Fannie's Last Supper (26 page)

Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book,
2, 3, 28, 57, 58–59, 74–75, 143

Murphy, Maggie, 26–27, 57

Murrey, Thomas Jefferson, 95

napkins, 183

Napoleon I, 179

National Cook Book, The
(Harland and Herrick), 133

Natural Health,
8

New England Kitchen, 180

New England Kitchen Magazine,
165

New York Times,
15, 110, 131, 186

Ober, Louis, 70

O’Connor, Frank, 242

oilcloth, 159

One Boy’s Boston
(Morison), 126–27

orange snow, 188

oven thermometers, 105

Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, The
(Smith, ed.), 133–34

oysters, 17, 32–35

brown bread for, 36–37

champagne Mignonette for, 36

pancakes, 143

paper, cooking in, 89, 139

Parker House, 197

Parloa, Maria, 24, 99

pasta, 144, 145–46

Pasteur, Louis, 179

pastry cream, Grand Marnier, 211–12

Penn, James, 118

Pennington, Harper, 228

Perfection Salad
(Shapiro), 56

Perkin, William Henry, 186

Perkins, Dexter, 25, 26, 241, 242

Perkins, Wilma Lord, 27, 241, 242

Pfeiffer, Richard, 146

pickled limes, 146–47

pickling, 144, 186

Pie Girl Party, 16

Pierce, Samuel S., 122–25

pitchers, 183

Pollan, Michael, 131

Pope, Albert A., 41

potatoes, 95–96, 165, 181

lyonnaise, 96

recipe for, 97–98

Prescott, Samuel Cate, 179

pudding, 54, 187

tapioca, 150–51

punch, 19–20, 154, 216

Victoria, 21

Quincy, Josiah, 121

Quincy Market, 117, 121, 126, 127

Ragland, Meg, 39, 40

railroads, 40, 122

Ramsay, Gordon, 72, 76, 77

Ranhofer, Charles, 4, 18, 29, 145

recipe measurements, 31, 57–59

recipes:

almond butter cake, 208–10

baked toasted coconut and vanilla custard, 148–49

brown bread, 36–37

Canton sherbet, 156–57

champagne Mignonette, 36

chestnut stuffing, 173–74

easy marzipan, 207

Fannie Farmer’s boiled coffee, 219

Fannie Farmer’s roast chicken with crispy flour coating, 141

Fannie’s applesauce to accompany roasted goose, 177–78

French cream cake, 200–202

fried baby artichokes, 135–36

glazed beets, 100

Grand Marnier pastry cream, 211–12

grilled salmon with caper vinaigrette, 114–15

homemade gelatin from calf’s feet, 190–91

lemon jelly using powdered gelatin, 191–92

lobster à l’Américaine, 78–80

Mandarin cake, 206–12

master recipe for rissoles, 66–67

mock turtle soup, 50–52

Munroe baked beans, 149–50

onion-cherry chutney filling with blue cheese, 68

orange snow, 188

potatoes lyonnaise, 97–98

roast goose with chestnut stuffing and jus, 171–72

roast saddle of venison, 91–92

red currant jelly, 94

tapioca pudding, 150–51

Victorian sponge cake, 198

Victoria punch, 21

restaurants, 130

in Victorian Boston, 69–70

Richards, Ellen, 180

Richards, Paul, 20

rissoles, 17, 62–65, 217, 226, 230

master recipe for, 66–67

onion-cherry chutney filling with blue cheese, 68

Ritz, César, 56

roasting, 138, 139–40

roasts, 89, 102–3, 108

Rodriguez, Maggie, 225

Roosevelt, Samuel M., 15

Roosevelt, Theodore, 238

Ruperti, Yvonne, 133, 217, 227, 230, 232

St. Botolph Club, 19, 84, 101

salad, 57

Salem, Mass., 109, 110

salmon, 17–18, 112–13, 133, 138, 216, 217, 233

grilled, with caper vinaigrette, 114–15

samp, 145

Samuels, Diane, 45

Sanderson, J. M., 47

Schlesinger, Arthur, 27

Schlesinger, Elizabeth, 27

science, 179–81, 236–37, 243

Science in the Kitchen
(Kellogg), 179

servants, 59–62, 161–63, 165, 203

Sewall, Mrs. William B., 153

Shapiro, Laura, 56, 59

Shaw, Mrs. Charles, 26

shopping, 117–27

silverware, 182–83

Smibert, John, 119

Smith, Harry, 225, 228, 229, 233, 236

Somerset Club, 70, 71

sorbet, 154, 217

South End Historical Society, 11

Souza, Dan, 133, 227, 232

S. S. Pierce, 123–25, 126, 222

steak, 138–39

steamboats, 151–52, 164

steam engines, 164

Steele, Zulma, 27

stews, 138

stocks, 181, 225

stoves,
see
cookstoves

Sturgis, John Hubbard, 40

sugar, 4, 194–96

supper, 144–45

sweetbreads, 152–53

table manners, 202–4

table settings, 181–84

tapioca pudding, 150–51

Taste of Home,
128

Tavern Club, 70, 71

tea, 181

tea sets, 183

terrapins, 44–46

Thanksgiving, 137–38, 242

Thomas, Jerry, 19

Thompson, Benjamin, 218

trade, 152, 154–55

turkey, 122, 169

turtle, 44–46

soup, 41, 44, 49

UnderHill Farms, 90

venison, 17, 87, 88–90, 217, 231

roast saddle of, 91–92

Victorian Book of Cakes, The
(Lewis), 205

Wait, Pearle, 187

Wallace, Dana, 241

Walton, Frederick, 159

washing glasses and silverware, 160

Webster, Daniel, 122

Wells, Richard, 165

White, Blanche, 81–82

White, Charles Stanley, 112

White, Jasper, 72, 76

White, Stanford, 16

White House Cookbook, The
(Gillette), 63, 88

Wholesome Fare
(Delamere and Delamere), 84

Wilde, Oscar, 83

wine, 18, 221–23

served at Fannie Farmer Dinner, 223

Winthrop, John, 87

witches, 109–10

women, jobs for, 162–63

Women’s Education Association, 23–24

Women’s Home Companion,
241

wood cookstoves, 103–6, 111, 129, 231

World’s Columbian Exposition, 180

yeast, 193–94

Young, William, 164

Acknowledgments

FIRST OFF, THANKS TO MY WIFE, ADRIENNE, FOR MANAGING
the restoration of our 1859 bowfront in Boston, including sleuthing about for the silver, crystal, and china required to set a properly Victorian table. Working with my researcher, Meg Ragland, is like having one’s own historical drive-thru: facts, figures, and photos were instantly produced, no matter how offbeat the request. Mike Ehlenfeldt is an inspired man-of-all-trades, assembling and training the service staff as well as researching and procuring the wines, liqueurs, and cheeses, plus supervising the creation of our beloved ice mermaid, the woman José Andrés fell in love with. Thanks, Mike. David Erickson lovingly restored the large Number 7 cookstove that was the heart and soul of our enterprise. He is an artist of cast iron. My long-term test cook, Jeanne Maguire, also contributed mightily, especially with many of the daily Victorian recipes that appear in this book.

I owe a huge debt to all those who actually cooked the dinner, including sous-chef Keith Dresser, Andrea Geary, Dan Souza, Yvonne Ruperti, and Andrew Janjigian, with Marie Eleana and her son Ryan handling cleanup. Big thanks also to the waitstaff, including Mike’s wife, Cindy, along with Jake McDowell, Debbie McDowell, Emile Arktinsal, and Melissa Klein. A special thanks to Yvonne for reverse engineering the spectacular Mandarin Cake and to Andrea for spending weeks playing with jellies and homemade calves’ foot gelatin. And when goose was no longer available, the folks at D’Artagnan saved the day.

Thanks to all of the folks at DGA Productions for filming the evening and putting together the public television special, with special thanks to Michael Rothenberg, Jan, Elena, and the entire crew. Their wit and goodwill, not to mention their expertise, were deeply appreciated.

David Black, my agent, gets the credit for initiating this project and bringing it to life. He is one of the few people to whom I actually listen when he says, “Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.” Leslie Wells, my editor at Hyperion, proved that great editors still exist at New York publishing houses—she transformed a mediocre manuscript into something vastly better but you, the reader, can be the judge. And more than a small thanks goes to Deborah Broide, my longtime publicity director and good friend.

Last, but by no means least, I owe a rich debt of gratitude to my culinary partner on this project, Erin McMurrer. Each day in the kitchen, Erin brought her sense of culinary adventure, her goodwill, and her rigorous approach to test cooking married to a buoyant playfulness that made this project both possible and the most fun I have had in years. Thanks, Fannie!

About the Author

Chris Kimball
founded
Cook’s Magazine
in 1980. Now known as
Cook’s Illustrated
, it has a paid circulation of 900,000. He also hosts
America’s Test Kitchen
and
Cook’s Country
, the top-rated cooking shows on public television. A regular contributor to the
Today
show, CBS’s
The Early Show
, and NPR’s
Morning Edition
, he lives in Boston and Vermont.
Fannie’s Last Supper
, the film of the dinner that Kimball served in his 1859 townhouse, airs in fall 2010.

In the mid-1990s, Chris Kimball moved into an 1859 Victorian townhouse on the South End of Boston and, as he became accustomed to the quirks and peculiarities of the house and neighborhood, he began to wonder what it was like to live and cook in that era. In particular, he became fascinated with Fannie Farmer’s
Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.
Published in 1896, it was the best-selling cookbook of its age—full of odd, long-forgotten ingredients, fascinating details about how the recipes were concocted, and some truly amazing dishes (as well as some awful ones).

In
Fannie’s Last Supper
, Kimball describes the experience of re-creating one of Fannie Farmer’s amazing menus: a twelve-course Christmas dinner that she served at the end of the century. Kimball immersed himself in composing twenty different recipes—including rissoles, Lobster à l’Américaine, Roast Goose with Chestnut Stuffing and Jus, and Mandarin Cake—with all the inherent difficulties of sourcing unusual animal parts and mastering many now-forgotten techniques, including regulating the heat on a coal cookstove and boiling a calf’s head without its turning to mush, all sans food processor or oven thermometer. Kimball’s research leads to many hilarious scenes, bizarre tastings, and an incredible armchair experience for any reader interested in food and the Victorian era.

Fannie’s Last Supper
includes the dishes from the dinner and revised and updated recipes from
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.
A culinary thriller. it offers a fresh look at something that most of us take for granted—the American table.

Praise

“Chris’s ‘Fannie’ project is the most ambitious cooking undertaking I’ve ever witnessed outside of a restaurant opening. And as one of the devourers of the ultimate meal, I can tell you it was worth it, at least for me. (I would travel 200 miles for the jellies alone.) But the account of the making of the meal, told here in winning style, is just as impressive: part history and part contemporary journalism, it’s a fascinating story, and absolutely unique.”

—Mark Bittman, author of
How to Cook Everything

“What a piece of work Christopher Kimball has pulled off. Read this book and join the escapade into what Chris calls the most progressive era in the history of the world. No, it wasn’t ten years ago, it was 110 years ago—the world of Victorian America and Fanny Farmer. Not an iota of dreamy pseudo-food history survives here. Instead, Chris challenges, provokes, entertains, and maybe even outrages our sensibilities. One thing is sure, if he gets his way, you will be rethinking some of today’s accepted political culinary wisdom.”

—Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of
The Splendid Table

“
Fannie’s Last Supper
is a splendid book with recipes and narrative that is based on a twelve-course dinner right out of the back pages of the original 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book written by Fannie Farmer. How fantastic is that—traveling back in time to rethink the cooking of the future. A great, informative read with tempting recipes. Bravo!”

—Lidia Bastianich, author of
Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy

“A dynamic and entertaining book for chefs and home cooks alike. Christopher Kimball delves into the life, times, and recipes of Fannie Farmer, and creates an educational and delicious twelve-course menu that any food lover can sink their teeth into.”

—Daniel Humm, Executive Chef, Eleven Madison Park

Copyright