With Thanksgiving over, we jump into the Christmas holidays and food makes up a big part of our seasonal celebrations. I thought it would be fun to take another look at some of the food-related blog posts written by Susanne and me over the years. Some of them involve the holidays, while others deal with food and history.
Spice It Up
This 2021 post from former contributor Susanne Skinner takes us on a tour through the world or spices. What better reading could we have here in the holiday baking season?
From soup to dessert and blending to grinding, Suze gives us the information we need to buy, prepare, and cook with spices to maximum effect and the most delicious flavors.
Food and Cooking Boston’s Streets
A Christmas pudding
We all have to eat, and early Bostonians were no exception. I have in my library multiple cookbooks that go back to the city’s early days. Aside from those recipes, then known as “receipts,” The actual streets of old Boston bore the names of ingredients, types of food preparation, and even the kitchen itself.
Those early Bostonians worked hard in all kinds of weather and they needed food that stuck to their ribs. Hefty roasts, thick puddings, hearty loaves of whole-grain bread, and baked beans got them through the end of the Little Ice Age and beyond.
From baking to pudding, discover the food-oriented byways in this post from 2020.
Boston’s Streets: Food and Cooking
Food from the Fifties
Jell-O Fruit Salad
In this post we take a quick trip through time from the eighteenth century to the 1950s. Back then, not so long ago, food that was prepared, packaged, and processed was new and exciting. It took precedence over fresh ingredients and the neighborhood bake shop.
While some of these recipes strike us as outlandish—and not very toothsome—today, many would have appeared at holiday parties. The ubiquitous Jello “salad” might include fruit or vegetables and may have had many colors, but it would have take pride of place on the groaning board.
Fifties Foods You Won’t Believe
Comfort Food
The holidays give us the ultimate comfort food experience and this post from Susanne explains why it makes us feel good. As Suze explains: “Comfort food is not about calories, it’s a sense of well-being that ties us to a time, place or person, and it makes us feel good.”
That means every person defines comfort food differently. It may be chicken soup for some, franks and beans for others, and grilled cheese sandwiches for someone else.
Suze gives us all that, plus recipes that take us back in time. Use winter’s short days and sometimes stormy weather to experiment with some of your favorite comfort foods, This post gives you a good start.
Shopping and Macaroons
Finally, I connect one of the old department stores where we shopped for Christmas gifts with the iconic sweets it once sold. No, I’m not talking about Jordan Marsh’s blueberry muffins. Just across the street, you could score almond macaroons at Gilchrist’s.
Those cookies were big, they were chewy, and one of them could get you through the rest of your Christmas list. This post gives you all you might want to know about the building, its history, and those yummy cookies. Including a link to the recipe.
If Gilchrist’s macaroons with their wonderful almond flavor were one of your childhood comfort foods, click on the recipe and make some of your own. Who knows, they might still get you through your holiday shopping.
