Cookbooks & History: Carrot Soup
Students in Cookbooks and History (MET ML 630), directed by Dr. Karen Metheny, researched and recreated a historical recipe to bring in to class. They were instructed to note the challenges they faced, as well as define why they selected their recipe and why it appealed to them. Here is the thirteenth essay in this series, written by Sami Vitale.
My name is Samantha Vitale and I am a second year Gastronomy student. For one of my classes this semester, Cookbooks and History with Karen Metheny, we were given the task to recreate a historical recipe. The recipe I choose was from American Cookery by Amelia Simmons. Amelia Simmons is deemed the American Orphan and helped to create the initial American cuisine. The version of American Cookery I chose was from 1798. As I was looking through the cookbook I found mostly meats, preserves, pies, and puddings. As I am a vegetarian, I chose to recreate a pudding recipe and because I am poor I tried to find a recipe with ingredients that I already had in my fridge. The recipe that I ended up choosing was “Carrot Pudding”. The recipe is as follows: A coffee cup full of boiled and strained carrots, 5 eggs, 2 ounces of sugar and butter each, cinnamon and rosewater to your taste, baked in a deep dish without paste. (1798: 28)
As you can see, there are no instructions regarding time or temperature which was the hardest part of recreating this recipe. I was not sure how long to boil the carrots for (until soft or until they were mush) or how long to keep the pudding in the oven. I also was unsure of the temperature that the oven was supposed to be or the temperature of the pudding when ready to eat. I ended up leaving the carrots to boil uncovered and about a half an hour in, decided to cover the pot with a lid because the water was hot but not boiling. I let this process happen for about an hour.
I then strained the carrots and added in the sugar, butter, cinnamon, eggs, and mixed them together. I put this pudding mixture (smelled rather good actually) into a Pyrex dish and stuck it in the oven.
The usual baking temperature for 75% of everything you bake is 350 degrees which is what I went with. Since the pudding has eggs in it, the pudding needed to fully cook in the oven which took about 30 minutes.
This pudding smelled so delicious and it was not the smell I was expecting. I let the pudding cool for about 15 minutes and tasted it. OMG was this carrot pudding good! Not at all what I was expecting it to taste like. I was imaging from just reading the recipe that it was going to be an interesting flavor, however, it was buttery and sweet, pretty eggy, and the carrots added a nice texture to the dish. It seems like this is a good dish for either breakfast, the season of fall, or Thanksgiving.
I then let it cool for another 30 minutes to see if the pudding would taste better at room temperature. Carrot pudding tastes much better hot or warm, room temperature was just chewy and I did not taste the undertones of cinnamon. Overall, the experience of recreating a recipe from over 200 years ago was easier than I thought, especially because the recipe was simple and had limited ingredients. I honestly did not think that I was going to enjoy carrot pudding as much as I did and I am happy that I tried something new.
Works Cited
Simmons, Amelia. 1798. American Cookery or the Art of Dressing Viand, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables and the Best Modes of Baking Pastes Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves and All Kinds of Cakes from the Imperial Plum to Plain Cake: Adapted to the Country and All Grades of Life. Hartford: Simeon Butler.