New title for the cookbook

Ah so due to a logic breakdown we did intend to publish this book as "The Victorian Hotel Cookbook". We now see that the Elm Bank Hotel, York, England, did not in fact open until after Queen Victoria died!!

Soups and stocks

Today I am ordering the soups and stocks. All soups included will be divided into clear stock and white stock, then in alphabetical order in the subdivisions. The soups so far are:

whites stock
stock for clear soup
tomato
oxtail
tapioca cream
kidney
vegetable
green pea
oyster
game
asparagus
bonne femme
garnish consomme royal
consomme julienne
consomme aux surrelles
consomme au macaroni
consomme jardines
friar tuck soup
malarorie ??
gravy soup

There are also variations on the above and as a moral debt to Annie Leetham I think I will include those if they include much of a variation on ingredients

General structure of the cookbook

SO far I have two potential ways of structuring this cookbook. One is to follow traditional divisions of recipes, the other to follow the menu guidelines in the back of Annie Leetham's cookbook.

The book's guidelines:

Soups: Clear Stock/ White Stock

Fish/ Sauces with fish

Entrees Hot

Entrees Cold

Puddings Hot/ Cold Pudding

Sauces with pudding

Pastry

Dishes with pastry

Jellies

Creams

Savouries Hot

hors d'oeuvres and cold savouries

Cold savouries

This struture is pretty clear but does not include all the recipes in the book.

A more standard structure would have the main headings of starter/main/desert and some additional headings for chutneys and drinks. I can of course squeeze the menu structure into starter, main and desert

Mystery of the day

My mystery of the day is a recipe for some sort of toast. I really cant read it, and I am sure with a few hours by googling the ingredients I can find it, though many of the book's recipes do not exist online. It could be Offreers Toast, but then again any of those letters could be wrong! I can tell you it includes anchovy paste and Worcester sauce. A free T-shirt for the correct answer (although as yet I have no T-shirts in production!)

prospective synopsis of cookbook

This is the prospective synopsis:

The 19th Century Cookbook Companion - an authentic reproduction of a 19th century Yorkshire cookbook. Hundreds of recipes that an aspiring cook can use in the knowledge that these meals were prepared in the heart of Yorkshire well over a century ago. Begun immediately preceding York’s 19th century industrial mill era, this book proves that, amongst other things, vegetarian sausages were not uncommon, and local tastes were far from provincial. Food historians of all persuasions will find something within that challenges their preconceptions of 19th century Yorkshire culinary production.

Handwriting from the past

My question today: how could a Yorkshire cook in the 19th century not anticipate that someone a century later would be sat on a pc, connected to the internet, trying to decipher their handwriting as it was inputted into a Microsoft Works file? Mmmm, could have neatened up their handwriting...

I am hoping that as I post on here people can chip in with their inspired substitutions for some of the gibberish I have been compelled to type due to my ignorance of 19th century cuiisine.