[Sca-cooks] Frumenty recipe

[Johnna Holloway]

Here's an interesting historic recipe for the dish.

Frumenty.—Wash well a pint of best wheat, and soak for twenty-four
hours in water just sufficient to cover. Put the soaked wheat in a
covered earthen baking pot or jar, cover well with water, and let it
cook in a very slow oven for twelve hours. This may be done the day
before it is wanted, or if one has a coal range in which a fire may be
kept all night, or an Aladdin oven, the grain may be started in the
evening and cooked at night. When desired for use, put in a saucepan
with three pints of milk, a cupful of well-washed Zante currants, and
one cup of seeded raisins. Boil together for a few minutes, thicken with
four tablespoonfuls of flour rubbed smooth in a little cold milk, and serve.

What makes this recipe interesting is that it appears under
//MISCELLANEOUS BREAKFAST DISHES //in the book
  Science in the Kitchen., by Mrs. E. E. Kellogg.

She is described as "Superintendent of the Sanitarium School of Cookery
and of the Bay View Assembly School of Cookery, and Chairman of the
World's Fair Committee on Food Supplies, for Michigan. 1893"

The book in the foreword promises
"Those who have made themselves familiar with Mrs. Kellogg's system of
cookery, invariably express themselves as trebly astonished: first, at
the simplicity of the methods employed; secondly, at the marvelous
results both as regards palatableness, wholesomeness, and
attractiveness; thirdly, that it had never occurred to them "to do this
way before.This system does not consist simply of a rehash of what is
found in every cook book, but of new methods, which are the result of
the application of the scientific principles of chemistry and physics to
the preparation of food in such a manner as to make it the most
nourishing, the most digestible, and the most inviting to the eye and to
the palate."

So creating frumenty in this matter is a new method based on
scientific principles?!? (The book also contains a lot of recipes for
toast.)

The entire book is available here
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12238/12238-h/12238-h.htm

Johnnae