It's easy turning the year's new leaf—but it takes determination to make it stay turned. We advocate quality leaf-turning rather than quantity, and make so bold as to give a few New Year's cooking resolutions for the ladies which should, in turn, get a big cheer from the men.
Cook food for flavor, not for the sole effect upon the bathroom scales.
Don't cook to astonish other women, or just to please yourself. Cook to delight your man. Forget about landscaping the salad—men hate such creations, and it's bad taste, anyhow.
Don't forget all men like gravy.
Don't tilt your nose at ground beef—learn ways to use the year's “dependable.” Present it with elegance and with cheer for the palate.
Experiment with the use of wines and herbs and spices; then taste humdrum dishes turned into humdingers.
Down with cooking boredom. Look to “Food Flashes” for dozens of little taste excellencies and for new shops with strange wares off beaten trails. Come on, chin in, head up. Let us say with Edwin Markham:
“Now I turn to the future for wine and bread
I have bidden the past adieu
I laugh and lift hands to the year ahead
Come on! I'm ready for you.”
Newest sign of these quick-frozen times is a tray of cocktail hors d'oeuvres to haul from the freezer, defrost, and pass with the drinks. A fancy tray-load, twenty-four pieces, filled six different ways—with anchovy paste, liver pâté, ham, cervelat, sausage and cheddar, cheddar and ham. This last is made by slicing bread the long way of a long loaf, slicing it tissue thin with a mechanical cutter. Softened butter is spread over it, then a smear of softened cheese, a layer of ham. Now the rolling, now the cutting into rings which measure about one and one-half inches across. The Dover Food Shop, 683 Lexington, long famous for its hors d'oeuvres, is turning these out for the Pratt-Smith freezers. The novelty sells in the R. H. Macy cold case, 34th and Broadway, Dussourd & Filser, 960 Madison, and the Empire Food shop, 339 Lexington, the price ＄1.65 for a tray of two dozen sandwiches.
“Kitchen Orchestra” plays the opening overture to a year of better eating This is no tin pan, skillet clash, and bang racket; it's a ten-product kit, designed to play herbal melodies on the palate. The packer is Pat Winter, high priestess of the House of Herbs and its 400 acres of rolling farmland at Juniper Hills, Canaan, Conn. Pat packed in the familiar classics of her line—rosemary, marjoram, savory, and the dried leaves of celery. That big jar is her famous herb-flavored mustard sauce, French in its character, seven herbs in its get-together, with a good smack of brandy from the Winters' home cellar.
“Tomate Teasoning” is a new seasoning, already a leader, a blend of dehydrated tomato flakes and other stand-by flavoring vegetables, with granulated bouillon, with spices herbs. Myriad are its uses—for broiled meats, for egg and cheese dishes, to enhance vegetables, gravies, and sauces. A surprise for the breakfast eggs, and giddy as paprika. Use it a browning agent for chops, steaks, and fried potatoes; add it to the marinade.
And that isn't all—Kitchen Orchestra includes three herb-scented wine vinegars: the herb'n'spice, the basil, and the one strong with garlic.
A recipe booklet goes along, detailing new ways to star this box-load of products. Kit price ＄5.25, at Bloomingdale Brothers, 59th and Lexington, H. Hicks and Son, 660 Fifth Avenue, Lewis & Conger, Sixth Avenue and 45th, and Abraham & Straus, 420 Fulton Street, Brooklyn. Or you may order a trial set in miniature, price ＄2.65, post-paid, direct from the House of Herbs, Juniper Hills, Canaan, Conn. Stocks on these are limited.
Toasting the figs to enjoy with the wine cup is an old Italian tradition being given trial here. The Cresca Company is packing figs split, but not quite in half, each stuffed with an almond, then sprinkled lightly with anise. Split figs are layered, cut side down, one over another to make exactly a pound. Now a bay leaf goes on the top and a cellophane wrapping, the price 95 cents at B. Altman & Company, Fifth Avenue and 34th. Before serving, run the figs into a hot oven, just long enough to heat and make their juices more willing. And warming brings out that licorice taste of the anise. Serve the big halves with the spiritous cup, Port wine if you like, or a glass of Vermouth or the ubiquitous Sherry.
Snacks for six? Quick, the can-opener. There you are, friends without more ado. it's a new pâté made of pork livers, of fresh pork, or pork fat, of soup stock, of wheat germ. There's dried skim milk in the mixture, and French-fried onions, pulverized to powder, and dried brewer's yeast for its vitamin impact, and seasonings, of course! A tin of six ounces is priced around 17 cents and is selling right now in hundreds of stores in New York City and other cities right across the nation. Its name is Sell's Liver Pate, made by Henry B. Sell, of Sell's Planned Foods, 501 Madison.
This pâté is a great, great grand-daughter of the Rose Mill liver pâté, remember? That came along with the war. That Rose Mill pâté was the civilian version of a protein-fortified pâté Mr. Sell was packing—and still is, for that matter—for Red Cross shipment abroad. The new liver spread still carries a double-barreled load of nutrition, but nevertheless is sophisticated and pleasant eating. It makes a quick spread for sandwiches. it combines easily with other flavorful ingredients such as chopped celery and onion to heap on a cracker.
It's not a gourmet's delicacy such as that pâté de foie gras that once came from France, re-refrigerated every mile of the journey, that was made of the liver of the fatted goose of Strasbourg. It was truffled and sealed over with its own rich butter, a stuff smooth as silk and twice as subtle, exciting to the palate with its flavor so faintly decadent. Mr. Sell's pâté isn't like that, of course, but it doesn't cost you a fortune. It's a sound, simple pâté with a fresh, pleasant taste, and is not overly seasoned. It curls the mouth with anticipation—but not voluptuously.
Louisiana sends a natural brown rice to market partially pre-cooked, then dehydrated. This rice cooks tender in fifteen minutes, giving a fluffy character very like that of the wild crop, with the same speckly dark look. It has a faint something of the wild rice's smoky sweetness, but nothing of its war-time ritziness in price. It sells at the Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison, for 25 cents a pound. Numerous restaurants of the city are using it as a substitute for wild rice, which is scarce as hen's teeth and at prices unthinkable except for the very special occasion.
If you want the real thing, order it from the Hammacher Schlemmer delicacy shop, 145 East 57th, the price ＄2.50 for the pound box, plus parcel post. That certainly should lend the Midas touch to your dining.
In “Little House” kitchen at Newtown, Conn., chutney's been brewing the long summer moths through, its recipe as guarded as coronation jewels. This we do know: it is a three-fruit, four-vegetable concoction, tanged up with vinegar, all highly spiced. The ingredients are finely cut, and cooked very tender. it is piquant, stimulating chutney lending a warming fillip to almost any meat flavor. IT informs you that hot spices are present. it informs you of tomato. little yellow tomato cooked to a golden-glass transparency, thin slivers of orange rind, and maybe there's melon. But you would never know one piece from the other by the taste test—all are so cozily bedded together in the hot sauce. Bellows' Gourmets' Bazaar, 67 East 52nd, handles the Currituck chutney, the sixteen-ounce jar ＄1.25.
Iceland sends caviar taken from the lumpfish,a black roe very tiny, and salty “like anything.” Salty enough so that Mr. Pepys would have enjoyed this before his liquid breakfast. Reading Samuel's diary, 1659 to 1669, one finds numerous references to anchovies, to mullet roe pressed and dried, called “botarga,” used as a thirst-provoker for the morning's eye-opener. The lumpfish caviar fits every man's purse, one ounce 38 cents, at Nyborg & Nelson, 841 Third Avenue. Its saltiness, we find, can be dissipated if blended half-and-half with finely chopped egg, then all blended with mayonnaise. A nice tidbit for the everyday occasions.
Fresh coconut is on the market, grated, sweetened, quick-frozen in its own milk. Defrosted, it tastes exactly like the fresh and may be used in the same manner in pies, puddings, and cakes. Macy's has the product, the price 24 cents for the eight-ounce carton.
Another Macy quick-frozen item is unsweetened orange juice, twelve ounces to a tin, price 23 cents—orange juice for two. Quick-frozen sugared apricot halves, no ration points sell in the Bohack, A & P, and Grand Union chains, the sixteen-ounce package 38 cents—fragrant and delectable as the fresh fruit.
If you haven't met whole artichokes packed in tarragon vinegar, the pleasure is all ours. The artichokes are cooked, and come ready to serve, four tender, flawless thistle flowers to a pint jar, “Old Monk” brand, price 75 cents. at Gristede's Bon Voyage Shop, 12 Vanderbilt Avenue. Here is a salad for four to use without additional dressing. Trim off the artichoke stem to make it sit firm. Open out the leaves—a green and yellow flower. Nest the blossom in a ring of sprightly watercress. Sprinkle the greenery with vinegar from the jar. Now salt lightly, and serve—a five-minute salad.