1932 Penn RR Dining Car Cooking Instructions

I lifted this from another site.  Very cool.

Take your time with it.  There is a wealth of information in there.  Sauces, recipes and techniques that should be remembered and perhaps restored in the dark ages of fast food.

A treasure trove, indeed! I was scrolling through it and came across their recipe for "carbonade;" it didn't use beer, but there were quite a few interesting similarities to the Carbonade Flamande that I love to make.

Ron, in 1932 Prohibition was still in force, which is why no beer was called for in the carbonade recipe. 

Brook wrote: Ron, in 1932 Prohibition was still in force, which is why no beer was called for in the carbonade recipe.  There a PHD thesis waiting for somebody on the effects Prohibition had on cuisine. Among the things is killed were dishes like terrapin soup with sherry, which had been an iconic Maryland dish. Many others as well.

I was thinking the same thing, gMAn - I can see it in my mind's eye, almost exactly as you describe.

To go along with what Brook is saying. Have you ever watched the Wok guy at the chinese takeout make your dinner? He'll use a ladle or a spatula to scoop almost every non-meat or vegetable ingredient that goes in the wok. If the person is good everything turns out the same every time. Practice, practice, practice.

But what size is a kitchen spoon? I don't know but I would guess it to be the size of a slotted spoon without the slots. Whatever that means...

I used to work in a couple of restaurants, and I can see it in my mind: a long handled, large spoon used for stirring pots. Not sure how much it held, but it's basically just like any stirring spoon you would expect to see in a commercial kitchen.

This is the type and size of what was referred to as "the kitchen spoon" as I remember them.

Let me shed some colonial light on this.
I am fortunate enough to have some of both my Grandmothers' and my Mothers' cutlery. Also a copy of the Edmonds' Cookery Book.

First a quick explanation of Edmonds. My copy dates to the 1985. I know it is largely unchanged from my Mother's copy and my Grandmothers'. Sadly both of those are long gone. However at the time I bought mine I had access to both of the older versions and I remember comparing them both with my then 'new' version at the time. The only changes in 1985 from the 1955 edition were the cover design and the inclusion of some metric conversions. Delightfully it employs the now obsolete measure 'dessertspoon' which is in fact a contemporary tablespoon. It also employs an even more obsolete Tablespoon measure... to explain...

In the image below spoon 'A' is part of a much larger canteen that served my family from the mid 1880's to the present, each subsequent generation buying replacements for the dining room as pieces wore out and were demoted to kitchen use. By kitchen use I mean everyday use before being further demoted to cooking. Spoon 'A' is the 'Dessertspoon'



Which brings me to how this might help with the Penn book.

In the other image is a dessert canteen that was never used, Mum didn't like it. However it contains the elusive 'Tablespoon' - Spoon 'C'. (Spoon 'B' from the un loved set is also a dessertspoon measuring 15mls).

Now I remember our old 'Kitchen' spoons from the older larger family canteen and they were all the same size as spoon 'C' just in the more familiar oval shape. I don't have them, the ones that became Kitchen spoons were not worth keeping, silver plating worn off, flat on one side from years of service and long since gone to the trash. Fortunately my Sister inherited their still pristine Mappin and Webb replacements, so I got her to confirm that the measurement I tested on spoon 'C' was the same for the old kitchen spoons, it is.

The result;
Spoons A and B are 'dessertspoons' both are 15mls, which according to Edmonds is now a tablespoon. Spoon 'C' (the Tablespoon or Kitchen spoon) is 37.5mls (2 1/2 dessertspoons).

Hope this helps.