Some foods just seem to go together: bacon and eggs, fish and chips, grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Similarly, a hundred years ago, people often ate certain food combinations. A hundred-year-old cookbook contained a list of suggested foods to serve with various types of meat and fish.
Some of the old-time food combinations were similar to common combinations today; others were quite different. Apples and pork went together both a hundred years ago and now. The list said that applesauce should be served with both post roast and pork croquettes. I’ve seen recent recipes that call for serving cooked apple slices or rings with pork chops and other types of pork.
Other food combination recommendations in the old cookbook seemed more unusual. I can’t quite picture serving olives stuffed with cream cheese with cold tongue – though who am I to say? I can’t remember ever serving cold tongue, so maybe the olives would be lovely with it.
Out of curiosity I looked up walnut catsup (never heard of it!) and learned that it tastes similar to steak sauce or Worcestershire sauce, which sounds like it would taste good with venison.
Thanks for researching what walnut catsup tastes like. It does sound like it would be good with venison.
I like warm tongue, but would serve it with corn bread and fried potatoes! lol
I haven’t had tongue in years. Warm tongue with corn bread and fried potatoes sounds lovely.
A lot of people don’t like the texture of tongue meat, but I do. I also like chicken gizzards. 😜 I grew up on country cookin’ and still love it!
I also grew up on country cooking. It’s the best.
Sure is!!
How long does it take to stuff olives with cream cheese? I think I would chop them up and stir them into the cream cheese.
Stuffing olives with cream cheese sounds very time consuming. I like your suggestion to chop them up and just stir them into the cream cheese – though the presentation would be quite different.
Some of these do sound quite common and still may be eaten by people. Others seem a bit unusual. I have no idea why strawberry preserves would be served with fried chicken, but perhaps it is quite delicious. My grandparents occasionally had cow’s tongue. I only tried it once, and the texture was so unpalatable to me I could not eat it. In a way, it reminds me of calamari, which I do not care for–it tastes rubbery. When I was in graduate school, we had some type of celebration in which one of the items served was tongue. One of my professors was from India and seemed shocked I did not eat it. I just explained I do not care for it and that was the end of it, but I had not heard of anyone serving tongue since I was that child in rural Texas who spit it out.
My mother-in-law served tongue several times while we lived next door. I was able to eat it, and thankfully John NEVER asked me to cook it.
I think that I might be able to find cured, thinly sliced tongue at some delis, but I have no idea where I’d even find a whole tongue to cook (not that I want to cook one).
Similarly to you, I haven’t eaten tongue in years. When I was a child on the farm, when we butchered a cow, we would have tongue. It definitely wasn’t a favorite but I liked it better than the liver that we also got when butchering.
I have technically never eaten it. I spit it out the first time I tried it.
I would have been in trouble if I’d done that. 🙂
I probably would have been also if I had been at home. My grandmother was kind. I mean, who can get upset with a child for spitting out a cow’s tongue? I am sure my mother never prepared cow’s tongue.
I enjoyed reading the list, even though I’ve not eaten all of the listed main dishes.
I’m glad you enjoyed the list. I also thought that it was interesting, though, like you, never have eaten some of the dishes on the list.
Wow, walnut ketchup and venison actually sound intriguing! It’s fascinating how much our standard flavors have changes, but sweet and earthy pairings with gamey meats make so much sense.
Now that you mention it, sweet and earthy pairings with gamey meats sounds good.
It’s fascinating to see what has changed and what hasn’t. I have to agree about the cream cheese stuffed olives and tongue – sounds like an odd combination to me. My favourite deli regularly has beef tongue available but I otherwise haven’t eaten it or seen it elsewhere for many years.
You’re lucky to have a good deli near you. The variety of deli meats has really decreased in recent years at the deli I usually go to.
I am drawing the line at French dressing and Sardines!! 🙂
No French dressing with sardines? 🙂