An historical observation, or pastry before refrigeration

[politicat]

I know, I'm such a geek. I'm reading recipes (was looking for something specific, got sucked in, you know how it goes...) and several sites are talking about the summer pie "tradition". Something about that just plonked in my head.

Traditional since when? 1910? 1850? 1430? Modern pastry is almost impossible without either refrigeration or a cold day; medieval and renaissance pastry is essentially food-based packaging material -- think salt and flour clay, not intended for consumption. My great-grandmother's summer desserts were almost always seasonal berry based Shaker summer pudding (which sounds icky, but is truly tasty) cobblers, buckles, or for more extravagant occasions, ice cream. Pies were for autumn, winter and spring.

I have a couple of pastry recipes from 1880s Tucson (so absolutely before refrigeration), but they're incomplete (as in 'flour as needed'), require lard, and I have no idea how they turn out. (They also include such useful information as "use more sugar if using swamp blueberries; high-ground berries are sweeter.") At least Nellie Cashman (she owned Delmonico's Restaurant in Tucson, then moved to Tombstone and was one of the major civilizing influences) included measurements.

My 1808 "A New System of Domestic Cookery" is even more vague -- references to common crust, common paste, boiled paste, boiled crust... they make Nellie Cashman's, as referenced above, seem absolutely micromanaged. Example:
Weigh an equal quantity of butter with as much fine flour as you judge necessary; mix a little of the former with the latter, and wet it with as little water as will make it a stiff paste. Roll it out, and put all the butter over it in slices, turn in the ends and roll out thin; do this twice, and touch it no more than can be avoided. The butter may be added at twice; and to those who are not accustomed to make paste it may be better to do so. A quicker oven than for short crust.

This does resemble croissant dough, and I know those were being made at the time but no reference I have addresses seasonality of types of cuisines -- that's information that a society by necessity far more locavore and seasonal wouldn't need to document. Yes, this was written before measurements were common, but I still pity anyone trying to implement the New System of Domestic Cookery without basic knowledge.

So here's my question -- how many of our food "traditions" really are? Thinking about this question, "Mom, 4th of July and Apple Pie" contains a fundamental disconnect -- apples are out of season in July. (Also, apple pies are English and French.)

[grasswire]

1. there are pie doughs that require no refrigeration

My recipe (actually my aunt's recipe) is a short crust with no chilling required.

[eridani]

2. Anyone have a clue why that works?

I've never been able to get decent crust without a lot of COLD, as recommended by a number of folke here.

[grasswire]

5. there are several methods for making pie dough

One, which most people apparently use, is the cut the fat into the flour, add ice water, etc.

A second is a crust using oil. I've never tried one, but there are many recipes available and some people swear by it.

Less common is an emulsion method. I've been using that for decades, with great success. People rave over the crust, even a restaurant critic for the local newspaper gave a glowing review. People often joke (without knowing who made the pie) "Is the person married who made this pie?"

(Hippywife, I have been hesitant to share it with you since I learned of your total ban on crisco because that's what it calls for and I haven't tried lard or any other possibility with it.)

It's very easy. You make an emulsion with shortening, a bit of milk, boiling water and the salt, whipping it until light and fluffy. Then you stir in the flour. That's all there is to it. You can roll it out immediately. I roll it out between sheets of waxed paper, with a little flour.

I have made batches as big as six double crusts at once with no trouble. It keeps in the fridge for several days if you have leftovers.

I've only seen this method in a couple of cookbooks over the years (and I read a LOT of old cookbooks). Dunno why it isn't more widely used.

[wildflower]

9. That's interesting, I hadn't heard of it

Do you think it might be possible to use the emulsion method with softened butter or coconut oil?

[Tesha]

10. proportions please...

I'd love to try this...

[housewolf]

11. Would you be willing to share with the rest of us?

Pie dough is something that I just have trouble with, I'd love to try your method. 'Specially since it's still peach season, and to my mind, there's no better pie than fresh peach pie! Maybe Hippywife could just cover her eyes so she won't be offended ;-) (loveya, Hippywife!)
Your method sounds like something I need to try.

Hope all is going well for you in your rural hideaway, Grasswire.

[hippywife]

12. LOL! You can share it with folks. Don't mind me.

I have decided that I like the vodka crust from ATK very much and it worked better the second time when I subbed in a half cup of white whole wheat and cut the organic non-hydrogenated Jungle shortening to half of the recipe amount. I'm really so excited that it works so well for me.

As far as the oil crust go, they're just okay, really. Fine for a cold filled pie like lemon or whatever, where you bake the crust first and fill it when cooled, or with a quiche. I've even used it before in a pinch for topping a cobbler. And truthfully, used alone without butter, the Jungle shortening produces a similar crust as the oil based ones. Good in a pinch, but not if you want a nice double crust.

ETA: And I still have the beef tallow in the freezer to try, too!

[eleny]

13. I'm a pie crust dropout

If you decide to share your recipe, I'll try it right away. There's nothing like a promising method to get my confidence back in gear and in the kitchen baking pies.

[grasswire]

14. Flaky Pastry III

Here is the recipe as written. After that, I'll note my tweaks.

3/4 cup plus 2 T shortening (except butter, margarine, or oil)
1/4 cup boiling water
1 T milk
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 t salt

1. Put shortening in medium bowl. Add boiling water and milk; with 4-tined fork, beat, in rapid cross-the-bowl strokes, until mixture is smooth and thick, like whipped cream, and holds soft peaks when fork is lifted.

2. Sift flour and salt onto shortening. With vigorous round-the-bowl stokes, stir quickly, forming dough that clings together and cleans bowl. Pick up dough and work into smooth flat round. Then divide in half; form into 2 balls. Makes enough for one 8 or 9-inch pie.

My tweaks: I never use the fork anymore although I did for many years. My method now is to put the shortening, milk and salt into my Old Kitchenaid stand mixer bowl and cream on high speed until fluffy. Then I carefully add the boiling water and beat again until very fluffy. Then I stir in the flour on low speed.

The amounts are very forgiving. I don't even measure anymore. When I was making this early on, I learned that floured waxed paper was the best way to roll it out and get it into the pie plate, as the dough can be very soft to handle. I learned not to be afraid of using flour for handling.

Here's basically how I do the dough. I get two pieces of waxed paper, put one down on the board and flour it. I put down my piece of dough (half the recipe above) and flour it. On goes the top piece of waxed paper. I roll the dough out to about half the size I'm going to want. Then I pull off the top waxed paper and dust the circle with flour again. Put the wax paper back on, then flip the whole thing upside down to flour the bottom half. Then I roll again out to the completed size I want. Does that make any sense the way I have described it? Flour, roll, flip, flour, roll.

It sounds complicated, I guess, but it is about a one minute task.

And I have even made a single crust pie by just pressing the dough into the plate with my hands.

One other recommendation. If your pie plate is bigger than nine inches or if you like crust, you should double the recipe. Any leftovers can be rolled out with cinnamon and sugar for those old-fashioned treats we all love. Pie-dough kisses, my mother called them.

[grasswire]

15. oops

I forgot to add that getting the pie dough into the plate is simply a matter of taking the wax paper off the top of the rolled dough, grabbing one side of the dough and bottom paper and turning that over onto the pie plate. Then peel off the paper, and voila. Bottom crust in place, ready for any adjustments. Repeat that movement for top crust.

[housewolf]

18. Thanks, Grasswire

I'm looking forward to trying it

[eleny]

21. Thanks so much, your instructions are very clear!

Dealing with the dough sandwiched between waxed paper will make the rolling out a very smooth process. As you were explaining this I could imagine myself making the dough and not even breaking a sweat. In a way, this softer type dough sounds easy to handle if I take a gentle hand and not rush to get it into the pie pan. I have a harder time with stiffer dough that tends to break and then it's harder to glue back together. A softer dough, if it tears a bit, sounds easier to nudge back together gently with my fingers.

I do have a question about using your mixer. I imagine that you use the whisk to combine the shortening, milk and salt. But do you switch to the dough hook for adding the flour?

Also, have you ever used the butter flavored shortening or stick with the traditional plain white?

Thanks again for sharing this recipe, grasswire. I like to bake but my mom mostly made Bisquik cobblers instead of pies. So I never picked up the knack for crust. I'll post about my results very soon!
:pals:

[grasswire]

22. my kitchenaid is model C-3 -- a vintage gem

I don't have a whisk for it, just the normal beater.

BUT, when I was making pies in the restaurant, I used either the whisk or the beater in the modern kitchenaid for the whole process with no problem.

I don't think you'll need to change to a dough hook.

And oh goodness, yes. This dough is extremely easy to pinch and poke together.

[eleny]

23. Thanks!

I was just making a Word doc of your recipe. Now I'll print it out so I can get this show on the road. :D

[grasswire]

24. I'll be in and out today, but holler if you need a tip

I'm looking forward to hearing how it works for you!

What kinda pie?

[grasswire]

27. photo test

trying my new photo host

[eleny]

28. Aagh! Not even enough canned filling in the house to experiment

So I'm going to the store right now and we'll see what looks good. I think I'll go up to my local green grocer first since they'll have Colorado peaches right now. I got some last week and they were ripe and sweet but all gone. :P

To be continued! I'll try the plain shortening today.

[eleny]

29. Okay, we went to the seasonal green grocer and picked up peaches & Gala apples

I dug out by mother's old Good Housekeeping cook book and am going to use the recipe for fruit pies. You take the apple pie recipe and adapt it for peaches with the tweaks they give you. They suggest adding nutmeg and I like that.

This may need to wait till tomorrow but I'll post photos. I want to make both apple and peach pies so I'm talking your advice and making a double batch of pastry!

[grasswire]

25. oh, to answer another question

I have never tried the butter flavored shortening. If you do, report back!

[buzzycrumbhunger]

19. My family recipe uses oil

My mom's pie crusts were most-requested for potlucks and holidays. Mine is almost as popular, except amongst those diehard white flour folk who don't grok that whole grains not only have actual food value, but flavor.

The proportions allow some leeway and depending on how humid it is or how thirsty my flour, I seem to be able to add a slosh of soymilk or oil without messing up the end result. I can't fathom having to fart around with cold butter or ice water when you can throw together a pie in under a minute. It looks like the low-maintenance cousin to your emulsion crust, so I'm betting they have a similar flakiness.

2-1/2 c WW pastry flour
2/3 c oil (I use canola, but have even used olive oil for a savory filling)
1/3 c soymilk
1 t salt

That's it. Use bad white flour and cow's milk if that's your trip. Makes two crusts. You just mix with a fork, roll it between waxed paper, and flip it onto your pie plate. If you mess it up somewhere, you just patch it in. Easy to pinch a pretty edge in no time.

[hippywife]

26. The thing with the oil crusts is

that you can actually mix it in the pan and press it out with your fingers when you're in a pinch. No bowl needed.

I love using white whole wheat and ww pastry flour in my baking. I've mostly gotten away from buying ww pastry flour and just mixing ww with white flour to acheive the same product basically since I don't have too much room for additional flour. I just keep unbleached white, white whole wheat and bread flour now most of the time.

:hi:

[buzzycrumbhunger]

30. Oh, yeah!

And it lends itself to easy individual tarts if you press it in muffin tins or those little Pyrex bowls. :)

[eleny]

35. Beautiful crust!

[hippywife]

4. Well...

are ya gonna tell us what it is? Hmmm?

[Tesha]

3. before refrigeration...

people used ice they'd harvested over the winter months and when that was gone they used the well house or spring house where tho' not cold, it was still cooler than the July 4th temps - in the 50 degree range.


Hence a really really special thing would be to make an apple pie with ice cream.

[Warpy]

6. Don't forget that pate brisee was developed in France

and, while there was no refrigeration, the larder was always cooler than the kitchen and provided a degree of refrigeration while dough rested, certainly below the melting point of butter or lard.

Warm summers there have started to occur only recently, in other words. The climate was quite temperate back in the good old days that weren't so good.

A 55 degree larder would allow food to be kept over with minimal bacterial nasties for a day or two, but not beyond that. People shopped daily, even for the great houses and big bakeries where pastry would have been made, so longer term storage wouldn't have been an issue.

As for apple pie on the 4th of July, it was barely possible with the few apples that had survived the winter in the family root cellar. They wouldn't have been very good, so pie was the only way they could have been used. They'd have been brown, dried, and mealy.

[grasswire]

7. many put up apples for next summer's pies

Apple slices were canned or dried for future pies prior to cold storage.

[Warpy]

8. Safe canning was developed in the early to mid 19th century

Early attempts, put into bottles that resembled wine bottles during the Napoleonic wars were often spectacular failures, especially when the foodstuffs were not highly acid. If they didn't explode, they poisoned whoever tried to eat them. Eventually a man named Appert figured out that sterilization at high temperature was needed for safely canning most foods.

A timeline to canning is at http://www.paulnoll.com/Oregon/Canning/canning-story.html

Food preservation in frontier areas consisted of salting, drying, and/or sugaring. Canned food was store bought, expensive, and a rare treat.

The expression "the bottom of the barrel" refers to the last of the salt pork put up the previous fall which had been sitting in all the juices drawn out of the stuff higher up and which was pretty foul stuff, although if you cooked it long enough, it was safe.

There's nothing like looking at old food preservation strategies to make you grateful for refrigeration and freezing.

[politicat]

17. Yep...

Funny enough (and part of where this thought is coming from anyway) I've been researching that very aspect recently (I have a character who is aware of the concept of value-added production -- i.e. socks are worth more than wool, bread worth more than flour -- and is trying to keep a community functioning economically).

I'm not sure which invention I'd be less willing to give up, refrigeration or shoes, but it would be a hard choice.

[politicat]

16. Absolutely -- and I do, and my grandparents did...

But canning wasn't invented until the Napoleonic Wars, didn't cross the channel or the Atlantic until after the wars ended in 1815, and didn't take off (either tinned or jarred) until the middle of the 19th century. Drying was possible, but not common in northern Europe during the 18th and early 19th century, thanks to a climactic shift that left the region colder and wetter than it had been in the late 16th and 17th centuries. (The Napoleonic Wars might have been a reaction to a climate fluctuation, as well as to economic conditions on the continent. That's apparently a HOT topic in some circles.)

Until the mid 19th century, food preservation was pretty much limited to drying, brining and gelatin-based methods. Even the paraffin wax seal hadn't been invented because paraffin wax hadn't been invented (1870s) and beeswax is more porous.

[elleng]

20. Was/is history taught with Home Ec?

This is really interesting!

[Retrograde]

32. some resources

There's an episode of an old PBS series called Connections that talks about the history of food preservation. This is a good overview of historical eating habits.

Old cookbooks will give you a glimpse into the past, especially about food storage in the days before huge chest freezers.

[elleng]

33. It seems to me that 'food' would be a GREAT way to teach history,

from elementary through graduate schools, and I'm shocked, in fact, that it hasn't been done. Such connections to our everyday lives are extremely useful in learning, I've noticed.

I've got daughters ages 21 and 24, who've attended schools with what I've thought to have been forward-looking curricula,. One of their first teachers, math, knew that 'food' was a good way to teach. They started by sorting and counting halloween candy. That school only took them through 3rd grade. They also did a big history lesson by overnighting at a Colonial Farm, and among other things they/we made butter in the old-fashioned way. I don't know that they've had any more of that type of history lesson.

[Retrograde]

34. another great book

is Seeds of Change, by Henry Hobhouse. It's about the effects of 5 plants (quinine, tea, cotton, sugar and potatoes originally: he add's cocoa in later editions) on human history, especially on the European colonization of the Americas.

I think teaching history through food is a great idea! There are so many lessons: how much labor was involved in producing meals, the effects of shortages and surpluses on populations, borrowings from other cultures, the whole microbiology of preservation - lots there.

[elleng]

37. Exactly, HUGE amounts there,

like, why were all major population centers in the world built along/near major waterways/sources of water?

[NashVegas]

41. There Are Food Anthropologists

Out there. Fascinating field.

[elleng]

42. Sounds like it.

[eShirl]

43. Connections (original series), episode 8, "Eat, Drink and Be Merry"

oh cool, here it is in its entirety on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3D0EBFF8602E157D

[politicat]

39. Generally not.

Since Home Ec/Domestic Science was an outgrowth of the push for rationalism and technology* (of which I am bashing NEITHER), even the earliest HE/DS texts I have seen (I have my great-great grandmother's from the turn of the 20th century) only talk about what's the most current research for the time. Same with my great-grandmother's from the late teens/early twenties, my grandmother's from the 40s and early 50s.

Domestic history is actually a really new field. Until the 50s, the only history worth studying was military, high culture, and legal. (It's amazing what feminism has done for not just women, but academia.)

*Though that push had less than stellar motivations.

[Retrograde]

31. There were other ways of getting cooler temperatures

cellars, spring houses, huge blocks of ice harvested from frozen ponds in winter and stored in cellars or special icehouses, covered with sawdust to cut down melting. People were even shipping ice blocks from New England to warmer climates in the mid 1800s. Home ice delivery was common in cities at least until the 30s: you'd order a big block or two and keep them in a metal-lined ice chest, where they gradually melted - that's the forerunner of the modern refrigerator. Mechanical ice-makers go back to the late 1850s.

Using dried foods, especially for pies, was also more common. So were smoked and cured foods. I think people also put up with a lot more minor intestinal disorders than we do today. And they did die of food poisoning on occasion.

[Warpy]

36. Ice delivery was common through the 1940s

and even longer in some areas, like Appalachia, that weren't fully electrified until the early 60s.

I can remember crawling around and being fascinated by that drip pan under the ice box.

[eleny]

38. I remember seeing the ice man make a delivery in my area of Queens, NY

It was the early 1950s. I'll never forget how he carried the block of ice on his back holding it with the big ice tongs. He was heading upstairs to an apartment that was over a store on the local shopping avenue.

[elleng]

44. My Dad, who's 95 now, tells great stories of his family members

in Manhattan, when he was growing up, chasing after the ice man!

[politicat]

40. Agreed, within limits.

Cellaring has been in use for thousands of years, but has a lot of variables. Ice cellaring has been in use for a few centuries, but requires surplus labor, so is not commonly available. Cellars themselves require a significant investment in labor, so weren't available to the poor, the recently arrived (in the case of the westward migration) or those on flood plains.

As for shipping ice, that really starts with the advent of the functional railroad, so mid 19th century. Before that, there were a few attempts to pack ice for shipment to places like India, but they were mostly "demonstration projects", not fully functional trade. (They didn't make enough money.)

And right on food preservation, and on the dangers of food poisoning, but the question currently hot in historical epidemiology is how much food-borne illness really existed. Grazed meats are less likely to carry the nastier e. coli strains, shigella and listeria are less common... And of course, being exposed to local bacteria means people end up with iron-clad immune systems, if they reach 5 years old... (and lots didn't.)