SpiceLines

Last week, while cleaning out my cookbook library, I ran across Patricia’s spattered copy of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook. The page with the publication date is missing, but I’ m guessing that it may be the classic 1918 edition, the last personally edited by Fannie Merritt Farmer. She wrote the introduction, and in the back there are pages advertising her famed cooking classes, $12 for the first series of 10, held at 30 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Mass. Telephone: 1373-2 Back Bay.

The book begins, astonishingly, with a quote from John Ruskin:

“Cookery means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of Helen and of the Queen of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all herbs and fruits and balms and spices, and all that is healing and sweet in the fields and groves and savory in meats. It means carefulness and inventiveness and willingness and readiness of appliances. It means the economy of your grandmother and the science of the modern chemist; it means much testing and no wasting; it means English thoroughness and French art and Arabian hospitality; and, in fine, it means that you are to be perfectly and always ladies—loaf givers.”

You don’t hear much about Ruskin on Top Chef these days.

Fannie Farmer’s book was, of course, written for the home cook. It takes us to another time and place, when food was not conveniently packaged. Leafing through the fragile pages I found recipes for terrapin (“…plunge into boiling water and boil for five minutes…Draw out head with a skewer and rub off skin.”) and in the chapter on bread making, a scientific treatise on yeast: “The yeast plant is killed at 212 [degrees] F; life is suspended , but not entirely destroyed, 32 [degrees] F. The temperature best suited for its growth is from 65 [degrees] to 68 [degrees] F. The most favorable conditions for the growth of yeast are a warm, moist, sweet, nitrogenous soil. These must be especially considered in bread making.”

There was not, however, a single recipe for the infamous orange meringue pie.

But there were no less than five recipes for lemon meringue pie and I noticed that these pages were heavily spotted with ancient drips and drops I began to wonder if my grandmother had substituted orange juice for the lemon filling. Fannie was, after all, her trusty kitchen companion, though she was also partial to The Mystery Chef. Which version had she used? It certainly wasn’t I, with chopped apple and “rolled common crackers.” But it might have been II, thickened with cornstarch and flour, or, I hoped, IV, made simply with eggs, sugar, lemon juice and grated lemon rind.

All this reminded me of Patricia Wells’ delicious Lemon Lover’s Tart in At Home in Provence, probably my favorite of all her cookbooks. The filling is actually a too-die-for lemon curd made of nothing more than lemon juice, sugar, eggs and butter. It is easy to make as long as you don’t get distracted by a handyman’s nattering on about another client’s $100,000 kitchen renovation, in which case it will probably curdle and you will have to start over.

Since I’ve been experimenting with citrus this week, I decided to make orange curd in sweet memory of my father, using Well’s recipe as the springboard. I had to make a few adjustments, of course. The juice of the Cara Cara oranges I used was lovely and sweet, but since the other ingredients are so rich, I boosted the acidity by adding the juice of a lemon. I also cut back on the sugar and butter, and grated pungent orange zest directly into the curd instead of blanching it first.

When you make the curd, taste the juice of your oranges first and go from there. If they are pallid tasting, definitely add the lemon juice. If they are quite sour, on the other hand, skip the lemon juice; you may wish to use a full cup of sugar.

Wicked Buttery Orange Curd is just that—wicked, especially if you are trying to be good after a month of holiday indulgence. Well , never mind. Slather it on Homely Buttermilk Scones, and enjoy it as you sip a cup of smoky lapsang souchong tea and leaf through your own memory laden cookbooks.

Wicked Buttery Orange Curd

(adapted from Patricia Well’s recipe for Lemon Lover’s Tart in At Home in Provence)

To serve with a dozen scones

Ingredients:

1 or 2 oranges, preferably Cara Cara or any other sweet variety
Juice of one lemon, if desired
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
3/4 cup, plus 2 tablespoons white sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into six pieces

Method:

1. Scrub an orange with hot water and soap. Rinse well and dry with a kitchen towel. Run a microplane gently over the orange to grate the zest. There should be about 2 teaspoons. Set aside.
2. Squeeze one or two oranges to make ½ cup juice. Strain and taste. If the juice is sweet, add just enough lemon juice, a teaspoon at a time, to tip the balance in favor of acidity. Stir well to mix and re-measure ½ cup of juice. Drink whatever is left over.
(If the juice of the orange is very sour, use a full cup of sugar in Step 3. If it is tasteless, on the other hand, add lemon juice as above.)
3. In the top of a double boiler combine the eggs, egg yolks and sugar. Add water to the bottom half of the boiler and bring to a simmer. Whisk the egg and sugar mixture continuously for 8 to 10 minutes until the mixture turns pale yellow and is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. (If you don’t have a double boiler, use a metal mixing bowl large enough to sit on top of a medium pot. Be sure that the simmering water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.)
4. Whisk in the butter, one piece at a time. Let the first piece melt, before adding the next.
5. Pour in the juice mixture and the orange zest. Whisk until the mixture thickens again. This will take 8 to 10 minutes.
6. Pour the curd into a bowl. It will thicken even more as it cools. Refrigerate if you are not using it immediately, but return to room temperature before serving for the most luscious flavor.
7. Serve on buttermilk scones with a pot of hot tea.

Homely Buttermilk Scones

This recipe is adapted from one I created for an article I did for The New York Times, some years ago, with the odd title, “Afternoon Teas Are Still Flourishing.” Did they ever die?

To make savory scones, you can leave out the sugar and add herbs or a little grated cheese. The cheesy ones would be delicious with ham or turkey and chutney, the herb-flecked ones with smoked salmon and lemon mayonnaise.

To make 12 to 15 scones

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
Pinch salt
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 6 pieces
½ cup buttermilk, plus 1 or 2 tablespoons

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Sift flour and other dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
3. With a pastry wheel, cut the butter into the flour. [Actually you can skip this step and proceed to Step 4.]
4. Then, using your fingertips, quickly work the butter into the flour until it has a mealy texture.
5. Add ½ cup of buttermilk and stir with a wooden fork to mix [What was I thinking? Use a spoon—or your fingers.] Add another 1 or 2 tablespoons if necessary so that the dough forms a soft ball.
6. Knead the dough a few times on a lightly floured board. Then roll or pat it into a circle 1/2 –inch thick. Using a 2-inch cookie cutter, cut out a dozen rounds. If any dough remains, roll it out again and continue cutting.
7. Bake the scones on a cookie sheet in the middle of the oven for 12 or 13 minutes, or until golden. Serve warm, with orange curd.