Woah Nellie!
Sometimes you just need to get out of the kitchen
by Mary Jo David
Looking back over the last several weeks, between driving out west, vacationing, road-tripping, recovering from COVID, and then traveling home, after nearly 4,800 miles, all I can say is “Woah Nellie!” Short of cooking up one of Nellie’s recipes under the hood of the truck while we were heading north, this month’s column required thinking outside of the box. (NOTE: If you are interested in cooking with your car engine, you may want to check out the book called “Manifold Destiny” by Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller.)
After looking through 100-year-old recipes from April 1924, I couldn’t help but notice that Nellie featured an inordinate number of unusual recipes. So rather than cooking up a vintage recipe in my test kitchen this month, I thought I’d just share some of the more unusual recipes I came across.
Stuffed eggs: This really isn’t such an unusual recipe; it just goes by a different name nowadays—deviled eggs. Not being a hard-boiled egg lover, I’m not one to make deviled eggs. But as I write this, Easter is right around the corner, so I am considering making this recipe for others. Interestingly, Nellie’s recipe instructs to brush the cavity of the eggs with melted butter before filling them with the egg yolk mixture. I don’t know anyone who does this. Do you? She also recommends adding onion juice to the egg yolk mixture. Never having cooked with onion juice before, I used Google and learned you can grate an onion and then place the grated onion in a coffee filter and squeeze. Voila—onion juice!
Cream of Salsify Soup: Say what?! Being intimately familiar with Nellie’s recipes at this point, I was quite certain there was a typo in that soup name. But I was wrong (my apologies, Nellie). It turns out, according to the Oxford Dictionary, “salsify” is “an edible European plant of the daisy family, with a long root like that of a parsnip.” In the Googling I did, western salsify is considered more of a weed and not very common anymore. It was popular as a root vegetable in the 1800s. From what I can gather, it’s like a dandelion, only bigger, and it sometimes goes by the name “oyster plant” because some say it tastes slightly like oysters. Others compare the taste to artichoke. It’s not easy to find salsify, but if you Google, you can find a company in Howell (among others) that sells salsify seeds.
Grape-Nuts for Dessert: According to postconsumerbrands.com, Grape-Nuts cereal has been an iconic American breakfast since 1897. Leave it to Nellie to discover that Grape-Nuts aren’t just for breakfast anymore! She suggested that, mixed with enough chocolate to coat them and served with a bit of cream, Grape-Nuts make a fine “emergency dessert” and one that children will especially love. Hmmmm…I envision a bunch of Grape-Nuts floating in a chocolatey-milky soup. But then again, who am I to judge when I haven’t tried making these. Warning: Next person to accept a dinner invitation to our house might want to prepare themselves for taste testing an “emergency dessert”!
Stuffed Turnips: I’m guessing most SCN readers have at least heard of stuffed peppers and stuffed cabbage, and many have probably cooked them and/or eaten them. But I bet very few have ever tried Stuffed Turnips. I have to say, if I was inclined to cook one of Nellie’s recipes using the truck engine this month, this would have been the one! I cook with turnips, but generally only in chicken soup or beef vegetable soup. I think they do add a nice flavor to soup, but I’m not sure how they would taste as a vessel for holding a meat/rice/breadcrumb mixture. Still, there’s something about Nellie’s suggestion for cutting off the tops and using them as little “hats” for each stuffed turnip that intrigues me. It makes me want to whip up a batch and enter them in the State Fair next year!
Cabbage with Cheese: Last but not least is a recipe that sounds very similar to mac ‘n’ cheese, except instead of noodles you boil shredded cabbage. Then, like mac ‘n’ cheese, you add a white sauce and some melted cheese. So, which of our SCN readers is ready to try making this recipe and reporting back on how it tastes? My only thought is: If your house doesn’t smell when you’re done boiling the cabbage, it will definitely smell when people are done eating it! (Am I allowed to say that? Will the editor fire me? Oh wait, I am the editor!)
So here you have it. A collection of Nellie’s most unusual recipes from April 1924. If you’re inclined to try any of these recipes, visit the Stockbridge Library and ask to view the old Stockbridge Brief-Sun newspapers, which have been saved to flash drives and are easily viewable on a library computer. Oh, and don’t forget to report back on whether the recipe(s) deserves a “thumbs-up” or a “thumbs-down.”
