Becky Diamond, Author
  • About
  • Thousand Dollar Dinner
  • Mrs Goodfellow
  • Becky's Blog
  • Reviews/Events
  • Writing Clips
  • Books We Read
  • News/Articles
  • Book Clubs
  • Anna Maxwell's Recipes
  • Fun Food History Videos
  • BLOG_2

Mrs. Goodfellow's Sweet Potato Pie

11/28/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
​A Thanksgiving favorite, sweet potatoes are most commonly baked into a casserole for the holiday dinner table. But they can be taken up a notch to dessert status by being transformed into a delightful, custardy pie. They are actually a rather unique food in terms of pie fillings as they are one of the only vegetables regularly made into sweet pies (rhubarb is another; pumpkins and other squash are technically fruit). 
 
But in the 19th century, white potatoes were also a common pie filling. Philadelphia Quakers liked to make “Quarterly Meeting Pie,” a popular dessert served at their Quarterly Meeting dinners, which was actually a baked (white) potato pudding. Philadelphia pastry chef and cooking school instructor Mrs. Goodfellow referred to it as White Potato Pie. In this version, the potatoes are grated instead of mashed, then mixed with butter, sugar, eggs, brandy and flavorings. Another Goodfellow recipe for potato pudding calls for boiling the potatoes and then sifting them through a colander before mixing with the other ingredients to make the custardy pies. 
 
Mrs. Goodfellow’s recipes for sweet potato pie and pudding are almost identical, intimating that the tubers were probably used interchangeably depending on what was readily available. 
 
Her two recipes:
 
SWEET POTATO PIE.
Boil the potatoes and peel them; rub through a colander, and to every pint of potatoes take a cupful of rich cream, 4 eggs beaten separately. Cream a cup of butter and one of sugar together, add the yolks to the sugar and butter, and beat well. Then stir in the potatoes and beat again. Season with grated nutmeg and a wine glass of brandy. Gently stir in the beaten whites of the eggs. Line deep pie plates with puff paste, and fill with this mixture. Put into the range and bake. This must have no top crust. (Source: ‪Colonial Receipt Book: Celebrated Old Receipts Used a Century Ago by Mrs. Goodfellow's Cooking School)
 
SWEET POTATO PUDDING.
Contributed by Mrs. John H. Easby, Philadelphia, Pa.
Grate 3 or 4 good sized raw sweet potatoes. Lay some slices of good butter in a dish, on this sprinkle some of the grated potatoes, about one half. Grate in the potatoes a nutmeg and a very little cinnamon, and scatter over 2 large spoonfuls of brown sugar, then the rest of the potatoes, more butter and sugar and mix 1 wineglass of rosewater and a cup of cream together and 1 wineglass of wine and brandy mixed. Stir all these ingredients well together. Bake very slowly 2 hours and serve hot as a dessert. (Source: Famous old receipts: used a hundred years and more in the kitchens of the North and South, compiled by Jacqueline Harrison Smith)
 
The version I made is adapted from both recipes, and it is absolutely delicious. It has a fluffy, almost mousse-like texture as a result of beating the eggs separately, just as Mrs. Goodfellow used to do in order to make her products light and airy. I used another Goodfellow trick mentioned in these recipes – the addition of brandy. Back then liquor or wine was often added to a recipe to help preserve it from going bad in the days before refrigeration. It also adds flavor, but feel free to omit it if you’d like. Unlike her, I had the benefit of my modern-day food processor and stand mixer to make this recipe super easy. 

Sweet Potato Pie

  • 1 ½ pounds sweet potatoes
  • 3 large eggs, separated
  • 2/3 cups sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg 
  • ½ cup milk
  • 2 tbsp brandy 
 
  1. Make and prebake your favorite pie crust. Place on a wire rack to cool. 
  2. Boil the sweet potatoes until tender, about 30-40 minutes. Let cool and then scoop out the flesh into a large bowl and mash it up a bit.
  3. Transfer to the large work bowl of a food processor. Add the egg yolks and remaining ingredients and process until smooth. 
  4. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form and then add to the other ingredients and process again until well incorporated.
  5. Scoop into the prebaked pie shell and bake at 350F for 1 hour or until set. 
  6. Cool on wire rack. 
Yield: One 9-inch pie, 8-10 servings


0 Comments

Thanksgiving: Three Presidents and a Lady

11/26/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
It was 230 years ago today - Nov. 26, 1789 - that the first official national day of Thanksgiving was celebrated by Americans. Days celebrating giving thanks, or "thanksgiving" were common in many colonial American communities throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were typically declared by ministers or governors in response to specific occasions, such as a military victory, a plentiful harvest, or beneficial rainfall, but Thanksgiving Day as we now know it was not yet a thing.

On Oct. 3, 
1789, President George Washington felt compelled to issue a proclamation designating November 26 of that year as a national day of thanksgiving for U.S. citizens, to give thanks for their newly created nation and federal Constitution.  In those days before social media and other fast communication, his method of getting the word out was having it published in newspapers throughout the country. He also sent a blanket distribution to the various governors, requesting that they announce and observe the day within their states. Public festivities were held and Washington himself celebrated the day by attending services at St. Paul's Chapel in New York City, and doing a bit of philanthropy - donating beer (!) and food to imprisoned debtors in the city.

But Washington's proclamation did not establish an annual specific “Thanksgiving Day,” although he did issue another proclamation in February 1795 to recognize the defeat of a taxation rebellion in Pennsylvania. Later on, other presidents also declared one-time days of thanksgiving, with no specific date attached.

If it were not for the persistence of an enterprising Victorian woman, it might never have become a national U.S. holiday. By the 1850s, almost every state and territory celebrated Thanksgiving, but it wasn't until President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation in 1863 that it became a national holiday, the result of a seventeen-year campaign by Godey’s Lady’s Book editor Sarah Josepha Hale. She was able to convince Lincoln that a national Thanksgiving might help heal the nation after the devastating Civil War. At this time it was given the standard date of the last Thursday in November. ​
Picture
Picture
Sarah Josepha Hale
Picture
That held until the Roosevelt era, when perhaps the first "Black Friday" dispute arose.  On two separate years  - 1933 and 1939,  November had five Thursdays instead of four. As a result, retailers had less time to rein in shoppers during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So in 1933 they asked President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving up a week. He denied their request and Thanksgiving remained the last Thursday that year. Then when the same thing happened in 1939, they again proposed to have Thanksgiving a week earlier. The second time around, FDR gave in to the pressure and moved it up. However, a few governors kept the holiday on the last Thursday of the month in their states, so there were essentially two Thanksgivings for some folks that year. This division went on for more two years, with Roosevelt declaring the second-to-last Thursday as the official holiday, and some states sticking with the last Thursday of the month schedule. Finally on Dec. 26, 1941, Congress passed a law making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday of November.

So that's why Thanksgiving seems so late this year ... and perhaps why sales keep getting earlier and earlier!


0 Comments

    Author

    So much of our history can be learned through food!
    My second book, The Thousand Dollar Dinner, follows the unique story of a luxurious 17-course feast that helped launch the era of grand banquets in nineteenth century America. I am also the author of Mrs Goodfellow: The Story of America's First Cooking School.

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2020
    May 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

PictureNIEA 10th Annual Award Winner, New Non Fiction
Author photo in website banner by Heather Raub of FrontRoom Images
Hair by Kelly McGrenehan, Innovations IV Hair Salon
Makeup by Gina Kozlowski
Site design by Braintree Publicity