Giving a party? Want cheese, lots of cheese to serve pass-the-tray fashion? Order the gold box from the Dairyland Cheese Company Madison 3, Wisconsin, and you get 9 ¾ pounds of cheese cut in large pieces of American, Brick, Swiss, Smoked Ham. Appetizer Bleu, La Gourmay, and a spread. The price is ＄10.90, west of Denver ＄11.25.
The Dairyland Cheese Company has a dozen box assortments, but one to interest the cheese especially is the kit carrying the cheeses of many lands. How appropriate that this comes out of Wisconsin, a state that is literally the melting pot of all nations. Among the hills of southwestern Wisconsin live the Swiss, descendants of those who settled there around 1854. On the eastern side of the state are the Dutch. Farther north is the largest group of all, the Scandinavians. Here also are the French, the Italians, the Germans. All good Americans, this third generation, but they have not forgotten the ways of Old World cheese-making handed down to them. The cheese made by these artists is not substitute, but the real thing, made from recipes and formulas brought over years ago and still used with the pride and care of the Old World craftsman. These are the cheeses Dairyland searches out to fill their baskets and boxes.
In the Foreign Types Box, which sells for ＄4.45 east of Denver, ＄4.60 west, are five types: Edam of Holland, Swiss of Switzerland, Gorgonzola of Italy, Romadour of Batavia, and La Gourmay of France.
Two years ago, the state's centennial year, Dairyland packed the Centennial Box of seven kinds of old-fashioned varieties. This proved so popular they still offer the assortment: American, Gouda, Lady Lynn, brick, smoked, La Gourmay, and caraway, a 4-pound total for ＄5 east of Denver, ＄5.20 west.
Yes, this firm has an old American cheese, too, one with real tang, the result of patient aging, the 5-pound loaf ＄4.50 postpaid east of Denver, ＄4.65 west.
Fat sassy, and altogether delectable—the salted peanuts we ordered in a 3-pound tin from the heart of the peanut country, Suffolk, Virginia. The Peanuts are supersize and all the same size, packed whole, not a skin in the lot, and generously salted, carefully cooked in pure vegetable oil, and given a uniform, golden-drown cast. We couldn't keep our hand out of the peanut tin once it came to rest on the desk. We'd pound down the lid, determined “not another bite.” Then there we'd be with the scissors, prying the lid loose again.
These are Cockey brand jumbo Virginia peanuts of proud heritage, born and bred in the very heart of America's most famous peanut land. Only the largest cream-of-the-crop nuts go into this pack. Tender to eat and just oily enough to moisten the lips. Three pounds anywhere in the United States for ＄2.25; address the Old Reliable Peanut Company, Department G, Suffolk, Virginia.
Two sauces to keep on the shelf are Diable and Robert, these the same sauces that were created and served by the world-renowned chef, A. Escoffier. The sauce diable is a piquant mix much appreciated with all kinds of grills. It may be used, too, in flavoring gravies and egg dishes. Blend it with butter, and it makes a good spread on bread for meat or fish sandwiches. We like it for Seasoning the stuffed potato. Let it lift the face of a salad, be it meat or fish.
Sance Robert has a more delicate flavor, yet one exciting for its subtlety. Best with chops, steaks, and cold meats. The sauces sell East Coast, West Coast, and cities in-between, the price around 95 cents for the 6-ounce bottle. Julius Wile Sons and Company of New York are the importers.
Our capacity for curry and plenty of chutney is a source of admiration for curry-eating friends. So When we recommend a chutney for trial, believe us, it isn't done absent-mindedly. We abhor chutneys of stray mixtures, not properly mellowed. When it comes to chutney, we are a bundle of prejudices. We like the exotic mixture to be of sweet-sour character, yet not sweet, not sour, not sharp, but gently spiced. We like chutney with a mango base, the fruit cut in fair sizes so there is something in earnest for the teeth to touch.
This month we found a chutney quite to our liking, Boral and Sen, Major Grey's India chutney, well known on the West Coast, only now being introduced in the East. It is made from sliced ripe mangoes with vinegar, with pure cane sugar, with spices, and the heat of ginger.
Originally the Indian preparation of mango chutney was sweet, hot, and sour in equal proportions—but too hot for a certain Major Grey in the Indian Army. He devised his own formula and had his neighborhood store prepare the blend. Others admired the Major Grey concoction, and it came gradually into commercial use. The Boral and Sen brand is one of the original Major Grey packs put up in Calcutta.If your local grocer can't supply you, write or have him write to Juillard Fancy Foods Company, 235 Front Street, San Francisco 11, California.
Good smoked salmon, cut thinly against the grain, is an estimable tidbit worthy of the finest table. Salmon, more than any other viand except ham, demands a skilled carver to interpret its beauty. Once the slices are thick or uneven, it loses enormously in the delicacy of its flavor. One of the finest Nova Scotia salmon we have tried is cured in Continental style and smoked by the Blue Ribbon Smoked Fish Company, Dept. G, 570 Smith Street, Brooklyn 31, selling sliced, and perfectly sliced as it should be, at ＄2.25 a pound. If you prefer to buy a large piece and do your own carving, you can get half a fish, about 3 pounds or a little more, at ＄2 the pound.
This firm has smoked sturgeon, also sliced, to sell at ＄5 a pound; unsliced, the whole piece, 1 ½ pounds or more. ＄4.75 a pound. Offered, too, are imported smoked rainbow trout about nine inches long. Good as a late evening repast are the flaked bits of the smoke-tinged fish laid on hot, buttered toast. Of course, wine to sip with your loaf and fishes. Price ＄1.25 per fish, shipped air-express charges collect. No C.O.D.'s please, not for these perishables.
Long have the one-portion soups been packed for restaurants and fountain bars, but not until now for the live-alone cooks. At least not such a cream-of-the-crop collection as the new Heublein Food Importing Company of New York has selected to put into small tins, each about 7½ ounces, every last one a luxury.
Stout, sustaining dish, the onion soup, its stock made with fresh marrow bones and turtle meat. The onions, the sweet Spanish of delicate aroma, sliced, sauteed .pb1 in butter, the ratio one hundred twenty pounds of onions to fifty gallons of stock. There is imported sherry and Chablis in the broth. The Chablis has a duty to perform, its job to encourage the flavor of the sherry. Heat the soup, turn it into a bowl, float on its surface a small raft of buttered toast laden with Parmesan, slide under the broiler until the cheese melts. There's a second onion soup in the set and superbly fine, this a la bretonne, flavored with a touch of tomato instead of wine.
The black bean soup, smooth and chocolate-colored, is enriched with tasty morsels of tender ham. Just for one, fresh lobster bisque made with creamery butter, highlighted with sherry. Fresh mushrooms are cooked in light cream to make a brew thickened with egg yolks, labeled cream of mushroom.
On the summer soup list is creamed vichyssoise, a jellied consomme, and a clear green turtle that jellies when chilled overnight. These individual portions are convenient for twosome families where tastes disagree. If he wants onion and she wants lobster, take your pick, folks. Heat and eat. Prices for three tins are as follows: vichyssoise 60 cents, onion 75 cents, Bretonne onion 75 cents, black bean 70 cents, jellied consomme 75 cents, clear green turtle ＄1.05, lobster bisque ＄1.05, creamed mushroom 85 cents; sold by Stumpp & Walter Company, Epicure Food Mart, Department GO, 132 Church Street, New York 8, as well as in other fine groceries across the country.
Stumpp and Walter also has something that's been scarce since the war, Bar-le-Duc jelly, 3¼-ounce jars,three for ＄1.70. This jelly is made of currants chosen for their extra large size, produced in the Departement of Meuse, in France, their name taken from the capital of the departement. The seeds are removed by skilled workers using goose quills sharpened to a fine point. The carefully seeded whole fruit is made into jelly, the boiling of brief duration, which leaves each currant plump and brightly red to gleam enticingly through the glass.
Serve the jelly with coeur a la cream, for instance. The last time GOURMET ran its recipe was in June, 1949. This is one to remember for a red-and-white dessert for that Valentine party.
Pickling the cherry is a brand-new idea borrowed from colonial housewives who pickled everything grown. The cherry is done in the manner of the olive but so different in texture, in flavor. Pretty, the stems left on and packed in two colors, the giant Bings almost black, the Royal Annes faintly golden. Serve them as olives on the snack tray or as a relish with dinner. Four jars,I pound each,＄3.55, or two of the jars, ＄1.85 delivered. Send check to Myron Foster's Hesperian Orachard (G-49), Wenatchee, Washington.
Now to tell you a story of a Swiss cooking aid, an old-timer on the chef's shelf, Maggi by name. Sixty years ago' on the River Kemp in Switzerland twenty miles from Zurich, a small factory was started to make this cooking produce that soon became famous around the Continent.For half a century the most distinguished culinary artists of Europe have been using this enhancer of flavor to glorify their celebrated dishes. The late Escoffier called it the perfect adjunct to the kitchen.
American hotels and restaurants employing European chefs have used the product for about thirty-five years. Chefs who knew Maggi abroad begged importers to bring in small amounts. Hotel orders so increased during the twenties that one importing firm, quick to see ahead, arranged with the Swiss factory to introduce the product here to the general public. Now home cooks began to learn of its usefulness.
Maggi is principally of vegetable origin, made from a variety of garden crops which grow on the Swiss farms stretching for miles along the Valley Kemp.It is not a spicy sauce of the pour-over type, nor is it intended to change the taste of a food. Its purpose is to emphasize, to intensify, the natural goodness of a dish. No matter how clever you are about cooking, one cannot depend always upon uniform results. Drought,excessive heat, or rain may rob foods of their customary taste, and certain foods are basically low in natural flavors. Here's an aid to strengthen the taste and bring out the subtle hidden notes, yet never override these with a define character of its own. Used with leftovers, it seems to restore the original freshly cooked flavor. One may use it to enrich the most diverse dishes—soups, sauce, stews, salads, vegetables, and canapes. As the quality and concentration of the product are unusually high, a few dashes produce results. Try adding it, dash by dash, to an insipid soup' stirring and tasting until you have it to suit.Note the difference for yourself. This seasoning works its little miracles for the home cook as obligingly as for the ＄25,000-a-year chef with his tall hat full of tricks.
It's a date that melts in the mouth, so tender the skin and soft the flesh. And all flesh! The seed is a miniature. It is the choice of Persian royalty, the first date to be packaged to have a name for a trade-mark. So tender this, fruit, it requires special handling, careful boxing. See-through tops are used in the 2-pound boxes to show off the dates' plump little figures. The boxes are specially treated to help preserve the dates' freshness. All manner of little cares are taken to get the dates marketed in their best condition.
These Persian dates have been grown for centuries in Persia, prized above all other dates by people in those regions. It was with great difficulty that offshoots were secured and planted in California's Coachella Valley. Now after many years there are enough to be offered in a small way commercially.
Mr. and Mrs.A.W.Connor of Beaumont, California, who control over one hundred acres of grove, pack the Royal Persians. For twenty-six years this couple has been in the date business, formerly selling the Degler Noor by nail order. Now they have switched to the Persian and sell primarily through stores. Write their Department G.12 for catalogue.
Royal Persians are handled by B.Altman's in New York; Chandler & Rudd and Halle Brothers, Cleveland; Kaufman's, Pittsburgh; Emery, Bird, Thayer, Kansas City; Harris Company, Dallas; Brown-Dunkin Company, Tulsa; J.W. Robinson, Los Angeles; Hamiltons, Ltd., San Diego; H. & S. Pogue Company. Cincinnati; Leo Baker, Palm Springs; Welch's Candy Ltd., Los Angeles; McLean Goldberg Bowen, San Francisco. Also Gayke Shaw, Reno; F.C.Nash, Pasadena; Buffums, Long Beach; Coulters, Los Angeles.