A Curious Look at 17th Century Chocolate - Some History and a Recipe

The "Way of Dancing" from La Historia Del
 Mondo Nuovo 1565.  Shows people of the Americas
mixing and drinking chocolate in the bottom right.
John Carter Brown Library, Brown University

Having made “A Chocolate Tart” from a 1737 cookery book, I thought I would give a little of the history leading up to finding such a recipe in an English text from that time.  Unfortunately, due to some family events and travel, I was not able to make a new recipe and so this shall serve as my entry for this week.

Chocolate came relatively late to England, even compared to some other parts of Europe.  It is native to and was first consumed in the Mesoamerican region – what is now the southern parts of Mexico extending through Central America to include parts of Costa Rica. Columbus’ first landfall, late in 1492, was not that far away on the islands of the Bahamas.  Three voyages later, still looking for a way to circumnavigate the globe, he sailed up the eastern Mesoamerican coast. Sponsored and funded by the sovereigns of Spain, Columbus was soon followed by many Spanish ships and soldiers, then not much later by settlers.  The European power, often at war with England, had forcibly taken control and set up numerous settlements in the Americas by the mid-1500s, including many in the chocolate-consuming regions.  In English terms, the drink – what we call chocolate was generally only consumed as such – was associated with Spain and therefore Catholicism.  This helps to explain why it may have been avoided and was certainly rare through the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries on the Protestant island. 

Probably the first time a general English reader was able to learn about the drink was in 1640 when a short work called “A Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate” was published.  It was “Written in Spanish by Antonio Colmenero, doctor in physicke and chirurgery. And put into English by Don Diego de Vades-forte.”  It is clear from the text that “chocolate” is the drink and distinct from the “cacao” that is the key component.  That said, the recipe included many other ingredients:

“To every 100 Cacaos…

 [Y]ou must put two cods of the long red Pepper, in the Indian Tongue, Chilparlagua; and in stead of those of the Indies, you may take those of Spaine, which are broadest, and least hot.”

One handfull of Annis-seed Orejuelas, which are otherwise called Vinacaxlidos

Two of the flowers, called Mechasuehil, if the Belly be bound. But in stead of this, in Spaine, we put in sixe Roses of Alexandria beat to Powder

One Cod of Campeche, or Logwood

Two Drams of Cinamon

One Cod of Almons, and Hasle-Nuts, of each one Dozen.

Of white Sugar, halfe a pound

Of Achiote, enough to give it the colour

And if you cannot have those things, which come from the Indies, you may make it with the rest.”

To try to translate this for a modern English-speaking reader, one of the first things to note is that “cod” is synonymous with “pod” – something that contains seeds; so, the author is writing of the whole pepper or nut.  Also, in later instructions the author says all ingredients are dried first, except for the Achiote. Following from that, some of the ingredients are self-explanatory: two dried mild chili peppers, cinnamon, almonds, hazelnuts, and sugar.  For the others I enlisted the help of an article by Marcy Norton called “Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics.”   “Orejuelas” is a Spanish word for “ears” and Norton believes “Annis-seed Orejuelas” refers to Cymbopetalum penduliflorum – also called “sacred earflower.”  This would give it a spicy licorice-like taste. The “Mechasuehil” flowers are probably “mecaxóchitl” another peppery plant that was added to chocolate. “Campeche or Logwood” is described as tasting “astringent and sweetish” and later, used as a dye for cloth, became a very important trade commodity. “Achiote” or annatto seeds were also used as a dye or as body paint and are still used in local cuisines and as an alternative to food colouring.  It provides a yellow to orangish-red colour and has a slightly nutty, peppery taste.  

What “chocolate” meant in the sixteenth and seventeenth century in the Americas and Europe was, then, something more complex in flavour, even if its drinkers did not add every single one of these ingredients to it.  It was medically prized by some during this period and consistently drunk by select Europeans for that and other reasons.  The first English-born writer to extensively discuss chocolate – Thomas Gage – falls deeply into this category. He explains: “For my self I must say, I used it twelve years constantly, drinking one cup in the morning, another yet before dinner between nine or ten of the clock; another within an hour or two after dinner, and another between four and five in the afternoon; and when I was purposed to sit up late to study, I would take another cup about seven or eight at night, which would keep me waking till about midnight. And if by chance I did neglect any of these accustomed hours, I presently found my stomach fainty.”  This was published in “The English-American, his Travail by sea and Land” (1648); Gage had written it several years after he returned to England from Mesoamerica, where he had served as a Catholic priest.

A photograph I took of the titlepage of a 1677 edition
of The English American, 
owned by philosopher John Locke. 

He also comments on Antonio Colmenero’s recipe above and gives his own adjusted set of additions: “long red Pepper, called Chile…with white Sugar, Cinnamon, Clove, Anniseed, Almonds, Hasellnuts, Orejuela, Bainilla, Sapoyall, Orenge flower water, some Muske, and as much of Achiotte.”  Orejuela is probably the earflower from above; “Bainilla” may be vanilla and “Sapoyall” is mamey sapote – a fruit native to Central America. In both sets of ingredients, there is an interesting mix of American products and those the English would need to import from Southern Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.   

Gage has much more to say about “chocolatte,” as he calls it, including an anecdote about women poisoning a priest because he would not let them drink it while they were fasting.  That, however, along with how chocolate came to be used in tarts, some seventy or eighty years later, will probably come in subsequent entries.  I would like to try and make a version of those chocolate drinks but I am likely not going to be able to get some of the ingredients or even substitutes this week, so what recipe I am doing next is still up in the air. 

A Chocolate Tart - 1737 recipe with 1653 pastry

There was a bit of a celebratory meal in my house this week and one of the usual requirements for those is something chocolate.  I knew chocolate was a thing, if a new and rare one, in England during the seventeenth century but also knew it was just a drink, rivalling another new import – coffee – and preceding the country’s almost wholesale adoption of tea-drinking.  So, I needed to move to the eighteenth century to find something kind of like a dessert to make for the week.   

The Whole Duty of a Woman, written by “A Lady” was a book first published in 1695 and went through at least eight legitimate editions by 1735. In 1737, a book using the same name came out but had a lot of very different content:  for one thing, it was over 600 pages long, while the 1735 eighth edition is less than 200 pages.  Later editions of the larger version were afterwards published under a different title - The Lady's Companion: Or, an Infallible Guide to the Fair Sex.

One of the additions to the new edition/book is “A Chocolate Tart,'' which is relatively simple, if very labour-intensive and finicky. The instructions call for tart of “good fine flour” but does not give a recipe for the case, so I used a seventeenth century recipe for basic paste (pastry) from a source I thought I could trust - François Pierre La Varenne’s 1653 Le Pâtissier François (and its 1656 English translation The Perfect Cook). I present both recipe adaptations and then give a few thoughts on them and on where this tart stands historically.

Recipes

“A Chocolate Tart”
from The Whole Duty of a Woman

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp rice flour
• 8 egg yolks
• 3 cups of milk, divided
• 2 pinches of salt
• 225g (about 2 oz.) unsweetened chocolate, grated 
• 1 recipe of White Fine Paste (see below) for case
• 50g (about ½ cup) powdered sugar, more to taste

Instructions:

In a medium mixing bowl, mix rice flour, egg yolks, salt, and 1 cup of the milk until well combined, all lumps having disappeared. 

Transfer to a medium heavy-bottomed pot, and place on low heat. 

Watch your mixture very carefully, stirring frequently until it starts to thicken.  This may take a while but if the heat is too high or you leave it alone too long, the eggs will scramble almost instantly. 

When you start to see it thicken, add some more of the milk a little at a time, stirring constantly.   I alternated between a whisk and a spatula to get in the edges of the pot.  

Continue to add milk until the remaining 2 cups of milk has been used up.

Taste to make sure flour and eggs are cooked out. The mixture should still be a liquid.

Add your grated chocolate, again stirring constantly until well combined.  You should now have a thick cream. Set aside to cool.

Preheat your oven to 205°C (about 400°F).

Roll out your pastry to the size of your tart pan.

Roll onto your rolling pin and unroll onto the pan.  Push into the bottom and sides of the pan and then trim the edges.  

When cool, spoon your chocolate cream into the tart case, leaving some room at the top as it will rise a little when it bakes.  Smooth out with a knife or spatula.

Bake in the middle of the oven until the cream is set and solid and the pastry is crisp and golden, about 35 minutes.

Remove from the oven and scatter powdered sugar evenly over the baked chocolate.  

Carefully, move a rack to the top shelf of your oven and turn it to its highest broil setting. 

Place the sugared tart on the top shelf, just below the element.

Watching it carefully, broil until sugar has melted and caramelised but try to avoid burning the edges of the pastry case – about a minute.  If you have access to a culinary blowtorch, this will make melting the sugar more precise.

Serve, with cream if desired. 

“La paste blance fine pour la croute des tartes”

“White fine Paste or Dough for crust for Tarts”

Ingredients

• 150g (about a cup and a tbsp) flour
• 60g (about 5 tbsp) butter 
• 2 pinches of salt
• Just enough water to make a smooth dough (I ended up with 3 tbsp)

Instructions:

On a large clean work surface make a mound of your flour and form a well in it.

Breaking up your butter with your hands, drop the pieces in the well. 

Add your salt to the butter.

With the tips of your fingers work the butter into the flour until it all resembles course breadcrumbs.

Form another well and add your water a tablespoon at a time until you can form a dough.  

Knead until smooth and firm. Set aside.

Notes on Adaption and History: 

There was a bit of trial and error in these recipes, but I was very pleased with the result, so I present my adaptions as they worked for me. 

I will touch on the pastry recipe first as it is sort of simpler and has less historical context.  As I said, I picked one from La Varenne because he had provided me good pastry instructions in the past.  In the end, it was very good and served its purpose but the conversion from a huge recipe in historical French was a bit of an interesting experience, though the English translation was a little help.  

The instructions are actually two recipes, one a minor adaption of other.  In Le Pâtissier françois, there is first a recipe for “Paste blanche pour faire de gros pastez” – translated as “White paste or dough to make great pyes.” That recipe provides most of the ingredients and method but the next set of instructions in the book are to make “la paste blanche fine, pour…la croute des tartes” – fine white paste for (among many other things) the crust of tarts.  It refers to the previous paste recipe but “au lieu de mettre seulement deux livres de beurre…on y mettra trois livres” – you simply replace the 2 (approximate) pounds of butter with 3 pounds. There is a lot of general instructions given to pastry chefs which makes the recipes as long as they are. 

The measurements, their names and size proved a challenge.   The French original calls for a demy boisseau of flour; a “boisseau” is similar to the English “bushel” and was supposed to equal about 13 litres. The “livres” for the butter are like English pounds but not quite equal or even standard within France itself.  It calls for “trois onces” of salt which again is close to English ounces.  Finally, it called for “un demy septier” of water; a “septier” could mean at least a couple different measures: one was similar to a pint and the other almost 8 litres. Greatly reduced like the other ingredients to make one tart case, one type of septier meant too little water and the other way too much.  As such, I just added enough to make a dough. 

Overall, I reduced La Varenne’s measurements by a factor of 25 for the flour and butter and much more for the salt. 

To fill the tart pan I had and its pastry case, I found I needed to double the quantities provided in the chocolate tart recipe in The Whole Duty of a Woman. The salt, milk and chocolate amounts are not specified so they were determined by experience and taste. 3 cups does seem more than “a little milk” but, as I said, it worked. 

When the author writes: “don’t let them curdle” it is pertinent advice; the initial stages require a lot of attention.

Instead of glazing the sugar with a "red hot Fire-shovel," I broiled it. 

The rice flour is an interesting ingredient for the time.  It does not appear a lot in English recipes before this early to mid-eighteenth-century period.  The slight exception to this is Robert May who mentions it at least eight times in The Accomplisht Cook (1660). By 1733, it is well known enough that Vincent La Chapelle, in a book called The Modern Cook, writes: “All sort of Creams are more delicate with Rice Flour, than with common Flour only.”

With no sugar in the initial mix of the chocolate cream, this tart, for me, is an enjoyable contrast of bitter and savoury flavours with what would now be called a brûlé topping.  This makes for the taste of a very modern dessert – not overly sweet with other notes - but it also probably comes from a specific historic context. 

Chocolate is from the Americas originally and was consumed there as a drink that was not usually sweetened.   I will probably write a supplement on a bit of the early history of England’s relationship with the drink.  However, now it is just important to understand it was a known, if exotic, luxury through the middle and end of the seventeenth century.  It seemingly does not begin showing up in recipes until the 1720s. 

I was actually in a hurry when I picked the recipe; there are slightly earlier and more complex recipes, as well as sweeter ones. I probably would have picked one of those other ones if I had more time but am glad I ended up with the one I did. In addition to the difference in flavours I mentioned before, there is crispness on top with the caramelised sugar against the brownie-like texture of the cooked chocolate cream.  It is one of my favourite historical recipes I have tried, though it might also be because I overcame a few hurdles to get there in the end. 

I will cover a few of the other period versions of chocolate tarts in my supplement and will probably do another simple Lent recipe next week.  

Hasty Pudding - A Fast-Day dish from Yankee Doodle and earlier

Joseph Cooper's Hasty Pudding cooked in bag,
served with orange and nutmeg.

Hannah Glasse's Flour Hasty Pudding

Last week’s work with eighteenth century vermicelli got me thinking about another pasta that was known in the English-speaking world during the period.  

“Yankee Doodle went to town

A-riding on a pony,

Stuck a feather in his cap

And called it macaroni.” 

“Macaroni,” because rich young English men were visiting Italy on their travels, had become a term meaning “fashionable,” often overly so.  The probably English author of these lyrics was, then, making fun of an American who supposedly thought that putting a feather in his cap set him at the height of fashion.  

That historic tangent aside, I am actually focusing on another food from another bit of that famous colonial song.  

“Father and I went down to camp,

Along with Captain Gooding.

And there we saw the men and boys

As thick as hasty pudding.”

Hasty pudding was an established dish well before the days of the Revolutionary War.  The American variant by this point was made with cornmeal but the English versions in that century and the century before were usually made using flour.

I present a couple recipes for this very basic staple meal.  One is from Hannah Glasse and, like last week’s “Turnip Soop,” it is included in the “Fast-Days" section of The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747).  The other are instructions “To make a hasty Pudding in a Bagge” by Joseph Cooper and are included in The Art of Cookery Refin'd and Augmented (1654).  The same recipe is copied a few years later by Robert May in The Accomplisht Cook (1660). Glasse’s is more savoury, while Cooper’s is something closer to what is called pudding in North America today.  I will say upfront neither turned out great in terms of texture and are pretty basic in flavour.  Still, you learn a bit every time, hopefully. 

Recipes

"To make a Flour Hasty-Pudding"

Based on the recipe by Hannah Glasse

Ingredients

• 560 ml (about 1 Imperial pint) of milk, plus 25ml (1 ½ Tbsp) 
• 2 bay leaves 
• 1 egg yolk, beaten
• 1 tsp salt 
• About 70g (½ cup) flour 
• 15g of butter cut into small pieces

Instructions

Begin heating 560ml of milk and the bay leaves in a medium pot over medium/high heat. Stir frequently to keep from burning on the bottom.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix egg yolk with 25ml of milk and the salt.

When your milk comes to a boil, remove from heat and discard your bay leaves. 

Beginning a spoonful at a time so as not to scramble it, add your hot milk to the egg mixture in the bowl, stirring constantly.  

After 5 or so spoonfuls of milk, you can begin adding at a faster rate but continue stirring the whole time. Continue until you have emptied your hot milk into the bowl.  

With a funnel if needed, return the mixture to the pot and place back on the heat. 

With your flour in a container in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other, slowly begin adding your flour to the pot.  Stirring constantly, shake in a very small amount of flour at a time, to try to prevent lumps from forming.  

Continue until the mixture has come to a low boil and it has reached a custardy thickness.  You can add more flour if, for some reason, it has not thickened enough.

Pour and spoon out into a bowl and dot the surface with bits of butter.

Serve. 

Notes 

Generally, I halved Glasse’s recipe, she called for a quart of milk and I used a pint.  She gives the option of adding a piece of butter to the milk early in the process, which I did not do and it ended up being sufficiently rich without it.

The instructions in her Art of Cookery are pretty clear until they aren’t anymore.  The initial milk and the bay leaves she says to “set on the Fire to boil” and then has you mix the egg yolks with a specific quantity of cold milk.  Next you “stir in your milk,” which must be your hot, boiled milk and she later adds that you remove your bay leaves at this point.  With “a wooden spoon in one Hand, and the Flower in the other” you then stir it until it is a good thickness.  The implication, not any explicit instruction, says you are adding the flour and that the milk and eggs are in the pot over the heat.  She next says to “let it boil” so it needs to be back on the heat at some point. 

The problem with adding flour to warming milk is keeping lumps from forming.  I resorted to a whisk rather than a wooden spoon but still it was not the greatest texture, though better than the other version boiled in a cloth bag.  See my thoughts on that below. 

Overall, this is a decent base to something but even with bay leaves, salt, and butter, this is pretty bland.  It tastes mostly like a bechamel, which you then do something with. I added some Louisiana hot sauce to finish mine.  It is from Hannah Glasse’s Fast-Day recipes, so I guess it is not necessarily supposed to be the most exciting - so there you go. 

“To make a hasty Pudding in a Bagge.”

Based on the recipe by Joseph Cooper

Ingredients

• 45cm x 45 cm (18” x 18”) piece of muslin or other food-safe cloth.  
• Kitchen string
• 40g (about 5 Tbsp) flour, plus more for dusting 
• 473ml cream 
• 2 tsp sugar 
• ½ tsp nutmeg 
• ½ tsp salt 
• Butter to serve
• Optional lemons or oranges for serving.

Instructions

Soak your cloth in the sink for a few minutes.

Wring it out and lay over a large heat-safe bowl.

Sprinkle flour over a section of the cloth about the size of a plate in the bottom of the bowl. 

Use your wooden spoon to swirl it around and coat that area evenly.

Put a medium pot, half full of water on high heat and bring to a boil.

(See Notes for the actual next step I took here.)

Put flour in another medium pot and slowly add cream a bit at a time.  Stir constantly and make sure flour mixture is smooth before adding more cream.

When all the cream is incorporated, place the pot on medium/high heat.       

Stirring frequently, allow the cream to come to a boil then add sugar, nutmeg and salt. Stir finally to combine. 

Pour onto the floured cloth in a bowl. 

Lift the edges to form a bag and tie closed with kitchen string.

Carefully place this bag of pudding in your pot of boiling water and cook for about 20 minutes, making sure your water level remains high enough and the top of your bag does not droop close to the burner. 

Remove your bag into the bowl you were using before and allow it to cool a little.

Open the bag and pour and/or scrape your pudding into a serving bowl.

Smooth out with a spoon and serve with butter and lemon or orange slices.

Notes on History and Adaption 

This recipe comes from Joseph Cooper, self-identified as the “chiefe Cook to the Late KING” on his book’s title page.  The late King would be Charles I, disposed and executed a few years before the recipes are published in 1654.  The text precedes the wave of published English cookery books that come after the restoration of the monarchy, which occurred in 1660 when Charles II returned to his home country and took the throne after Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth. The cookery authors that follow and take from Cooper’s recipes include Robert May and Hannah Woolley.  

After denigrating previous cookery book attempts Cooper makes an interesting statement in his address to the reader: “Ladies, forgive my confidence if I tell you, that I know this piece will prove your favourite; and if any thing displeases you, it will be to see so many uncommon, and undeflour'd Receipts [recipes] prostituted to the publique view, which perchance you will think might have been plac'd better among the paper-secrets in a few of your Cabinets; but 'tis easie to pardon that offence, which is onely committed in favour of the Common good.” This participates in and helps lead a period trope in which the supposed private recipes of nobles were published to a growing reading public.  I mention a bit about this idea in my historical notes on venison pasty, referencing The Queens Closet Opened and The Queen-like Closet, cookery books that followed Cooper’s. 

Focusing on his actual recipe for “Hasty Pudding,” it was one of several references to the preparation in his work.  It was a common term and dish in the seventeenth century and earlier.  Cooking pudding in a bag is a practice still seen today, most especially with Christmas pudding, though, at least as mine turned out, this has a much thinner consistency. This seemed sort of okay, since the instructions say if it is done well “it will be so good as a Custard.”

I used the proportions of ingredients that Cooper gives, with a slight adjustment in quantity.  I had a US pint of cream (473ml), while the pint the period recipe is referring to would probably be closer to a modern Imperial pint (568ml).  I consequently reduced the flour he called for from 6 spoonfuls to 5, using tablespoons going from what I know about seventeenth century spoons. The other ingredient quantities are not specified and thus were determined based on experience and taste. I did serve with orange or lemon for another flavour. 

I had real textural problems with this version, including big lumps of flour, but some of that might have come from incorrect interpretations. The first instructions are to: “Boyle a pinte of thick Cream with sixe spoonfuls of Flower.”  I added the flour when the cream was hot, in hindsight I could have done something more like a modern roux.  This would mean slowly incorporating the cream into the flour as I say in the recipe instructions. There is nothing explicit like that in Cooper’s recipe, but technically, this would mean I ended up boiling the cream with the flour.  

After seasoning this mix, you pour it into your bag of cloth and then the instructions seem to skip to “it being boyled, dish it.”  The assumption I made was you boil this bag of pudding like you would a Christmas pudding.  It is a “Hasty” pudding, so maybe 20 minutes was too long and it seemed to make the texture worse.  

Overall, the taste was good - nutmeg and a bit of sweet - though if you want it like modern custard, you will need to add more sugar than I did. That said it was hard to get past the big lumps of flour.

Next week will be something sweet – hopefully special occasion sweet – but I have yet to find a specific recipe.  

A Turnip Soop for Fast Days with 18th Century Vermicelli

As promised, I present a recipe suitable for Lent: this one comes from Hannah Glasse’s 1747 book - The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy - and is a “Turnip Soop.”  She includes it in her section: “For a Fast-Dinner, a Number of good Dishes, which you may make use of for a Table at any other Time.”  It is fairly simple in terms of method, though there are a number of steps and ingredients.  One interesting thing from a food history perspective is that it includes vermicella (vermicelli) amongst the ingredients. I will provide my recipes: one for the soup and one for the pasta, for which Glasse includes her own instructions elsewhere in the book.  I will follow that with an explanation of my adaptions and a bit of history, including some about the Italian paste (pasta) in England. 

Recipes

“A Turnip Soop”

Ingredients

• 1500g (about 5 medium) turnips, divided 
• 3 medium onions, divided
• 24 whole cloves
• 4 litres of water
• 15g peppercorns (see Notes) 
• 1 tsp nutmeg 
• ½ tsp mace
• Sweet herbs (I used ¼ tsp each of dried thyme, rosemary, marjoram, and mint)  
• 100g of bread crust or course breadcrumbs 
• 250g (about 4 large stalks) of celery, sliced small
• 110g (2 to 3 small) carrots, diced
• 5 tsp of butter, divided
• 1 tbsp of flour
• 80 g of vermicelli (see recipe below)
• Salt to taste (I used 1 ½ tsp)

Instructions

Peel and roughly chop about 2/3 of your turnips (1kg).  

Peel one of your onions, cut it in half and stick the 24 cloves in the halves. 

Put your turnips, clove-stuck onion, peppercorns, nutmeg, mace, sweet herbs and bread crust into your water in a very large stockpot over high heat. See Notes.

Bring to a boil and keep at a rapid boil for 1 hour. 

Into a very large bowl, carefully drain the stock through a heavy-duty coarse sieve or colander.  (Use anything that is very sturdy with holes small enough to keep the peppercorns from passing through.)   Wash the pot and return the stock to it.  

From the remaining solids, pick out any peppercorns and cloves you can easily find. With a wooden spoon or specialised pestle press all the solids you can, except the peppercorns and cloves, through the sieve into the bowl.  The turnip will be very soft, but it will still take some work.  When finished, spoon the puree you have made into the pot with the stock. 

Put the pot back on a burner on medium high heat.

As it is heating, peel and dice the rest of your turnips.

Placed your celery, half of your carrots and half of your diced turnip into the stock in the pot. 

Bring to boil and then reduce heat to medium low to keep it simmering. 

Peel and slice thinly your two remaining onions.

In a frying pan, on medium low heat, melt 2 tsp of your butter.

Fry your onions slowly until they are brown and well caramelised.  Add to your simmering soup.

In a small bowl, combine remaining carrots and turnip. Add your flour and toss to combine.

Wash your frying pan and melt the remaining 3 tsp of butter on medium heat. 

Fry your carrot/turnip mixture, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan constantly so the flour does not burn. Cook about five minutes until your vegetables are browned slightly. 

Check to make sure your celery and turnips in the pot are almost tender. If so, turn heat up to high and bring the soup to a good boil.

Add your fried carrot and turnip, as well as your vermicelli. 

Cook for about 4 minutes more until vermicelli is tender. (This is for my homemade vermicelli; for fine purchased vermicelli, it will be quicker.)   

Taste your soup and add salt.

“To make Vermicella.”  

Makes about 80g of pasta

Ingredients 

• 50g of flour plus more for dusting
• 2 egg yolks 

Instructions 

Place flour in a small pile on a clean work surface and make a well in it. 

Pour egg yolks into the well. 

With a fork, beat the egg slightly and then working in expanding circles, slowly incorporate the flour until a dough is formed.  

Scrape the rest of the flour and egg off the surface with the fork.  With your hands, work it all into a smooth dough.  If it will not come together, add just a drop or two of water. 

Clean and dry your surface then lightly flour it. 

Roll out your dough as thin as possible. 

Lift the thin sheet and lightly flour the surface again. 

Allow the sheet to dry on the surface for about 2 hours, turning over after an hour.

On a cutting board, with a very sharp knife, slice the dough into as thin noodles as possible.  

Gather and dust with a little more flour. Cover with a towel and reserve. 

Notes

If you want to make the soup more modernly easy, you could place your peppercorns and cloves in a food-safe cloth bag while you boil the stock then remove the bag and puree the rest of the liquids and solids.  This can be done with a hand blender or in batches in a regular blender or food processor. It would probably cut down the pepper taste and make it a bit thicker.

In adapting these recipes, I tried to stay pretty close to the historical instructions as written.  Glasse provides some quantities and detailed instructions, so that made it fairly easy to do so with a lot of the recipe. I tried to match the measurements and generally succeeded with some minor exceptions. 

I did use more vermicelli than the 1 ounce called for, as I wanted to use up all I made with the smallest batch I thought I could work with.  

Along similar lines, I make the assumption that the turnips she is talking about are quite a bit smaller than modern turnips. For the second half of the recipe, she says to “save three or four out” of a bunch; with the turnips I had, I thought 3 or 4, as a portion of a bunch, would mean too many turnips for the gallon of water listed. It is similar when she called for “a bunch of salary” (celery), an entire modern bunch would be too much. 

The amount of cloves, butter, flour and the amount and type of “sweet herbs” I included were down to my judgement. 

For the ratio of egg yolks to flour in the vermicelli, I went from a basic modern pasta recipe.  

In making the vermicelli, I ended up following Glasse’s basic method.  She does provide an alternative: “though the best way is to run it through a coarse Sieve, whilst the Paste is soft.” I did try this with an initial batch but could not get it to push through and make noodles with the sieve I had. 

While being labour intensive and finnicky, the pasta made with her recipe handled quite well and tasted like basic pasta. Overall, the soup is good.  Unless you like pepper a lot, I strongly recommend reducing the amount of peppercorns in the stock. It hit pretty hard at the end of each bite. That said, the underlying flavour is rich for a vegetarian dish, probably down to the spicing and herbs.  It is hearty with the bread, flour and pureed turnips and there are some interesting textures of turnip going on: the main vegetables being cooked three different ways. 

Some Historical Thoughts 

One historical note on the soup is how it is thickened.  This is from 1747 and you can see two very different thickening methods used by Glasse in her recipe. One – a crust of bread, boiled – is very medieval, while the other, an almost roux – the flour fried with butter on the last turnips and carrots you add – is more modern.  La Varenne in the Le Cuisinier françois (1651) was writing about types of roux in French cuisine almost 100 years earlier. For me, this shows English cookery maintaining older flavours and methods longer than France while, at the same time, not being able to ignore their neighbour's innovations.

As I indicated, the most interesting historical thing about this recipe for me is that it calls for vermicella/i.  It is not, seemingly, something that is prevalent in English cuisine in the coming centuries, but Glasse uses it in a number of recipes.  Also, in her recipe for it, she says, in passing, that the pasta was imported to England at that time. She ends her instructions for making it by saying: “This far exceeds what comes from abroad being fresher.”

Vermicelli was known to at least some in England over 100 years earlier.  A London lawyer, judge and sometimes dramatist named Sir Ralph Freeman penned a tragic play called Imperiale in 1639.  The story is set in Italy, Genoa specifically, so that maybe goes some way in accounting for the foods mentioned.  In it there is a change of leadership and an underling - a cook - rejoices at this, seeing it as an opportunity to express his culinary creativity. Speaking of himself in the third person he says: “Now the Cooke may show his skill; Since I came hither, I have been confin'd to several salads, porridge with scraped cheese, and a few Vermicelle, such slight dishes: O when I serv'd the Grand-Dukes master Cooke, how we were all employd!”  Thus, the pasta was known as a simple dish to at least this English author. 

There are other references to vermicelli in the seventeenth century, but Glasse’s is the earliest recipe I have found so far for the pasta itself – as simple as it - in English cookery books.  Next week, I will probably stay with the eighteenth century and fast-day dishes, while making a passing reference to another pasta – macaroni - and a famous American-ish song that mentions it.