 1885, The Homemade Cook Book.

1889:

Fig Pudding Recipe, pp164-165: The Every-Day Cook-Book and Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts (1889).

1890:

Christmas Plum Pudding and two sauce recipes, published in 1890 by Improvement Society of the Second Reformed Church of New Brunswick, New Jersey.

 1892:

Two Plum Pudding Recipes from The Columbian Cook Book Containing Reliable Rules for Plain and Fancy Cooking. Published 1892.

 1895:

 

Fig Pudding, 1895, Three Hundred Tested Recipes.

 

Christmas Plum Pudding from The Boston Globe, Boston, Mass., December 15, 1895.

 1903:

Fig Pudding Recipe, published 1903 in Kentucky Receipt Book by Mary Harris Frazier.

Invitation:

After a peek at these vintage recipes, what do you think? Did ingredients or cooking methods surprise you? How about the length of boiling time to prepare the pudding?

Do you have a vintage family-heirloom recipe for Christmas pudding? Have you tasted Victorian-era or Edwardian-era "figgy pudding"? Please tell us about it. (Scroll down to the "conversation" fields.)

Related Articles:

Click on any blog article header image, to open the related article's page. You're invited to take a peek at more related history!

 

 

 

by Kristin Holt

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P.S. thanks for reading! We'd love to hear from you. "Conversation" is the best part! (See the comment box, below.)

Copyright ⓒ 2019 Kristin Holt LC

Lemon Cookies Recipe (The Boston Globe, December 1895), demonstrated by Kristin Holt

by Kristin Holt,

USA Today Bestselling Author of Sweet Romance set in the Victorian-American West

When I stumbled across a beautiful vintage cookie recipe in an 1895 edition of The Boston Globe, I knew I'd found a treasure. I'd already researched numerous cookie recipes published in the Victorian-era United States. Added to that basic knowledge, I'd delved into Victorian Sugar Cookies (that's where cookies began, after all). That background showed me how Victorian-Americans put together a cookie recipe that provides ingredients and quantities--but no instructions.

Vintage Lemon Cookies Recipe from The Boston Globe, December 15, 1895.

What fun to bake cookies in the manner my great-great grandmother did! I made them by hand, the way everyone did prior to the amazing invention of KitchenAid stand mixers.

1) Gather ingredients. Allow butter to come to room temperature. This is important!

2) Allow eggs (and lemon) to come to room temperature, too.

3) Whip eggs in a separate bowl (with a fork) until frothy.

4) Cream butter (alone) in mixing bowl, using wooden spoon.

5) Cream (already creamed) butter together with sugar.

6) Butter and sugar creamed together by hand.

7) Add whipped eggs into creamed butter and sugar. See the progression in three photos. Be patient!

8) Wash, dry, then zest the yellow from the lemon peel (before juicing!) Victorians used a grater.

9) photographs illustrate why it's easier to zest the lemon prior to juicing it. Can you imagine trying to remove the zest from the empty lemon half?

10) Add zest to batter, and begin stirring in measured flour. Play along here with Victorian baking methods, even if your flour sack says it's sifted. Yes, Victorians had sifters!

11) Add baking soda into one of the batches of measured flour, through the sifter. Sift the flour into the mixing bowl. (I did three batches of flour, 2 cups in each batch). (Don't get ahead of yourself--see pic 12 before you're done with the flour.)

12) Add all strained juice from the lemon, alternately with flour.

13) Continue stirring by hand...

14) ... until all (measured and sifted) flour is incorporated. You may need to use your hands at the very end.

Dough will be very much like homemade sugar cookie dough. Notice the dough picks up all the loose flour. It's not too sticky. It's also not too dry. One way to avoid an overly dry cookie dough is to add the flour slowly, perhaps half a cup (last cup or two) at a time, allowing you to decrease the total flour used, as necessary, to create a workable dough.

15) Roll out dough on a clean and floured "board", about 1/4-inch thick. Cut out. (I sprayed my pans; recipe doesn't say. Grandma probably would've buttered her tins.) Cookies don't spread hardly at all, so tuck them in close as needed.

16) Bake in a preheated (375-degree) oven for 8 minutes. I didn't allow the cookies to brown. They set up (when cooled) as a softer sugar-cookie with beautiful form, delicate flavor, and the not-too-sweet result Victorian bakers expected.

NOTE: After I baked these tasty, "wholesome" (yes, indeed, Victorian bakers would say so) cookies, I looked up how to ensure homemade baked goodies with natural lemon flavor have the most lemon numminess possible. How? With salt. Apparently, salt works wonders with the lemon acidity, making the flavor pop. If I could change ONE thing about this 124-year-old recipe, it would be the addition of 1/2 tsp. of table salt.

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with peanut butter cookies!

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