The Culinary Lives of John and Abigail Adams: A Cookbook by Rosana Y. Wan

I have been studying John Quincy Adams while I make the president quilt for Sue Reich's President Quilt tour in 2016. The Culinary Lives of John and Abigail Adams is about his parents and consequently the food of his childhood.

I took a Folklore course in college and my paper was on English memories and American realities, the roots of American cooking. I read early cookbooks including the first published in American by Amelia Simmons. The recipes in this book were not 'new' to me. Some I had actually enjoyed back  in the Bicentennial Days at the Philadelphia City Tavern.

I enjoyed the book very much since Rosana Y. Wan's commentary showed a great deal of knowledge gleaned from the letters and diaries of Abigail and John Adams. One learns about the private lives of the Adams family and about material culture and society in Colonial America.

Wan traces the culinary history of foods, discusses cooking methods and early cookbooks, and even covers dinnerware with photographs of dishes and utensils from the John Adams National Park.

A timeline of the Adams family with illustrations is an impressive overview of this remarkable family. One realizes how much of their married life John Adams was hobnobbing in high society abroad while Abigail ran the family farm, put away food, and enjoyed local produce in season.

Wan's chapters include Breakfast, Bread, Meat and Poultry, Sauces, Seafood, Vegetables, soup, pudding and snacks, and drinks. Each chapter includes introductory essays that are informative and interesting, including quotations from the Adams papers.She also provides a chapter on bills of fare for those who want to recreate an 19th c. dinner party. The recipes are updated for today's measurements and readily available ingredients.

Recipes include classic dishes like Buckwheat Cakes, English-Muffin style muffins, Indian Corn and Rye Bread, Roast Leg of Lamb with Mint Sauce, and Peas with Mint.

More unusual are the Garden Sauce for meat made with sorrel, sweet apple, vinegar and sugar and white bread for thickening; Roasted Salmon with nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice; Salad Sauce made of sieved boiled egg yolk and ground mustard, oil and vinegar; and Cucumber Soup. Baked Custard includes sweet tasting coriander along with cinnamon.

Classic Plumb Pudding was a favorite Adams family treat saved for holidays because of the exotic spices required, while Indian Pudding was made of readily available ingredients of corn meal and molasses. Wan notes that John Quincy Adams wrote to his wife Louisa about Indian Pudding being served at his family's New Year's Eve dinner.

New Englanders made Cranberry Tarts. I need to try that! The Whipt Syllabub has never appealed to me. It is made of milk or cream curdled by adding brandy and includes egg whites, sugar and lemon juice.

Drinks of the day included hot Toddy made of rum and molasses in lukewarm water with a dash of nutmeg. Abigail's Punch recipe was made of oranges and lemons, brandy and rum. Grog was dark rum and water with lemon juice to taste. The lemon juice would have been good for sailors at sea to guard against scurvy.

Whether you are interested in the Adams family, early American cooking, the history of cooking in America, or just enjoy reading recipes this is a delightful book.

I have finished the John Quincy Adams quilt! I bound it off yesterday using the method found on You-Tube "Binding the Angel" by Sharon Schamber which I highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Schiffert Press for ebook access.

The Culinary Lives of John and Abigail Adams
Rosana Y. Wan
Schiffert Press
Publication date October 2014
ISBN13: 9780764346699
Illustrated
Softcover, 224 pages

"Nora Webster" by Colm Toibin, A Novel About Grief and Self Discovery

Nora Webster has lost her husband of 21 years. Maurice had been a beloved school teacher in a small Irish village. She had stayed at his side watching him die, their children sent off with relatives for four months. The Catholic doctors withheld the morphine that would have eased his pain, for it would also have caused his death. Now she must face life alone without the love of her life.

Intelligent, independent, and strong willed, Nora is disconnected to her family and neighbors. Her sisters talk behind her back of how difficult she was before marriage. Her children confide to her sisters and aunt, and Nora hears second hand of their inner life. After months of being an object of pity Nora can barely stand to let her well meaning neighbors in the house.

Nora has an inner strength and one admires how she stands up for herself. She is offered work by her employer before marriage. Her nemesis from her teen years is her manager and makes her life miserable, and her co-worker, the boss's daughter, is vacuous and self-absorbed. When the workers gather to unionize she joins them, alienating the boss and his family.

Her children grieve in isolation. Nora alone understands the myth of children's resilience, remembering how she never recovered from the loss of her parents. The Troubles in Northern Ireland dominates the news and draws her eldest daughter into Irish protest groups. The younger daughter is away at school, and her eldest son become obsessed with photography and the Space Race. Her youngest son developed a stutter during his four months apart and is a source of concern for Nora.

Nora's decisions make her stand out in the village. She colors her hair, buys new clothes, redecorates. People invite her to a gramophone society, take her on as a singing student. Late in life she learns the confidence that comes from making decisions for oneself.

The book has a quietness about it, a solemnity. The narrative is straight forward, even in mystical scenes when Nora senses Maurice's presence. There is a sense of majesty, that this particular life illuminates universal experiences.

Nora's grief recall to mind memories of my own. When my mother had terminal cancer she asked for morphine even when the nurse warned her she would not wake up. She did not want any more pain, a lifetime of Psoriatic arthritis had been pain enough. I saw my dad flounder after her death before building a new life without her. He had to make decisions about things that Mom had always handled. When my father was dying  I was at the hospital every day for two months. Yes, death is the only universal experience. We don't recall our birth, we don't all procreate, but we all lose loved ones.

This is not a depressing book. It is an intimate tale of how one woman grieves and rebuilds. Her new life offers Nora something she never had before: the opportunity for self discovery, to test her wings, to become something more. Her life is not perfect, for this is a novel of realism; instead she achieves something better: a growth into a wholeness she had never before enjoyed.

Nora will quietly wait in the back of your mind long after you have finished the novel.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin
Scribner
ISBN: 9781439138335  
Publication date: October 7, 2014
$27.00

Nostalgic Ads from the Back Pages

Things our moms really ordered in 1962! I love the small ads in the back of magazines. These are from March 1962 Family Circle. Still lots to mine from that issue. 

People were wearing thong shoes back in '62.

 Blue Willow dishes could be found in many homes.

Round playing cards did not take the world by storm. 

Circus tumblers were plastic. 

So were the "authentic" OJ cups.

But what did the suburban mom do with the Easter chicks?

 Maybe this is why Mom bought La Choy the first time. She served us this canned "Chinese" food and no one really was impressed. Especially Dad. Then, none of us had ever eaten Chinese food before so we did not know how bad it really was.

The Battle of the Bulge was won in Europe with this mysterious discovery.

 The corset made a come back, much to CoCo Chanel's dismay.

Quilting and needlework patterns.

Edith Head: Advice for a 1962 Wardrobe

The March 1962 Family Circle has so much I love. There is an article with Edith Head offering wardrobe advice. Head outfitted many a Hollywood movie actress including  Mae West, Audrey Hepburn, Kim Novak, and Elizabeth Taylor.

For more about Head see
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/111450%7C0/Edith-Head-Profile.html

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/10/30-fantastic-movie-costumes-by-edith-head.html

http://www.pinterest.com/camdesigns/edith-heads-sketches/

 

John Quincy Adams Quilting

I have been quilting JQA in a cross hatch. These photos also show the appliquéd motifs with embroidered edges.

Most of the other quiltmakers preparing presidents for Sue Reich's traveling Presidents Quilt show say they are still thinking. That makes me wish that instead of diving in after being inspired I had taken more time to actually do the work. I tend to work in a white heat. 

My biggest concern was that I cut away fabric from under the appliquéd motifs, but forgot to do that for the JQA photo and Mendhi letter. I don't like what is happening with them and may have to stuff that part...which would have been way easier before layering and quilting by inseting a piece of batting. It is a "make it work" moment. Hopefully a "happy accident" one as well. (Clichés homage to Tim Gunn and Bob Ross!)

I also have been reading a upcoming book on the culinary life of John and Abigail Adams, courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. In other words, what JQA ate growing up. Since he left Braintree with his dad for Paris when he was 13 he missed out on a lot of that good old American home cooking. Look for my review in a few days. I may have to try some of those recipes first!

Jane Austen Family Album

One more block done! West Wind for Tom Fowle, Cassandra's fiance who died in the West Indies.
http://austenfamilyalbumquilt.blogspot.com/2014/08/block-21-west-wind-for-tom-fowle.html

I still have the block from two Sundays ago to finish. It has a lot of pieces and I am still working on it.

1962 Illustrations: Household Management

The March 1962 Family Circle has some great illustrations for its article "Short Cuts to Easier House Cleaning" by Sally Pepper Adams, Equipment Editor. She suggests getting organized with a schedule. "Think about your house and the myriad things you do to keep it and your family running smoothly. Make a list of your social obligations--the school car pool, taking the children to the dentist, birthday parties, and so on. Then list the housekeeping chores you do every day, those you do once a week, and those you do monthly or seasonally."

It seems to me that any gal in 1962 who could do this had a quite marketable job skill set.

Keeping the equipment in running order and organized was essential

Weekly fridge cleaning

Children's clothes should be within reach

 

When you put away the winter blankets laundry, repair, then wrap them for storage.

Should the man of the house rule the roost? Virginia Stitzenberger said aye:
"I  often think of our household as a ship. From time to time each child may want the ship to take a particular tack, but there is a skipper at the helm who accepts his rightful responsibility for navigating the vessel. Everyone aboard knows that no mutiny will be tolerated, and that, no matter how tempting it is to explore icebergs or other alluring danger spots, the ship will be safely steered."

Bored children needed help finding projects to do. Perhaps because we were no longer running free outdoors without supervision. I mean, how many hours of TV could a kid watch in a day? Five? Six? That left a few hours to fill.

 The new packaging for canned ham was so safe even little Sally could open it up. A great help to a Mom with her hands, literally, filled.

Not an illustration but a photo ad, this boy's look is pretty disturbing.