The dark Martha Ann fruitcake, which built the business, has a new honey-gold sister, white fruitcake by name. This cake has a pale golden batter made with fresh butter, fresh eggs, honey for sweetening, and dark New England rum for that pungent flavor. A cake about 75 percent fruit: pineapple, citron, cherries, and raisins. Almonds and walnuts provide those crunchy little matters for the teeth to touch. Made in one size, 3 pounds, retailing for about ＄4.95, packed in a fancy gift tin in fuchsia and deep blue.
The dark fruitcake remains the first choice with us, perhaps because of the blackstrap molasses which goes in to give the bittersweet tang. It's a cake dark and moist but light in texture, lush with fine fruits, flavored with mellowed old brandy. There's a new, golden vacuum tin for this cake, complete with key opener. Sold by leading department stores and food shops throughout the country.
The Grace Rush firm is packing glazed fruits for Christmas in new gift trays woven of bamboo, these planned for later use as bread trays. Here's roll call on the fruity assortment: stuffed Santa Clara prunes, Hollowa dates stuffed with almonds, pears tinted green, white, and red, whole tangerines, maraschino-flavored cherries, apricot halves, and pineapple half-rings. With the pack goes a small, two-prong, Chinese-like fork, made of plastic made in Brooklyn.
“One of the best,” was the verdict of the tasters who happened into the kitchen when the McMillen's holiday loaf was out for sampling. This had traveled in by mail from Phoenix, Arizona, a cake among several cakes baked by the McMillens, all trade-named Unusual. This kitchen bakes wedding cakes, birthday cakes, and special-occasion cakes, but fruitcake came first—it started the business back in 1931 when the McMilletis lived in Los Angeles. Since then, this cake has been baked every season except during the war when quality ingredients were not available. Last year it was shipped into fifteen states, to Canada, Mexico, England, and France.
It's a cake about 85 per cent fruit, these the candied kind glacé pineapple, orange peel, lemon peel, dates, and pears. Three kinds of nuts in the medley: English walnuts, almonds, and fresh coconut. Fresh eggs for the batter, fresh butter, sugar, sweet wine, and spices. No citron, no raisins, and no substitutes of any kind. The ingredients for the cakes are prepared and assembled by Mr. and Mrs. McMillen; they oversee the baking and do the top decoration.
The cakes are rectangular in shape for economical and easy slicing. Sizes run from 1 1/2 to 6 pounds, larger ones made especially to order. The cakes are wrapped in clear pliofilm and packed in white gift boxes. This year the fruited loaf will sell through exclusive retail stores as well as by mail. The price, ＄2.50 postpaid, is the same in stores.
The McMillen's wedding cakes are shipped by air to any point in the United States, sent knocked-down with instructions for assembling the tiers. Groom's cake is air-shipped, and the firm will supply boxed individual servings.
Stilton is being packed without wine, just its own natural self scooped from the middle of a large cheese and spooned into jars to keep in the moisture. When the jars are opened, the cheese spreads soft like butter. Sturdy in its flavor, ripe and pungent, even stinging. A spread to remember for the coming cold months when appetites are robust and in want of warming up. The happy companion to a glass of Burgundy. This jar-packed Stilton is sold at the Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue, New York City, 10 ounces ＄1.50, or a 1-pound crock for ＄2.50.
Little in price, little in size—but of big importance to the hors-d'oeuvre plate. The Nabisco bakeries have produced a tiny, thin, triangular wafer tender to the bite, crisp under the teeth but not the least crumbly, styled for use as a carrier for cheese spreads and meat pastes and for those spicy little fish that adorn the snack trays. The wafer has a surface glaze that makes it virtually impervious to moisture, so it doesn't go soggy the instant it meets with a topping.
The cracker has a nutty flavor quite its own and is slightly salted, so don't be using it with such delicacies as caviar and pâté de foie gras. But for quick fixes, for those not too elegant hors d'oeuvre and canapés, it's dandy. The price is a joy, 23 cents for about 150 thinnies. In stores throughout the country, with complete national distribution by the end of the year.
Those delicate cream cheeses of the Continent, dainty trifles to end a dinner along with fresh fruit or a toasted cracker, seldom come to the States. However, this winter one travels the ocean, the Hable Crème Chantilly, made from pasteurized cream with a slight mushroom flavor, made in Sweden, and a more delicate and delightful cheese we have yet to encounter. We feel about it as did Edward Bunyard, the English gourmet, who once, wrote regarding the fresh cream cheeses of France: “Such a cheese must end a meal done in pastel shades: an omelette, chicken in aspic, and wood strawberries, for instance. Any rough red meat, or loud-spoken wine, would be disastrous in the scheme of things; music if you have it—Debussy.”
That's how it is with Hable Crème Chantilly, a dreamy fresh cheese that, refrigerated at a temperature of 35 to 40 degrees, retains its flavor and consistency as long as a month. But serve at room temperature for stronger mushroom flavor and a more unctuous cheese which can be cut and spread like butter. Rich as butter, 78 per cent butter fat, so no extra butter is needed on cracker or bread. This is truly a cream cheese, the skin so thin most people eat it right along with the middle. Its color, pale gold, a most maidenly product, idyllic to taste.
Talking to E. A. Melford of the Gotaas Export Corporation, New York City, who is introducing the cheese, we learned about its history. The maker, O. Wicander, lived for a number of years in this country and came to admire greatly our type of cream cheese, different from anything he knew back home in Sweden.
Fifteen years ago Mr. Wicander returned to his native land to buy a small dairy farm south of Stockholm. Remembering his love for the American cream cheese, he contacted Alexander Hable, an experienced French chef who owned a small restaurant in Stockholm, and invited him to the farm to try his hand at making cream cheese.
A laboratory was installed at the end of the cow barn near the milking parlor, and the cheese made in small batches. Soon M. Hable was experimenting with Brie and doing a good job at it, too. Next he tried Camembert. In the spring of 1939 a new modern dairy was completed at the farm to make cream cheese.
The first production was ready for market during a hot spell in summer, and both the Brie and the Camembert came to hotel tables soft, runny, odorous. The manager of the Operakallaren, a famous hotel in Stockholm, suggested to the cheese-makers that they try a more stable cheese, one made entirely of cream instead of milk and which could be served right through the hot months. The result was the Crème Chantilly, its exterior like Camembert but the inside velvety white like French Petit Suisse and with a flavor quite its own, as the cream mixture had been combined with fresh mushrooms and hazelnuts. In the beginning only the finest stores handled the cheese, and production was less than two hundred pounds per month, but by August 1939 this had increased to over four thousand pounds. During the lean war years all cheese made from cream or whole milk was prohibited, so the new product was temporarily forgotten. It came to market again in 1945, and in a very few months was being handled not only in the best stores but in chains and cooperatives throughout Sweden. At present, production is about twenty thousand pounds a month and is to be doubled this year. A portion of this increase is for export to Holland, Switzerland, and England, already steady customers, and now the States.
In New York the cheese is handled by Bellows and Company, 67 East Fifty-second Street, and by R. H. Macy, Herald Square. In Boston, S. S. Pierce and Company have a fair stock. Now the cheese is coming twice monthly, traveling refrigerated by fast passenger ship.
Coffee bubbling in the pot almost always smells a lot better than it tastes, haven't you noticed? We are talking about old-fashioned coffee where the maker boils the flavor into the air. Breathe it in—umm! But it's not in the cup, it's not for the mouth. That's what the manufacturers of Filtron told us, urging that we give this cold-water extractor a trial. That's just what we did, and believe it or not, here's an extractor that keeps the coffee in the coffee.
Take a look at this coffee-making machine. It's a three-piece glass unit operating on a new patented principle which removes all the coffee from the grounds by the use of cold water without applying heat of any sort. Take a pound of coffee, any brand you enjoy, and place this in the center section, filling the top part with cold water fresh from the tap. The bottom container catches the pure coffee essence, and enough essence in a pound to make sixty cups of the freshest coffee you ever did taste. None of the rancid oils gets in the brew, or the fatty acids or the sediment. These bitter astringent properties of the coffee bean are insoluble except when the water is hot.
What happens is that the cold water filters through the coffee, causing the thousands of aromatic oil cells to swell until they burst and release the flavorful oils for the cup. The extract produced in this manner can be kept in the refrigerator ready to make steaming hot or iced coffee on the instant, and it's coffee that tastes “just roasted” and most flavorful. Something any woman will approve: no coffee grounds after the first making and only one cleaning of the extractor to each pound of coffee.
Never a drop of coffee need be wasted, either, for the essence can be used exactly to current need, a cup of brew this morning; a potful tonight. It takes from 3/4 to 1 ounce of this highly concentrated liquid for one strong cup, the amount depending on the brand of coffee used and the strength you desire. Experiment to get the right measure to suit each set of taste buds.
The essence is convenient also for all kinds of coffee cookery. A recipe booklet is offered by the firm that gives twenty-five coffee desserts and drinks. For a copy of the book send your request to Helmco-Lacy, 1215 West Fullenon Avenue, Chicago 14, Illinois. To purchase the Filtron Extractor, ask in your local appliance store. In New York City it is handled by Hammacher Schlemmer, 145 East 57th Street, price ＄19.50.
For those quietly adventurous, we suggest chicken tamales for the next cocktail shindig. These are husk-wrapped about 2 inches long, to be heated in boiling water 15 minutes and served hot. Untie one end of the husk and how easy to squeeze out the small meaty middle. Yes, finger food, ＄1.29 a tin of 24, Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, New York.
A waffle smoking hot, a lump of butter slowly melting, filling the waffled surface with little lakes of gold. A big pour of thick honey—orange blossom honey. Exquisite moment as the fork breaks in—we are serene, at peace in our Sunday morning world. This orange blossom honey is more than just another orange blossom honey, it comes from F. W. Burkett of Haines City, Florida, who makes it his pride, so delicately yet distinctively flavored. If you have imagination, it will seem to carry a slight orangy fragrance.
This isn't a true orange blossom honey, as grapefruit and tangerine nectars are intermixed, but in the trade this mixed citrus is classified as orange blossom and the only difference in the honey is a slight color variation.
Honeyman Burkett writes that the Burkett honey is of highest grade, thoroughly filtered to remove all traces of the tiny wax particles which are naturally present in all honeys and which hasten them to sugar. The result is a honey clear and brilliantly beautiful. The tin pail in which it is carried is plain as the back of your hand. Your money goes for quality nectar, not fancy pack.
A final word of advice from Mr. Burkett: “Honey likes hot weather and a hot room. Like bananas, it should never be stored in the refrigerator. If honey should begin to sugar, it can be restored to its original form by heating in water for thirty minutes. But the flavor will suffer.”
Order orange blossom honey, 5 pounds for ＄2 postpaid; add 25 cents west of the Mississippi, Burkett Florida Foods, Box 321, Haines City, Florida.
Bologna is bologna no matter how thin you slice it. And thank goodness for that, if it comes from Getz's Market in Tyrone, Pennsylvania. We have just finished sampling two links of this sausage done in the old Pennsylvania Dutch way—one link plain, one link garlicky. The firm has been making its bologna since 1907 and always in the same way: first mixing the meat and spices, then smoking them over green hickory logs in the old brick smokehouse. The recipe is a family hand down, an antique of great value. Used in a sandwich or sliced for a snack, here's a bologna that delivers a real flavor thrill. Two pounds are ＄1.98 postpaid. Send check or money order to Getz Marketeers, 1068 Pennsylvania Avenue, Tyrone, Pennsylvania.
Avocados big as two fists and rich as best butter came to us recently from Redland Tropical Grove. This company has an orchard of fifteen different varieties which provides fruit from July into late January. Only the fancy is shipped to mail-order customers. Box No. 9 (5 to 7 avocados), price ＄3.50. Box RI. (10 to 12 avocados), price ＄5.25. Address Redland Tropical Grove, P. O. Box 27, Coconut Grove, Florida.
During the year, the company ships other fruits in season, such as mangoes, which you know, and sapodillas, which you may not know, these an odd, brownskinned plum with grainy texture and a flavor slightly like maple. There is also a line of tropical preserves and jellies. Interested? Ask the firm for a price list.