"Of cabbages--and kings--"

The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--

Of cabbages--and kings--"

Lewis Carroll, 1872

The Saturday before last, I made the first of my 1945 dinner menus. The ordeal took me two hours of what felt like non-stop work, but I'm sure it'll take a little less time and energy both as I get more comfortable in the kitchen. The only thing I'm really disappointed about is that I completely lost my appetite the next day because I was sick and the leftovers went uneaten:

Steamed Rice
Buttered Carrots
Celery Cabbage Salad
Steamed Molasses Pudding

Mistake No. 1: My cookbook didn't have a recipe for Celery Cabbage Salad, so - envisioning a blend of chopped celery and cabbage with some sort of dressing - I picked up a bag of celery hearts and a bag of pre-shredded cabbage (they didn't have any head cabbage at the store I was shopping at that evening). As the big day drew near, I decided to try looking about online for a recipe for Celery Cabbage Salad and (wouldn't you know it!) I found a page right away on a website called Retro Food:

http://retro-food.com/2007/03/16/celery-cabbage-salad/

The hostess over at Retro Food imagined the same dish I did when she came across references to Celery Cabbage Salad. What we both didn't know was that there's actually a type of cabbage called celery cabbage, also called Napa cabbage or Chinese cabbage. She was able to find a recipe for a salad using this type of cabbage in Meta Given's Modern Family Cook Book, first published in 1942. It turns out to be just a dish of "wheel-like slices" of the cabbage drizzled with French Dressing (like our modern day Italian dressing) or Thousand Island Dressing.

Well, I was able to use the celery up in other ways, but still had a bag of cabbage to contend with. I decided to compromise by serving up a dish of shredded cabbage with a homemade French Dressing on top. It was good. Zesty! I've never made dressing from scratch before. Happily, this is something you can make a few hours in advance then refrigerate and shake up just before serving. Here's the recipe. Be careful: it makes lots of dressing. I cut this one in eighths.

*****

FRENCH DRESSING

1 clove garlic (optional)

1 cup vinegar

2 teaspoons dry mustard

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 cups salad oil

If using garlic, soak it in vinegar 1/2 hour before making the dressing. Mix dry ingredients together and place in a covered jar or bottle. Remove garlic from vinegar and add vinegar to dry ingredients. Pour on the oil slowly. Place in refrigerator until ready for use. Just before serving, shake vigorously for 2 minutes. Makes 3 cups dressing.

*****

The Buttered Carrots and Steamed Rice turned out really nicely. I tried to give this meal a little punch of health by making it brown basmati rice instead of white. Still, it was the first time I've ever made any rice that wasn't instant. The real thing takes a long time to be ready for the table! I've heard people rave about basmati rice and it's well deserved. It smells like buttered popcorn while you're cooking it - and tasted all buttery, too.

Mistake No. 2: I used way too big a mold for the Steamed Molasses Pudding. This was another instance where the cookbook which includes this dish on the menu doesn't actually have a recipe for it inside! (I can't figure that out.) I found lots of recipes online and chose one which was a favorite of somebody's granddad. The Pudding was good, but definitely not sweet. I bet this one was a wartime recipe. It called for a dark molasses and very little sugar. I think I'll try it next time with lighter molasses and additional sugar - oh, yes, and a smaller mold, too!

http://www.familycookbookproject.com/view_recipesite.asp?rid=557542&uid=6300&sid=14446

Whew! What a meal... I'm super glad that I was only cooking for an audience of one this time 'round. Especially when it wasn't ready for 30 minutes after the time I'd been planning it for. I tried to clean things up as I went along so that the kitchen wouldn't be a complete disaster by the time I served dinner. That's one of the downsides of not having a dining room. You can't leave the mess behind while you enjoy dinner in a calm, clean space.

Something I truly didn't expect was that I actually wanted to say grace. There was something unquanitifiably different about eating food that I'd worked so hard to buy and to prepare. I really wanted to take a minute and thank God for this meal. I usually feel like that if I'm eating with family, if it's the holidays - but on a regular, everyday, run-of-the-mill Saturday? Somethin' new. It was like I had a different relationship with this meal. It was harder fought, harder earned than something I'd taken out of plastic wrap and heated in the oven. All that said, though, I do recall waking up the next morning and groaning at the thought of having to cook breakfast. It's hard for me to imagine making homecooked meals for a family three times a day, seven days a week...