The Forgotten Menu
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Recipes

Dishes from history’s famous tables, from the old menus and cookbooks. Each one names its source and scales to the size of your table.

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73–84 of 226 recipes

  1. A deep brown earthenware baking dish of baked navy beans, browned and fairly dry on top, with thin slices of salt pork showing between the beans and a serving spoon resting in the dish.
    Beans and bacon

    Meat & Poultry · 19 hr 15 min total

    Baked Pork and Beans (1896) 

    Baked pork and beans after the War Department’s Manual for Army Cooks, 1896: navy beans soaked overnight, boiled, layered with parboiled salt pork and baked slowly until nearly dry.

  2. A brown earthenware pot with its lid set aside, full of thick split pea soup with pieces of beef and carrot, beside a round loaf on a wooden table.
    A baked Soup

    Soups & Broths · 3 hr 25 min total

    Baked Soup for the Poor (1806) 

    Maria Rundell’s baked soup for the poor, 1806: sliced meat, split peas, a little rice, onions and carrots, covered close in an earthen pot and baked slowly, made to give away.

  3. Nine plain, pale golden biscuits baked touching each other in a dark square metal pan, a tenth split beside it to show a fine white crumb, with a dish of butter and a butter knife.
    Bread and butter

    Breads & Cakes · 29 min total

    Baking-Powder Biscuits (1896) 

    Plain baking-powder biscuits of flour, salt and a little lard, rolled thick and baked close together, from the War Department’s Manual for Army Cooks, 1896.

  4. A clear amber beef broth in a plain white cup with a saucer, beside a small fine sieve resting on a bowl.
    Beef Tea

    Soups & Broths · 1 hr 50 min total

    Beef Tea (1857) 

    Beef cooked down with butter, onion and carrot to a pale gravy, then simmered an hour in water and strained: Alexis Soyer’s beef tea from the Scutari hospitals.

  7. Small golden cheese puffs set out on a plain pewter plate, one broken open to show a hollow, eggy inside with pockets of melted cheese.
    Ramequins de Bourgogne

    Breads & Cakes · 1 hr total

    Cheese Ramequins (1827) 

    Louis Eustache Ude’s cheese ramequins: choux paste beaten with eggs, a spoonful of Parmesan and diced Swiss cheese, dropped in small mounds and baked until puffed.

  8. A shallow oval gratin dish holding a high, light-brown chestnut soufflé with a cracked, sugar-glazed top, a serving spoon resting beside it.
    Une espèce d’omelette soufflée

    Desserts & Sweets · 45 min total

    Chestnut Soufflé Omelette (1805) 

    Grimod’s chestnut soufflé omelette, 1805: a sweet cream of chestnut flour, egg yolks, milk, butter and sugar, cooked thick, folded into beaten whites and baked until risen.

  9. Four pale, smooth chicken breasts set in a ring on a round white platter, alternating with four golden fried bread croûtons of the same shape, all coated in an ivory cream-colored sauce that pools in the center.
    Suprême de volaille

    Meat & Poultry · 1 hr total

    Chicken Suprême (1814) 

    Beauvilliers’s chicken suprême, 1814: breasts cooked white in butter and set in a crown with fried croûtons, under a sauce of reduced stock, velouté and butter.

  11. A wide bowl of pale, milky white broth with tender pieces of pork, beside half a brown coconut shell and a small heap of grated coconut on a dark wooden table.
    Broath

    Soups & Broths · 1 hr 45 min total

    Coconut Milk Pork Broth (1697) 

    A coconut milk pork broth after William Dampier’s 1697 account of meat boiled in coconut milk: pork simmered gently in milk pressed from freshly grated coconut.