Cherries Jubilee is a beautiful name for a beautiful dessert. The better restaurants serve this wrapped in blue flame and steeply priced. ＄1.50 a portion or thereabout. Now, the jubilee part of the dish comes in a jar ready to open and spoon into the chafing dish. Give it the heat, add one tablespoon of warmed brandy, touch it with flame, and float the blazing spirit over the fruit. Watch the blue flames leap. The cherries are the pitted, dark sweets of the North-west in a good sauce of claret and turn. The cherries arc large. but not round and plump like fresh ones, for these have felt the touch of heat in the processing. But they arc tender, sweet fleshed. Spoon the fruit over individual portions of vanilla ice cream. Serve in heatproof dishes, or the flames may crack your best glass, Good, also, when well chilled and served over ice cream in sundae style or over a custard or a frozen pudding.
The new pack wears the Epicure trademark of S. S. Pierce and Company, Boston; it sells also at B. Altman, New York, the price 89 cents a half-pint. enough to serve three generously. Postage is extra.
There's a jelly mill operating at Randolph, Vermont, in the farm kitchen of Mr. and Mrs. Dale Siegchrst. A mighty small mill, making nine jars at a batch, but steady going the day long, turning out thirty cases a week of Tall Fine Farm jellies. There is a variety of flavors selling through sixty outlets in northern New England. But it's cinnamon-apple jelly we especially commend, a firm, tender jelly, clean-cutting. lively red in its color. clear as spring water, with a sharp bit of cinnamon supplied by old. fashioned “red hots.” Vermont apple cider, rich and russet, is its base.
A few years back, they tasted this cinnamon-apple jelly at a neighborhood ham supper and thought it so good, they borrowed the recipe. The jelly was made and remade to get perfect balance of the cider's sweetness and the cinnamon's tang. Good on hot breads, on toast, especially right served with meats.
Cinnamon-apple sells in New York at R. H. Macy, B. Altman, Seven Park Avenue Foods at 109 Fast Thirty-fourth Street; or the 6½-ounce jar can be ordered from the farm, 50 cents postpaid.
The Siegchrists' jelly operation is strictly a home enterprise. Son David, thirteen, picks the wild berries for preserving—strawberries, raspberries, blueberries. Mother makes the jellies and jams; Dad attends to packing, shipping, getting new business. If you wont to try other flavors, there is a mail-order set of three little jars, 3½-ounces each, cinnamon-apple, cranberry with grape-fruit, and a berry jam, ＄1.25 postpaid.
When you write, ask for the catalogue of ten Vermont delicacies. The sampler set is included in this, cinnamon-apple jelly in a large jar. homemade cookies. butternut fudge, maple cream—all Vermont specialties which Tall Pine Farm packs for mailing along with the jellies.
A Yankee Dicker is offered: the total cost of all ten items, which is ＄16, is yours in exchange for check or money order for ＄15. Address: Tall Pine Farm. R. F. D. No. 2, Randolph. Vermont.
Ming teas, the Treasure Teas of the world, are at home in a fabulous teahouse named the Ming Fair. The house was opened in early autumn at 22 Fast Sixty-seventh Street, New York, by Stephen Leeman Products as a convenience for food buyers. There are displayed epicurean products gathered from the world's far corners. But the Ming teas, as always, will be of first importance.
Open the turquoise-blue door into a foyer large as a drawing room, One entire wall is covered by a mural landscape painted by Yen Liang, Chinese representative to the United Nations Architectural Commission. Study closely the panorama of the blue-green rice paddies, of the tea plantations on the mountain plateaus. A room in dark Chinese reds. We wouldn't bat an eye if a golden peacock strutted past.
Stephen Leeman opens a door off the foyer and smiles us a welcome into his office done in cloud-gray touched with yellow Swedish modern. On his desk the autumn's first chrysanthemums, round gold, ripe gold, opulent. This house, he told us, was once the home of Marion Davies, remodeled now as a home for fine foods. But the gracious rooms have been left virtually unchanged. The fireplaces are wood-burning. The long windows across the front open to a narrow balcony. At the rear lies the garden typical of the hideaway open spaces behind New York brownstones.
Stephen Leeman planned the redecoration The feeling is Chinese, but he insists not, for it is intended to be like the teas—from every part of the world.
Follow the broad, winding stair to the second floor front, a room designed for tea-tasting parties, large enough to accommodate sixty people. There are also a tea-tasting bar and a small kitchen, where Virginia Kelly will experiment with new tea-service ideas and tall drinks and bowls using tea as a base.
The rear room overlooks the garden. this for the display of merchandise. Shelves arc shadow-box arrangements built into the walls. Here we examined all the teas in the line and sampled a picked half-dozen at the tasting bar.
The thing that impresses is the packaging. Numerous items are labeled “Epicurios, .” meaning that the tea is epicurean, the container a curio. The tea coffer, for one, is beautifully made of hinged English tin. Notice the hand blown amethyst Mexican bottles. The Ming tea bale, that's a straw matting affair. We admired the princess box designed! as a cigarette holder, also the Florentine box of carved wood for later use as a trinket container. Tea is packed in little vases, in teapots-for-two, in straw purses and pouches, in plain packages. and in varied assortments. Thirty-three different Ming teas, each with its own particular characteristics; and all of these teas and tea gifts are on the shelves of delicacy shops in many large cities.
There is one set you can order by mail if the Ming teas are unavailable in your bailiwick. That's the Sextet—six treasure teas: flowery Ming jasmine, mellow gunpowder. rich Darjeeling, smoky Lapsang, Ming oolong, and the exquisite Ming cha, each in its own gay blue-and-white, two-inch tin. The six are packed in a row in a window-front box, a grand gift item—but just as good to keep and enjoy. Send check or money order for ＄1.85 to Ming. West Nyack 4, New York.
Tiny slivers of peel wrapped in a clear. golden-orange jelly, a marmalade of incomparable color and flavor comes from the most appropriate of places— Orange County, Florida. A prize product, this sweet, mild marmalade without a trace of bitterness. Called Swan-Sun. it comes two-in-a-box, or one orange and one tangerine, with a third jar of guava jelly.
Guava, you know, is that tropical fruit known to south Florida's visitors but nor much of a traveler itself. It makes a clear, wine-colored jelly with an exotic bouquet, an unusual flavor. Save it for Sunday morning and the hot biscuits. or serve it on crackers with a cream cheese companion,
The pound jars of marmalade and guava jelly come packed in a colorful box from Larry Swanson, Winter Park. Florida, for ＄2.35 postpaid. For a bargain, double the order to six 1-pound jars and pay ＄3.95. West of the Mississippi, please add 10 per cent.
Whole schools of smoke-kissed sea foods are streaming north, into the hinterland, and on to the West Coast, to Canada, to Cuba. going parcel post. by express, also on the Jack Rabbit line. The smoker is S. C Bennett, Jr., of Cocoa. Florida.
Bennett smokes about every swimmer that's edible—the barracuda, mullet, amber jack, swordfish, sailfish, blue Spanish mackerel, and shrimp—this last really the party pet. at ＄3 a pound.
Smoked mullet, as those who winter in Florida must know, is sold, usually warm, along the beaches, to cat in the hand. Driving home after a swim, the thing to do is buy a smoky or two and eat while you ride. If you can wait until you reach home, then break the “catch” into sizable pieces, lay them out on crackers or buttered bread, and enjoy with mugs of cold beer.
Fishermen know the barracuda as a big fellow and dangerous, called a maneating shark. The skin goes for leather, but the smoked meat is tender and sells for ＄1 a pound. One of the best eating fish in our tasting parcel was the smoked king. a steaking fish, ＄1 a pound.
Anyone interested in smoked fish for parties should write to S. G. Bennett. Jr. Bennetts Sea Food Market, Cocoa, Florida, and ask for his price list.
Feast on citrus fresh from a Florida grove. Fancy citrus is picked from the Indian River holdings of J. W. Hooper and packed just for you. Oranges, grape fruit, tangerines, travel by box or bushel anywhere in the United States.
Fruit superb from Hooper's, whete the best rituals of grove-tending are faithfully observed. No newcomer in the mail-order field, this is Hooper's twenty-seventh year expressing fruit direct from the grove to the kitchen. The standard box, ninety pounds, is ＄9.75 prepaid, your choice of oranges and grapefruit, all oranges, or all grapefruit. Shipments arc guaranteed to arrive in good condition; otherwise the firm replaces the damaged fruit without cost to you. Tangerines are available until February 15, and no longer, the 45-pound box. ＄6.
The pink seedless grapefruit of this firm arc a grower's achievement and will provide a dramatic spot on any menu; flesh rose-tinted like a rosé wine. So sweet, the fruit needs less than a dust of sugar or a drizzle of honey. The 55 pound bushel of pinks. ＄7 prepaid, the 30-pound half-bushel, ＄4.50.
One jar, that isn't enough. these oyster bites excite the appetite for more and more of the same when the drinks go around. Thai's the way folks feel about Crabapple Smoked Oysters—one jar isn't enough, so they order half-dozen sets and get the special postpaid price. 6 jars. 3¼ ounces each. ＄4.25. or 12 jars ＄8.25. Address; E. H. Bendiksen Company, P. O. Box 86, Ocean Park, Washington. These oysters are from the Pacific, first steam-cooked, then smoked, using crab-apple wood for that unusual spicy flavor.
The oysters come ready to be speared from the jar and to recline on crackers or toast. Rather biggish these Westerners. so each oyster is cut into bite-sized pieces to pick up on toothpicks and pop into the mouth. Mighty good, one of these oyster tidbits wrapped in bacon strips fastened with a toothpick and broiled until the bacon is crisp.
A party dish any day, this tomato aspic made with ready-mix powder. It tastes very like a well-seasoned tomato sauce, in fact, the flavor is overstrong as compared to the usual kind made at home starting from scratch. And just a bit stiff as made by the package directions, but we added more liquid and liked better both flavor and texture.
The product is made by the Enzo Jel Company, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a package of 3 ¼ ounces serving six. Five packs sell for ＄1 if you send along the name and address of your local food store. Or order a sample package for 25 cents.
In Des Moines, Iowa, recently, we stopped at the delicacy corner in Younker's department store and noticed a sign announcing the Franzcnburg hams. Then and there we decided to learn more about this famed local specialty.
It's a gourmet's dream come true in Conrad, Iowa, a town whose population is 600. There you find Fanzenburg country.cured hickory-smoked meats in a little butcher shop just a turn off the main highway. Mouth-watering hams, each package carrying a parchment sheer which offers cooking suggestions, and along with the ham goes a 6-ouncc container of baked ham dressing with the rules for its making.
But not only hams come from the Conrad smokehouse, slab bacon, too. and country-style sausage and dried beef of a quality such as we never sampled before. This beef is cur in big. thin slices, tender, not too salty, with a true hickory-smoked flavor. The firm has a ready baked ham garnished with pineapple and maraschino cherries and scented with a clove-and-sugar dressing. These good things arc branded Wolf Creek. the name of the stream bordering the south edge of the town.
It has been half a century since the Franzenburg brothers came from Germany to Truer, Iowa, where an older brother had preceded them and opened a market. Paul Franzenburg. sixteen, and William, eighteen, knew just a little about the butcher trade. having learned from their father, a veterinarian working for the German government as an inspector of cattle brought over the border from Denmark. The boys worked in Tracr for a time, then set up in business together. Right from the beginning, lowans appreciated their products. Today. the firm has six full-time butchers, with additional help for the holiday rush.
Paul Franzenburg, Jr., told me that the success of the business rests largely on the old-fashioned goodness of the cured meats. Too many products, he said. are assembly-line processed, their individuality completely lost. The Franzenburg meats are hand-tailored, individual in appearance and flavor. The firm sticks tight as cocklebut to the old time formulas. German in origin. Franzenburg Wolf Creek hickory-smoked products postpaid anywhere in the United States: hams. 10.14 pounds, ＄1.05 per pound; boneless hams, baked and fruit-garnished, 7-10 pounds. ＄1.60 per pound; bacon, whole slabs, 6-9 pounds, ＄1.05 per pound; dried beef, sliced to order, 1-pound container, ＄2.
Salt Chips arc the idea of Pennsylvanian Howard Smith, a culinary expert on seasoning. The chips arc of two kinds, one for French dressing and one garlic-scented for the garlic touch in meat, egg, or vegetable dishes, in dressings or sauces. The chips are packed in 8-ounce cartons with metal tops and pouring spouts the same as those on salt boxes. The salt is coarsely ground, blended with spices, seeds, and herbs, then aged to marry the flavors.
The maker tells us that the chips draw the juices from meat and vegetables, blending them with the herbs and spices, to give a full-bodied, natural flavor. In the French dressing the salt is combined with paprika, garlic, spices, and seeds. The garlic chips are much the same, with the garlic predominating and herbs used in addition. A recipe for French dressing to be made with the salt chips is given on the label. Send ＄1 check or money order for the Salt Chip twins, two 8-ounce cartons, postage prepaid, to Howard Smith, 131 Baltimore Pike, Lansdowne, Pennsylvania.