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Includes 300 recipes from 13 of the earliest California cookbooks; 152 pages; $5.95. To purchase from Amazon, click on cover.
Featuring 250 recipes from 15 landmark vegetarian cookbooks; 152-pages; $5.95. To buy from Amazon, click on cover.
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Author Archives: Mark
An English Monkey on Bean and Nut Loaf
What the heck is “an English Monkey on Bean and Nut Loaf,” you ask. The answer is more convoluted, and debatable, than you may realize. But in short, the “English Monkey” part of this dish apparently dates back to someone … Continue reading
Posted in Main Courses, Recipes, Vegetarian
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Two Variations on Vintage Vegetable Fritters
The love of battered and fried foods has deep roots, judging from the recipes in some of the first cookbooks published in California. Among the 300 recipes from 13 early cookbooks that I reprinted in Vintage California Cuisine, there are … Continue reading
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San Francisco Restaurant in 1914 Served ‘Best Chicken Ever’
A restaurant named Coppa’s in San Francisco in the early part of the 20th century invented “the most delicious way chicken was ever cooked,” according to Clarence Edwords in his 1914 book, Bohemian San Francisco: Its Restaurants and Their Most … Continue reading
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Keep Your Husband with Grape Pickles
I tested four recipes from Vintage California Cuisine on a couple of friends who dropped by for dinner last night. One dish bombed, another was okay and a third was quite good. The fourth item earned a round of “wows!” … Continue reading
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A Fruity L.A. Catsup From 1881 Made With Plums
There are eight catsup recipes in Vintage California Cuisine. Three of them are tomato-based. The starring ingredients in the other five range from walnuts to grapes. I’m looking forward to trying them all, eventually. But during my most recent visit … Continue reading
Posted in Recipes, Sauces
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Selling Vegetarianism in 1910 With Lentils Posing as Duck
Was vegetarianism a harder sell in Northern California than in Southern California a century ago? The San Francisco Chronicle certainly thought so, judging from an article in that paper in 1897 about a British immigrant named M.S. Manning, who had … Continue reading
Posted in Main Courses, Recipes, Vegetarian
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An 1898 Gem: Chicken in Pineapple-Chorizo-Almond Sauce
Most of the 13 cookbooks represented in Vintage California Cuisine are rudimentary, to put it politely. El Cocinero Español (The Spanish Cook), California’s first Spanish language cookbook, published in San Francisco in 1898 by Encarnación Pinedo, is a notable exception. … Continue reading
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A First in 1884: Salad Dressing Recipe Labeled “Californian”
Labeling culinary items and concepts “Californian” is such a cliché these days that it’s hard to imagine there was a time when the state’s name had no such cachet. Yet such was the case in the first decades after statehood, … Continue reading
Posted in Recipes, Salads
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S.F. Celebrity Chef a Century Ago Swore by Prune Souffle
French born and trained Victor Hirtzler drew culinary tourists from around the world to the lavish Hotel St. Francis dining room in San Francisco during his more than two decades as head chef at the landmark restaurant beginning in 1904. His prune souffle is “a … Continue reading
Courtesy of the Theosophists of 1897, Poor Man’s Cake
The first recipe I’ve chosen to report on here is Poor Man’s Cake. I’m in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks, back on a visit to my old stomping grounds from my new home base in Philadelphia. I’m staying at my … Continue reading
Posted in Desserts, Recipes, Vegetarian
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