Cooking With Bertha

I wonder where the "inn-keeper's wife" got the recipe?

PUNCH ROMAINE.

From MRS. POTTER PALMER, of Chicago, President Board of Lady Managers_With best wishes for your success, I am very sincerely yours,_

Boil together one quart of water and one pint of sugar for about half an hour; add the juice of six good sized lemons and one orange; strain and set away to cool. Then prepare the following: Boil together one gill of sugar and one gill of water for eighteen minutes. While the syrup is cooking, beat the whites of four eggs very stiff, and into these pour the hot syrup very slowly--beating all the time, and continue to beat a few minutes after it is all in. Set this away to cool. Place the first mixture in the freezer and freeze by turning it all the time for twenty minutes. Then take off the cover, remove the beater and add one gill of sherry, two tablespoonfuls Jamaica rum and the meringue, mixing this well with a spoon into the frozen preparation. Cover again and set away until time to serve.

Serve in punch glasses, as a course between entreés and roast.

(What's a "gill?")

From: Favorite Dishes. A Columbian Autograph Souvenir Cookery BookOver Three Hundred Autograph Recipes, and Twenty-three Portraits, Contributed By The Board Of Lady Managers Of The World's Columbian Exposition. Illustrated By May Root-Kern, Mellie Ingels Julian, Louis Braunhold, George Wharton Edwards. Comp.
By Carrie V. Shuman...
Chicago [R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co., Printers] 1893

This book was one of a large number of culinary items that came out of the great World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893...A Woman's Building was one of the most important innovations at the 1893 Fair. Women from every section of America joined forces to present every aspect of women's lives and contributions to the greater society. One of their projects was to raise funds to help poor women who could not afford to pay their own way attend the Fair. This cookbook was one method they used to raise these funds.

(From: Feeding America:The Historic American Cookbook Project)


Another culinary collectible was the The Home Queen World's Fair Souvenir Cookbook, discussed by Cinnamon Cooper on Gaper's Block.

If you are interested in other Fair collectibles, check out World's Fair and Exposition Collectibles (scroll down a bit).