Frozen cocktails might seem like a twentieth century invention, popularized by that indispensable modern kitchen tool, the blender. However, slushy drinks and sorbets were actually very fashionable during the Victorian era. These icy refreshments were served alongside rich soups, as palate-cleansers between courses, or enjoyed as frosty desserts.

Nineteenth century Philadelphia restaurateur James Parkinson was the master at inventing delicious, eye-catching frozen concoctions. For his famous Thousand Dollar Dinner in 1851, he pulled out every stop, creating a luxurious, rejuvenating sorbet using an extremely rare and expensive Hungarian Tokaji wine, which he served during the coup du milieu, or mid-point of the meal.

But perhaps Parkinson’s best-known signature creation was Champagne frappe à la glacé, a frothy drink made with the French sparkling wine, which literally translated means “Champagne hits the ice”. He chose to feature this popular treat during the “Ice Creams and Water Ices” course at the Thousand Dollar Dinner. Champagne frappe à la glacé was so revered that Philadelphians raved about it. As one local newspaper reported in 1850, "Parkinson, the great Confectioner of South Eighth Street, has added a new "ice" to his list of luxuries; Champagne frappe à la glacé, which is so popular that several have already attempted to wrest its undoubted invention from him.”

He apparently kept this recipe such a secret that I was unable to find a copy of it. However, it was so intriguing that I wanted to try to duplicate the taste and consistency as best I could. Champagne frappe is basically half frozen champagne, and à la glacé means “with ice,” so my take on the recipe was to serve semi-frozen Champagne over Champagne-flavored water ice.

Since alcohol has a much lower freezing point than water, it is rather difficult to freeze. But I attempted the instructions as advised in the 1889 cookbook Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving by Mary Foote Henderson: “The ice should be pounded quite fine, then an equal amount of salt mixed with it. A quart bottle of Champagne well surrounded by this mixture should be frozen in two hours, or rather frozen to the degree when it may be poured from the bottle.”

For champagne-flavored water ice, there were actually quite a few nineteenth century recipes to choose from. I ended up combining elements of a few different ones to create my version of the icy treat, freezing it in my ice-cream maker, but any clean, tinned copper or stainless steel container will work. This recipe can take quite a while to freeze, so I do recommend starting it at least a day before you wish to serve it.

Champagne Frappe à la Glacé

• 2 cups sugar
  
• 2 cups water 
  
• Zest and juice from three lemons 
  
• 2 bottles champagne
  

1. Place bowl of ice cream maker or other tinned or steel bowl in freezer overnight or at least eight hours, until sufficiently chilled. 
   
2. Make a simple syrup by combining the sugar and water in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer without stirring until the sugar dissolves, about 3 to 5 minutes. Cool completely. 
   
3. Take the bowl out of the freezer. Pour lemon juice and zest into bowl and then add a bottle of champagne. Add sugar syrup to taste – I recommend starting with just a cup and adding more if needed.  (I did not want mine too sweet so I ended up using about half the syrup and refrigerating the rest for another time).
   
4. Mix using an ice cream maker as per the manufacturers instructions. When done, return to freezer until ready to use. If using tinned bowl, transfer to the freezer and freeze for several hours, checking periodically and stirring the mix if necessary.

A sweet blend of stiffly beaten egg whites and sugar, meringue dates back to the sixteenth century, when European cooks first realized that whisking egg whites with birch twigs (for the lack of a better utensil), created a light, frothy mixture. They used this method to make what they called “snow,” a whipped dish combining the beaten egg whites with cream.

It was eventually discovered that meringue hardens when baked at a low temperature (or simply left out in the air to dry), changing the texture to one that is pleasantly airy and crispy. In the seventeenth century this was often called “sugar puff,” which was sometimes flavored with caraway seeds, a tradition that continued to evolve with other flavorings, creating a large number of taste combinations.

"Kisses" were a popular nineteenth century confection featured in Eliza Leslie's Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes and Sweetmeats. In this recipe, the whites of four eggs were beaten until stiff, then a pound of powdered loaf sugar was added, one teaspoonful at a time, and finally twelve drops of lemon essence. To form the cookies, mounds of currant jelly were spaced an equal distance apart on a paper-lined baking tin and the egg white mixture spooned on top. They were then set in the bake oven at the end of the day (when it had cooled down), and considered done when a pale yellow color. The flat undersides of two cookies were attached and dried again in a cool oven until the bottoms were firmly stuck, creating a ball or oval shape.

The Meringues a la Crème served by James Parkinson as part of the "Pastry Course" at his seventeen- course Thousand Dollar Dinner in 1851 were perhaps a bit more elegant - tiny bite-sized baked meringues lightly flavored with vanilla and filled with cream or jelly. Rose meringues were tinted a delicate pink and flavored with rose water extract. 

To recreate this recipe, I consulted a cookbook written by prolific nineteenth century chef and restauranteur Jessup Whitehead called Cooking for Profit: A New American Cook Book Adapted for the use of all Who Serve Meals for a Price. (Meant for those in the restaurant and hotel industries, it was originally published in the San Francisco Daily Hotel Gazette.)

It is really quite a simple recipe, it just requires a kitchen that is not too humid and some time to dry bake the cookies at a low heat. I used my stand mixer and am giving directions accordingly. Here's my adapted version:

Meringues a la Crème 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of granulated sugar
• 6 egg whites, separated
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 tablespoon rose water
• Pinch of cream of tartar

1. Preheat the oven to 200F. 
2. Line four baking sheets with parchment paper. 
3. Beat three of egg whites with the sugar in a deep bowl until he mixture looks like firm white cake icing (about 10 minutes). Now add the remaining three egg whites, one at a time, beating a few minutes between each one. Just before the third is added, add the cream of tartar and flavoring and beat for about 30 seconds or until well mixed. It is essential to beat the mixture after the addition of each white until it rises in stiff peaks when the beater is lifted from it. However, the last white which should not be beaten much as it forms the gloss and smoothness on the meringues when they are baked.

4.   Drop spoonfuls of meringue on the baking sheets, being careful to to place them too close, and then smooth them with a knife. 
5.   Bake them at 200F with the oven door partly open if possible. The time varies depending on the room temperature and humidity - mine took about an hour and a half. 
6.   When cool, lift them off the paper, scoop out the top part and fill with whipped cream or jelly. They can be presented singly or two can be joined together with melted candy or icing, like "kisses." 

Garnishing the meringues with whipped cream creates treats that are an angelic white color, like delicate clouds, but they can also be dressed up. Whitehead recommended filling them with "bright jellies of different colors and ice creams."

In any case, they are definitely worth a try. The sweet cream contrasts the crispy meringue beautifully, resulting in a delicious taste and texture combination. All my taste testers raved about them. And, they paired nicely with Champagne Frappe a la Glacé  - a signature Parkinson drink also served during the Pastry Course at the Thousand Dollar Dinner. 

Fried potatoes have been around in America since the early nineteenth century—Thomas Jefferson had a recipe for deep-frying raw sliced potatoes in his collection that dates to the early 1800s. And Jefferson's distant cousin Mary Randolph featured directions on how to “To Fry Sliced Potatoes” in her 1824 cookbook The Virginia Housewife. But it was a Saratoga Springs, New York, restaurant called Moon’s Lake House that popularized the preparation. 

The restaurant opened in 1853, and according to legend, in August of that year a fussy customer (some say it was railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt) repeatedly sent his plate of “Moon’s Fried Potatoes” back to the kitchen, complaining they were sliced too thick. In frustration, chef George Crum sliced up some potatoes razor-thin, fried them until crisp and seasoned them with extra salt. Other versions of the story credit Crum’s sister Katie Wicks as the inventor, still others say it was the restaurant’s owner Cary Moon or his wife. In any case, the style took hold, and by the 1870s, recipes for crispy Saratoga potatoes (sometimes called Saratoga chips) appeared frequently in American cookbooks.

It is rather odd then that James Parkinson's 1851 Thousand Dollar Dinner menu includes Saratoga potatoes—two years before Crum supposedly “invented” them. But it appears that fried potatoes were likely a specialty in the Saratoga Springs area prior to the 1853 Crum story. An entertaining 1849 New York Herald article discussing the “Comforts at Lake Saratoga” raves about the fried potatoes served at Loomis’s Lake House, a resort predating Moon’s. Just like Parkinson’s pairing, these dinners also featured game birds such as woodcock and partridge, a detail affirmed by historian Dave Mitchell, who pointed out that all the lake houses in Saratoga Springs were famous for their fish and game dinners. 

So it seems highly probable that the Saratoga potatoes served by Parkinson were indeed the fried variety and had been known by that name even before 1853. Perhaps Parkinson had vacationed in the Saratoga Springs area and brought the recipe name and preparation home to Philadelphia, or maybe the dish had been making the culinary rounds earlier than previously believed. 

In any case, I thought this would be a fun dish to duplicate. After all, who doesn't like potato chips? I found a good recipe in Mary F. Henderson's 1876 cookbook, Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving. As per Mrs. Henderson: 


       It requires a little plane, or potato or cabbage cutter, to cut these potatoes. Two or three fine, large potatoes (ripe new ones are preferable) are selected and pared. They are cut, by rubbing them over the plane, into slices as thin or thinner than a wafer. These are placed for a few moments in ice, or very cold water, to become chilled. Boiling lard is now tested, to see if it is of the proper temperature. The slices must color quickly; but the fat must not be so hot as to give them a dark color.
         Place a salt - box on the hearth; also a dish to receive the cooked potatoes at the side; a tin plate and perforated     ladle should be at hand also. Now throw, separately, five or six slices of the cold potato into the hot lard; keep them separated by means of the ladle until they are of a delicate yellow color; skim them out into the tin plate; sprinkle over some salt, and push them on the dish. Now pour back any grease that is on the tin plate into the kettle, and fry five or six slices at a time until enough are cooked. Two potatoes fried will make a large dishful.
       It is a convenient dish for a company dinner, as it may be made early in the day; and by being kept in a dry, warm place (for instance, a kitchen-closet), the potato-slices will be crisp and nice five or six hours afterward. They are eaten cold, and are a pretty garnish around game, or, in fact, any other kind of meat.

The "plane" Mrs. Henderson is referring to is what we now call a mandolin, and as anyone who has tried to slice vegetables into razor-thin pieces knows, it is an essential tool for this process. In the nineteenth century it was often called a "Saratoga Potato-cutter," even though it was also used for cutting other vegetables such as cabbage, onions or cucumbers. As described by Mrs. Henderson, "the screws at the sides adjust a sharp knife, so that, by rubbing the potato over the plane, it may be cut as fine or as coarse as may be desired. The cost for this kitchen marvel was 50 cents in 1876.

Deliciously briny and juicy – dripping with the salty taste of the sea – oysters have long been a prized delicacy.   Throughout the Victorian era, a sumptuous meal always featured oysters as a first course, such as the seventeen-course "Thousand Dollar Dinner" hosted by Philadelphia confectioner James Parkinson in 1851. This twelve-hour feast was the ultimate in extravagance. These folks would have expected oysters. The dinner took place in Philadelphia, with invited guests from New York – both cities central to the oyster craze.  

The “star” of the shellfish world, the oyster has seesawed between serving as a sustenance food and a delicacy – sometimes balancing both roles at the same time. This was indeed the case in nineteenth century America when oysters were the focal point of fancy dinners yet also enjoyed by the common man served up by street vendors (as depicted in the accompanying photo) and in oyster bars, often situated in tucked away basement locations. These were not forbidden or illegal like alcohol-serving speakeasies during Prohibition, but the underground locates gave them a somewhat illicit and enticing feel. Not really surprising for a food that is considered the most desirable of all things edible from the sea and has often had aphrodisiac qualities attached to it. In fact, the late nineteenth century produced two scandalous pornographic magazines, The Oyster and The Pearl.  

In the Philadelphia area, social gatherings with menus that revolved around oysters became extremely popular in the nineteenth century. These included oyster roasts at the Jersey shore, with oysters nestled inside covered pans and placed in the coals of huge fires built out of driftwood. Oyster roasts also took place indoors, with hosts simply popping trays of whole oysters still in the shell into the oven. Banquet dinners with multiple courses - each featuring a different oyster preparation - was a similar iteration. 

Oysters were such an integral part of New York’s dining scene that until the end of the nineteenth century every formal dinner started with them. The menus of Delmonico chef Charles Ranhofer always listed oysters as a first course, and the restaurant’s legendary patron Diamond Jim Brady was said to pop them in his mouth like candy before he even thought about choosing an appetizer.

While some folks insist the oyster is best simply served up raw on a half shell, clever chefs have delighted in coming up with numerous ways to showcase oysters over the years – fried, baked, frittered, featured in soups, bisques and gumbo, swimming in a rich sauce such as Oysters Rockefeller, Oysters à la Foch – even as flavorings for items ranging from a dressing for poultry (still a highlight on many Thanksgiving tables) and even catsup. Many nineteenth century cookbooks devoted pages and pages to oyster recipes.

However, even with all these delicious and interesting preparations, raw oysters were still the nineteenth century favorite, with presentation and accompaniments as important as the oysters themselves. Serving them in blocks or boats of ice was extremely fashionable, especially later in the century as refrigeration methods improved, but still no easy task – from obtaining huge blocks of ice, to shaping it, and then keeping it cold. The French style was to leave the upper shell on when serving, according to the celebrated Pierre Blot, a French chef, cookbook writer and cooking school instructor who immigrated to the United States in 1855.  

Philadelphians also adored oyster fritters – a specialty introduced by Italian-born restaurateur Minico Finelli. Visitors to Philadelphia flocked to his restaurant to enjoy a taste of this famous dish. Finelli fried the oysters in the olive oil of his native Italy, and used a light hand in coating them, producing a deliciously delicate product that was not at all heavy or greasy.

So for those who fancy all things oyster—where do the tastiest, juiciest, biggest oysters come from? Oyster-producing areas around the world have all proclaimed that their oysters are “the best,” and continue to vie for this claim. Where and how an oyster is grown makes all the difference—not unlike fine wine. Water temperature, salinity, and mineral content, as well as the oyster’s diet, all affect its flavor. For example, although Atlantic coast oysters are all from the same family, they vary in size, shape, color and taste. Since oysters grow faster in warmer water, they tend to be larger in size in more temperate locations, particularly if left alone to grow. Conversely, colder water tends to produce oysters that enthusiasts call more flavorful and critics label as too briny. As a result, Northerners feel Southern oysters are large and flavorless and Southerners think Northern varieties are small and harsh.

This strong bias toward local oysters has provided friendly banter up and down the East Coast for hundreds for years. Of all the American oysters, M. F. K. Fisher gave those from Long Island Sound the highest marks, although she also gave Chincoteagues and Delaware Bay oysters a rating of “very good.” She felt oysters from Southern U.S. waters were “less interesting served in the shell, and almost cry out for such delicacies as horseradish or even cooking.”

For Philadelphia residents, the Delaware Bay was the perfect oyster’s only home—a concept inconceivable to New Yorkers, who insisted the only first-rate oysters were caught in their waters. In the nineteenth century, if you were from the New York area you probably would have cited Blue Point oysters from the Long Island coast as the finest on the market, but if you were from Philadelphia, it would have been Morris River Coves from the Delaware Bay. In all actuality, they probably didn’t taste all that different since the two cities are only about  a hundred miles apart; although the Blue Points may have been saltier since Morris River Coves typically came from more brackish water. Yet, these strong regional preferences prevailed throughout the Victorian era.

Delaware Bay oysters were a highlight on restaurant menus until the late 1950s, when a deadly parasite called MSX wiped out much of the population in a very short period of time.  As a result, the region’s oyster industry collapsed almost overnight. The oyster seedbeds began to gradually recover in the 1960s and 1970s as native oysters developed some resistance to MSX through natural selection, and breeding research conducted by the Rutgers University Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory began to produce disease resistant varieties. Then in 1990 another parasitic disease called Dermo spread through much of the eastern Delaware Bay, destroying many planted and seed oysters.

The MSX and Dermo epidemics have been a crushing blow to the Delaware Bay oyster population. To make a bad situation worse, a myriad of other factors continue to plague the region:  pollution, water salinity changes that come along with global warming, government warnings on oyster consumption, other recurring diseases, environmental laws and even boat insurance. Although the region’s oyster industry will likely never reach such epic proportions again, there are encouraging signs of growth, including measures such as putting a cap on the number of oysters than can be harvested each season to help the stocks replenish and grow, a "shell recycling" program to release millions of clean shells (a byproduct of clam processing) into the bay for baby oysters to latch onto, and state assistance for private oyster producers. As a result, oyster experts are optimistic that these same oysters enjoyed in
the nineteenth century will continue to be available for generations to come.


Sources:   Carolyn Foote Edelmann, “Pirates, Ghosts, and Oysters,” U.S. 1 Newspaper, August 24, 2005;  “History of the Eastern Oyster” Fact Sheet  - Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, Feb. 2002; The Oyster Epicure: A Collation of Authorities on the Gastronomy and Dietetics of the Oyster, 1883, p.25; Joan Reardon, Oysters: A Culinary Celebration, 2000, p, 237; M.F.K. Fisher, Consider the Oyster, 1941, p. 45;  James Parkinson, American Dishes at the Centennial, 1874, p. 10; Mark Kurlansky, The Big Oyster, 2006, pp. 47-48; Susan Williams, Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts, 1996, pp. 234-35;  Arthur Schwartz, Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food, 2008, p. 30; Cornelius Weygandt, Philadelphia Folks: Ways and Institutions in and About the Quaker City, 1938, pp. 140, 145; Rebecca Stott, Oyster, Reaktion Books, 2004, 9