Why the tasting? we wanted to know. Just to prove that postwar Switzerland Swiss is as fine in its quality as that which came previously. The cheese sampled was about seven months old, the age when a Swiss is said to be at its best in taste and in texture. It had the usual sweet nutty flavor when slowly chewed and savored.
A fact not generally known which was explained to us by Mr. A. C. Dolder, secretary of the Switzerland Cheese Association, is that the Swiss milk co-operatives had begun preparing for the war as early as 1933. (That's smelling a rat.) To become independent of imported seeds, they reduced by federal decree the size of their cattle stocks to the size of their land. Another decree prohibited the sale of hard cheese (Switzerland included) unless it was two years of age. Through such measures, Switzerland was able to build a large emergency cheese stock which served as a reserve source of proteins when the country became surrounded by the Axis and milk fat had to be used for the production of butter. The long holding period was made feasible by a delayed curing process during which the cheese acquires a “tissue” age of only about eight months while it reached a physical age of two years. Stocks of this delayed-cure cheese are being depleted now by consumption in Switzerland and through relief shipments into the various countries of Europe. The whole milk cheese which is currently being produced is made again to prewar standards.
Delphine Berry, the creator of those brandy-soaked fruitcakes baked in processed grapefruit shells, has a new delight for the enhancement of the Easter duckling. But if you can't snare a duckling, there are other ways to use these crystallized orange slices, dizzy of rum—or of brandy, if you say so. Each thick slice is individually packed in a cellophane envelope, four in a set, to use as you need them; leftovers keep tender, rum-fragrant. The orange slices are crystallized, then let stand in their syrup to mellow five days. When ready for packing they are drained, oven-dried a few minutes, the dark rum is poured over, all they can drink. Then into crystallized sugar and into the envelope, sealed tight against air until the moment of opening. These rings are nice halved and used to circle a duckling as platter decoration. The slices may be cut into bite sizes and eaten as a confection, or used whole as a base for a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The price is 60 cents a package of four thick rings, handled by the Woman's Exchange, 541 Madison Avenue and at Farm and Garden Shop, 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
Fresh rabbits dressed for the frying pan are shipped direct to your house from the hutches of Mr. and Mrs. Lucius Fairchild of Rhinebeck, New York, the price 70 cents per pound, plus the mailing charges. For a two-pound package shipped parcel post, special delivery, mailing would cost about 28 cents in New York City and vicinity. A four-pound package is around 38 cents. The rabbit shipper pays the postage, then adds the amount to the bill which follows along the first of the month. These rabbits are especially raised for flavor and tenderness and dressed as you wish, cut for frying or fricassee, or whole for pan-roasting.
Whitebait, that pygmy but royal race of the fish world, has returned to the markets, tons upon tons of it.
The lineage of these toothsome viands is a point of argument. Some believe them an indiscriminate mixing of the fry of many fish families. English whitebait, you may hear, are the young of the herring that swim up the Thames from the sea. In the Fish and Seafood Cook, by Cora, Rose, and Bob Brown, is this listing by nations of the fish young used as whitebait: “In Italy it is the young of anchovies and sardines. On the coasts of Portugal and Spain, the young of eels. Scandinavians use rose fish, and the Orientals, young smelts. In some places whitebait is the young fry of the flying fish.” In the Middle West and Far West, the young of any fish, no matter what the origin, are called whitebait, and fried they are considered a great indulgence.
But in New York whitebait is whitebait. Those silvery little fish, not three inches long, are full-grown fish, and not babes netted in the charm of their youth. Their family name—and both the Aquarium and the Museum of Natural History back us up on this point—is the “silverside.” The common silverside is a spearing. Just a few of these are in now; more will be along. The tidewater silverside is the whitebait, running from two to three inches in length, a midget when compared to a spearing, which may stretch out half a foot. Whitebait are found generally in the fresh water of coastal streams between Cape Cod and Chesapeake Bay.
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