Tag Archives: Elizabeth Raffald

Mulled Wine

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mulled wineThis post was originally going to be about posset, an 18th-century tonic made with alcohol, hot spiced milk, and eggs. It sounded like therapeutic eggnog, just the thing for those of us already worn down by the holidays — and the cold weather in New York right now.

Well, I made two posset recipes, and neither turned out too well. I won’t go into the gory details about that (curdling and so on), but fortunately, while researching possets, I came across a recipe for mulled wine made with eggs.  I was intrigued and decided to give it a try, and I’m so glad I did! Continue reading →

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Macaroni and Cheese

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mac and cheese, Jefferson styleAs my daughter scarfed down yet another meal of mac and cheese the other day, I told her that she had Thomas Jefferson at least partly to thank for that dish, although I can’t imagine what he would have made of our modern-day macaroni boxes with powdered cheese packets.

Jefferson fell for pasta in a big way when he lived in France and traveled through Europe in the 1780s. He took notes on “maccaroni” (then a generic term for pasta) while in Italy, and drew a diagram for a pasta machine. He also brought home a recipe for hand-made noodles (to be used in vermicelli soup) and had a pasta press shipped home — which, like most of us, he didn’t really use. Continue reading →

Chocolate Puffs

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chocolate puffsI recently bought a block of American Heritage Chocolate, a gritty, stone-ground chocolate made in the colonial style, at the Genesee Country Village and Museum in Mumford, New York. I was excited about using it for this blog, but soon discovered that not many 18th-century English or American recipes actually called for chocolate.

Chocolate was widely consumed in colonial America — it was even part of military rations for American and British troops during the Revolutionary War. But until the mid-19th century, it was nearly always used for drinking, not baked in desserts or eaten on its own.

Continue reading →