Rice Pudding: Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #12

For background on the Historical Food Fortnightly, click here.

The Challenge: If They’d Had It… November 2 - November 15
Have you ever looked through a cookbook from another era and been surprised at the modern dishes you find? Have you ever been surprised at just how much they differ from their modern counterparts? Recreate a dish which is still around today, even if it may look a little - or a lot - different!

I've been hankering for rice pudding lately for no particular reason.  And Miss Betsy kept talking about Eliza Leslie in her challenges so I decided to try one of the recipes from Directions for Cookery and satisfy my desire to eat rice pudding and use up some of the white rice we had (we usually eat brown rice).  It turned out well, despite going through lots of gyrations to figure out what a pint of dry rice is and it was quite delicious, though not nearly as sweet as a modern version of rice pudding.  I figured out why when I checked out a modern baked rice pudding recipe (just took the first one Google popped up) and noticed that it calls for about three times as much sugar!

A Plain Rice Pudding, Eliza Leslie's receipt.

The Recipe: A Plain Rice Pudding, Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie, 10th Edition [1840]  (but the preface was written in Philadelphia in 1837) 

Pick and wash a pint of rice, and boil it soft.  Then drain off the water, and let the rice dry and get cold.  Afterwards mix it with two ounces of butter, and four ounces of sugar, and stir it into a quart of rich milk.  Beat four or five eggs very light, and add them gradually to the mixture.  Stir in at the last a table-spoonful of mixed nutmeg and cinnamon.  Bake it an hour in a deep dish.

The Date/Year and Region: Recipe is English, published 1840 in the USA.

How Did You Make It: I followed the recipe except where I accidentally screwed up.  I determined that one pint of rice is 2 cups dry.  I chose to soak the rice first to minimize arsenic exposure.  And some of her other recipes talk about soaking and draining the rice so I thought that was ok.  I think that she also thought that I would be hulling the rice, but since I buy mine in a modern(ish) market, it comes pre-hulled.  I boiled the rice and it was really mushy rice (I assume from presoaking it).  I left that out overnight, kind of accidentally....but I figured that wouldn't kill anyone and it would be baked the next morning.  I cut the butter into smaller pieces and smushed it around in the sugar then stirred that all in the rice.  Honestly, I didn't think it was going to work because the butter wasn't all that soft but it worked just fine.  Next I poured a quart of milk into the rice mixture, then beat 4 eggs in the baking dish.  I beat the cinnamon/nutmeg mixture into the eggs (didn't read the directions super carefully) but I think that didn't impact the end result.  I used a full tablespoon of ground cinnamon and a little more- maybe 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg as I have hardly any left and I still have holiday baking coming up.

Time to Complete: About 1 hour of prep time not counting baking.  About 25 minutes of that was cooking the rice and I wasn't hurrying as I worked, I was Skyping with my sister during some of the prep time.  Another 45-60 minutes for baking.  (I chose to bake it at 325 degrees F and took the smaller pan that was on the bottom rack out after about 45 minutes, then moved the larger pan to the bottom rack for another 15 minutes.)

Total Cost: Grand total: about $3 USD. Rice: approximately 1.5 soles (50 cents at today's exchange rates); milk 2 soles (70 cents); butter: approximately 2 soles (70 cents); eggs 3 soles (about $1); cinnamon/nutmeg: negligible

How Successful Was It?: It was very tasty.  The only thing is it was the faintest hint of sweetness...but that's because we have a palate that gets a lot more sugar.  It still tasted good.  I tried it both the way it was baked and sprinkling a little brown sugar on top (which made it even tastier to my modern palate).

How Accurate Is It?: I don't have loaf sugar and I didn't research what kind of rice they would have used.  And I used all modern appliances and pans.  But in general I think the result was fairly accurate.

Time to Research:  Oh, Eliza!  I looked up multiple rice pudding recipes and I have never seen a person who changes their recipe from edition to edition as much as she did.  Like, it's hard to tell that the rice pudding recipes are even related.  And at one point I found someone who transcribed my recipe to read half a pint of rice and I thought I had messed up big time...but all of my ratios turned out fine using 2 cups of dry rice (then cooked and cooled) to a quart of milk.  I probably spent 1 hour looking up all of the different recipes and trying to figure out how much a pint of rice was in today's modern measures.  But all's well that ends well and I like the final result.

The cooked rice after it sat out for 12 hours.

Going in the oven to bake.

The finished product.  Not that pretty, but very tasty.

What it looks like out of the pan.  Yes, I did eat all of that.

The second and larger pan.  Not sure why, but it's more yellow.  I think it got more of the egg mixture.

"The Cast Saga" or "We knew a broken bone was coming"

So, Miss M has her first (and hopefully last) cast on right now.  We got a call from her school on October 30 saying that we needed to pick her up.  Now, we've gotten this call before and it has never been anything serious.  In fact, it's been the least serious of incidents, the kind where you think, "School, why in the world are you sending this kid home?  There is nothing wrong with her."  So I have to admit that I wasn't exactly taking things seriously.  I had just started Bible study time at our house with a couple of my girlfriends here and I asked one of them to talk on the phone and see if we really had to get M.  She said the teacher in no uncertain terms said we had to pick her up, so Dave graciously gave up his Spanish study time to go get Miss M and I continued on with my group.

We wasted no time in getting signatures.

When Dave and M came home, her arm was swollen and wrapped in an elastic strap.  The school had had a doctor look at her and she said he didn't think it was broken but to keep an eye on it.  We were applying ice on for 10 minutes and off and elevated  her arm.  She was crying a little but most of the time just resting without tears.  I applied some essential oils for pain management and to help reduce the swelling and they seemed to help along with the ice.

First night- it's her left wrist and it wasn't very swollen by the time she went to bed.

Miss M told us that she had climbed a tree and was hanging from a branch about as high as Dave's shoulder (so maybe 5 feet or so) and that she dropped down to the ground.  She somehow shifted and ended up landing on her left wrist and then the other kids were laughing, thinking that it was a trick, until they realized she was crying and then they stopped laughing.  She got help from the teacher, they got a doctor and some ice, and then she came home.  We continued with the ice and elevation and oils and by bedtime, most of the swelling was gone but it wasn't totally gone.  I conversed online with another expat friend (who happens to be a doctor and whose own daughter fell off a horse the same day and fractured her wrist) and she suggested we go to get an xray just in case.

So, on Oct 31, Dave and M headed off to the doctor to find someone to take an xray.  The first doctor was not available in the morning, so they went to another hospital.  Now, the medical system in Peru is a smidge different.  We have insurance, but it's high deductible and the health care costs here are not that high, so it's basically a pay as you go event for us anytime we need health care.  In the past year we have only gone to the chiropractor and had a wellness check for Little A.  We've been healthy.  So this was our first foray into the Peruvian health care system.  There were a lot of lines and Dave had to pay for each component as he went.  He waited in line for each component of care and waited in line to pay for each component of care (the consult, the xray, the supplies needed for the consult (like exam gloves) and the cast components (plaster of paris webbing and cotton), and the doctor putting the cast on).  We were fortunate in that the doctor working the shift that day was an arm and wrist expert.  He is the one who saw Miss M and did her casting.  She ended up with an over the elbow cast to prevent movement of her wrist bones and we were told she needed it on for about three weeks.  In case you are wondering, the grand total for all of this medical care was about $83 USD.

Then, she went back to school for the few hours left in the day and when she came home it was time for the Halloween costume transformation.  She didn't really have much trouble with pain past that first 12 hour period and once the cast was on, the little swelling she had rapidly went away.

Getting Rarity ready (the Equestria Girls version- My Little Pony but the human version)

Ready to trick-or-treat

 

Our adventurous girl hasn't let a cast slow her down.  It's a bit heavy, and another expat friend here lent us an arm sling.  M has been wearing it periodically, but most of the time she prefers the free range motion.  She accidentally leaned her arm in a puddle of water on the second day and her cast turned mushy, so we got to go to the pharmacy and buy some additional plaster webbing ($2 if you wondered) and Dave applied a patch.  It's holding up ok, but I'm still glad we only have to make it through a few weeks!

Trick-or-treating with her friend who fractured her wrist the same day!

Miss M has continued to want to do anything and everything and has been struggling with being told that jumping on the trampoline or climbing on monkey bars might not be the best thing for right now.  But for the most part, she is handling the cast quite well.  As my mom says, it's kind of miraculous that she hasn't broken anything before now.  She just has a minor fracture in her wrist bone and hopefully all will heal up nicely.  The doctors aren't anticipating any long term problems.

Playing in the ocean? No problem!

Running up and down the beach?  Easy peasy.

Climbing at the park?  Why not?  (I did draw the line at monkey bars, though.)