Eight Flavors: Black Pepper and White Wine Snow Drops

Posted on November 3, 2016 by Sarah Lohman

An 18th century candy made with white pepper, brandy and sugar.

My first book, Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine will be released December 6th, but is available for pre-sale right now. To create the book, I researched the eight most popular flavors in American cooking: black pepper, vanilla, chili powder, curry powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and Sriracha. When I dived deep into each of these eight topics, I often found fascinating new information and recipes–some of which didn’t make it into the book. So over the next few months, I’ll be publishing this exclusive content on my blog! If it whets your appetite to read the whole book, make sure to get your own copy here.

In the 21st century, black pepper sits firmly on the savory shelf of our kitchen. We add a twist from our peppers grinders to finish a salad, or crust the exterior of a thick steak with cracked peppercorns. But as I was researching Eight Flavors, I discovered pepper was used to complement sugar, just as often as it was used with salt.

Last week, I got the chance to do some of my first public speaking engagements in California, including a visit to the Dallidet Adobe in San Luis Obispo, California. As part of my talk, I made “pepper-cakes” from the 18th century, a simple candy made of pepper, alcohol and sugar. Easy enough to make, with an intense, but pleasant flavor.

The History

An early American reference to pepper used in sweets is found in Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, first published in 1747 in England. This book was an extremely popular import to America, and also went through several domestic printings, with an added chapter on the use of American ingredients. In the first American edition in 1805, Glasse uses pepper in her pickles, fish recipes, and in many, but not all, of her meat recipes, often in combination with nutmeg, mace, cloves, parsley, savory, and thyme.

But tucked in next to recipes for cookies and gingerbread is this recipe:

To make pepper cakes.

Take half a gill of sack, half a quarter of an ounce of whole white-pepper, put it in, and boil it together a quarter of an hour; then take the pepper out, and put in as much double refined sugar as will make it like a paste; then drop it in what shape you please on plates, and let it dry itself.

The recipe is more of a candy than a cake: brandy is infused with pepper, mixed with sugar and left to dry. Sack is an old word for brandy, and a gill is a measurement of four ounces. So this recipes calls for 1/8 ounce white pepper, boiled for 15 minutes in 2 ounces (1/4 cup) of brandy. I suspect Glasse choose white pepper so as not to discolor the brandy; white pepper was prized historically because it kept white sauces (or in this case, white candy) looking clean and white. I decided to give this unusual recipe a try.

The Recipe

My tiniest saucepan is actually a two-cup measuring cup, perfect for my quarter cup of brandy and smattering of white peppercorns. I set it on my gas burner, and turned the flame up to high to bring the liquid to a hard boil. But after about two minutes of heating–it ignited!! A jet of flames leapt an impressive three feet into the air, flickering blue and gold, almost igniting my eyebrows in the process. Oops. I wonder why Hannah Glasse didn’t warn me about that?

Rather than smothering the flames, I turned off the burner and let it do its thing. The flames would burn off the alcohol, as well as infuse the aromatic oils from the pepper. It burned itself out in a couple minutes, and I strained the brandy into a glass bowl.

At this point, the smell of the white pepper infused brandy was very strong: musty, like old attic books. I added 1 ½ cups white sugar and mixed it into a paste. Glasse says “drop it in what shape you please on plates,” so I used a mini ice cream scoop that I normally employ for doling out cookie dough. I shoveled tiny mounds of pale, cognac-colored sugar onto parchment-lined baking sheets, and set them aside to dry.

The Results

The next morning, the little sugar balls were crusty and shockingly beautiful. Since the sugar is not cooked, the candy isn’t hard and smooth; instead, it’s crisp, crumbly, and sparkly! It looked like the top layer of snow: slightly melted, glistening in the sunshine. These simple treats were breathtakingly beautiful.

But tasted terrible.

I popped one in my mouth. Imagine the taste of musk. Something musky. White pepper is awful. It’s awful.

I hated the taste but loved the concept of this candy. So a couple quick substitutions, and I had made a vast improvement: instead of brandy, I used a sweet white wine. To replace the white pepper, classic Tellicherry black peppercorns offered a complex and surprisingly pleasant flavor.

Give this candy a try for a unique treat and what will seem like a totally innovative way to use pepper– that’s actually over 200 years old.

White Wine and Black Pepper Snow Drops
Adapted from The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, by Hannah Glasse, 1805 edition.

¼ cup sweet white wine
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 ½ cups white sugar

Yield: makes 40-60 candies

Combine wine and pepper in a small saucepan; place on a stove top burner on high. Cover. Boil for five minutes.

Add sugar, stir to combine. Drop into ½ teaspoon sized balls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Allow to dry completely. This part of the process can be complicated on a humid day, resulting is a sticky, never-quite-dry candy. If you can, make this candy in the winter, or used a well-airconditioned room.

Cocktail Hour: Spruce Beer

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Sarah Lohman

Colonial Spruce Beer

If you’re into home-brewing, I’ve got a recipe for you: Spruce Beer! This is a uniquely flavorful beer has been made in American since the 17th century; it would have been brewed at home with hops, spruce limbs, sugar, and no grain. I go in to its history more in depth in this Liqour.com article on drinking like a Pilgrim.

The Recipe

Spruce limbs.

The recipe for this beer would have already been old be the time it appear in the first American cookbook, American Cookery, published in 1796:

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“Essence of spruce,” or spruce essence, was a commercial product made by boiling spruce boughs, or spruce tips (the new green growths in the spring time) and reducing the resulting liquid into a condensed, highly flavored extract. You can still get it in brew shops today. I’ve made spruce beer from this recipe before, using both spruce essence and molasses, and I found the flavor of both ingredients to be completely overwhelming. So I wanted to making the beer this time around with real spruce limbs and maple syrup, ingredients more readily available around the time of the Puritans first settling Plymouth.

The maple syrup was no problem for me to source–my parents make their own. The spruce was a little more difficult. I first had to learn what a spruce tree looked like–I now know way too much about the difference between pines, firs, and spruce–and then I had to find a red spruce, the native species that would have been readily available to the Puritans in Massachusetts bay. Luckily, a friend was working in upstate New York, and Fed-Exed me a box of branches.

I tweaked my recipe with the help of an 1840 cookbook from author Eliza Leslie. She has a helpful recipe using real spruce limbs and another for a small quantity beer.

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You’re going to need some basic home-brewing knowledge to take this beer on. If you’re just getting started, I’d recommend purchasing a 1 gallon home brew kit, which it what this recipe is designed for.

***

Spruce Beer
Based on a recipe from Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches. by Eliza Leslie, 1840

1 gallon water
1 gallon plastic bag full of spruce limbs (the tips and newer growth)
1 cup dark maple syrup
1/4 oz hops (I used Willamette and Centennial, because I thought their citrus qualities would pair nicely with the spruce. I also had difficulty finding out what types of hops would have been used historically. If you know, I’d love your input in the comments)
1 packet brewer’s yeast (a champagne yeast or an ale yeast)
6 raisins
5 cracked allspice and 1 teaspoon of ground ginger (optional)

1. Boil water, hops, and spices in a large pot for 20 minutes. Add the spruce limbs and boil 10 minutes more. If you’ve got a mesh brew bag, it helps; if not, strain the liquid. Let it stand until it is warm.

2. Sanitize a gallon glass jug–known as a fermenter. You can do this with a no rinse sanitizer, found at brewing stores. Pour the warm spruce liquid into the jug.

3. Add the yeast and the sugar. Cork the jug with a rubber stopper and an airlock. Allow it to ferment for 2-4 days, or until it stops bubbling.

4. Sanitize your bottles–I like to use 250 ml clip top stopper bottles, but you can bottle in traditional small beer bottles. I sanitize by boiling them for 30 minutes, and then letting them cool upside-down. Put three raisins in the bottom of each. Fill each bottle. Leslie says the raisins are to stop the fermentation process, but she’s mistaken; they’re to give the yeast one last meal which carbonates the beverage once it’s bottled.

5. Allow to sit another two days. Enjoy!

The Results

When you’re done, you’ve got a nicely fizzy, milky, yellow-green beverage.

I assembled a group of historians and beer enthusiasts (and historic beer enthusiasts) to taste my early-American brew. The beer had an extremely fruity nose, some said like grapefruit. It was beautifully carbonated, like seltzer water, and had a lightness to it because of the lack of grain. With my first sip, I thought it tasted bitter. But the more I drank it, the more I realized it was quite sweet compared to most beers. I think the texture of it made me expect it to be sweet, like a soda. It reminded some tasters of a saison or an IPA, but was not as bitter as a really hoppy IPA could be. The pine flavor definitely came through, but was not at all unpleasant. Because it’s not so heavy, you feel like you could drink it all day. But it is alcoholic–I suspect between 1%-3%, the longer it sat in the bottle.

I drank it all day, as it was intended, with a variety of 17th century puritan foods: Samp, a cooked corn porridge topped with maple sugar for breakfast; venison for lunch; and more corn and squash for dinner. It was great with all of it. I felt fine–although I did take a surprise nap in the afternoon and woke up with a headache. Over the course of a week, and it tasted progressively more tart. The colonial homebrews weren’t built to last long after the bottle was opened. They quickly soured.

I don’t know if you want to make this specific recipe; I don’t think it’s good enough for a revival. But let me put it this way: spruce trees aren’t poisonous. They are, in fact, delicious. If you’re making some winter homebrews this year, skip the spruce essence and snip a few limbs from a local tree. It’s a fun nod to America’s brewing past.

Video: Distilling Brooklyn

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Sarah Lohman

If you missed the panel I led in May about Brooklyn distillers, it’s now online! See below! We explore the rich past of distilling in Brooklyn, as well as how New York paved the way for craft distillers in the present day. The NY Distilling Co., Kings County Distillery, Brooklyn Gin, and Van Brunt Stillhouse tell their personal stories of how they came to the craft, and talk about the challenges of craft distilling.

Distilling Brooklyn from Brooklyn Historical Society on Vimeo.

Etsy: How to Make Gin

Posted on July 14, 2015 by Sarah Lohman

I’ve got a new, summer-fresh post up on Etsy all about the history of gin! Such a refreshing drink for the hot weather.

Gin’s most famous role came in the early 20th century, when Prohibition prevented the sale of alcohol. It was particularly easy to produce “bathtub gin” in those trying, dry times. Gin is commercially made by distillation — steaming the alcohol through a basket of spices — but it can be made by infusion. Any plain spirit, like industrial-grade alcohol, could be transformed into “gin” by infusing it with strongly-scented spices, which would hide any bad flavors from the sub-par spirits. Calling the homemade hooch delicious would likely have been a stretch.

Read more about gin history & how-to here!

And if you live in the NYC area, I’m doing a tour and cocktail hour at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden all about the ingredients that go into gin. You can get tickets here!

Events in May: Garlic and Booze!

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Sarah Lohman

The History of Garlic: A Special Dinner at the Farm on Adderley
Tuesday, May 12th, 7:30 PM
$60 / person (+ beverages, tax & gratuity)
To sign-up, send an e-mail to [email protected]

Americans are fanatical about garlic. Not just as food, but as an alternative-medicine cure-all. Our contemporary love of garlic is an irony considering that through much of garlic’s history its taste was considered repulsive. Not simply repulsive, but un-American. “Real” Americans a century ago, viewed Italian immigrants’ love of garlic as a manifestation of their resistance to American culture. This beloved bulb was condemned and marginalized.

Join us for a five-course dinner hosted by historic gastronomist Sarah Lohman. We will eat garlic-focussed foods from our kitchen and dive into how garlic became a flavor so desirable that it managed to transcend xenophobia and became the most widely used flavor in American cooking. Space is limited. Reservations required.

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Distilling Brooklyn
Thursday, May 14th
Doors open 6:30pm. Event begins at 7pm.
@ The Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont St, Brooklyn, NY
$12 General Admission / $8 for BHS and G-W Members

Three of Brooklyn’s top distilleries share their personal distilling histories and look at the vibrant (and sometimes violent) history of distilling in Brooklyn. Moderated by historic gastronomist Sarah Lohman, tastings will be offered from the esteemed participants, Kings County Distillery, New York Distilling Co., Van Brunt Stillhouse, and Brooklyn Gin.

Buy tickets here!

Presented in partnership with Brooklyn Brainery.

Moose Milk: A Boozey Punch for a Blizzard

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Sarah Lohman

Moose Milk: A drink for a blizzard.

If you live anywhere in the Northeast (or those other places that always get snow and don’t freak out) you probably have a lot of snow outside right now. So here’s what you can do with it: make a magical boozey punch that you chill in a snow drift.

The History.

A recipe collection dating from 1966-1998.

Every now and again, a reader will send me something. A little book, or recipe, or what-have-you they’ve stumbled upon. Reader Bonnie Belza sent me a binder of vintage recipes picked up at an estate sale in Arizona, stuffed with handwritten notebook papers and newspaper clippings dating between 1966-1998. The collections’ compiler, Anne, asked friends and family for recipes, and they would sign and date their contribtions: Bette Hartnett’s Southern Pecan Pie, 1970; Mrs. Steven’s Ginger Snaps; Aunt Grace’s Date Nut Loaf. Sometimes, the recipes would come attached to letters and notes, which also went into the recipe binder. The book is not just a collection of desserts, but sampling of Anne’s community.

Gale’s fool-proof dessert is Creme Celeste: vanilla, cream and gelatin molded in a “pint sized parkay tub” and served with fruit.

More recent newspaper clippings confirm that Anne lived with her husband Manolo in Arizona, but I suspect they may have retired there from the Midwest. Ethnic treats like kolaches, and dishes of Swedish descent, are also tucked in the book’s pages indicating they may have come from colder climates. And then there’s the recipe for Moosemilk: on a type-written page, in a fancy font (in the era of electric typewrites, you could change the font!), dated only “friday,” a young woman named Lynne writes to Anne and Manolo about her new baby boy, Mark Oliver Mabry: “John loved the Oliver part but everyone thought it was such an odd name that he hated to name him that so we just used it for a middle name.” On the back, she included two recipes for punch, one of them a rum and ice cream concoction called Moose Milk that she instructs to “Cover and refrigerate and leave covered in a snow bank for several hours or overnight.”

Moose Milk is an old term in Canada for hooch: unfiltered moonshine that came out cloudy. The term dates back to the early 1900s (source). But this moosemilk is a sweet, mixed punch and seems similar to the sort of punches that evolved in the 1950s. I can’t find much dependable history as to its origins, but it seems to have some sort of association with the Canadian Airforce.

The Recipe.

I included some of my parent’s homemade, dark maple syrup.

Variations of the recipe contain Kahlua (which sounds delicious but I didn’t have any on hand) and maple syrup. I did have a jar of my mother’s homemade dark maple syrup, so I decided to substitute it for the 2-3 tablespoons of confectioners sugar recommended in my recipe.

The original recipe for Moosemilk.

Moosemilk
Adapted from a typewritten letter, c. 1975

2 eggs, room temperature
2-3 tablespoons confectioners syrup or dark (grade b) maple syrup
1 pint (2 cups) vanilla ice cream, softened (get the good stuff)
1 quart (4 cups) whole milk
1 pint (2 cups) dark rum (I used Black Seal, but Meyer’s would do you just fine.)

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine eggs and maple syrup. Gradually increasing speed, beat eggs until frothy, about three minutes.
Add ice cream. Beat on low until the it looks like ice cream soup; then beat on high until light and airy, about 4 minutes total.
With mixer on low, add rum and milk. Mix until it looks like watery egg nog.
Pour into tupperware, mason jars or a bowl, and seal. Bury in a snowdrift for at least three hours, or up to overnight.

Alternately, you could make this recipe in the morning and reveal it in the evening for a party. I made mine in the evening as a massive snowstorm rolled through New York, and nestled it into the snow of my apartment building’s back yard. When the bowl of ice cream and booze was all tucked in, I waved good bye, went inside, and waited for the magic to happen.

Putting the punch to bed. See the blue circle of the punch bowl on the ground?

The next morning: Covered in a snow drift!!!

The Results!

In the end, New York City didn’t get as much snow as expected: about a foot in my part of Queens. But somehow, I managed to put the bowl of Moose Milk in the middle of a three foot snow drift. My husband and I dug it out around noon, after it had been in the snow about 18 hours.

Excavating the punch.

When I brought it in, and scissored through the tin foil covering, I was shocked to find ¾ of the contents missing. My first thought, naturally, was “What kind of sorcery is this!” Upon closer inspection, I found a fairly large, but barely imperceptible crack in the bottom of the bowl. Luckily, there was still enough punch left for several glasses.

The final punch!

Overnight, the punch had separated: a delightful, creamy froth had risen to the top, ready to be spooned on top of Moose Milks helpings. Most importantly, the drink had mellowed. When I tasted it right after mixing, all I could tasted was the rum. After many hours in the snow, it was still strong, but the bite of the alcohol had relaxed just enough. I garnished each glass with powdered vanilla, which was just the bump this drink needed. (although I got mine from a collegue, here’s something similar). Creamy, vanilla, goodness.

Moosemilk! If you’ve got some snow outside, harness the weather to make you a drink, instead of taking up precious refrigerator space. Invite a few neighbors to share it with, or perhaps it’s just for you and your partner, while you binge watch The Wire.

Drink Like A Pilgrim: Spruce Beer

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Sarah Lohman

Two bottles of beer brewed with real spruce limbs.

Liquor.com asked me to find out what it was like to Drink like a Pilgrim; and as it turns out, The Puritans were pretty heavy drinkers. Suprised? Although drinking was acceptable in 17th century New England, drunkenness was not. Massachusetts had extensive anti-drunkenness laws.

The rules:

At one time, beer brewed in the home could only be drunk by family members—not by friends.
If you went out for a drink, you could only stay at the tavern for half an hour.
As higher-proof spirits like rum became available, laws made them prohibitively expensive to buy.
You could never, ever drink on Sunday. (Massachusetts still has famously restrictive “blue laws.”)

This Thanksgiving I made a homebrew to accompany my meal. I based my recipe on an early American drink called Spruce Beer, brewed with real spruce branches, hops, dark maple syrup and no grain. Effervescent and yeasty, it’s dramatically different from modern beer. The Puritans would have downed an impressive two to three quarts of this concoction a day.

If you want to know how my beer turned out–and how I felt after drinking three quarts of it–you can read the full article here!

Etsy: A History of Homebrew

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Sarah Lohman

A home-brewed ginger beer.

If you love beer and have ever toyed with the idea of brewing it yourself, head on over to Etsy! I’ve written up a brief history of homebrew, from colonial America to the craft beer trend, and I’ve dug up some of the best beginner’s brewers kits Etsy has to offer. Read it here!

Although I have dabbled in homebrew myself, I have to admit, I’m personally a much bigger fan of consumption than creation.

I want to give a shout out to two great resources I used while researching this post: The Oxford Companion to Beer, an excellent encyclopedic beer reference, and Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer an incredibly well-researched (and fun) investigation of the history of American beer. I highly recommend them both!