Chapter 32 Bettina Attends A Morning Wedding

Introduction

It’s a beautiful summer morning, Cousin Frances is getting married, and Bettina’s handkerchief is at the ready.

“What a time to remember!” she whispers to Bob—and so it is when “jolly” Cousin Charles swoops down on the pair to accuse them of gossiping and “avoiding the rest of us at a time like this!”

But peace is restored when Bob and Bettina are given seat of honor at bride table and surrounded by more congenial (and apparently ravenous) relatives.

Comments Aunt Nell: “I can tell you already that the breakfast menu will be dainty and delicious,”—Bettina’s favorite kind of meal!

Part 1

The Menu

Watermelon Cubes (Served in Sherbet Glasses)

Fried Spring Chicken

New Potatoes

Creamed Peas

Hot Rolls

Currant Jelly

Bride’s Cake

Peach Ice Cream

Coffee
 Nuts

Candy

A wedding ‘breakfast” that’s really a lunch—well, there’s no arguing with tradition, I suppose.

Given the fact that Bettina’s regular meals are enough to push me to the limit I had some serious qualms about cooking a wedding feast. But after perusing the menu I realized that this multi-course ‘breakfast’ doesn’t pose any serious challenges. 

The nuts and the candy will come straight from the can and  the box, respectively; I’ll make the cake and the ice cream the day before; and the chicken and peas are dishes I’ve made countless times before.

So the feast is on—time to fire up the stove!

Preparing the Meal

Watermelon Cubes (Served in Sherbet Glasses)

Melon cut into cubes and ladled into glasses—I like this. And I seem to have been lucky with the melon…even though it’s October the specimen I procured looks pretty decent.

Fried Spring Chicken

The recipe calls for a dainty bird of 2 ½ pounds for this “dainty” meal—ouch! Not surprisingly I couldn’t find a bird this small. The best I could do was snag the spring chicken’s slightly older and larger coopmate that measured in at a more reasonable three pound).

Very precise (and graphic) directions are given for dismembering the bird:

“Cut the legs from the body…”

“Break the joint at the thigh and cut in two” [aye aye Cap’n Bligh].

“Cut off the neck...” [no neck and no head on this bird…it’s already been decapitated]

“…and the wings.”

“Break the breastbone…”

“…and cut in two lengthwise.”
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“Break the back in two pieces lengthwise, if desired.” [Not desired. We're not starving Okies here.]

Sprinkling with salt...

...and paprika.

Rolled in flour.

For fat I melted a combination of butter and lard and placed the chicken in the pot.

Browning each piece front and back.

Now all that’s left to be done is to add water, clap the lid on the pan, and cook for some thirty minutes.

Really simple if just one chicken is involved…but how would even Bettina manage to fry the eight birds the book recommends for a wedding?

New Potatoes

Is there anything more predictable than Bettina’s never-ending supply of spuds? In our world bread may be considered the Staff of Life, but in Bettinaland potatoes take center stage.

Just pare, boil, and sprinkle on some parsley. After the melon probably the simplest dish on the menu.

Creamed Peas

Fresh peas are definitely not in season and so I had to purchase frozen.

These are to be boiled (well, simmered) for about eight minutes.

Fixing the cream sauce for the peas (something I could do now blindfolded, I’m sure.)

Combining the two…

...and into a serving dish. Done.

Hot Rolls

I’ve had such good results with frozen commercial dough that I decided to use it again for the this meal.

Just like last time I thawed the dough in the refrigerator overnight…

…and then popped two chunks into each muffin cup for break-apart rolls (but apparently miscounted. One roll will have to be a singleton).

Brushing the tops with melted butter.

And then let rise for 2-3 hours, and bake.

Currant Jelly

I still had a little homemade currant jelly left from the great jelly-making bee (Chapter 29 Bettina Puts Up Fruit) but realized that the ½ inch or so left in the jar wouldn’t be enough for the three of us.

So I purchased a jar off Amazon—pricey at $8.99 but still cheaper than the homemade stuff.

Bride’s Cake

Traditionally a towering beauty, the grand climax of the wedding meal…we’ll see (said none too optimistically).

All in all a fairly simple cake recipe.

Creamed butter and sugar.

Then combine the dry ingredients and add (alternately with 2/3 cup of milk) to the butter/sugar mixture.

Now to separate four eggs...

One of the eggs had a double yolk.

I used my electric mixer to prepare the “stiffly beaten” egg whites and then folded them into the (regrettably) rubbery batter. Unfortunately the egg didn’t lighten it much.

The recipe calls for a “large, round loaf cake pan having a hole in the middle”. This, fortunately, I have.

Forty-five minutes later

I can’t say I’m impressed. This doesn’t look very festive.

But on to the White Mountain Frosting…

Interestingly enough this icing truly is fairly common. The Joy Of Cooking lists a version (using egg yolks rather than whites, though). Despite this quirk the recipe is a good one and quite precise compared to Bettina’s vague “boil for about six minutes”-type directions.

Ingredients: sugar, cream of tartar, imitation vanilla, water, egg whites.

While the first three ingredients were boiling away in the pot I set about whipping the egg whites (using my electric mixer once more, of course).

Pouring the boiling sugar syrup over the egg whites.

Done, thank goodness. Looks fine too.

Assembling the cake

Apparently Cousin Frances’ cake was graced not with a bride-and-groom topper but rather a vase of flowers jammed through the hole (I won’t comment on the symbolism here!)

There’s no way this pot of flowers is going to fit through the cake. No choice but to enlarge that hole…

OK, this works.

Alas the White Mountain frosting was far more runny that expected. It flowed down the cake and puddled at the bottom in a less than dainty, completely un-Bettina way.

Peach Ice Cream

I couldn’t locate this flavor in any of the local markets and so was forced to make my own. I do have an electric ice cream freezer and have used it before (exactly once) but not with a lot of success. The batch of strawberry ice cream the machine cranked out tasted fine but was full of frozen fruit nubbins capable of cracking teeth.

Lesson learned. I’m going to mash these peaches to a pulp before adding them to the ice cream.

Surprisingly A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband doesn’t give any recipe for peach ice cream—but the instruction booklet for my ice cream maker does, thank heavens.

Not a dessert for weight watchers—six cups of cream required!

Alas my supply of vanilla extract was exhausted and I had to use imitation.

Mixing the cream, milk, sugar, (imitation) vanilla, and fruit.

Now to pack the freezer with ice and rock salt…

At this point I realized the top for the freezer had mysteriously disappeared. Blast!

Time to improvise…

Even with a hole cut through the center for the dasher my ice cream maker refused to have anything to do with this makeshift lid. Since the motor refused to engage I was left with two options:

1.     Pour the liquid ice cream down the sink and pretend it never existed, or...

2.     Stir the flaming stuff by hand.

So what’s one little setback? People enjoyed ice cream long before freezers were invented (George Washington squandered a whole summer in his Mount Vernon kitchen making ice cream).

The directions for hand-stirred ice cream (courtesy of The Little House Cook Book) say to stir for ten minutes, cover the freezer with a blanket or towel, and rest for ten minutes. And continue the cycle until the ice cream is too hard to stir.

(Took me about ninety minutes to reach that point—my arm was screaming for mercy!)

Coffee

I’m not entirely sure how coffee was mass-produced in the early 20^th century, but for just my husband and myself a six-cup percolator is just fine.

Standard procedure: fill the pot with water, the basket with coffee, put on the lid, place the assembly in the pot, and percolate for about five minutes (hasn’t failed me yet)

Nuts

I’m not at all sure that Bettina didn’t offer to crack by hand, roast, and salt the hundreds (thousands?) of nuts the wedding guests probably consumed, but for me Planters Fancy Mixed Nuts is the better option.

Candy

Fancy truffles or Jordan almonds might have been a more appropriate choice here, but my husband and son adore Caramel Turtle.

How It Looked