Rain or shine, spring's in the bones. Undeniable evidence at Ye Olde Herb Shoppe, 46 Dey Street, New York. Here are spring tonics for sale, the old-fashioned kinds made of bark, seed, and berry to turn into teas to quicken the blood. Here are boneset and elder flowers, and bark of the sassafras, the red clover heads. But Waldmeister for us, the herb for May wine, 1 ounce 50 cents.
Springtime is teatime. Pass the Dundee shortbread, Keiller's shortbread, a Scottish specialty since 1797. Comes the first shipment in a decade, selling mail order from the FFF Fine Food Store, 35 West Eighth Street, New York. The bread is packed in 1 1/2-pound vacuum tins to guarantee freshness, price ＄1.59, or 3 tins ＄4.50.
Back in 1839 when New York was a young sprig of a city and there was no such thing as a telephone or a cocktail party, the ladies gave teas. From Washington Square around five o'clock came the gentle music of silver spoons against eggshell china; came the small cakes in pastel colors baked by fashionable Dean's on lower Broadway. The same little cakes are in the cases today, now the shop is located uptown at 6 East 57th Street. The petits fours are layers of sponge put together with soft, rich fillings, iced in delicate colors, the price ＄2 a pound, by count about 40 pieces. You pay the postage when ordering by mail. There is a charge of 35 cents for special delivery.
Everybody talks about Smithfield ham from “Ole Virginy.” Few know what it means. Originally this ham was made from the razorback hogs, born and reared in Smithfield and dry-cured in that village, then heavily smoked and allowed to hang for a year. Today a Smithfield ham means much the same thing; it's a ham protected by law from unethical commercial exploitation. Virginia's General Assembly, aroused by the threatened heresy, has passed stringent laws defining genuine Smithfield as the meat of a peanut-fed hog of razorback ancestry, raised in the immediate vicinity of Captain John Smith's namesake village, and cured, smoked, and aged in that place by a formula dating back to early Colonial days.
That original razorback was the blue-blood cavalier of pigdom, bold and free-roaming. Today his descendants are kept within bounds but allowed to grub for a living in woods and swamps during spring and summer. Comes a crisp autumn morning when the peanut vines are frosty in their shocks and the hogs are turned in to root for the unharvested surplus. Such outdoor exercise keeps trim the porcine waistline, and peanuts in the diet give that difference in taste, that softness in texture unlike the firm flesh of hogs corn-fattened. The hogs are traditionally killed idn the late fall, the meat processed under Federal inspection. After chilling, the meat is dry-cured with salt, sugar, black pepper, and other spices, then follows the slow smoking over smoldering embers of hickory and applewood. Summer's heat finishes the job of mellowing the flavor and leaves a lean shank, darkened and weazened but of heavenly aroma. Left to hang, it should gather flecks of mold, the color of old copper, an extra dividend as the mold imparts a distinctive flavor not otherwise to be had.
Want to experiment with a genuine Smithfield ham and not bother with the cooking? Colony Ham Company of Norfolk, Virginia, sell these 8- to 12-pound hams ready to serve, baked with sugar and spices, sauterne-basted, beautifully garnished, the price ＄1.95 a pound plus 50 cents per ham for mailing east of the Mississippi, ＄1 west.
Bellows' Gourmets' Bazaar has a luxury item from France we haven't seen around in eight years, the coquilles St. Jacques, a 6 1/2-ounce tin accompanied by 4 scallop shells, price ＄2.25 for the set. Many the ways to prepare the scallop—with mushrooms and tomatoes, with lobster sauce, with Mornay sacue—but this little tin carries scallops done Brittany style by Courlin Frères; beautifully seasoned with spices and herbs, blessed gently with wine. The scallops are tender, finely cut, made rich of butter. Divide the contents of the tin among the 4 shells, sprinkle with crumbs, butter-dot, and slip under the boiler. Serve as a first course to a very best dinner. Order by mail: Bellows' Gourmets' Bazaar, 67 East 52nd Street, New York, ＄2.25 for the set, plus postage.
A bacon delectable indeed is Forst's Catskill Mountain, and no accident that it is so full-flavored and fine. This comes from select corn-fed hogs, the bacon cured not for days but for long weeks, then smoked to a turn over hickory embers. Each strip is squared into a good, solid chunk, derinded, and all the little cartilages or “buttons” removed for more pleasurable eating. It's a bacon to strengthen one down to the marrow. Smell of bacon frying, visions of brown-hued biscuits and blackberry jelly, of strong coffee steaming hot. Smoked whole-slab bacon, 8 to 12 pounds, is ＄1.20 a pound, delivery charges prepaid from the smokehouse to anywhere in the United States and canada. Address The Forsts, Castkill Mountain Smokehouse, Kingston, New York.
Catch 'em young is the French way when canning a vegetable. The tiniest peas ever put into tins come to us out of France. And have you seen the infant corn? Doll-sized ears just over an inch long, the pearly little kernels barely beginning to form, packed in tarragon vinegar. This relish came before the war and is again in the stores. Epis de Mais, ＄1.15 for a 5-ounce jar at B. Altman, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.
One by one the good things of France return. Sample celery stalks packed in Nantes, Amieux the brand, three thick stalks about five inches long to a 28-ounce tin, tender enough to cut with a fork, no strings, the outside spikes trimmed away. It's the heart you get. This celery can be served as a hot vegetable or as a salad with French dressing.
And sardines à la ravigote, so called in France, but here the label reads “spiced.” Small fish are packed in a sauce mostly olive oil, a little tomato. These are sardines caught off the coast of France and considered the best in the world. They come skinned, the flesh temptingly pink. The bones are dissolved, or almost. Because of the delicacy of the fish, canners cannot handle this sardine on a mass-production basis. This explains the difference in price of French sardines over the average run.
Another Amieux product ready for distribution is sliced tuna in olive oil. The fish used is a white variety weighing six to sixteen pounds caught off the French Atlantic coast from July to September, an entirely different species from the red, which is larger, darker, and much less tender.
Amieux brand items are available at the following New York stores: Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue, Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street, Dover Delicatessen, 683 Lexington Avenue. Here are approximate prices: Sardines in pure olive oil, 4 3/8 ounces 69 cents, spiced sardines, 4 1/2 ounces, 69 cents, sardines in tomato sauce, 3 1/4 ounces, 49 cents. Sliced tuna fish in oil, 4 1/2 ounces, 75 cents, celery hearts 30 ounces, ＄1.29.
Wild thyme honey again, this delicate sweetness gathered from the thyme which covers the slopes of Mount Hymettus. Honey from the very shadow of the Acropolis from the city of Athens, the same honey that mythology mentions as the food and drink of the gods. The price ＄2.10 for the over-1-pound tin, sold in New York City by Gatti & Ruggeri, 406 Sixth Avenue, TelBurn, 161 East 53rd Street, and Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue.
The bees draw sherry with the nectar from the blossoms of the orange when they fill their flagons for making the honey that goes to Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street. The jar reads simply Orange Blossom Honey, simple as that—no shouting. But this clear, smooth amber so rich in mellowness, so suave in bouquet, of such gentle force, is like a delicate wine joyfully vintaged.
Five honey cakes from Deventer, Holland, from the House of Bussink, internationally famous for its honey loaf creations, have been imported here by the Stanley Trading Company of New York. Honey cake for breakfast flavored with orange peel, another with lemon. Cut a slice paper-thin, lay this over a slice of white bread, spread with sweet butter, and eat honey cake as they enjoy it in Holland. Coffee at 10:30 and bring on the cake, again thinly cut, for the goodness is concentrated, spread thick with sweet butter. Late afternoon it's tea-and-honey-cake time, this being the hour to cut the cake they call fruited.
Long and narrow the loaf called Kruidkoek National, its top thickly sprinkled with crumbled candied sugar, the cake a light brown, flavored with maple, citron, and spices. The price is around 75 cents for the 15-ounce size.
Fragrant of spice is the Deventer Kruidkoek scenting the air when the package is opened. This one for tea, so thin slicing it should last for weeks, the over-a-pound cake ＄1.25.
Honey cake lemon-flavored, this loaf for breakfast, Sucadekoek is its name, or have the Debuko, with orange and whole cherries, a double for a light fruit cake. Try wrapping it a few days in a cloth brandy-dampened to take on extra moistness, to give extra goodness. This too, ＄1.25 for 1 pound, 3 ounces.
Plain Honigkoek is a firm loaf, nut-brown; honey plus honey, that's all you can taste, even the spices are muted, 89 cents for 8 ounces.
These cakes stay fresh a long time, as honey absorbs moisture from the air. The cakes are made with the purest of ingredients, for as the law of Holland quaintly puts it, “Nothing shall be used but what the Lord allows to grow and what the little bees gather.” Under these conditions the House of J. B. Bussink was founded at Deventer in the year of grace 1593. Later, when the merchantmen of the Dutch East India Company carried the tricolor of Holland into unknown lands and brought back the fragrant spices from the Orient, Bussink skillfully blended these into his cake. The product won such widespread fame that kings and celebrities visited the humble baker to taste what we know today as an international delicacy. Down the centuries the royal Dutch family has been on the regular customer list for this specialty.
The early-day recipe is still used, never a substitute. So it is we have virtually the same cakes now as when the gallant three-deckers sailed the seas for spice. These cakes are in many cites: Dallas, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, Baltimore, Pittsburgh. Before June the cakes are scheduled for the West Coast. In New York City the Bussink honey cakes are handled by Seven Park Avenue Foods, 107 East 34th Street, B. Altman, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, and Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue.
Lace for sale; beautiful lace, black and shining each sweet thread in its weaving. This lace is made of brittle, poured to a marble slab in delicate pattern, then chocolate-covered. The jagged-edged pieces are packed in layers, thin and lovely, ＄3 the pound, your choice of vanilla or mint flavor, packed in 1 1/2-pound boxes. By mail, postage is extra. Address Marguerite de France, 50 East 58th Street, New York.
An aristocrat among seasoners is the Creole spice- and herb-scented vinegar made for seventy-five years by the A. M. Richter Sons Company. It adds flavor excitement when used to season salads, meats, fish, and vegetables. So many the ways to put it to work, in marinades, soups, and sauces. It does something most special for a pot of baked beans. No sharpness as you might imagine, but smooth, a blend of three vinegards, cider, malt, and the distilled, mellowed by aging in wood. The elusive flavor which is typically Creole results from the use of certain French herbs known in Creole kitchens. A mail-order job, two pints ＄1.50 postpaid, address A. M. Richter Sons Company, Dept. G-2, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. No C.O.D.'s, please!
Always a new mustard sauce taking grocery-shelf space and finding ready welcome. A new one to cross our palate is made by Mrs. John Brodie of Elmira, New York. The look of this sauce proclaims it homemade, so does the taste. A combination of vegetable oil and vinegar thickened with fresh eggs, richened with butter. Onions add flavor, and mustard seeds, turmeric and other spices.
Mrs. Brodie makes only a gallon at a batch, so it is homemade in earnest. Hot or cold, it's smooth over fish, savory in salads, delicious on meats, a perfect base spread for the hors-d'oeuvre sandwich. The dressing was a blue-ribbon winner in the condiment class at the Chemung County Fair last season and sells in the Elmira stores—to name two, the Mark Twain Food Mart and Snyder's. It is handled in New York by B. Altman. Or you may order it direct from the Brodie Packing Company, 913 West Gray Street, Elmira, New York, 33 cents for 5 ounces, 3 bottles for ＄1, plus postage.
Belgian biscuits are back. Previous to 1939, these came in by the thousands of cases, rich butter cookies, a production of Brussels made by the Grande Biscuiterie Royale. Ten kinds of crisp cookies we counted in the 3-pound assortment. Crumbly, rich in the mouth, but not overly sweet, the type of tidbit we like best with tea. Extra good the thin, bisquelike layers put together with butter-cream fillings, these wrapped in red and green foil to point up their importance. Lady fingers are in the box and a chocolate-sandwich type. But all rich and good and nicely fresh, kept so in the airtight tin container, price for 3 pounds ＄3.25 at B. Altman, Fifth Avenue at 34th Street, New York City, also at Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, and the Abraham & Straus store in Brooklyn.
Still another Belgian biscuit firm is shipping, this the century-old house of Jules Des Trooper of Furnes, sending the gaufrette au beurre. These butter-fragrant wafers are sealed into tins, 50 to a box, the weight 1 pound, 2 ounces, price ＄2.83. The waffles are oval-shaped, each about 4 inches long and on the sturdy side, no frail and gossamer thing like the gaufrette of the French; this one has substance. A prize-wimming wafer at the food exhibitions in Europe, winning medals in Paris, Brussels, and Ghent, the recipe a hand-down from father to son. Selling in New York City at Enoch's Delicatessen, 872 Madison Avenue, Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street, and Old Denmark, 135 East 57th Street.
Cela Trix and Cara Trix, twin-sister crackers, are announced by the Devonsheer Melba Corporation. Stamp-sized, these tidbits, made with a special rice flour, very crisp, light in texture, one cracker flavored with celery seeds, the other with caraway. The wafers come foil-bagged and box-packed to insure their crisp keeping, 4 ounces, 49 cents, distribution throughout the country.
Preserves and pickles from the Arthur Bauer Plantation are palate-tempters of the first order. Artichoke relish for one, like a mustard pickle, only more crisp. Also for mail order an apricot-pineapple marmalade, a fresh peach preserve, a sea food and game sauce, a mustard and vegetable relish, an orange marmalade, and a fresh peach chutney, every last item passing the taste test with a blue-ribbon grade. The assortment of 6, or 6 of any one item, ＄5.75, postage prepaid east of the Mississippi, 75 cents extra west of the big river. Address Arthur Bauer, Walterboro, South Carolina.