To win a ＄50 bet, Melanie Bouchelle McCarthy, an Evanston, Illinois house-wife, baked an old-fashioned English fruitcake and, using it as a sample, sold an 1800-pound order to a Chicago department store grocery. That was in 1935; since the Mrs. McCarthy has never stopped baking. Today, thirty-five local housewives assist her filling orders for cakes, puddings, and the numerous delicacies of her “Charlotte Charles” line which sell coast to coast.
The neighborhood card club was in session when the telephone interrupted. It was a needy friend with a fruitcake to offer. Talk turned to what home women were doing to help their husbands financially through the depression.
“I would never ask a friend,” said the outspoken Mrs. McCarthy, “I'd sell commercially.” “Well, you couldn't sell anything these times, except to your friends,” one woman retorted. “One can sell any product, any time, if it's the best of its kind,” Mrs. McCarthy insisted. The acquaintance bet her ＄50 that she couldn't do it. Mrs. McCarthy took the bet seriously.
Collecting old recipes had long been the hobby of Melanie McCarthy; among her treasures was a hand-written cookbook over three hundred years old, a heritage of the house of Charlotte Charles a cook who had been famous in the time of Napoleon. This treasure book supplied the recipe for the old English fruitcake Mrs. McCarthy had been baking at Christmas for twenty-five years. She baked the cake now to carry into Chicago to try selling to food stores.
The first buyer approached flatly said “No,” explaining that the store's 1800. pound annual holiday order would go to the firm they had dealt with for a decade. “But taste, anyway,” the baker had urged. The buyer tasted, and her eyes bugged out. She said, “That's the best fruitcake I ever are. But home cakes,” she added, “seldom turn out as a uniform product.” Mrs. McCarthy guaranteed every cake she baked would be the same quality. The buyer carried a sample to the president of the store, a connoisseur of fine foods. Mrs. McCarthy got that 1800-pound order.
The tough job now was a produce cake in such quantity. Mr. McCarthy begged his wife to cancel the deal, he would pay off the bet. Mrs. McCarthy was scared but undaunted. First she figured the amount of each ingredient needed for a 20-pound baking. This figure she multiplied by 90 and bought supplies wholesale. She made the basement playroom a kitchen, installed fluorescent light and five secondhand gas bake ovens purchased from the Salvation Army. She bought baking tins, and the work began. To get out the order in the specified time meant baking 130 pounds daily. Her maid helped, and her two sons.
Mixing, that was the backache. Mrs. McCarthy's brother came calling. “What you need,” he said, “is a mechanical mixer.” His sister snorted—her cake would be ruined if it wasn't hand-blended. Her brother sent the mixer regardless, and it worked like a charm. The cake order was delivered two weeks ahead of time. The ＄50 bet was collected, but the cake-baking continued. Other products were added, all from the Charlotte Charles cookbook. Came a plum pudding, its fruits mellowed in brandy, the least bit of flour, whole milk, country-fresh eggs, all delicately accented with freshly ground spices. Each pudding is aged in old brandy for six months or longer.
Followed a de luxe line of sauces, the brandy cherry sauce suggested as a substitute for hard sauce for the rich pudding. The sherry pralines were originally a favorite tidbit in the court of Empress Eugenie, but it was the debut of the Napoleon rum cakes which brought the kitchen to fame. These honeyed sweets, scented of spices, tipsy of rum, are said to have been heartscase to Napoleon during his stay on the island of Elba. Charlotte Charles, then cook to the household of Count Antoine Drouot, governor of the island, made the cakes frequently for the “Little General.” A glamorized version of the Charlotte Charles story was printed in folder form to accompany the cakes. Here was more than mere cake, here was romance unlimited, and the public adored it.
Today the business is a mother-and-sons partnership. The home kitchen has given way to one of almost factory size, located in a remodeled supermarket. The secondhand gas stoves are gone; in their stead are modern revolving bakery-sized ovens. Outside warehouses are rented to store the kitchen supplies. The selling is handled by selected representatives for Charlotte Charles. The line is stocked in the better department and food stores in all the states and Hawaii.
Onion soup with wine, not one wine but two, sherry and Chablis, is the soup news of autumn, the packer Moore and Company, 137 Beekman Street, New York, a kitchen long famous for soups made with big Caribbean turtle. It's no easy trick canning wine with the onion—but pleasing results, with a special type of Spanish onion, sweet and delicate of aroma. These onions are sliced in thin rings, about 120 pounds to 50 gallons of stock and fried golden in butter, the very best butter. The stock is made on the sweet side, of marrow bones, with turtle meat, with some twenty seasonings. When ready for canning, imported sherry and Chablis are added to the broth, added according to formula but double-checked by taste test, as wines will very and onions, too, have wide difference in flavor. The Chablis wine has a duty to perform. Its job is to encourage the flavor of the sherry.
Float on the surface of this onion soup a small raft of buttered toast laden with Parmesan and then slid under the broiler until the cheese melts. Great medicine for a flagging spirit! Moore's onion soup, “Bon Vivant” brand, can be ordered through Hammacher Schlemmer, 145 East 57th Street, the 13-ounce tin 30 cents or a dozen tins for ＄3.50; a 35-ounce size 70 cents or a dozen tins for ＄8.25.
A pet of ours—Bellows' Gourmets' Bazaar, 67 East 52nd Street, New York. No crowding of the delicacies; in fact, the stock is rather limited, comparatively speaking. Only the finest of merchandise. Here we find glacé cherries without artificial flavor put up in a sugar-syrup to use as a garnish for puddings and cakes, 14-ounce jars, ＄1.25. Last call is now to the holiday cake bakers. Bellows have diced fruits mixed with diced citron, 14 ounces for 70 cents—you will look far to find better. Bellows fruits in brandy make an exquisite dessert. Every fig, peach, and nectarine individually selected, then matured in old brandy. A trifle potent. But most good eaters can carry a couple of platefuls.
What we especially want to tell you about is the new tea sampler, nine kinds in a tin box, 1 ounce of each, the price ＄1.75 for the lot. Each tea is at its zenith of power and perfection. By name: Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Lapsang, Formosa ooling, the Marco Polo blend made with Keemuns, a Buckinghouse blend of Ceylons, and still another Ceylon combination, the Regents blend. Taste, then sip, try one tea against another. Learn the one you like best; each of the nine also sells by the pound.
Winter promises well. Crawfood Norris, importer of the Frank Cooper line of English marmalades and fresh fruit preserves, has received the Oxford marmalade again, made by a recipe handed down from the seventies. Seville oranges for this, pure sugar only, no flavoring, no gelatin, the peel hand-cut. It's a marmalade aged to give body and rich, mellow flavor. After the initial boiling, the stuff is allowed to stand for months in specially cooled vaults to blend the juices and oils. Not until the peel is soft and the full orange tang developed, is the marmalade packed in the small earthenware jars. Like good wine, it keeps for long years.
Again the Oxford vintage, this a 1943-pack marmalade for the connoisseur, made only in vintage crop years, matured four to five seasons. The vintage year preceding this was 1933. These marmalades have deeper color, better body, greater richness than the usual year-by-year run. They cost more, too, as becomes a vintage product, the price around ＄1 for a proud crock.
Cooper's fresh-fruit preserves are in the stores, strawberry, black currant, black cherry, raspberry. The strawberries used are selected from the best English gardens, picked, then cooked the same day. The black heart cherry is the one Cooper preserves, the one generally grown on the north wall of an old-fashioned garden, carefully stoned, then preserved whole. Too often a black currant preserve is a mere travesty of the name. Not so with Cooper's. This is a preserve of rare quality, of whole fruit and full flavor. Ask for these items in the delicacy shops of your nearest big city.
More good news: Carr and Company have resumed shipment of their English biscuits, packed in soldered tins as in the prewar years. Coming are the water biscuits, Petit Beurre, Maries, shortcakes, ginger nuts, custard cream, and one called Nice, also the British assortment. Seen around New York at Hammacher Schlemmer, 145 East 57th Street; Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street; Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue; Martin's, 1042 Madison Avenue.
The cheese-flavored beaten biscuits of Mary B. Merritt, beaten-biscuit queen of Montgomery, Alabama, are back in circulation. And have you tried the Merritt “cheese morsels”? Seventy-two rich, tasty squares of pastry, price ＄1.25 at Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street.
The gold-and-green-skinned Comice, perfumed, creamy in texture, is a pear to remember for Christmas gift-giving. A fruit de luxe for the holiday dinner. Serve it with cheese, thick slices of pear, thin slices of Cheddar. Boxes of these pears can be ordered direct from the orchard for as low as ＄2.95 for a No. 1 pack of 10 to 14 pears according to size, the No. 2 box holds 18 to 24 pears, ＄4.75. There is also an assorted fruit chest, 14 pounds ＄5.75, and a basket of fruits, Comice included, 18 pounds ＄11.85. Write for the free catalogue. Address Pinnacle Orchards, 480 Fir Street, Medford, Oregon.
Christmas packages that give every penny of their money's worth are those of Grace Rush, stuffed with an assortment of the delectables which make up her food line. One box weight over 25 pounds, chockablock with good things, ＄19 to ＄20.
Glamour star of the pack is the fruit-cake, a three-pounder, the famous Martha Ann cake of which Mrs. Rush is so rightfully proud. These cakes are baked six months to a year and a half in advance of the holiday season, then aged in bonded brandy, and placed in a redwood cold-storage vault to let ripen slowly. The cake is a masterful blend of ten kinds of choice fruits, five kinds of nuts, creamery butter, fresh eggs, spices. sherry, and old brandy. A cake oblong in shape, originated by Mrs. Rush thirty-three years ago when she began business. Eleven cakes were sold her first year, weighing three pounds apiece; today a year's sales total one hundred and fifty tons.
What else in the box? Spiced almonds, a jar of ginger, three different conserves, two of the new ice cream sauces introduced only last summer. And what we like best are the packets of glacéed dates, apricots, prunes, and the tender candied peels. Here's the brandied hard sauce. Serve that rich cake as a pudding, cut in thick slices and heated in the double boiler; spoon on the sauce.
John Rush, son of the baker, told us a cake must be rich of fruit altogether excellent to go over well in such fashion. Many a competition cake, John is convinced, just wouldn't be fit to eat dished as pudding. The hard sauce is made of the finest bonded brandy, creamery butter, sugar, and fresh eggs.
The same gift-box assortment, but in a smaller size, sells around ＄12, and a junior package is priced at ＄8.50. The Grace Rush fruit cake, a 2 ½-pound size, is available hermetically sealed in tin, price ＄3.65.
This winter Mrs. Rush is making the butter-pecan mints, pecan pieces, that's what, delicately sugar-frosted, the coating mint-flavored. Most pleasant for tea, and nice to pass after dinner. Maplette is a new Martha Ann candy. Pecans for this, coated in maple-flavored sugar, the nuts tender and crisp, like infant pralines. These, too, in the assortment, or purchase them separately, ＄1.18 for the 9-ounce box. Martha Ann ginger is being processed this winter for the first time since 1941, and selling crystallized and preserved. The very finest Canton ginger is imported for these packs, arriving in syrup in 224-pound casts, then reprocessed at the Rush plant in Cincinnati, Ohio. The finished ginger is mellow in flavor, not too hot, not too sweet, ever so tender.
The crystallized regular ginger sells in 4- and 8-ounce boxes, the stem ginger comes in Rockwood jars, this a Cincinnati pottery of renown since 1880 and winner of 12 world awards, now on display in 23 museums. The little pots are in four colors. Chinese green, Chinese blue, porcelain white, dragon red, 5-ounce size, price ＄2.85. The Martha Ann delicacies can be purchased item by item, or in the gift assortments, in the following New York City stores: B. Altman, Fifth Avenue at 34th Street; Gristede Brothers, 55 East 59th Street; Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue; Louis Sherry, 769 Fifth Avenue. In Brooklyn, Abraham & Straus; in Newark, L. Bamberger & Company. Farther afield, we locate the line in the Old Mill Inn Town House, Morristown, New Jersey; at William B. Chase, Inc., Providence, Rhode Island; H. & S. Pogue Company, Cincinnati, Ohio; Halle Brothers Company, Cleveland, Ohio; Young-Quinlan Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Davision-Paxon Company, Atlanta, Georgia; Stewart Dry Goods Company, Louisville, Kentucky; Fred Wolferman, Kansas City, Missouri; Nieman-Marcus Company, Dallas, Texas; Joske, San Antonio, Texas; White House Dry Goods Company, Beaumont, Texas; The Kaune Grocery Company, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Liquid spice and herb flavors are a new idea being introduced in the East by Nandor Szasz, a Hungarian-American engineer and chemist. Now, drop by drop, you can add ginger to cooky batter, cinnamon to sauce, black pepper to stew, sweet Marjoram to stuffing. Dash a splash of thyme into the stewed tomatoes. A measured splash, that is, as each flavoring bottle is closed with a presented cork equipment with a dropper, a screw top over all. Remove top and shake out the contents, one drop at a time.
These fluid flavorings are prepared on the same principle as any extract; that is, the essential oils from the various spices and herbs are combined with alcohol and water to give a concentrated essence. A point favoring herbs in extracts is that time cannot dull the vibrant flavor held in the alcohol base. Dried herbs and ground spices, as you know, lose their essential oils by evaporation over the months. Another virtue to chalk up for oils in solution is that, being already extracted, they can impart their flavor immediately.
We like this drop method especially when seasoning with herbs, finding it easier to use and more accurate than adding dried leaves by pinches. But when it comes to using spearmint, vanilla, almond, and orange extracts in recipes calling for flavors by spoon measures, the drop method seems more bother than the open bottle.
The herb-set assortment has garlic, tarragon, thyme, mint, marjoram, and rosemary, the six racked in a stationary lazy susan-type of holder of green plastic material, price ＄2.50. The spice holder is brown, the kinds: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, anise, and celery, too, though hardly a spice. The new set is named “Sperb,” the idea being that these extracts flavor dishes superbly, as well as combining spice and herb. Selling at Lewis & Conger, Sixth Avenue at 45th Street, Vendome, 415 Madison Avenue; Charles & Company, 340 Madison Avenue, and Stumpp and Walter, 132 Church Street, New York.
If you like a crisp, rather brittle candy with a homemade taste, rich of butter, Almond Perfection will please to the last crumb. The brittle, or call it a roca, is thick with toasted almonds, or it may be made with hazelnuts. The candy is enveloped with a thin coating of bitter-sweet chocolate, then thickly dusted with finely ground nut crumbs. So very crisp, yet tender enough to bite without breaking a tooth. The pieces average about 1 ½ inches across. Some are oblong, some square, each piece individually wrapped in wax paper, about 27 in a pound carton which is attractively covered in a pastel metallic paper. Made only to order, selling by mail for ＄2.25 a pound. Address Ina Shallenberger, Harrods Creek, Kentucky.