POTATOE CAKE
This is an original recipe from 1796:
Boil potatoes, peel and pound them, add yolks of eggs, wine and melted butter, work with flour into paste, shape as you please, bake and pour over them melted butter, wine and sugar.
a quote from 1759:
"Remember that beans, badly boiled, kill more than bullets; and fat is more fatal than powder. In cooking, more than anything else in this world, always make haste slowly. One hour too much is vastly better than five minutes too little, with rare exceptions. A big fire scorches your soup, burns your face, and crisps your temper. Skim, simmer, and scour, are the true secrets of good cooking."
FRIED MUSKRAT
1 muskrat
2 medium onions
salt and pepper
Skin and remove the musk gland from the "rat". Immerse in a kettle of water. Chop and add both onions. Salt and pepper to taste. Parboil until a scum is no longer produced. Drain off water, leaving onions with the muskrat. Add more water and parboil again until tender. Remove and fry as you like in a skillet.
Salt Cod with Parsnips
Soak three pounds of salt fish overnight with the skin uppermost, and boil it about one hour, putting into it plenty of cold water. Meantime, pare a dozen parsnips and cut them in quarters, boil them half an hour or longer, until tender, drain them, and dish them around the fish; while the fish and parsnips are cooking, make the following sauce: Mix two ounces of flour and one ounce of butter or sweet drippings over the fire until a smooth paste is made, then pour in half a pint of boiling water gradually, stirring until the sauce is smooth; add three tablespoons of vinegar, season with one-half salt-spoonful of salt and half the quantity of pepper; let the sauce boil up thoroughly for about three minutes, and serve it with the fish and parsnips. A hard-boiled egg chopped and added to the sauce improves it.
Jonny Cake (Cornmeal)
(sometime called Journey)
In a large bowl combine 1 cup stoneground white cornmeal, 1 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir in 1 3/4 cups milk, or enough to make a thin batter. Drop this batter by the tablespoons onto a hot well-oiled heavy iron griddle and cook the cakes over low heat for 4 or 5 minutes or until underside is browned. Turn the cakes over and cook them for5 minutes, or until the other side is browned. Serve the jonnycakes very hot with butter and maple syrup.
Venison Jerkey
6 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 tsp. Pepper
1 1/2 tsp. Garlic Powder
1 1/2 lb. Boneless Venison
Combine all the seasoning ingredients in a bowl or, if you have one, a spare spice bottle with a shaker top.
Slice the venison with the grain into strips about 1/8 inch thick. Lay out the slices and sprinkle evenly with the seasoning mix. Pound the strips lightly, flip them over and repeat for other side.
Smoke the strips until dry.