Bread Stuffing
Baked Acorn Squash
Salad of Grapefruit Sections and Avocado
Prune Whip
I don't like to just point and laugh (or gag) at vintage recipes, but Prune Whip --- I'm not sure how this qualifies as edible. I have issues with foamy, bubbly food to begin with - so I shouldn't even have gone there - but I wanted to know for myself what all the fuss was about. I'm only halfway thru my cookbook's vintage dinner menus, but some sort of fruit whip has already turned up twice for dessert. Come to think of it, folks seemed to be really into frothy, fluffy desserts in those days: chiffon pie, chiffon cake, fruit whip, meringue, apple snow. I wonder why...
It's not the prunes that were a problem for me, mind you. I've enjoyed those at the breakfast table all these months and I probably wouldn't have minded a dish of stewed prunes for dessert with last Sunday's vintage dinner. The first time I came across Apricot Whip as the suggested dessert, I skipped it entirely as I wasn't interested in eating uncooked egg whites. When I took a closer lo
ok at the recipe last weekend, I realized that you could bake the Whip and serve it warm. "Why not?" I thought. I've tried to approach this experiment with a sense of adventure.Here's the picture: Stewed prunes, mashed into a puree. Egg white beaten until stiff, sugar folded in. Blend and bake. Top with nuts.
That's certainly one kind of motivation for passing on dessert. The small taste I had is still seared into my mind. Fortunately, my dinner last weekend wasn't a complete wash. There are about a dozen recipes for stuffing in The American Woman's Cook Book (1945) --- all but one made with bread crumbs, not the bread cubes we typically use for stuffing today. I tried one of the more basic bread-crumb recipes and used it to stuff the centers of my Baked Acorn Squash. Tasty, but I think I'd rather a heartier stuffing made from whole-grain bread. The salad was a classic '40s combination: grapefruit, avocado, romaine lettuce, and a vinaigrette dressing.
I'm looking ahead now to the menu for tomorrow's vintage dinner and prunes are once again on the menu. This time in the salad. Stay tuned!
10 comments:
Words..just fail...
You know, there were a lot of "interesting" cooking experiments in the past. If you've ever read James Lileks books Gallery of Regretable Food or Gastronomies http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html(hilarious by the way), some people in the past had NO idea what is edible.
OMG Stewed Prunes - I forgot about stewed prunes - that's what you get when your great gran looks after you after school! EEUK! LOL
Amanda, I've seen the Gallery of Regrettable Food and laughed 'til I cried. Don't want to laugh too hard, though. I have a feeling that someday people will be pointing and laughing at the foods we eat today! :)
Joanne, I'll take stewed prunes over prune whip any day of the year!
This actually sounds quite wonderful and I might try it myself. As for uncooked egg whites, some of my best homemade frosting/icing has uncooked egg in it, though I do raise my own chickens not sure if that is what the fear of raw egg is. It looks lovely in the picture, though, doesn't it?
I have never made prune whip with egg whites. My cook books used whipped heavy cream. But I can see how the egg whites baked would work, if you liked meringue.
Prunes, yum...
*passing my serving over to 50sgal*
I love prunes (I know, my boyfriend always sniggers when I buy them at the supermarket) and the other day I tried a recipe for a Prune Fool in a 70s cookbook I remember my mother having. It didn't have eggwhites, but a custard base, the prunes were soaked and then blitzed in the food processor, and then mixed in with whipped cream! Needless to say, it was a rather interesting taste, not something I'd repeat. I think it would be lovely with strawberries or raspberries instead, something light and fruity. I'll stick to plain prunes in future!
I know there is a recipe floating out there in a 50's cookbook for a meal consisting of Welsh Rarebit (gag) and Prune Whip with crushed Fritos on top. Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn!
(this is Rebecca under my "Business" blogger name ;D )
Jeanne and Piroska, interesting that you both have had experiences with prune whip as something with a custard or cream base.
I was just thinking today that perhaps the reason all these uber-fluffy meringue-y dishes were popular during the era is that reliable refrigeration was becoming widely available in middle class homes.
Rebecca, the crushed Fritos make me think of the Depression-era recipe for Ritz Cracker apple pie --- made with no apples! The recipe for Prune Whip in my cookbook called for crushed nuts on top, so I guess it must have been normal to top it with something crunchy.
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