Easter ahead. Everything points to it. The winds soft; the roots are stirring. Plan now to bring the golden foods to the table. Present a daffodil plate for Easter breakfast. Center a mound of powdered sugar on a pale green plate, circle with sticks of golden pineapple. Eddie Ash's Homestead Groves will supply the Easter pines. A crate-load, five to seven big ones of two special kinds, the Natal and the Eleuthera, each fruit tagged to identify its variety. Green when they come, slowly they ripen when stored in the dark, in a dry and airy place. When a pine turns golden, it's ready for eating. To retard ripening, keep the fruit refrigerator-stored, then remove to room temperature a few days before it's scheduled for menu appearance.
The Natal and Eleuthera pineapples were brought to this country from the tropics a few short years ago and arc quite a different fruit from the usual pineapples around the stores. Not so different in appearance; different in the eating. These never bite the tongue, but are sweet and mellow. No need to add sugar. The entire fruit is edible, even the core. Juice runs when the knife cuts in. Crates of five to seven pines, according to size, availed the year round, price ＄5.50. Address Eddie Ash's Home-stead Groves, Dept. G, P. O. Box 868. Goulds, Florida.
Crisp bacon and screed eggs are good bracers for Easter sermons overlong. Pick a bacon hickory smoked, a Pennsylvania Dutch treat, one pound. sliced, ＄1.20; order from Hickory Valley Farm, Little Kunkletown, Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. And, for our money, this farm has the ham-that-am, selling ＄1.50 a pound, the weight ranging from an 8-pound midget to an 18-pound whopper.
Ham leads the Easter food parade. Speaking of ham, one in the pink is a Polish ham, vacuum-tinned, imported here by the Atalanta Products Corporation of New York, on sale in delicacy shops and department store groceries across the nation.
Danish hams, too, from the Hafnia packers of New York, first since the war, came in early fall. How velvety the texture, Of course, say the Danes, we feed our hogs on grain, on milk, and potato. The hams are trimmed right down to lean, scarcely one-quarter inch of enveloping fat. The vacuum-packed beauties are cooked in their natural juices, one ounce of gelatin added, just enough to make the liquid congeal. The hams average 10 to 12 pounds, sell for ＄1.19 a pound, at Old Denmark, 135 East 57th Street, New York City.
Entertain with an Easter tea, but be sure the tea is a fine tea, worthy of the occasion. One to consider is Ridgways' Her Majesty'send, this an import blended of three choice teas, the delicately flavored Ceylon, India, and Formosa oolong. Before the war, H.M.B, was bought and enjoyed by thousands of tea-loving Americans; now, at long last, it returns to take an honored plate at the best tes. This tea was first ended more than sixty years ago by Ridgways, Ltd., London, to meet the exacting requirements of the late Queen Victoria. Because it is a very special tea, it is not sold generally but is offered only in the finer specialty shops, packed in an attractive lithographed tin, wrapped in cellophane, the price around ＄5.25 a pound. General Foods, 250 Park Avenue, New York City, import and distribute the blend.
Fruitcake-eating no longer ends with the holiday season. It's a year-round pleasure. Keep a cake ever ready to fill in as dessert or to serve as a sweet bite with afternoon lea. A vintage number, that cake baked by Frances Mennen, owner of Dear Lake Inn, at Dear Creek, Pennsylvania, originally baked at Christmastime only to serve on the Inn's menu. Guests begged to buy. A year ago Mrs. Mennen started taking orders and sold two hundred pounds. This year over one thousand pounds were mailed out before Christmas. A new batch of cakes is ready this month, aged since November, selling at ＄2 a pound in either 2-pound loaves or 5-pound rings.
The cake is blondie, made with red and green cherries, sultana raisins, glacéed pineapple, coconut shreds, and the long peels of orange and lemon. Four kinds of nuts: almonds, pecans, broken walnuts, and whole filberts. In the batter, fresh eggs, fresh butter. Before the cakes are made, the fruits are soaked five weeks in rum and brandy, so arc moist and flavorful. Cake tops get a glucose wash for a big shine, then are decorated with almonds and cherries. It takes a sharpade heated in warm water to do a neat cutting job because of those large chunks of fruit.
A different type of fruitcake is the Norwegian, baked by Packalee Morgan, a de luxe loaf chock aock with halved dates, with cherries and citron, littered with almonds. It slices most thin, has a natural sweetness. Odd something in its spicing. The spices, we learn, are imported from Norway and are quite different from those included in the usual English type of Christmas cake. We guess ground cardamom seed, but can't say for sure, and Packalee doesn't tell. Certainly it is the most unusual fruitcake of the winter's regiment that has crossed our desk. And pretty, the top decorated with almonds and cherries to form petaled flowers. A come-again cake, one piece leads to another. This cake is baked in one size only, a 3-pound family loaf, price ＄6 postpaid, and worth the price. Order from Packalee Morgan, Box 271G, Elizabeth. New Jersey. You won't be sorry.
Easter brings gift-giving into full bloom. Why not dates fresh from the grove? One package to mail order, that's the “show box” from Nash's Desert Ranch, P. O. Box 832, Palm Springs, California. This is a round, acetate, see-through container packed with 1 ½ pounds of Deglet Noors, the dates plump and of good size, the price ＄1.90, delivered anywhere in the United States. In our sampling box we counted 64 dates, all of uniform size, making a neat pack laid in rings in three layers with a cactus thorn for a pick-up. Mrs. Marie Nash, the packer, writes to tell us that she uses only the best-grade fruit and that the western dates this season are especially luscious.
Pick an Easter gift from Anton's five-foot book shelf of good eating. “My Date Book” for one. Examine it carefully, a box in book form, with a hinged cover opening like a book, personalized for gifting with the donor's name inscribed on an insert. The box holds 4 1/3 pounds of large golden Deglet dates, the aristocrats of the Deglet Noor family. These from the Coachella Valley, California, center of America's date industry. Each date is selected for size, color, and its eating quality; each a plump beauty, sweet-meated, creamy. The price of the box is ＄3.45.
“My Date Book” is but one of a series in Anton's line. Lift the cover of the book-box titled “The Five Californians.” The contents, a fine assortment of Imperial prunes, golden-era apricots, Deglet dates, golden Calimyrna figs, and halves of Bartlett pears, tender, moist. over four pounds of fruit, price ＄3.95.
“Figments”—how's that for a tide? These the golden Calimyrna figs,emish free, top quality. 4 pounds and 12 ounces of out-of-this-world enjoyment, price ＄3.95. “Full of Prunes, ” that's hearty fare, over 4 pounds of the sugar-rich. giant-size prunes from California's Santa Clara Valley, price ＄3.95.
The tenderness of Anton's fruit is credited to a special process which the firm refers to as “Antonizing.” That every package shall arrive perfect in appearance is Anton's personal pledge. The address: Anton's California. 320 Matson Buiding, San Francisco 5, California. The books travel in wooden shippers to insure perfect delivery.
Thousand-year-old halvah, one of the world's finest confections, is now being vacuum-canned for national distribution. Packer is the Radutzky family, father Nathan and sons Alex, Harry, Max, and Milton, whose Brooklyn firm is known as the Independent Halvah and Candies, Inc., said to be the world's largest makers of the Oriental confection.
Halvah is a seed candy made of crushed sesame with dried egg albumen, corn syrup, sugar, and soya protein, the Utter to give that certain desire texture; vanilla or chocolate the flavor. Heretofore the sweet has sold only in bulk, and, unless kept refrigerated, the candy turned rancid after a brief period.
Halvah is an Arabic word, but the confection itself was made first in Iran. The Arabs found it there with numerous other sweets after the Islamic conquest. Having no names for these strange confections, they called them halvah, taken from the root word bulv, meaning sweet. The Iranian word for sweet is kak and this the Arabs promptly adopted, giving it an Arabic spelling and pronunciation. When the Arabs conquered Andalusia. kak was introduced into Spain and gradually spread over Europe, where it was given the English spelling cake, which after all, you see, is but a halvah of sorts. In this country the sesame-seed confection is little known outside the larger cities, where it is eaten principally by the people from the Orient and the Middle East
Halvah-maker Nathan Radutzky came to New York from Russia in 1906, taking a job as a halvah-maker's assistant. Soon he had his own kitchen and today has the largest and most modern halvah factory in the world. Hoping to distribute the product to all parts of the United States, the firm asked the help of the American Can Company in developing a vacuum pack. This fall, tinned halvah in 12-ounce containers, opening with key, having passed all manner of rigid tests, is pronounced ready for sale.
The sweet keeps without refrigeration, without the oozing of oil, One package was held two years in the boiler room of the factory where the temperature is tropical, and, when opened, that halvah tasted as fresh as if made the same afternoon. And amazing, no greasy smear on the fingers after touching the candy. The 12-ounceock slips out of the can neat and pretty as you please, a little round loaf to slice and serve in cake-fashion, Halvah, we learned, is one of the few sweetmeats with a high protein content of more than 16 per cent.
A tour of the Brooklyn plant to see halvah produced. First, the processing of the sesame seeds; then syrup, sugar, and soya protein are cooked to the proper consistency, turned into stainless steel pots to join the crushed sesame. Steel paddles thicken the mixture to dough in a few minutes. From that point on, the workers hand-knead with a light touch. When the mass reaches a true dough consistency, it is placed in stainless steel molds to cool for twenty-four hours in an air-conditioned room.
The firm makes three kinds of halvah: vanilla, chocolate, and a mae kind of the two flavors combined. They also make 4 ½-ounce halvah bars, chocolate-covered, and now comes the new vacuum pack which will be selling in delicacy scores across the country. Or you can get three tins, one of each kind, for ＄1.39 postpaid direct from the factory, 47 Varick Avenue, Brooklyn 6, New York.
A jubilee year for the Cheddars. Every week comes word of another old Cheddar ready for the knife after long months of curing. One we can recommend highly is a two-year-old, full-cream Specimen, made early in October of 1947, while the cows were still grazing green pastures. Ever since, this cheese has been slowly aging at temperatures under forty degrees to bring out the fullness of flavor, the close, firm body, the rich quality inherent in the finest Cheddars but never, never found in those cured in a hurry. This is a cheese of quality, not a great vintage cheese, yet sound and promising complete appetite satisfaction. A cheese for grownups, not for callow youth who find flavor in a pasteurized cheese food. And not for those who shrink from a streak ofue mold. The cheese has a faint mustiness which yells loudly for beer. And the beer calls back for a bit more cheese—one delicious cycle. But taste it yourself, three pounds ＄3.73, postpaid anywhere in the United States. Address Oneida Dairy Products, 110 South Warren Street. Syracuse 2. New York.
The same company has a New York sage cheese, the traditional fancy cheese of past generations when New York was America's first dairy land. A sharp yellow cheese whose bright green bits of sage combine perfectly, a cheese more soft and moist than the usual aged Cheddars. In our sampling box was a third wedge of what Oneida terms its Special Cure, an accurate reproduction of the ancient and lamented country-siore cheese, virtually disappeared from the land. Homesick oldsters will brighten when they taste it. saying. “My goodness, where's that from? That's what cheese was like when I was a boy.” It's a cheese that will come when called and can keep up its own end in any conversation. If GOURMET followers arc nor too dainty for this, then write to R. N. Wright of the Oneida Dairy Products for further details. You might like to place a regular order for a pound or two to be sent along each month. After a sampling, of course. The price is ＄3.69 for 3 pounds of sage or Special Cure, postpaid in the United States. Or, for ＄1, a pound of sage will be added to a package of Cheddar or Special Cure.
California's famous Caesar salad takes its name from its dressing. Now the dressing has been put into bottles so anyone anywhere can serve this creation with all its elegant flavor—without the ritual in making. Louis Milani Foods, Inc., have captured the Caesar taste for a new dressing which includes all the correct ingredients, anchovies.eu cheese, everything except one coddled egg, please. You add the one-minute egg, a little last touch of perfection, just as the dressing is served in Restaurant Row, La Cienega Boulevard, in Los Angeles. [But neither are you wrong if you break the raw egg in. YE ED.] Have the chilled greens in the bowl, broken lettuce, prefery romaine, in goes the egg, then the dressing, now toss. Dip the croutons in a small amount of dressing, add to the salad, toss again, and serve immediately. It's as simple as that!
For an extra zip to the flavor, add grated Parmesan cheese. If you can't get Milani's Caesar Dressing in your local store, order direct by mail. The 6-ounce bottle is 50 cents. Postage is prepaid on orders totaling ＄2 or more. Address Louis Milani Foods, Inc., Dept, 101, 6058 South Walker Avenue, May wood, California.