Mark Twain’s 1906 Players Club Dinner, Part 1

I began this blog a year ago!  In that time I have had over 100,000 visits, learned about many things that I had always been curious about, sharpened my photography skills (still a way to go on that one!)  found some spectacular purveyors of food, drink and scents and met many wonderful blog friends who have been tirelessly supportive and generously shared their enjoyment of life in general and food in particular.

The Player's Club

The whole idea of Lost Past Remembered began in 2008 when I discovered a cache of 19^th century menus at the Player’s Club in NYC.  From there a blog was born. I began to make things I had always wanted to make and share old favorites from my personal recipe stash, realizing that in choosing my blog’s name I had given myself a gigantic playing field.  At this point the 90’s are history, aren’t they?

In honor of this milestone, I thought I would revisit my first post and create the whole menu that was served for Mark Twain in 1906 since the first post was all talk and no cooking (I had made Nesselrode Pudding the Christmas before, sans photos).   Because of the number of dishes, the post will come in two parts.  Most of the recipes have come from Delmonico’s 1894 recipe book, The Epicurean by Charles Ranhofer, as it was a familiar favorite restaurant for Twain. 

As I said in my first Twain post  , this was a welcome-back dinner and for it the Player’s pulled out all the stops.  Twain quotes were used throughout to illuminate the menu. 

Original 1906 Twain Menu

To start, caviar.  From Ranhofer’s description of cavar in The Epicurean, it has changed somewhat from what we eat today.  It was more like pressed caviar and although the US produced its own excellent variety, the preferred source, then as now, was the Caspian Sea.

Served with lemon and onion, as it would have been 100 years ago, it is still a great way to start out a grand occasion as the accompanying quote in the menu said; “ it is peradventure that manner of thing which of late the unbelievers have brought from over the great seas?  You bet… sturgeon eggs are that and so much more.

Sturgeon

The Beluga sturgeon is the rarest Caspian Sea variety.  It can live to be 100 years old, grow to 30 feet and weigh up to 1800 pounds.  It takes 20 years to mature and produce roe.  Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the catch was strictly monitored. Without this protection the magnificent Beluga sturgeon will soon be extinct thanks to an explosion in illegal poaching (take care that you know where your caviar comes from before buying, -- encourage legal sources by buying from them).

Oystermen

Next, Oysters, “A blowout ain’t anything as a blowout unless a body has company” said Twain.

Oysters were served simply with shallots, lemon and salt and pepper at the turn of the century (I added tarragon).  That hasn’t changed -- they are still best served that way.  In the 19^th century oysters held a peculiar place on the New York food chain.  Plentiful enough (on any day in the late 19^th century, 6 million oysters would be harvested from NY Harbor) that poor people could eat them, yet given a Minton dish and silver fork, equally at home in a very elegant dining room. Sadly,  by the early 20^th century, oysters were gone from the harbor due to pollution and over-fishing and were imported and only consumed by the wealthy.

Dinner Table from The Epicurean

Also at table would have been celery dishes -- long, heavy, cut-glass celery dishes.

I remember this from my grandmother’s table as a child.   At any large dinner there were always cut glass celery dishes with radishes and accompanying salt dishes.  It is easy to forget that my grandmother would have been in her 20s in 1906… this was her youth!  All of the old-fashioned ways she had were born in the turn of the 20^th century.

1884, Harper’s Weekly 

In 1906, no fine meal would be complete without turtle soup and the Twain quote for it on the menu read ""We had a soup that had something in it that seemed to taste like the hereafter, but it proved to be only pepper".  


Green turtle was a dish for the rich in New York and was seen either on its own or in a soup. The green sea turtle was so named because of the yellow-green tint to the fat of the under-shell called the calipee, and green calipash gelatin from the upper shell that gave it a special flavor and gelatinous texture. The green turtle averages 2-6 feet in length and 300-400 pounds when fully mature and lives in warm, tropical areas. According to the NYTs, a private cook would procure a small 30-pound specimen for home use.  It was on every menu of the fine restaurants, private clubs and well-to-do homes of the day. Today it is a protected species.

Lotos Club Menu, 1893

When I was young, I tasted Green Turtle Soup at The Lotos Club in New York City   (Mark Twain called The Lotos the “Ace of Clubs”).  It was originally on 14^th Street and Irving, only a few blocks from the Player’s Club on Gramercy Park in NYC.  Twain would often walk between them, enjoying the society of both places

Illustration of Twain at the Lotos Club by Pierre Brissaud from ad for Old Taylor Kentucky Whiskey
from Feb. 1937 COUNTRY LIFE 

Like the Players Club, The Lotos Club was begun by Twain and others to cater to writers and journalists and friends of the arts toward the end of the 19^th Century.

Lotus Club Library

By the time I visited, it had moved into a beautiful townhouse on 5 E 66^th Street.  I ate the turtle soup reluctantly at a meal there (I had a pet turtle as a child so eschewed eating the little beasties in memory of my beloved pet).   What I remember most about it was that it had an amazing green color, a slightly viscous texture and that was perfumed with sherry.  I felt guilty about it, but it was delicious and seemed very sophisticated  to my young eyes.

Alice in Wonderland, Mock-Turtle

For this menu, I made “mock turtle” using ideas from an 1891 NYTs recipe since green turtle is off-limits.   The green color and flavor I longed for was arrived at with the help of soaking herbs in Madeira… brilliant idea.  I wanted it greener still so just before serving, I put it in the blender with more herbs, strained it and, voilá -- there was the perfect calipash-green I wanted.  The soup is light and delicious.  My biggest pointer would be to use homemade stock.  The packaged stuff will not work… and will give the soup an  “off” taste.  Mock turtle is usually made with veal stock, a stock made with calves head to give the soup the gelatin it needs to be more like turtle soup (sorry, no calves head this time!).  Turtle was an expensive delicacy in the 19^th century, but the new middle classes loved the idea and mock turtle was born and became extremely popular.  These days you can add a little gelatin to rich stock and get the same effect should you not feel like boiling a head!  It is slightly thickened, not aspic like.

New York Times, July 30, 1891

Mock Green Turtle Soup serves 6

4 c good homemade stock (beef or chicken)

slice of ham or ham bone

 a sprig of marjoram,

2 sprigs of parsley

½ an onion, sliced

pinch of cloves

S &P

2 T butter

2 T flour

2 sprigs each marjoram, thyme basil and parsley, roughly chopped

1 cup Madeira from the Rare Wine Company

1 sprig parsley

1 sprig basil

½ t gelatin softened in ½ c stock (optional)

lemon slices

Marinate the herbs in the Madeira for a few hours or overnight.

Put stock, ham herbs onion cloves and salt and pepper in a pot and simmer for an hour or 3 if using a ham bone.

Strain the stock, skim any fat and blend with the butter.  Add the herbs from the Madeira, reserving the Madeira.

The NYTs recommends leaving it overnight at this point to lose the raw taste.

Just before serving, heat the soup, add the gelatin then remove a cup of stock and blend with the extra herbs.  Add this back into the soup, strain, adjust seasoning (adding some of the herb scented Madeira if needed) and serve with a lemon slice in each bowl.

After the lightness of caviar, oysters, crudités and turtle soup, it’s time to have a little meat. In this case, it is Frog’s legs.  “It might be a canary, maybe, but it ain’t: it’s only just a frog.”

 Bullfrog

 If you’ve never had them, you are in store for a treat.  I know everyone always says this -- but they are chicken-like with a hint of troutiness, very delicately flavored with a texture like chicken wings and wonderful in this deviled style that really needs a renaissance.  If you can’t get them, this works beautifully with chicken wings.  If the sauce is too much for you, a good ketchup with a little horseradish would be great with these fried frogs legs.  The deviled crumb is a little unruly but delicious.

Deviled Frog’s Legs

1 lb frogs legs

S & P

¼ t nutmeg

1 T lemon juice

1 T Dijon mustard

½ t dry mustard

4 T melted butter

1 c breadcrumbs

Deviled Sauce

Season frog’s legs with salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Combine mustard, lemon juice and butter and coat the frog’s legs with it, then roll in bread-crumbs.    Broil for 10 minutes turning once until browned and serve with Deviled sauce.

Deviled Sauce


2 T vinegar
1 ounces chopped shallot
a few parsley leaves
a sprig of thyme
a clove of garlic, crushed and chopped
1c espagnole sauce (see recipe in sweetbread's recipe)
a pinch of pepper
a pinch of cayenne
1/4 c red wine
1 T mustard
1/2 t dry mustard
1 T tomato sauce


Cook the vinegar, shallot, herbs and garlic for a few minutes.  Allow to steep.  Strain and add the rest and serve warm.   

After that came sweetbreads, “The precious juices of the meat trickling out and joining the gravy archipelegoed with mushrooms.”  This is a complex preparation.  It is best done in pieces.  I hadn’t made an espagnole sauce in years but there’s a reason it’s called a mother sauce.

Sweetbreads au Monarch for 2

¾ lb sweetbreads, trimmed, boiled and pressed *

2 T butter

1 c Madeira sauce**

2 circles of bread

chicken quenelle with truffle ***

a few slices of truffle from D'Artagnan

¼ pound foie gras from D'Artagnan

1 artichoke bottom, cooked and cubed

2 mushrooms, sliced

2 crawfish tail or jumbo shrimp

Saute the sweetbreads in butter, remove and keep warm.   Saute the mushrooms in the butter.  Add the artichoke and foie gras and crawfish tail or shrimp and cook till done.  Return  sweetbread with truffle slices to pan and coat with sauce.  Put a toasted circle of bread on the plate.  Arrange mushrooms, foie gras and artichoke on the plate.  Place sweetbread, quenelle and crayfish/ shrimp on the toast and nap with remaining sauce.

*How to cook sweetbreads

**Madeira Sauce

2 C Espagnole sauce

½ c chicken stock

1 T truffle pairings, truffle from D'Artagnan

1 c Madeira from The Rare Wine Company

Reduce espagnole, stock with truffle pairings till thick then add Madeira, slowly.  Strain and use.

Espagnole Sauce

4 T butter

4 T flour

6 cups homemade beef or veal stock

2 t tomato paste

3T demiglace from D'Artagnan

Saute butter and flour slowly over low heat until dark brown… do not burn.   Add stock and tomato paste and cook for an hour or so until slightly thickened.  Add the demiglace.  You should have around 2 to 2 1/2 cups.

***Chicken Quenelle

¼ pound chicken breast

2 T pate a choux ^

1 T butter

pinch nutmeg

S & P

2 T cream

1 egg white

2 t chopped truffle from D'Artagnan

Combine ingredients in the food processor and blend.  Put into small, well buttered molds.  Sit in a saucepan with boiling water coming up to 2/3 of the sides of the mold ( you will have a little extra).  Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes and unmold.

^Paté a Choux

1 c water

1 ounce butter

1/3 lb flour (1 ¼ c)

1 egg

2 yolks

Melt butter in water and stir in flour till well mixed and the mixture pulls away from the pan.  Remove from heat and add the eggs one at a time, stirring rapidly.  Remove what you need for the recipe and get the bonus of little puffs!  Pipe them on a parchment lined sheet pan in a 425 oven for 20  minutes.  Remove, poke with a toothpick to remove steam and cool… pop in the freezer and you can make a quick dessert any time!

Next comes the palate cleansing sorbet, “a little punch behind”.  For this I chose Maraschino Sorbet: made with lemon ice, maraschino liqueur, a little pureed sour cherry and punched with sparkling wine.

Maraschino Sorbet or Sparkling Crimson

2 c maraschino sorbet

1 bottle sparkling wine

Put a scoop of sorbet in a glass, pour sparkling wine over sorbet, stir and serve

Maraschino Sorbet

1 cup lemon ice*

1 ½ c frozen sour cherries

2 T Maraschino liqueur

1 beaten egg white (optional)

Take the lemon ice mixture and combine with cherries.  Cook for 10 minutes until cherries are cooked.  Push the contents through a fine mesh strainer, add maraschino and egg white if you choose and freeze.

*Lemon  Ice:

2 cups water

1 1/3 c sugar

½ c lemon juice

Grated rind of 2 lemons

Boil the sugar and water together and reduce  a little to a syrup.  Add the lemon juice and peel and put in the freezer.  If using in the cherry sorbet, stop before freezing.

Stay tuned for next week… squabs and Nesselrode pudding, a  chestnut ice cream with a  maraschino cream for the grand finale of the Mark Twain Dinner!!!

Thanks to Gollum for hosting Foodie Friday

Special thanks to all of the purveyors who have made my exotic dishes possible through their generosity and sharing of expertise.  I couldn't have done it without them!

Aftelier

Ambergris Co., NZ

Craft Distillers

D'ARTAGNAN

Grazin'Angus Acres

Marx Foods

and 

The Rare Wine Company ( & Mannie Berk, My Madeira patron!)

Lastly, a special mention to Ken Albala, food historian extraordinaire, who encouraged me to go to Oxford and has helped me get things right with his love and knowledge of history. 

and

Thanks to Dan Perrelli and Sarah Gim for my magical

Los Angeles weekend at Lambapalooza that made me 

feel like I had been blessed by a fairy godmother/father 

to be able to hobnob with so many passionate food and wine lovers.