Ingredients
2 1/2 lb beef flanken
1 marrow bone
6 cup ; water, cold
1 onion, quartered
1 cut up celery (rib?)
16 oz stewed tomatoes
1/2 head cabbage, shredded
2 tsp salt
1 pepper to taste
1 juice of 2 lemons
2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup white raisins
Directions
Put the meat and marrow bone in cold water in a large kettle and
bring it to a boil. Add the onion, celery and tomatoes. Again, bring
it back to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 2 hours, until
the meat is tender. Add the cabbage, salt, pepper to taste. Cook 30
minutes until the cabbage is tender. Add lemon juice, sugar and
raisins and cook 10 minutes more.
(This recipe was translated from Yiddish as I went along...sorry for
any major goofs!)
per Hilde Mott
Fidonet COOKING echo
Servings: 6 servings
Polish Cabbage Borshcht Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Cabbage; Vegetable
The History of Recipes
It is actually possible to trace the history of written cooking instructions way back into antiquity, at least as far into history as early Egypt, and possibly even further. In practice though, these, early cook books were just very basic pictorial recipes for meal preparation.
The truth of the matter is, the oldest recipe discovered, according to academics are some stone tablets in the Sumerian language which recount the making of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making those who drank it feel `wonderful`. During Roman times around 25BC a roman called Apicius compiled a number of documents describing recipes prepared by the Romans. In his publication, Apicius recounts how the meals were split into starters, entrees and afters, something we still use today. This early Roman chef describes how the ancient cooks used a wide range of spices and herbs, including a few you will know like bay, fennel and dill. As our culinary historical trip moves on a few more years there were a couple of interesting books which were published in the 14th Century ; a cookery book titled `Forme of Cury`, and another, similary called `Curye on Inglish`. Amusingly, they are nothing to do with the curry that is familiar to us all today, but instead descriptions of the types of meals prepared by the cooks of the rich and wealthy people of the time. In the fifteenth century, people returning from the crusades brought us many foods and spices from the Middle-East, including rosemary and coriander. These new spices and herbs was responsible for a surge in manuscripts on food, most of which are kept safe in academic collections. During the succeeding few hundred years, the rich and powerful families of Wesstern Europe competed with each other to offer the most extravagent banquests, and as a result the best cooks and their recipe collections were much in demand. Even so, it was during the 1800s that formal cookery and recipe books reached a high level of popularity. The Famous Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally famous Fannie Farmer in the USA, dedicated their lives to assembling, testing, and writing down recipes that were common in the better off homes of the day. By the arrival of the 1900s, cookery books were in great demand, as a result of increased literacy, people having more spare time and having more disposable income. Like it or not, the introduction of television brings us TV cookery programs and the demand for the spin-off recipe books. And that brings us to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, allowing us all to search through thousands of recipes just like those on this site. |
We hope you enjoy this Polish Cabbage Borshcht recipe.
