[Sca-cooks] OOP foodie question for a friend....

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Sue Clemenger:
>Hey, everybody! A friend contacted me requesting info on early 19th 
>c. food, thinking (crafty girl that she is) that I could at least 
>ask the list, given the number of people whose interests and skills 
>with food extend past the SCA time frame....
>So, she's looking for any information on what kinds of nibbles, 
>food, appetizers, and beverages would have been served at balls or 
>less-formal, but still "public" gatherings in the first decades of 
>the 19th c? These goodies will be served at two different openings 
>for a museum's exhibit on Lewis & Clark.
>The only food info I've got from post-SCA period in mid-18th 
>century, and a bit "rustic" for what she's looking for.  Does anyone 
>have any sources (online or text) or any ideas for me to pass on? 
>I'd really appreciate it!

You might recommend a copy of Amelia Simmons' "American Cookery", 
published in Hartford, Connecticut in 1796. A little before the Lewis 
and Clark expedition, but not a lot. It contains a lot of recipes for 
tarts (in a pretty staggering variety of pastry cases), that, it 
seems to me, might make good hors d'oeuvres or, if sweet, little 
finger-food desserty-items. She includes various stuffed, roast meats 
that might easily translate well into stuffed meat olives on a 
toothpick, or to be eaten off a small plate, if that's preferable. 
She's got some baked puddings (things like sweet potato, for example) 
that could probably be piped in rosettes onto a cookie sheet and 
quickly browned (think pommes Duchesse in pretty little 
portion-controlled dollops)

This book is also said to contain the first reference to "cookies" in 
an English-language text. Recipes for same are included.

I have a very inexpensive paperback edition from Dover Books, under 
the title "The First American Cookbook". I'd guess a new copy, if 
it's still in print, would run less than $10.

Phil Troy / Adamantius