Prison hooch and hot cakes

We finish out the year with the final three pages of recipes: Waffles, hot cakes, and hooch. This “wine” recipe calls for a giant pile of sugar and seems perfect for the prohibition era basement distillery.

The waffles and hot cake recipes both call for incorporating beaten egg whites (a meringue) into the batter. This is a great idea that I look forward to trying. I bet it makes for super fluffy pancakes. It also occurred to me, while transcribing these recipes, that once upon a time a waffle iron was just a big heavy pan that you baked waffles in (not some ridiculous contraption found next to a hotel’s continental breakfast).

What’s next for Archie’s Recipes? There’s a page or two of hand written measures I’d like to include and a bit of clean up to do. Finally I’d like to format this entire site as an ebook for easy sharing and archiving.

Soups, Sandwiches, Vegetables

How about a nice sandwich and soup for lunch? I hope you like ham. Soups, sandwiches, and vegetable dishes have been transcribed and added.

I remember having this bean soup (or something very similar) when I was young. Thick and creamy. Very hearty. Lots of ham. It’s amusing and appropriate that a southern vegetable soup recipe begins with a big animal bone. Recipes like this cheese and tomato sandwich follow the same lead. Bacon is just assumed to be part of the sandwich. The distinguishing characteristics are the cheese and tomato. Of course there’s bacon.

Many of these recipes take a more casual, conversational tone. Fewer lists of ingredients, more general notes on techniques. I wonder if these recipes, appearing later in the book, hint that Archie had grown more confident in the kitchen and needed to write less down.