Let's Get Cooking

[emmelisa]

One of the really fun things about old cookbooks is the way they tell you how to cook some things.

Baked goods haven't changed at all:  breads and muffins and biscuits and pies will all burn themselves into inedibility if you leave them in the oven for too many minutes.  Meats and fish are much the same:  leave 'em in the oven or the roaster too

Comments

[idlewild_]

We had one reprinted Victorian book that had you harvesting ancient, woody carrots and then boiling them (I think with baking soda if I recall) for literally hours. Sounded horrible. I am totally tempted to try frying cucumbers, though. That sounds kind of delicious. We often marinate cucumbers in cold green tea and mint, wonder how they'd be dredged with a light flour - maybe rice flour? and quickly pan fried afterwards?

[emmelisa]

You'll have to try that and let me know how it works! I can't imagine cooking cucumber -- it just seems wrong somehow. Probably because I never have had cucumber other than raw; if I'd been raised on cukes that were fried to a delicate brown in nice lard I'd probably think that was how they tasted best.