The Victorian Flavor Bible

The other day my mother surprised Timothy, my twenty year old culinary arts student, with a copy of The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg.

As Timothy flipped through the book and showed me its complemetary food combinations, I wondered how the Victorians paired certain foods. So I checked my 1860 copy of Miss Beecher’s domestic receiptbook: designed as a supplement to her Treatise on domestic economy and found the following suggestions:

*  mutton with turnips

*  geese and ducks with onions

*  boiled poultry with boiled ham or tongue

*  jelly with mutton, venison, roasted meats, and gravy used in hashes

*  fresh pork with cranberry or tart apple sauce

*  drawn butter and eggs with boiled fowls and boiled fish

*  pickles with fish

*  soy sauce and drawn butter with fish

And for garnishes:

*  sweetbreads, fried brown in lard

*  eggs (boiled or fried) on broiled ham or veal

*  lay greens and asparagus, well drained, on buttered toast. Surround with hard-boiled egg slices

*  hash, as well as pig's and calves's head and feet on toast. Garnish with lemon slices.

*  fasten parsley to the shank of a ham to conceal the bone