Adventures with cheese
Dec. 14th, 2009 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatYesterday I decided to make a cheese cake. In my hand-written book of ancestral recipes copied from my mum, there is a recipe for Philadelphia cheese cake, which my mum herself copied from a neighbour in Edinburgh in about 1972. It ended up as a marvel of vagueness and guesswork. "Serves: lots," it said, which didn't help much, but since it also talked about lining two flan tins, I decided to do half quantities.
"Make up half a packet of jelly," it says, which means that I want quarter of a packet. But were packets the same size in the 70s? Oh well… Grab a few cubes, make up jelly… eat a few more cubes, and pause nostalgically to remember those days of sneakily filtching raw jelly cubes from my parents' larder. (I liked blackcurrant best.) Also pause to remember doing the same with cooking chocolate and handfuls of raisins. Somehow manage to be simultaneously happily nostalgic for cooking chocolate, and disgusted by memories of it.
"Crush half a packet of Digestive biscuits," it says. What size of packet? What does this mean? Give up and guess, then scurry around the kitchen, rummaging in drawers and cupboards looking for the rolling pin that I know we possess, but which has doubtless been appropriated for some strange use elsewhere. (Decide not to ask.) Pellinor offers a rather nice-looking marble-effect pestle and mortar, but I opt to use a bottle of beer (Fursty Ferret, I believe). Consider offering the shaken-up bottle of beer to Pellinor to drink, but decide not to.
"Mix biscuit crumbs with melted butter," it says. Realise that I've forgotten to half the butter quantities, so have a veritable lake of it hanging around. Pour half of it into a cup, mix the biscuit crumbs into the rest. The half-lake promptly vanishes; the biscuit crumbs stare at me, defiantly still dry. Shrugging, pour in the rest of the butter. Struggle to force the mixture to cover the base of my single flan tin. Maybe flan tins in 1970s Scotland were smaller than they are now. Consider googling general trends in the size of baking tins in Britain over the last hundred years, but decide not to.
"Mix half a cup of sugar with a packet of Philadelphia cheese." How much is half a cup? What size cup? How big a packet of cheese? What was the standard size for Philadelphia cheese in the early 70s in Scotland? Open up laptop to google it, but sanity briefly reasserts itself, so I close it again. Consider researching general trends in the packet sizes of food stuff in Britain over the last hundred years, but decide not to. Shrug, and chuck in whole, rather large-looking, packet. Calculate calorie content of what I've just done. Firmly decide to forget result.
"Wait until jelly is almost set." The "almost" is underlined twice, so it must be really important. Go off to kill zombies, but pop down every now and then to keep an eye on jelly. Jelly stays stubbornly liquid, but then suddenly hits some sort of tipping point. Gain "Bridge over trebled slaughter achievement" - run over a bridge in under 3 minutes - and in that 3 minutes, the jelly, cackling, turns.
Add jelly hastily to cheese. Survey lumpy mess that results. Give it and whisk to Pellinor, and get him to sort out the lumps and then add cream. ("One tin of cream," according to the recipe. Decide that this means "half a pot of single cream, thus leaving half spare for the dinner I plan to make tomorrow, and if that's not the right quantity, tough.") Realise that forgot to buy lemon, and find that artificial lemon juice is strangely brown. (Pause to remember childhood friend who visited on Pancake Day and refused to accept that lemon juice came out of lemons, because everyone knew that it came out of plastic lemon-shaped squeezy things.) Decide to give up on the idea of lemon.
A few hours later, serve. It's more like cheese soup than cheese cake, but very nice. Briefly calculate calorie content. Firmly decide to forget the result. (Am reminded of the cookery lesson at school when we learnt how to make flaky pastry, and then had a lesson about its nutrional content, which could be summarised as "Don't.") Eat. Let ecstatic cat lick bowl.
Cover remaining cheese cake with cling film. Pick up flan tin. Removable base rises up neatly, driving entire soupy cheese cake against cling film and making an almighty mess.
Shrug. Put in fridge, to worry about tomorrow. Leaf through recipe book to find out what I can make a hideous mess of next weekend.
"Make up half a packet of jelly," it says, which means that I want quarter of a packet. But were packets the same size in the 70s? Oh well… Grab a few cubes, make up jelly… eat a few more cubes, and pause nostalgically to remember those days of sneakily filtching raw jelly cubes from my parents' larder. (I liked blackcurrant best.) Also pause to remember doing the same with cooking chocolate and handfuls of raisins. Somehow manage to be simultaneously happily nostalgic for cooking chocolate, and disgusted by memories of it.
"Crush half a packet of Digestive biscuits," it says. What size of packet? What does this mean? Give up and guess, then scurry around the kitchen, rummaging in drawers and cupboards looking for the rolling pin that I know we possess, but which has doubtless been appropriated for some strange use elsewhere. (Decide not to ask.) Pellinor offers a rather nice-looking marble-effect pestle and mortar, but I opt to use a bottle of beer (Fursty Ferret, I believe). Consider offering the shaken-up bottle of beer to Pellinor to drink, but decide not to.
"Mix biscuit crumbs with melted butter," it says. Realise that I've forgotten to half the butter quantities, so have a veritable lake of it hanging around. Pour half of it into a cup, mix the biscuit crumbs into the rest. The half-lake promptly vanishes; the biscuit crumbs stare at me, defiantly still dry. Shrugging, pour in the rest of the butter. Struggle to force the mixture to cover the base of my single flan tin. Maybe flan tins in 1970s Scotland were smaller than they are now. Consider googling general trends in the size of baking tins in Britain over the last hundred years, but decide not to.
"Mix half a cup of sugar with a packet of Philadelphia cheese." How much is half a cup? What size cup? How big a packet of cheese? What was the standard size for Philadelphia cheese in the early 70s in Scotland? Open up laptop to google it, but sanity briefly reasserts itself, so I close it again. Consider researching general trends in the packet sizes of food stuff in Britain over the last hundred years, but decide not to. Shrug, and chuck in whole, rather large-looking, packet. Calculate calorie content of what I've just done. Firmly decide to forget result.
"Wait until jelly is almost set." The "almost" is underlined twice, so it must be really important. Go off to kill zombies, but pop down every now and then to keep an eye on jelly. Jelly stays stubbornly liquid, but then suddenly hits some sort of tipping point. Gain "Bridge over trebled slaughter achievement" - run over a bridge in under 3 minutes - and in that 3 minutes, the jelly, cackling, turns.
Add jelly hastily to cheese. Survey lumpy mess that results. Give it and whisk to Pellinor, and get him to sort out the lumps and then add cream. ("One tin of cream," according to the recipe. Decide that this means "half a pot of single cream, thus leaving half spare for the dinner I plan to make tomorrow, and if that's not the right quantity, tough.") Realise that forgot to buy lemon, and find that artificial lemon juice is strangely brown. (Pause to remember childhood friend who visited on Pancake Day and refused to accept that lemon juice came out of lemons, because everyone knew that it came out of plastic lemon-shaped squeezy things.) Decide to give up on the idea of lemon.
A few hours later, serve. It's more like cheese soup than cheese cake, but very nice. Briefly calculate calorie content. Firmly decide to forget the result. (Am reminded of the cookery lesson at school when we learnt how to make flaky pastry, and then had a lesson about its nutrional content, which could be summarised as "Don't.") Eat. Let ecstatic cat lick bowl.
Cover remaining cheese cake with cling film. Pick up flan tin. Removable base rises up neatly, driving entire soupy cheese cake against cling film and making an almighty mess.
Shrug. Put in fridge, to worry about tomorrow. Leaf through recipe book to find out what I can make a hideous mess of next weekend.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 02:06 pm (UTC)I guess I am not confident in my guesswork when it comes to measuring, or in my grandmother's handwriting!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 02:45 pm (UTC)Tastes have changed a bit - in particular, the roasted meats would be well overdone by our standards - but the cakes & things are OK.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 04:23 pm (UTC)What really baffles me, though, is why anyone would want to halve the quantities of a cheesecake recipe. Double, yes, I can understand that, especially if you want it to do a second meal. But halve?
Incidentally, a cup is a standard American volume measure. 8 fluid ounces, if you want to use an ordinary measuring jug rather than investing in special measures (I have them, and use them all the time, as for most baking, it's a lot less faffing about than weighing ingredients). Or an old-fashioned tea-cup (but not so old fashioned you're meant to drink out of the saucer, of course. Tea cup sizes have changed as much as eggs).
no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 04:49 pm (UTC)We started out with workings on a blackboard and in the end opted for just adding stuff until I thought it looked right.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 04:56 pm (UTC)I did know that a cup was an American measure, but I doubted that that was what was meant in a recipe that came from a Scottish person in the 70s, when no other quantity was given in cups. But who knows? One measurement was in ounces, one in tablespoons, one in teaspoons, one in cups, three in packets, and one in tins, so perhaps the person who wrote it down was trying to collect a full set. All we were missing was grammes.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-15 08:53 am (UTC)Taken out of context, that sort of comment could be misinterpreted :-)
in particular, the roasted meats would be well overdone by our standards
Not by my standards! :-)
no subject
Date: 2009-12-15 09:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-15 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 04:48 pm (UTC)My other problem is that when I copied the recipes, I added unhelpful notes of my own. One recipe includes the instruction: "keep meat warm, somehow (how?). Add cream, hoping that it doesn't curdle", which introduced enough of a note of doubt into the proceedings that I approached the whole thing with extreme nervousness.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-15 08:55 am (UTC)Flour is certainly a lot finer and more even than it was, so there's no need to sift it now.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-15 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 05:50 pm (UTC)All the same, I admire your courage in attempting this recipe. I won't use ancestral recipes for anything that involves baking for most of the reasons you've hinted at here. ^_^ Fortunately, the ancestral recipes I really care about duplicating are all stews and things that can always be doctored to fix problems in the process.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-15 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-14 07:22 pm (UTC)