Snoozecast Presents: Cooking and Baking

Tonight, we’ll read recipes on schoolroom cakes along with tea cakes and biscuits from The Cake and Biscuit Book by Elizabeth Douglas, published in 1903. When this cookbook was published, most American students attended a one-room schoolhouse. A single teacher would typically have students of all ages in one class. The youngest children sat in the front, while the oldest students sat in the back....

Tonight, we’ll read recipes from A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, written by Charles Elme Francatelli and published in 1852. Born in London of Italian descent, Francatelli was a French-trained cook who worked for Queen Victoria. While best known for his lavish cookbook The Modern Cook, filled with elaborate dishes for aristocratic tables, Francatelli also had a keen interest in practi...

Tonight, we’ll read a selection of recipes from the book English Housewifry by Elizabeth Moxon, published in 1764, starting with a recipe for whipt sillabubs. Moxon’s book was one of the earliest English cookery books written specifically for middle-class women managing their own households, rather than for professional cooks or the aristocracy. Her recipes are practical but far from plain, offeri...

Tonight, we’ll read selections about baking breads and cakes from “The Charlotte Sunshine Cook Book” published in 1906. This episode begins with a long-form poem that sings the praises of homemade bread, followed by a collection of recipes for classic loaves—many with ingredients familiar to the early 20th-century Southern kitchen. In the latter half, we turn to cakes, including several that call...

Tonight, we’ll read a selection of marmalade and sweetmeat recipes from Miss Leslie’s New Cookery Book, published in 1857. A type of sugar confectionery, “sweetmeats” is where the term “sweets” comes from nowadays. Despite the name, they have nothing to do with meat—at least, not in the way we think of it today. The word “mete” in Old English simply meant “food” in general, which is why older text...

Tonight, we’ll read from “Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes” by Miss Parloa. The Maya believed that cacao was discovered by the gods in a mountain along with other delectable foods, for their divine use. According to Maya mythology, the Plumed Serpent gave cacao to the Maya after humans were created by the divine grandmother goddess. — read by 'V' — Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free acces...

Tonight, we’ll read from “For Luncheon and Supper Guests” written by Alice Bradley published in 1923. “Luncheon” is the formal word for lunch, a light mid-day meal. In the Middle Ages, before electric lighting and industrialization, the mid-day meal was large and considered dinner. There was no lunch, so later in the evening a lighter meal was had called “supper”. But by the 1800s, the large meal...

Tonight, we’ll read from “The New Royal Cook Book by Royal Baking Powder Co.” published in 1920. When the first truly American cookbook was published in 1792, the recipes included used three possible types of leavening: baker's yeast, emptins (from the leavings of brewing beer), and pearlash. The effectiveness of such leavenings varied widely. At that time, reliable commercial products were not av...

Tonight, we’ll read about baking cakes from the “Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Volume 4” This episode originally aired in March of 2021. The Woman’s Institute was founded by Mary Brooks Picken in Scranton, PA. Born in Kansas in 1886, Picken wrote the first dictionary to be published by a woman in the English language, beyond the over one hundred other books she wrote. — read by V — Sign up...

Tonight, we’ll read “A treatise on the art of making good wholesome bread of wheat, oats, rye, barley” by Friedrick Accum, published in 1821. Accum was a German chemist, whose most important achievements included advances in the field of gas lighting, efforts to keep processed foods free from dangerous additives, and the promotion of popular chemistry. Following an apprenticeship as an apothecary,...

Tonight, we’ll read “Pop Corn Recipes” by Mary Hamilton Talbott, published in 1916. Corn was domesticated about 10,000 years ago, in what is now Mexico. Archaeologists discovered that people have known about popcorn for thousands of years. Fossil evidence from Peru suggests that corn was popped as early as 4,700 BC. Through the 19th century, popping of the kernels was achieved by hand, on stove to...

Tonight, we’ll read recipes from “A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes,” written by Charles Elme Francatelli and published in 1852. Born in London of British descent, Francatelli was French-trained cook who worked for Queen Victoria. — read by V — Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad...

Tonight, we’ll read a selection of recipes from the book “English Housewifry” by Elizabeth Moxon published in 1764. This book describes itself as being “confined to things useful, substantial and splendid, and calculated for the preservation of health, and upon the measures of frugality, being the result of thirty years practice and experience.  — read by V — Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expande...

Tonight, we’ll read selections about baking breads and cakes from “The Charlotte Sunshine Cook Book” published in 1906. This episode starts with a long-form poem about baking bread, then into bread recipes. If you stay awake for the second half, you will hear cake recipes including several using hickory nuts. A relative of walnuts and pecans, there are many varieties of hickory tree nuts, and not...

Tonight, we’ll read from “Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes” by Miss Parloa, and sponsored by the Walter Baker & Co based in Massachusetts. The Maya believed that cacao was discovered by the gods in a mountain along with other delectable foods, for their divine use. According to Maya mythology, the Plumed Serpent gave cacao to the Maya after humans were created by the divine grandmother goddess. — read...

Tonight, we’ll read from a little cookbook titled “Pennsylvania Dutch Cookery.” The publisher and author are unknown.  The Pennsylvania Dutch live primarily in Southeastern and South Central Pennsylvania. Some Pennsylvania Dutch live in the historically Pennsylvania Dutch-speaking areas of Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. The continued use of the term ""Pennsylvania Dutc...

Tonight, we’ll read from “Canoe and Camp Cookery : A Practical Cook Book For Canoeists, Corinthian Sailors and Outers” by H.H. Soulé under the pen name Seneca, published in 1893. Canoes were developed by cultures all over the world. Until the mid-1800s the canoe was an important means of transport for exploration and trade, and in some places is still used as such. A canoe, in American English, i...

Tonight, we’ll read from “The Bread and Biscuit Baker’s and Sugar Boiler’s Assistant” written by Robert Wells and published in 1890. Candy is made by dissolving sugar in water or milk to form a syrup, which is boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to caramelize. The type of candy depends on the ingredients and how long the mixture is boiled. Candy comes in a wide variety of t...

"Tonight, we’ll read the section on baking cookies from “Woman’s Institute Library of Cookery Volume 4”, written by The Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences. This is the same set of cookbooks Snoozecast’s “Breadtime” episode draws from.  The Woman’s Institute was founded by Mary Brooks Picken in Scranton, PA. Born in Kansas in 1886, Picken wrote the first dictionary to be published by a...

Tonight, we’ll read about the history of bread-making in Europe and America, from “The History of Bread”, written by John Ashton and published in 1905. The text mentions visigoths, which were an early Germanic people, and part of the larger political entity of the Goths within the Roman Empire.  -- read by 'V' -- Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/pl...

Tonight, we’ll read about the basics of bread making, from Volume 1 of 1925’s "Woman’s Institute Library of Cookery", written by The Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences.  This institute was founded by Mary Brooks Picken in Scranton, PA. An expert on fashion, Picken also wrote the first dictionary to be published by a woman in the English language.  — read by 'V' —  Sign up for Snoozeca...

Tonight, we’ll read Thanksgiving recipes and sample menus from a magazine called "American Cookery", published in 1921. This periodical was formerly titled less succinctly “The Boston Cooking-School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics.  — read by 'V' —  Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...