Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without any presents,” said Jo of Little Women many years ago. Or she might have said, without any Christmas tree, or without any candy—and especially candy! Christmas ahear! Let sweet stuff occupy the mind.
It was only a prune, but it rated the attention of Catherine the Great in that long ago when she was Empress of Russia. It was a prune stuffed with marzipan cooked in a thick syrup that an old Russian book has described as the confection most highly favored by Her Majesty.
It was Dr. David S. Isrin, a Russian Chemist, reading for ideas that might be developed in his laboratory for the food markets here, who noted the marzipaned prune formula and decided it deserved trial. Today you can buy Catherine the Great's famous prune, packed forty to a pound jar, price ＄1.26, at B. Altman and Company, 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. It is a medium-sized prune of small seed, of extra tenderness, which Dr. Isrin Chose as being to the queen's taste. The fruit is washed and hand pitted, then processed under ultra-violet ray to keep it from fermentation. The filling is a blend of marzipan with dehydrated banana powder and orange peel finely ground, all held together with a mild-flavored honey. A nice sweet for the tea table; good muchiing any time.
A Christmas stollen is traveling direct by mail to all parts of the country from the Farm & Home Foods kitchen of Watertown, Wis. This stollen is baked in loaf form rather than the usual flat oval, since it's easier packing that way. It journeys postpaid, ＄1.50 a loaf weighing one pound and ten ounces. It is a typical stollen of sweet yeast dough made with sugar and eggs, with candied peels and raisins mixed into the batter, like a rich coffee cake.
Farm & Home Foods again features popcorn balls for the holiday, the price as last year—＄1.75 per dozen, postpaid. And the Watertown geese! But only four hundred are available for the Great Day dinner. The price is ＄9.75 for a 13-15 pound goose, express prepaid; spices and cooking directions included with your purchase.
There is a sauce in the Lewis and Conger spice and condiment collection dedicated to the wisdom and memory of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, the French gourmet and scholar whose life was one glorious and delicious meal. This man ate not merely to satisfy hunger, but for the actual joy he derived from food carefully selected, well prepared, intelligently served, and eaten with understanding. This sauce, which we accidentally discovered in an afternoon's exploration along the “aisle of spice,” has the most spellbinding list of ingredients we have ever encountered on a single jar label.
Take a deep breath—ready? Here goes! Aged vinegars, Indian tamarinds, garden-grown mushrooms, finest brushed French truffles, fresh tomatoes, peppers, and other fruits and vegetables; this conglomeration spiced with Spanish paprika, frankincense, chervil, salt, marjoram, sugar, sweet basil, Lampong black pepper, Cayenne, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, coriander. The sauce is blended and spiced by a master saucier—you know what that is? In the hierarchy of the big-time hotel kitchen, the chef is the colonel and the next-in-line is the saucier, a man who does nothing but see to sauces and soups. The sauce is a dark, mysterious-looking stuff, and long aged, but don't ask us to describe the actual flavor, except to say it has a real affinity for meat, poultry, fish, and eggs. An ardent sauce hound of our acquaintance lapped it up by the spoonful. Disconcerting, considering the cost—＄1.75 for a not very tall bottle.
One trial of the Barra sauces and vinegars out of California, and you are a Barra fan from now into forever. The Burgundy wine vinegar, that's something by itself, and it's also used in the dressings for its bouquet and mellowness and a strength outstanding for its subtleness. This vinegar is made of 1940 Burgundy, then long aged, and as surely superior to the ordinary run of vinegars as fine wines are superior to the lesser vintages. The tarragon vinegar of the line is 60 per cent of the Burgundy type, with 40 per cent pure distilled vinegar, this seasoned with tarragon, oregano, and garlic, then aged in the wood.
The dressings are the firm's special pride, and French-Italian in type. The plain dressing is made from a recipe of M. Rene Ard, chef de cuisine to H.R.H. the Sovereign Prince of Monaco—that is, if you care. What does matter is that the dressing is a clever blending of the Burgundy wine and distilled vinegars with vegetable oils, yes, and pure olive oil. Honey is the sweetening. The spicing includes mustard, paprika, and peeled cloves of garlic freshly ground. No tomato is in the product, no water, no filler.
A second dressing is made exactly the same, but with a big swig of Sherry to give extra zing. This Sherry addition is more than just Sherry, it is a chef's Sherry sauce—a non-alcoholic beverage produced by the firm for hotel kitchen use. The dressing can be used over greens, over shrimp, or with any fish cocktail.
Spiced wine sauce is our pick of the pack. This is a concentrate planned to serve as a base for dressings homemade. It is like the French-Italian dressing (the one without the Sherry) minus the oil, which the cook is to add. This concentrate may be used as a seasoning to enrich the flavor of a meat sauce, it works its little magic splashed into an egg dish, and it's nice going over fish.
Twang is the ready-mix of the line, a combination of the various dry ingredients that make the salad dressing. Place two tablespoons of the mix in a bowl, and add just enough water to make a thick paste. Beat in one-half cup vinegar and one-half cup water, stir in one cup of olive oil, and the dressing is ready—easy, quick, never-failing! The flavor is improved if the dressing is allowed to stand several hours, to let the ingredients intermingle.
B. Altman & Company, 34th Street and Fifth Avenue, carry the Sherry dressing, the point bottle 45 cents, R. H. Macy & Company, Broadway and 34th, has the Burgundy wine vinegar, the pint bottle 39 cents, and the spiced wine sauce, one pint 44 cents. Macy's and Altman's both have the French-Italian dressing, the pint bottle 40 cents, or thereabouts. Hopper-McGraw of Baltimore carries the line in part, also Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, Frederick & Nelson in Seattle and in Los Angeles. Or you may order by mail direct from the Barra Company, 2806 N. Main Street, Los Angeles, Calif.
The gift of gifts—a brace of pheasants in all their natural plumage, traveling in a gay Christmas carton. The birds are especially raised for the table, with no toughies allowed. And so carefully handled! Before shipping, the pheasants are hung overnight to freeze, to insure safekeeping for several days without further refrigeration. They are shipped by railway express, with notice that immediate delivery must be made upon their arrival.
With the birds go complete instructions for their preparation and serving—how to lard the breast, how to season, how to baste, how long to roast. No detail is omitted.
Pheasants are so plentiful on the Berkshire Game Farm with its 800 acres of shooting preserve, that orders can be filled in any quantity desired. Send along your gift list with personal greeting cards, specify delivery date, and the Farm does the rest. The price is ＄12 a brace, which includes shipping charges. Address orders to Don Spencer, Berkshire Game Farm, Craryville, N. Y.
Homemade and divine is the Christmas fruit cake to order from Grassy Spur Inn, Green River, Vt. It's an exciting package to open, for the cake travels in a handmade wooden box, hand-blocked with pine trees, one tree for the one-pound size, two trees for two pounds, and so on up to four pounds. The price, ＄2.50 a pound, which includes mailing costs.
The G. B. Van Waveren family is responsible for this Christmas cake venture. Mrs. Van Waveren does the baking. Mr. Van Waveren and son make the pine boxes; daughter makes the blocks for hand-printing the trademark. The Van Waveren hens lay the fresh eggs that go into the batter; the Van Waveren cows give the cream that is churned into butter to enrich the masterpiece. Mr. Van Waveren gives his special attention to the blending of the wines for the cake's “spirited” fragrance. Other ingredients include six kinds of fruit and two kinds of nuts, and many, many spices.
This kitchen has plum pudding, too, made round in the old-fashioned manner, and packaged like the fruit cakes, selling at the same price, the sizes one, two, and three pounds.
A superb dinner ending are kumquats in rum, iced to a shiver, with the coffee black and blazing. The one-pound four-ounce jar ＄1.25, and no points; found on the shelves of the Gourmets' Bazaar, Bellows & Company, 67 East 52nd. And don't miss the Illinois bleu which the firm's liquor experts have blended with Portugues brandy, the fourteen-ounce crocks ＄1.50.
If you want a fine cake—better than you can make yourself, better than you can find in ninety-nine shops in one hundred, you will turn to the Iridor kitchen, 831 Lexington Avenue. The ＄1-size layer cake will cut four medium pieces. It's a white butter cake, the layers put together with thick, luscious fudge. The angel food cakes, of small size to serve four, are 50 cents plain, 50 cents extra when frosted—and worth it, with the chocolate icing piled an inch deep over the top. Or try the fresh orange frosting made with both the juice and the skin of the fruit—gooey and moist under the fork—a gastronomical seventh heaven.
Back several centuries, the Christian world considered eating mince pie a sin, for the pie, it was said, was pagan in its origin. As late as the Eighteenth Century few clergymen dared risk their reputation by enjoying a wedge of such wickedness. A sample of the mince pie of the iridor kitchen, and we agree with the old-time Christians, for here is a pie that leads to idolatry. Satan is a devil of infinite resources! There's so much brandy in this pie (10 per cent by volume) that you can break through the top and drink it up with a straw. But yoy pay for it too, ＄5 for a pie to carve up for eight. Pies are made only to order. “And don't order,” says the maker, “if it's a pale, anemic-looking crust you are after.” She bakes her pies golden.
Orders are being taken right now for mince pie, plum pudding, fruit cake. The pudding is ＄2.50 a pound; the same goes for the cake. Buy any amount from one pound to ten.
“What goes into your fruit cake?” we quizzed the baker. “Brandy, brandy, brandy,” was her answer. “And?” “But brandy,” she insists, “is the important ingredient, to blend and unite the flavors.” By third-degree questioning we learned the pudding is made of beef suet, brown sugar, molasses, a few bread crumbs, a dusting of flour. As to fruit, there are citron, raisins, currants, whole lemons, all of which are brandy-soaked overnight.
The maker of these good things is Dorit k Weigert, graduate of the Cordon Bleu de I'Academie de Cuisine de Paris, and head of one of New York's outstanding cooking schools. In the twenty-four years she has been teaching, she has trained thousands in home cooking, in hotel cooking, in tearoom management. She has trained chefs, pastry cooks, candy makers. Enrollment in her classes for chefs' training has dwindled since the war, leaving her time to crowd in a half day's work in the manufacturing of foods for retail selling.
A wholesale warehouse in Newark, N. J., stocked to the ceiling with every kind of canned meat sold in the American market has opened a retail mail-order business for items hard to come by in the corner grocery. True, almost everything canned is available one place or another among the delicacy stores, but not in case lots. Stores treasure scarce items and are reluctant to sell more than one tin or jar to a patron. But through this new service of the Martin Packing Company, 127 Belmont Avenue, Newark, N. J., you may buy by the case, and as many cases as you wish. Write to the company for a catalog listing which gives prices of items available, the number per case, and the sizes of jars and tins. This wholesale firm deals with the leading packers of both North and South America. Walk the warehouse aisles, read off the labels—famous packers' names—every way the eye travels.
Iceland sends trout for the New Yorker's best dinners in a new kind of package of non-essential materials. Nineteen to twenty yellow-bellied fellows, head and tail on, but the insides removed, travel laid out together in one solid ice block. These are for company menus, when six will be served, for you must buy the block whole, approximately five pounds at 80 cents a pound, or in the neighborhood of ＄4. It's at the cold cases of R. H. Macy & Company, Broadway and 34th.
Also from Iceland comes lumpfish caviar, a small black egg, salty “like anything,” the one-ounce tin 38 cents, at Nyborg & Nelson, 841 Third Avenue. That saltiness is dissipated when the fish eggs are mixed with the yolk of hard-cooked egg blended with mayonnaise.
The truffle, that “black diamond” of the kitchen, is coming from Span, imported by Joseph Victori, 164 Pearl Street, a luxury as ever, the one-half ounce tin 45 cents, the five and one-half ounce size priced at ＄4.50.
Spanish turrones are here for the holiday. So are Spanish almonds, Peladillos the kind, an almond smaller than the Jordan. Victori's expect their first shipment of Spanish olive oil this month, but bot later than January first. Imports on the shelf include both Spanish and Portuguese sardines and achovies packed in pure olive oil, Spanish paprika and saffron, and a first shipment of pottery.
Molded chocolates, Swiss in type, smooth, unctuous, top quality, are available by main order from D.Kopper, Bonbonniere, whose little factory at 217 West 80th Street supplies three Kopper shops, two in New York City, 218 West 72nd and 794 Madison Avenue; the third shop newly opened at 162 S. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, Calif.
The candy kinds run into the dozens, but favorites of everyone are the chocolate-covered coffee beans, the lentils, the cherries reeking of Cognac, and—definitely a first with the men—grilled almonds and filberts.
Coffee beans are just that—freshly roasted coffee, ground, then blended with cocoa butter, then molded bean shape, and the beans covered with bittersweet chocolate. The grilled almonds are made by roasting the nuts in sugar until they are slightly caramelized—and what a flavor that gives! It gives, too, a special crispness. The sugar coat seals in all the nut's goodness; no moisture or air can enter to turn the nut soggy. After cooling, the nuts are covered with a thin bittersweet coating—and very thin. Too much chocolate would kill the delicate taste of the almond. The result is a candied nut not overly sweet, for the caramelized sugar has a slightly bitter flavor. Grilled filberts are done in a like manner, but are dipped in a coffee-chocolate for the coating.
For a cross-section sample kit of the D. Kopper chocolates, choose the Renaissance assortment, eleven rows to the pound box, each row different and named on an indicator which fronts the edge of the box. Among the chocolate fruit fillings are cherry, orange, lemon, apricot, and raspberry. Some hold nuts in their middle. One kind is the soft marzipan. The price for the one-pound box is ＄1.50, plus the parcel post charge. The grilled almonds, by the way, are ＄1.50 the pound box.
Among the unusuals for the holiday drink service is Riviera salt toast, 35 cents for about 18 pieces, at Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue. It's toast similar to zwiebach, but heavily salted, with a fried-in-oil taste teasing to the palate. This is served daily, by the way, in the Colony Restaurant's bread baskets.
For your holiday munch list add salted peanuts, these from Maison Glass, 15 East 47th. They're big fellows, dry-roasted, crunchy, delectable, 60 cents a pound.
Walnut meats in maple syrup, also at the Vendome, make a sauce wondrous-rich and crunchy to spoon over pudding, over ice cream, the eleven-ounce jar for 85 cents.