NOTES ON ANTIQUE RECIPES:
I cherish the hand-written recipes of my grandmother and great-grandmother. My Aunt Lorna and I would sit at her kitchen table for hours looking at the note cards and pieces of paper, and talk about the different recipes, ingredients, and cooking methods she learned growing up--and, in turn, taught me. At the end of each visit, she gave me the recipes which we had been discussing that day.
It was many years later that I realized those recipes on which "Mama's Recipe" was written referred not to my aunt's mother, my Grandma Olympe, but rather to my Grandma Olympe's mother--my Great-grandmother Clara Prevost Labauve.
It's wonderful to have a recipe written decades ago, for a dish that was set on the dinner table in front of my great-grandfather, and my grandmother and her siblings when they were children. I have had to "translate" some of these recipes into contemporary terms, but they have taught me so much about how and what my grandmother and great-grandmother cooked. To share with you this process of discovery, I present two of these recipes exactly as my grandmother wrote them, followed by the many cooking tips I learned from the few words in her two different versions of Courtbouillion (pronounced COO-be-yon).
Courtbouillion is a thick fish soup, or thin fish stew, sometimes started with a roux. It is served with bread rather than rice and seems to be a favorite of many cajun people; it is the only dish for which my grandmother had two recipes. It is said that to really taste courtbouillion, one must not go to a restaurant but, rather, be invited to dine in the home of a Cajun. That is where the only real Cajun cooking is found. I wouldn't go that far, as I've had delicious "home-type" meals in many Louisiana restaurants. However, I would agree that courtbouillion is usually made only by home cooks. At least I've never seen it in a restaurant.
A LOOK AT ANTIQUE RECIPES
"Fish Courtbouillion (exactly as written by my Great-grandmother)
"Cut fish in not too small pcs. Soak a while in cold salt H²O & make roux-
1 lge pot spoon of shortening & 2 heaping Tbsp. Flour. Brown golden brown, add 1 onion, cook about 2-3 minutes in roux. Add about 1 pint hot H²O. When boiling a few (5) minutes add fish - 2 garlic cloves & onion tops or green onion. Lower flame and cook about 20-30 minutes."
Grandma's second recipe for Fish Courtbouillion
“Recipé Fish Courtbouillion (exactly as written by my Great-grandmother)
1 1/2 tablespoons shortening
2 tablespoons flour
Make a brown roux with this.
Chop fine 1 large onion. Stir onion in roux until it withers. Then add 1 large can tomatoes and 1 teaspoon garlic chop fine--
2 pints of hot water
2 tablespoons vinegar or 1 cup white wine*
When the above starts boiling add to it 4 or 5 large slices of fish and cook on a slow very slow fire for one hour.
Toast a slice bread to each serving-put the toasted bread in plate and pour the fish courtbouillion gravy on top of bread"
*I was perplexed by the choice of only 2 tablespoons vinegar as opposed to 1 entire cup of wine--one-eighth the amount of vinegar as wine. This was a recipe I had to test many times to bring it to the standards and methods of today's cooks, starting by making one recipe with 2 tablespoons vinegar, and another with one cup wine. Another factor: was the can of tomatoes drained?
My final recipe, which tasted the same as grandma's, ended up using 2 tablespoons vinegar, 2 cups hot water (not 2 pints--4 cups), and the juice from the undrained tomatoes. The key probably lies in the fact that if one cup of wine is used, the dish will be more like a soup, and if 2 Tablespoons vinegar are used it will be more like a stew.
What the above two recipes for "Fish Courtbouillion" taught me about my ancestors cooking:
- They used more flour in proportion to fat or oil when making a roux, which results in a thicker gravy. Often fat and flour are used in equal proportions, but Great-grandma used 4 parts flour to 3 parts shortening.
- One "pot spoon" is equivalent to 1 1/2 tablespoons.
- When Grandma used shortening (which to her meant solid fat, either vegetable shortening or lard), she added it first and let it melt, then added the flour and proceeded to make the roux. Sometimes the fat and flour are added together, if the fat used is oil.
- Grandma used a golden brown (or light) roux for seafood dishes. Some Cajun cooks swear by the rule of "dark roux for light meats, and light roux for dark meats." Others use light roux for seafood and dark meats, and dark roux for meat and game. There's no right or wrong, but I'm pleased to know Grandma's preference.
- She always added hot water to a light or golden roux. Some cooks don't specify hot, room temperature, or cold water. However, Grandma never added hot water to a dark roux, as she said that hot water would bleach the roux.
- Grandma used fresh garlic. Some Cajun cooks use little or no fresh garlic. Garlic powder is used in batters, as fresh garlic would burn in the hot frying oil.
- Grandma's instructions to "lower flame and cook," or "cook on a slow very slow fire," were not written with modern stoves in mind, where a gas flame could be lowered, or an electric burner turned down. The fire was made with wood for a hot fire or flame, or wood burned down to coals for a slow fire, under the cook top of the old fashioned stove. The fire was tended by picking up a removable round section of the stove top with a lever that fit into a slot on that section. This allowed access to the fire below so the wood or coals could be moved around to achieve the right amount of heat.
- Canned tomatoes were manufactured starting in the late 1800's. By the time Grandma was married in 1908, canned tomatoes were available. Although she probably canned her own until the 1940's, when canned goods were widely distributed and, thus, became less expensive. The recipe using canned tomatoes is probably from the 1940's, and probably my grandmother's interpretation of her mother's recipe, as her mother certainly would have used tomatoes canned from her own plentiful vegetable garden.