Chapter 12 (Bettina’s Father Tries Her Cooking)

Introduction

Another meal to be cooked for challenging company, and Bettina’s culinary and diplomatic skills are about to be tested to the max.

Has the woman-hating Harry Harrison come back for a rematch? Is the puritanical Rev Clinkersmith elbowing his way to the table?

In fact the guests are Bettina’s parents who, along with Bob, seem determined to make their hostess blush. Bob chortles that he’s growing fat on Bettina’s cooking, and skeptical Father entertains the group with tales of his daughter’s past culinary failures.

But one can’t help but admire Bettina’s resilience. Rather than plead a migraine, pack the food into doggie bags, and shove her guests out the door she grits her teeth and serves up a lemon pie.

“It won’t be as good as your mother’s” Father proclaims and, mercifully! the meal draws to a close.

Part 1

The Menu

Devilled Steak

New Potatoes in Cream

Graham Baking Powder Biscuits (1932 edition)

Jelly

Cucumber and Radish Salad

Lemon Pie

Coffee

Preparing the Meal

Devilled Steak

This dish appears to be a precursor to what is now known as “smothered steak”—a Southern classic that utilizes cheaper cuts of beef. It’s not something I’ve ever made before, but I’m charmed by the idea of transforming a chunk of inexpensive steak into a tender and savory dish.

But the beef supposedly requires an hour or so of cooking time, and I can’t help but have some doubts. The dry mustard the recipe calls for may help to tenderize the meat, and the vinegar should help even more.

The key to success?

New Potatoes in Cream

Sigh. Potatoes, potatoes, and more potatoes—as I’ve mentioned before this starchy tuber seems to pop up in every dinner in one form or another. It’s really no surprise that Bob claims to have gained weight—the evils of carbs were obviously not recognized in the early 20^th century.

Peeling the potatoes before boiling them still feels strange to me, and I can’t help but wonder if they pick up more moisture sans skins. With this in mind Bettina’s practice of shaking the freshly boiled potatoes over a flame to draw out the water makes a lot of sense, and in fact it’s one of those things I’ve always done myself.

My, these do look rather plain, but fortunately they’re to be covered with white sauce and a sprinkling of parsley.

Graham Baking Powder Biscuits

I almost didn’t try to make these as time was short and (given my notable lack of biscuit-making skills) my family would much prefer regular bread.

But fortunately (unfortunately?) dinner was delayed, and I decided to give these a shot. The 1918 menu simply calls for “baking powder biscuits”, but by 1942 it specifies “graham”. The latter sounds infinitely more challenging as whole wheat flour is harder to work with than white, but hey! no matter how badly they turn out they’re sure to be more nutritious.

Yes—we have here a most resilient dough. Can these possibly come out well, or at least edible?

Cucumber and Radish Salad

This dish should be good, and I expect that the zip of the radishes will offset the blandness of the meat and potatoes. The diced vegetables are to be mixed with salad dressing and served on the indispensable lettuce leaf—the Bettina standard, of course.

Once again I chose to make a cooked salad dressing, and as always it came together quickly on the stove. This time though, I’m going to thin it out with sweet cream rather than sour—the latter only enhances the vinegar punch this dressing tends to wield.

Lemon Pie

Uh-oh.

The red flag is up and the alarm bells clanging—homemade pie with homemade pie crust. Flour and lard combinations always take on strange properties in my inexperienced hands—“flaky” layers turn into cardboard, and so-called “angel” biscuits transform into cement-like lumps in the blink of an eye.

Still, even Bettina has had her share of culinary failings (or so Father claims) and so there can’t be any harm in trying. Since the pie crust has to be pre-baked I’ll start with that and then move on to the filling.

I’ve been cutting the lard into the flour for several minutes but, as always, the stuff is refusing to cooperate. Instead of a mixture resembling cornmeal I have something infinitely more cloddish and lumpy in the bowl.

Pie crust—NOT!

By adding extra water I managed to get the dough in a ball and then roll it out…but this isn’t going well at all.

Lightly browned—and unfortunately tough as rawhide. I can count on the filling to hide the irregular seams and patchwork in the crust, but there’s going to be no way to disguise the texture.

Much to my relief the filling was far easier to make—no surprise as I make the occasional lemon meringue pie using commercial, refrigerated crust. The only odd note here was using flour for thickening instead of cornstarch. It seems likely this will make the pie filling heavier than it should be, but I don’t suppose cornstarch was in common use in Bettina’s day.

The meringue was also simple to prepare as I cheated by using my electric mixture. I’m all for historical accuracy, but there’s no way I’d attempt to whip egg whites with a manual beater or, still worse, by hand!

Fresh out of the oven—looks good!

How It Looked