Thanksgiving Cookery - The Late 19th Century

THE LATE 19TH CENTURY :
AMERICA DINES OUT

The late 19th century was the great period of American restaurant cookery. Elaborate restaurant meals in turn influenced home cooking. For the middle class, home cooking became a complex art demanding considerable skill. Cookbooks and cooking schools proliferated. Many cooking school teachers produced their own cookbooks, many cookbooks were also produced by the food industry itself. Alessandro Filippini, head chef at the famed New York City restaurant, Delmonico’s, wrote The Table : how to buy food, how to cook it, and how to serve it, adapting his very elaborate restaurant menus and recipes to the capabilities of the American housewife.

Chestnut Stuffing
from : The Table : how to buy food, how to cook it, and how to serve it. By Alessandro Filippini. Rev. Ed. New York : Charles L. Webster & Company, 1891.

Peel a good-sized, sound shallot, chop it up very fine, place in a saucepan on the hot range with one tablespoonful of butter, and let heat for three minutes without browning, then add a quarter of a pound of sausage meat. Cook five minutes longer, then add ten finely chopped mushrooms, twelve well-pounded, cooked, peeled chestnut; mix all well together.

Season with one pinch of salt, half a pinch of pepper, half a saltspoonful of powdered thyme, and a teaspoonful of finely chopped parsley.

Let just come to a boil, then add half an ounce of fresh bread crumbs and twenty-four whole cooked and shelled chestnuts; mix all well together, being careful not to break the chestnuts. Let cool off, and then stuff the turkey with it.