Eggs Benedict on a hubcap
…
because there’s no plate like chrome for the hollandaise!
[showing myself out]
thanks, dad!
12 Likes
Recipe is fun but that’s about what @Doctor_Faustus said. And pretty much in line with how wine was generally served across the Mediterranean through the period. It wasn’t neccisarily a specifically Roman thing.
I just don’t know how long and where watering it down was a thing.
Otherwise I’m saying I don’t know that there’s any modern association with Rome, specifically Roman mulled wine from todays Roman cuisine. Italy’s preferred mulled wine appears to come from Piemonte.
3 Likes
Yeah, the spices are definitely different, and around Rome in places like Abruzzo and the Marche they made vino cotto, which seems to trace back better to something specific, but it’s quite a different beast than vin brule’
4 Likes
I forgot about that stuff.
Sort of the opposite approach. From what I understand it’s more of an approach for reusing pomace from other batches of wine.
To save people the googles. It’s a wine produced by cooking down the must before fermentation. Basically take the crusty leavings of the wine press, add water and fresh juice. Then cook down to concentrate the sugars and ferment. Or more modern, just cook down the juice straight.
Perhaps a bit like port, IIRC it tends to be sweet. And the ABV will be on the high end for wine. If well below Port and other fortified wines.
But I always had the impression that was more closely related to grappa. Since basically you just do the same thing and distill it, you get grappa. Its kind of a byproduct for local consumption, so wine can be prioritized for sale.
But I’ve never been to Italy. Maybe they’re tossing cinnamon in there and drinking it hot. You can’t really sell that stuff, so I could see some one substituting port.
4 Likes
Yeah, it’s a more waste not want not type of thing than anything else…
I don’t think vino cotto is a precursor of vin brule’, I just think it’s more likely to be the drink that italians had in the winter (before distillation was invented by “alchemists” in the Caliphate).
6 Likes
you made me laugh.
6 Likes
Been a busy week in the kitchen-made a big batch of blintzes-4 dozen in the freezer, then mushroom-spinach-leek crepes out of the extra wrappers from the blintz blitz. Added some mix-ins to a chunk of sable dough I found in the fridge for spiced hazelnut ginger cookies. Mixed up an oatmeal berry cake because the store had blackberries for a buck a box. Three flavors of marshmallows for gifting.
10 Likes
Because you couldn’t fortify wine until you invented distillation.
4 Likes
Well, learned it from the Arabs, more like…
8 Likes
I have found a hand written raised doughnut recipe in one of my grandmother’s cook books. It’s likely my great grandmother’s recipe.
But it appears she forgot to write down the amount of flour.
There are also what looks like 3 different recipes in my Mémé’s cook book and the Maine Community Cookbook.
But none them match. I might have to do some math here.
10 Likes
My guess is she had a bin full of flour in the kitchen at all times, and knew that she would simply add enough flour to make the dough the right consistency for doughnuts 
8 Likes
For the most part, discounting crepes, my Grandmother tended to measure things. And my mother distinctly remembers Mémé using a coffee mug as her 1 cup measure.
Now my Grandmother swore she did not have the raised doughnut recipe, and had not made them since I was a toddler. Combination of concerns that they were “fattening” and arthritis making the deep frying part tricky.
So I think this may be why, if she never wrote down the flour amount she didn’t really have the recipe.
My great aunt supposedly has a copy somewhere, but it hasn’t turned up yet.
What I’ll probably end up doing is figuring out the ratio of flour to liquid in the raised doughnut recipes in the old cook books. We know they both used recipes from those books for other sorts of doughnuts, and the recipes there are the right age and are either from the same area or were current in the same area.
One of the recipes from the Culinary Institute Encyclopedia appears in the Community Cookbook. It’s credited to some one in a town 20 minutes from where my Grandmother grew up. So seems like a good sign they’re the right sort of doughnut.
The additional problem is my grandmother liked to double and triple recipes. And often only kept records of the big patches.
6 cups of liquid is a lot as these things go, and it’s possible that there’s a missing fraction on the water. Like if it’s 2/3 of a cup, not 3, it makes a lot more sense with the other recipes. But there’s no sign of worn off ink there.
But there’s also less sugar and more eggs than the other recipes.
So there’s going to have to be some messing around, and convincing my mother to eat doughnuts (this is hard).
8 Likes
Oh, I wish I lived near you, Ryuthrowsstuff, I would help you eat your doughnuts—and I wouldn’t even charge you! 
I love seeing old recipes like that, written out by hand in cursive with a fountain pen. Reminds me of my grandmother’s box of recipes, which came to my dad and we used throughout my childhood (and which one of my siblings now has). One of my favorites of hers just lists some ingredients and then simply says “mix as for cake.” I tend to write my own recipes down like that, and if someone else asks me for my recipe, I have to stop and think and write out all the steps for them
7 Likes
With pretty much my Grandmother’s entire family passing away the last 3 or 4 years we’ve been trying to track down significant family recipes before they disappear.
We have the crepes, head cheese, meat pies, molasses cookies and some other baked goods. My grandfather’s waffle recipe, and even his Klöße recipe turned up in one of the books.
The risen doughnuts are sorta the last one standing on noone having a clear idea how they’re made.
Somewhere in all the stuff there should have been an index card or 3 with it written down. But it wasn’t in her box of recipe cards. And she tended to use those things as book marks in the cook books.
So it may turn up shoved up in the binding of one of the books I have or that my mother kept.
But mom was not great about handling the estate. She donated and threw out a lot before examining it, or asking anyone if they wanted it. And did a lot of giving shit to people despite us having requested it. Or my grandmother having told her who specifically to give them too. She wouldn’t let us look through anything or help, despite not wanting to deal with it her self. And complaining that no one would help.
So there were a lot of not very interesting, and not important, or recent cookbooks that were just gotten rid of. And she wouldn’t let me check them for recipe cards. Despite knowing my grandmother did this, and my having found some interesting stuff in a few of them before she stopped me.
So there’s a good chance a thrift shop bargain hunter is going to buy a $1 70’s diet book and stumble on a treasure trove of my family recipes.
8 Likes
So many reminders of how powerful and meaningful family food traditions can be, and the memories of foods made and served to us as children. I hope you’re fortunate enough to come across the doughnut recipe or come up with something that satisfies.
7 Likes
Great Grandmothers Recipes! 
Wow.
Priceless…
5 Likes
Homemade samosas with tamarind chutney and makhani gosht (lamb in herb and butter sauce), all recipes from my old cookbook: From Bengal to Punjab.
No pics of the meal, but everything came out very, very good. That book has never steered me wrong. I bought it in ‘99 or 2000 and it’s falling apart and stained.
14 Likes
I will make it. Maybe, someday, next year…
9 Likes
