From a 19th century recipe for baked halibut with tomato sauce.
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds halibut
- 2 cups tomatoes
- 1 cup water
- 1 slice onion
- 3 cloves
- 1/2 Tablespoon sugar
- 3 Tablespoons butter
- 3 Tablespoons flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
Preparation:
Cook twenty minutes tomatoes, water, onion, cloves, and sugar. Melt butter, add flour, and stir into hot mixture. Add salt and pepper, cook ten minutes, and strain. Clean fish, put in baking-pan, pour around half the sauce, and bake thirty-five minutes, basting often. Remove to hot platter, pour around remaining sauce, and garnish with parsley. [Note: no oven temperature specified in original recipe.]
From Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, Fannie Merritt Farmer, 1896.
The recipes in this collection are representative of cooking in America in the late 19th century, and the compilation of a cookbook shows the ways in which women were beginning to organize and act both within their traditional roles and outside of traditional expectations. The recipes are presented exactly as written in 1896, and may not conform to current nutritional or food preparation standards. Try at your own risk.
