7 meals in this book
“My stores were put under tribute, instead of the native Bunyas, and we had a very excellent meal indeed. We had Bovril soup and Irish stew, roast mutton, potted tongue, roast chicken, gigantic swan eggs poached on anchovy toast, jam omelette, chow-chow preserves, ginger biscuits, boiled rhubarb, and I must not forget, by the way, an excellent plum cake of no small dimensions, crammed full of raisins and candy, which I had brought from Mrs. G. at Almora to her husband, and to which we did, with blessings for her, the fullest justice.”
Dress, clean, and cut up a fowl. Put in a stewpan, cover with boiling water, and cook slowly until tender, adding one-half tablespoon salt and one-eighth teaspoon pepper when fowl is about half cooked. Thicken stock with one-third cup flour diluted with enough cold water to pour easily. Serve with Dumplings. If desired richer, butter may be added.
Recipe from The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896.
“The wooden cups or bowls used by the Tibetans are called _puku, fruh_, or _cariel_, and in them _tsamba_ is also eaten after tea has been poured on it, and the mixture worked into a paste by means of more or less dirty fingers. Often extra lumps of butter are mixed with this paste, and even bits of _chura_ (cheese). The richer people (officials) indulge in flour and rice, which they import from India and China, and in _kassur_, or dried fruit (namely, dates and apricots) of inferior quality. The rice is boiled into a kind of soup called the _tukpa_, a great luxury only indulged in on grand occasions, when such other cherished delicacies as _gimakara_ (sugar) and _shelkara_ (lump white sugar) are also eaten. The Tibetans are very fond of meat, though few can afford such an extravagance. Wild game, yak and sheep are considered excellent food, and the meat and bone cut in pieces are boiled in a cauldron with lavish quantities of salt and pepper. The several people in a tent dip their hands into the pot, and having picked up suitable pieces, tug at them with their teeth and fingers, grinding even the bone, meat eaten without bone being supposed to be difficult to digest.”
and add with cold water and one yolk; make into paste, roll in in six or seven times one pound of butter, flowring it each roll. This is good for any small thing. No. 2. Rub six pound of butter into fourteen pound of flour, eight eggs, add cold water, make a stiff paste. No. 3. To any quantity of flour, rub in three fourths of it's weight of butter, (twelve eggs to a peck) rub in one third or half, and roll in the rest. No. 4. Into two quarts flour (salted) and wet stiff with cold water roll in, in nine or ten times one and half pound of butter. No. 5. One pound flour, three fourths of a pound of butter, beat well. No. 6. To one pound of flour rub in one fourth of a pound of butter wet with three eggs and rolled in a half pound of butter.
Recipe from American Cookery of 1796.
“THEY are indeed Nature's gentlemen, these worthy Shokas, and as such they did all in their power to make my stay among them pleasant. It was a contest between them as to who should entertain me first, and who should be the next. Invitations to breakfast and dinner literally poured in; and those convenient "sick headaches," "colds," and "previous engagements," so opportune in more conventional parts, were of no avail here. No card--no friendly note bade one to come and be merry. They generally arrived _en masse_ to fetch me. Pulling and pushing played a not unimportant part in their urging, and to decline was thus out of the question. Indeed I must confess there was but little inclination to decline on my part. When you arrived, your host spread out fine mats and rugs, of Tibetan and ancient Chinese manufacture, and often of great value. In front of a raised seat were displayed in shiny brass bowls the various viands and delicacies which constituted the meal. There was rice always; there was curried mutton, milk and curd with sugar; then _chapatis_ made in Hindustani fashion and _Shale_, a kind of sweet pancake made of flour, _ghi_ (butter), sugar or honey, also _Parsad_, a thick paste of honey, burnt sugar, butter and flour, all well cooked together--a dainty morsel even for a jaded palate.”
Boil half a pound of rice to a jelly in a small quantity of water: when cold, mix it with a pint of cream, eight eggs, a bit of salt, and nutmeg. Stir in eight ounces of butter just warmed, and add as much flour as will make the batter thick enough. Fry in as little lard or dripping as possible.
Recipe from New system of domestic cookery, formed upon principles o of 1806.
“I was led with some ceremony to a primitive sort of ladder with very roughly carved steps, and shoved, with help from above and below, on to a flat mud roof. Here a tent had been pitched, the floor of which was covered with mats and rugs for me to rest on. I no sooner laid myself down than a string of men, women and children arrived, carrying bowls with a particularly sumptuous meal of rice, _dhal_, meat, _balab_ (or boiled buckwheat leaves), curd, milk, broiled corn with sugar, _chapatis_, _shale_, sweets, native wine and liquor.”
pressed and dried for use. Curd, called also casein and caseous matter, or the basis of cheese, exists in the milk, and not in the cream, and requires only to be separated by coagulation. The coagulation, however, supposes some alteration of the curd. By means of the substance employed to coagulate it, it is rendered insoluble in water. When the curd is freed from the whey, kneaded and pressed to expel it entirely, it becomes cheese. This assumes a degree of transparency, and possesses many of the properties of coagulated albumen. If it be well dried, it does not change by exposure to the air; but if it contain moisture, it soon putrefies. It therefore requires some salt to preserve it, and this acts likewise as a kind of seasoning. All our cheese is coloured more or less, except that made from skim milk.
Recipe from The Book of Household Management of 1861.
“Chanden Sing was despatched round the village to summon up to my tent all the local Bunyas (tradespeople). Rice, flour, eight pounds of butter (_ghi_), a large quantity of lump sugar, pepper, salt, and a fat sheep were purchased. The latter was forthwith beheaded, skinned, and dressed in the approved fashion by the faithful Chanden Sing, who was indeed a jack of all trades.”
and add with cold water and one yolk; make into paste, roll in in six or seven times one pound of butter, flowring it each roll. This is good for any small thing. No. 2. Rub six pound of butter into fourteen pound of flour, eight eggs, add cold water, make a stiff paste. No. 3. To any quantity of flour, rub in three fourths of it's weight of butter, (twelve eggs to a peck) rub in one third or half, and roll in the rest. No. 4. Into two quarts flour (salted) and wet stiff with cold water roll in, in nine or ten times one and half pound of butter. No. 5. One pound flour, three fourths of a pound of butter, beat well. No. 6. To one pound of flour rub in one fourth of a pound of butter wet with three eggs and rolled in a half pound of butter.
Recipe from American Cookery of 1796.
“ONE of the main drawbacks of travelling at these great altitudes was the want of vegetable fuel. There was not a tree, not a shrub to be seen near our camp. Nature wore her most desolate and barren look. Failing wood, my men dispersed to collect and bring in the dry dung of yak, pony and sheep to serve as fuel. Kindling this was no easy matter, box after box of matches was quickly used, and our collective lung power severely drawn upon in fanning the unwilling sparks into a flame only a few inches high. Upon this meagre fire we attempted to cook our food and boil our water (a trying process at such an altitude), keeping our own circulation fairly normal by constantly required efforts. The cuisine that night was not of the usual excellence, and did but little credit to the cook. We had to eat everything half-cooked, or, to be accurate, almost altogether uncooked. The night was a bitterly cold one, with a heavy fall of snow. When we rose in the morning it lay quite two feet deep around us, and the glare was painful to the eyes. I mustered my men. Mansing was missing. He had not arrived the previous night, and there was no sign of the man I had sent in search of him. I was anxious not only from my personal interest in his load (the fellow carried a load of flour, salt, pepper, and five pounds of butter), but I was afraid that the poor leper might himself have been washed away in one of the dangerous streams. Even if this fear were groundless, he must, I felt, have suffered terribly from the cold with no shelter and no fire. Bijesing, who had gone in search of him, had eaten some food before starting, and had taken blankets with him in case he could not return to camp during the night.”
COFFEE. CHOCOLATE. TEA. PICKLES. BEER. GENERAL MAXIMS FOR HEALTH. HINTS TO PERSONS OF MODERATE FORTUNE [FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE MASSACHUSETTS JOURNAL.] FURNITURE. EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS. TRAVELLING AND PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS. PHILOSOPHY AND CONSISTENCY. REASONS FOR HARD TIMES. HOW TO ENDURE POVERTY. APPENDIX TO THE AMERICAN FRUGAL HOUSEWIFE. CARVING. INDEX. APPENDIX.
Recipe from The American Frugal Housewife of 1829.
“THE food supply for my men was now reduced in all to four pounds of flour, two pounds of rice, and two pounds of _sato_. This we gave to the four men who were to attempt to enter Taklakot, for their road would be long and fatiguing. For us, there were plenty of nettles to fall back upon.”
Take half a pound of rice, dust and pick it clean, then wash it, dry it, lay it abroad in a dish as thin as you can or dry it in a temperate oven, being well dried, rub it, and beat it in a mortar till it be as fine as flour; then take a pint of good thick cream, the whites of three new laid eggs, well beaten together, and a little rose-water, set it on a soft fire, and boil it till it be very thick, then put it in a platter and let it stand till it be cold, then slice it out like leach, cast some bisket upon it, and so serve it.
Recipe from The accomplisht cook of 1660.
Sources: Every passage above is quoted verbatim from In the forbidden land : $b an account of a journey into Tibet, capture by the Tibetan lamas and soldiers, imprisonment, torture and ultimate release, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipes come from cookbooks of the period, also free in full. All are in the public domain in the United States. The binding is ours — navy cloth, sheaf stamp.