Chapter 15 (A Motor Picnic)

Introduction

Bettina has fine supper for two on the stove, but then life (or rather Bob) throws her a curve ball. An hour before dinner he telephones with a rather jaw-dropping proposal: that Bettina transform the dinner into a picnic meal so they can join another young couple and go motoring that evening.

Seems like an impossible task but, like a debrouillard in the basement of Orwell’s Hotel X Bettina harnesses her inner power and somehow “gets it done”. When the motoring party pulls up at the door, Bettina is ready and smiling, a loaded picnic basket on her arm—and receives a shower of kisses from a visibly relieved Bob.

Once again the written instructions for preparing this meal have changed considerably between the two editions of the book. Originally Bettina cooked both the bread and the veal loaf in her wondrous fireless cooker, but by 1932 the cooker had been replaced by the far more conventional oven.

Frankly, I was a bit confused as to which set of directions to follow. Despite the revision the fireless (or thermal, in my case) cooker seemed the easiest and most convenient way to prepare the bread, but I was all too happy to use the oven for the veal and thereby eliminate all concerns about undercooked meat and e coli.

Likewise, the thought of hauling my family to the nearest park to partake in this feast seemed far from appealing—although their expressions when they saw me pulling a meatloaf out of the picnic basket would have been priceless!

In the end some reasonable compromises seemed to be in order: to use the cooker for the bread, the oven for the veal, and forget about transporting the meal any farther than the dining room table.

Part 1

The Menu

Warm Veal Loaf

Cold Potato Salad

Fresh Brown Bread

Butter

Spanish Buns

Bananas

Coffee

Preparing the Meal

Warm Veal Loaf

This is basically a meatloaf made of ground veal rather than beef—plus a few goodies like smashed crackers, spices, and a half pound of salt pork.

When it came time to do my shopping I was genuinely surprised to find cured salt pork at the local Safeway. This is an item I thought became extinct about the same time as the whalebone corset, but no…there it was in the refrigerated meat section between the bacon and the ham.

Well! This chunk of meat had historical undertones, and I was eager to give it a try. Unfortunately my electric chopper was a bit less enthusiastic, and it moaned and groaned trying to shred the stuff.

After ending the chopper’s misery with a flick of the off switch the rest was easy. The veal had already been ground in the market, so all I had left to do was mix it and the pork with crackers crumbs, spices, and cream and then pat it into a greased loaf pan.

The loaf is to be brushed with egg white and I’m really not sure why. And what am I supposed to baste this with, as the recipe suggests?

Cold Potato Salad

Now this is one dish I can really get excited about. I love potato salad and enjoy trying different kinds, so an opportunity to test out Bettina’s is pretty appealing.

Oddly enough the green beans Bettina adds in the opening vignette are nowhere to be found in the printed recipe. Very strange, as I said...but they’re one potential ingredient I’m happy to leave out. I’ve tried and enjoyed various pea-and-potato concoctions, but potato and green bean salad seems a little too adventurous for my palate (not to mention my family’s!)

As so often happens this Bettina salad requires homemade dressing, but for once I’m determined to spare myself that pickle-juice pucker and choose a recipe that’s lighter on the vinegar.

Fortunately I found a suitable dressing in Bettina’s Best Salads that cuts the vinegar down to a tolerable ¼ of a cup, and that is what I made.

This recipe certainly calls for a lot of chopped vegetables…almost as many veggies as potatoes, in fact.

Unfortunately I didn’t mix up quite enough of the dressing—I fell just short of the full cup required.

Brown Bread

Grrr…I just made this a few days ago for that ghastly salmon salad tea and so I’m not exactly pleased to find it on the menu now.

I’m not sure why I dislike this dish—perhaps because the end result is neither fish nor fowl: a starch too sweet to serve as the main breadstuff but too dour to make a good dessert.

Still, it’s on the menu, it’s easy enough to prepare, and I always enjoy a chance to use my thermal cooker. So…

Batter up!

Spanish Buns

I’m curious about these so-called buns (really muffins in disguise) and particularly intrigued by the fact that they require currants rather than the more typical raisins.

On Shopping Day I didn’t even attempt to locate fresh currants at the supermarket—I knew before I started it was a hopeless quest. Fortunately dried currants are easily available cost only a little more than a box of raisins.

These things are tiny—rather like midget raisins

A hot water bath to try to plump them up

And on to mixing the batter…

Once again Bettina’s recipe makes for a very sturdy dough. Stirring/mashing this made my wrist ache and, as so often happens, I’m a bit doubtful about the results.

I also wasn’t sure about the powdered sugar icing with which to frost the cakes, but in the end it tasted fine. Probably it was the vanilla that killed the chemical taste of the cornstarch…or perhaps after so many Bettina cakes my taste buds have developed callouses.

Bananas

The appearance of this everyday fruit on a supposedly festive menu makes me realize once again that we in the 21^st century take a lot for granted. I’m sure Bettina’s bunch of bananas was well received at the picnic, but here? Eh. I know my family won’t be the least impressed and, quite honestly, neither will I.

Hot Coffee

The hot beverage that surfaces at almost every Bettina meal. Between the coffee and the tea it’s a wonder that our heroine and her husband don’t have the caffeine jitters 24/7—or mega-headaches when the supply inevitably runs out (this is the summer of 1918 and there's a war on, ya know).

How It Looked