The Art and Mystery of Food

"Cookery and pastry", as taught and practised by Mrs MacIver, 1773

Mrs Susanna MacIver ran a cooking school in the 18th century Edinburgh for "..instructing  young Ladies in this necessary branch of female education..". I have found little in the way of personal history, although she has been described by Florence White in "Good Things in England" as the daughter of an inpoverished Highland laird. Her cooking school was located in the Old Town of Edinburgh, although strictly speaking this is anachronistic as the New Town was constructed from the 1770's onwards. The period in which she was active at her cooking school corresponds to a period in which the Old Town was chronically over crowded with people from all levels of Edinburgh society being crammed into the same tenement buildings. Wealthy families took the middle levels, while poorer families lived in basement, bottom and the very top levels.

Above: Multi-level tenements at the bottom of West Bow Street. Although this is now one of the most attractive streets in the Edinburgh Old Town, it was at the heart of some of the worst slums in the city.

Above: Detail of the upper levels of the tenements. The paired holes in the upper section are "doo'cots" (dove cots). Pigeon meat would have provided an easily accessable form of protein.

Her cooking book is one of many similar books published in Britain by owners of cooking schools who gave basic instruction to young women from the top of the social strata, in cooking and running a large household. By the end of the 18th century this model of cookbook was out if fashion and we enter a period in which cookbooks were published as manuals of general utility and not for the upper strata of fashionable society, the most famous of these books eventually being compiled by Mrs Beeton. Poentially one reason for the late date of Mrs MacIvers cooking school for young ladies is due to the enforced mixing of social groups due to the over crowding of the Old Town.

I was very lucky to find a copy of MacIver's cookbook in an Edinburgh junk shop. Published in 1773, this book is quite wonderful. Mrs MacIver writes with authority on the food of upper class Edinburgh during one of the city's most interesting periods. The recipes represents regional Scottish cooking for the upper-middle classes (with all it's international influences) and are distinctive in that they lack the pan-British flavour of cookbooks produced from the begining of the 19th century onwards. The recipes are detailed, well explained and more importantly are still of interest to modern readers. Recipes for very early modern trifle, orange marmalade, Scots Haggis and Rum Shrub ( sort of an early Rum cocktail mix) are a sample of what a well heeled Scottish lady is expected to know how to prepare in the 18th century.

The haggis recipe is of particular interest. Few people seem to realise that it was only relatively recently that the haggis become so strongly associated with Scotland. Prior to the late 18th century various recipes for haggis and related puddings such as Lakelands Hackin Pudding were found in England also. Mrs MacIver's "Haggie" is often refered to as the archetype of all modern Scottish haggis, which prehaps will surprise many given the inclusion of beef as a main componant. Thr truth is that there will be as many recipes for haggis as there are people that make them during this period. MacIver's just happens to be the first Scottish Haggis recipe in print.

A Good Scotch Haggies

Make the haggis-bag perfectly clean, parboil the draught ; boil the liver very well, so as it will grate ; dry the meal before the fire ; mince the draught and a pretty large piece of beef very small ; grate about half of the liver ; mince plenty of the suet and some onions small ; mix all these materials very well together, with a handful or two of the dried meal ; spread them on the table, and season them properly with salt and mixed spices ; take any of the scraps of beef that are left from mincing, and some of the water that boiled the draught, and make about a choppin of good stock of it ; then put all the haggis meat into the bag, and that broth in it ; then sew up the bag : but be sure to put out all the wind before you sew it quite close. If you think the bag is thin, you may put it in a cloth. If it is a large haggis, it will take at least two hours' boiling.

"Sir Robert Walpole's Dumplings" are a very tasty variation of suet puddings. As they are made from breadcrumbs and whipped eggs they are one of the very lightest in texture of this class of pudding and definately deserve to be made more often.

Ingredients:

500 gm shredded suet 400 gm fresh bread crumbs 400 gm dried currants 50 gm candied orange peel, shredded 50 gm candied citron peel, shredded six eggs, seperated in to yolks and whites 50 gm sugar 1 tspn cinnamon 1 tspn salt 25 ml whisky

Method:

Mix dry ingredients. Whip 6 egg yolks and 3 egg whites very well and add along with the whisky to the dry ingredients, mix well. Place this mixture in a well floured pudding cloth, tie the pudding and boil for two hours. MacIver suggests you serve this with a wine and butter sauce, but custard is also ideal.

Above: The dry ingredients.

Above: A slice of dumpling.

"Moorish Recipes" by John, Fourth Marquis of Bute

I'm afraid I have a secret shame which is ebay addiction. Every day I log on an scan through the books on offer in the hope of getting that special high that comes from finding something truely interesting. Mostly I get out bid, especially on nice leather bound editions, but I have had a great deal of luck with scruffy, broken-spined, down-on-their-luck books which nobody else wants...

One great find was "Moorish Recipes" collected and compiled by John, 4th Marquiss of Bute. This is the first cookbook on Moroccan food published for many decades and certainly the first in English John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute (1881-1947), was a Scottish peer, descendant of the 14th-Century Scottish King Robert III and quite fabulously wealthy. He was also very interested in the culture of Morocco (where he was the largest foreign landowner at the time), taking time to learn about the food of the region and built the Moorish style El Minzah Hotel in Tangier. "Moorish Recipes" was originally published for private circulation in 1954, but a trade edition soon followed in 1955. While book states that the recipes are "the Marrakesh taste" they actually seem to have been collected in Tangier in the home of the  Mebebbi family. Paula Wolfert has told me that present day members of the Mebebbi family indicate that recipes were gathered from fine homes in Tetouan and Tangier.

This book is not well known and has suffered by comparison to Madame Guinaudeau's uttery charming "Fes Vu par sa Cuisine" (1958, published in English translation as Moroccan Cooking: Recipes from Fez). I'm am very far from having any real knowledge of North African food, but several things about the recipes in "Moorish Recipes" strike me as a sincere attempt to record authentic recipes. First of all there is the use of Arabic script for all of the recipes and the foreward, the first recipe is a very detailed discription for producing Warka, the use of olive oil rather then butter (The use of olive oil is interestng as at this point you would be lucky to get olive oil in a British chemist, if at all) and the fact that the book was not published by the author for public distribution, rather it seems to be a private project. Sure there are errors and substitutions, but I'm sure that cook book authors now have to make substitutions and use personal, subjective judgement when it comes to publishing a representive recipe of a particular cultures cuisine for an American or British audience.

I have adapted one recipe from the book below and provided a complete list of recipes at the end of the article out of interest.

Above: "Suery" (Souiri)

This is an unusual egg set dish from Morocco, in fact it resembles Tunisian tagine and ma'qudas more then anything. Paula Wolfert has told me that this dish is considered a failed version of  Djej Mefenned, in which a whole chicken is fried while at the same time bastes it with the seasoned eggs,this results in a chicken coated with a golden shell of egg. I have made this dish (based on the recipe from Paula's "Good Food from Morocco") and it is delicious. Suery is failed, but less technically challenging. I have adapted the original recipe as I didn't like the idea of picking chicken bones out of the finished dish (I wanted to feed this to my 17 month son), but still wanted to retain the flavour. Ideally the eggs should be just set so it is best to serve if from the cooking vessel. The presence of the aromatic preserved lemon provides a vital counter-point in flavour to the richness of the dish. Lemon juice is also a good addition. The finished dish should be juicy chunks of chicken set in a matrix of aromatic egg, not flavourless rags of chicken flesh in an omlette.

Ingredients:

Chicken
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp tumeric
1 Tsp finely choppedcoriander
4 Tsp finely chopped parsley
2 large onions, finely chopped
1 small piece cinnamon bark
150 gm olive oil
½ tsp powdered cinnamon
1/2 preserved lemon (peel only)
6 eggs

Method:

Mix together chicken, salt, pepper, ginger, turmeric, coriander, 1 Tsp parsley, two large onions, cinnamon bark, olive oil and 400 ml of water.

Simmer for an hour, or until tender. Remove chicken from broth and allow to cool. Strain broth and reduce to 1 cup in volume. Skim off the fat.

Beat eggs with remaining parsley and the lemon peel.

Remove flesh from chicken and shred, place this in a bowl, sprinkle with powdered cinnamon.

Mix together the egg mixture and chicken broth, and pour over the chicken, cook bottom for mixture until just set and glaze the top under the grill. The mixture should be set, but not too hard. Lemon juice can be poured on if desired.

Complete List of Recipes: Should you be interested in any of these recipes, please contact me and I will provide adapted version of the original.

Pastry
Kufta, soup
Herrera, kind of soup
Mehalis, kind of pudding
Zeilook, eggplant mixed with olive oil
Bistaela I, chicken with eggs
Bistaela II
Sfa Merduma, dried kuskus with chicken
Dejaj Mafooar, chicken steamed
Dejaj Macfool ma Matisha, chicken covered with tomato
Suery, chicken with lemon
Dejaj bil food, chicken with broad beans
Makalli, chicken fried in oil
Lema ma’amara I
Lema ma’amara II
Dejaj mahammara, roast chicken
Dejaj meslook, boiled chicken
Frach bil hamus
Treed, a famous Arab dish
Emsharmel, chicken cooked in oil
Frach bil looz, pigeons with almonds
Frach bil shereea, pigeons with vermicelli
Shton, whitebait
Shton Makalli, whitebait
Samak meslook, boiled fish
Hut masmar, large fish
Hut mahshi, stuffed fish
Dulaa
Mahshi I
Mahshi II
Macfool ma Asel
Jibana bil gub
Quaah
Kabab emsharmel, cooked meat with lemon
Mderbel
Etfaya, meat fried with olive oil and almonds
El Kefta, minced meat – rissole
Macfool bil croombe
Kibdha, liver fried
Moch, sheep brains
Lerrnib, hare
Kuskusa
Kuskusa, mutton I
Kuskusa, mutton II
Kuskusa, onion
Ktaif
Braewats, almond
Braewats, rice
Makalli, raiff, fried loaf
Raiff, loaf
Raiff of egg
Raiff of cheese
Miluy
Bughreer
Mahansha, sweet with almonds
Greewush, a sweet eaten during the month of Ramadan
Leem el mseir, preserved citron
Khubz el jarade, locust bread