A menu for a 1906 stag dinner.
Stuffed olives: These are served on rounds of crisp bread which has been fried in butter then spread with anchovy paste.
Soup Royale: made from chicken broth, clams and sweet corn pulp, with eggs dropped in. Sounds like a version of egg drop soup. Alternately, a clear beef marrow bone soup could be served. The recipe for the clear soup takes two days.
Planked fish, brown bread sandwiches: the easiest dish on the menu.
Thumb Bits: broiled tenderlion of beef and served with potato balls with Mustard sauce.
Broiled Squabs with orange fritters around a mound of boiled rice. The rice is just for show.
Artichokes on toast.
Tonquin ice – a type of lemon ice with added ginger.
Game pasty: a type of double crusted pie served cold or hot. The pie’s filling is made from six quails just in half, then combining the livers of the quail, minced mushrooms, the yolks of two hard boiled eggs and one yolk from an uncooked egg. The birds’ cavities are filled with oysters, then the whole thing is covered with chicken stock and then cooked. BE sure to top it with a pastry rose!
Lobster Salad: This can be made a day in advance — hallelujah! It is comprised of lobster, cucumber pulp, gelatin and mayonnaise, then moulded.
Mocha Pudding: yes. Coffee infused pudding.
Cafe brule a la chandler: Use a sugar cube that has been saturated with “high proof brandy.” Set it afire, which will burn it down to a nice caramel syrup, then turn it into the coffee. “Pass sugar, for the caramel, like all caramel, will not possess much sweetness.”
I also came across a 1902 Thanksgiving dinner menu that included a recipe for mincemeat that added up to almost fifty pounds — including nine pounds of sugar! These old recipes are crazy, aren’t they?
The Vintage Fashion Librarian 