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COOKBOOK |
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My grandfather Hendrik Johannes Wesseldijk, serving as a missionary in Celebes (now Sulawesi, Indonesia), was fond of eating, specially sweets, and, being a widower, he was very interested in cooking. In many of his letters he refers to the kitchen and to the preparation and preservation of food, how he taught the 'moerids' to cook in the Dutch way (krentenbollen!), how he hunted deer (steak!), how he tended to the vegetable garden, his chickens, cows and pigs and the contents of the larder. The cookbook is a real treasure, filled with dried herbs and flowers and handwritten recipes, some of which you might like to try.
200 grams white sugar, 1 spoon water, 1 spoon vinager, 1/2 spoon butter, a pinch of salt
Dissolve the sugar with water, vinager, butter and salt.
Cook
softly, until one drop of the treacle, cooled on the point of a knife, can be
removed with a flick of your nail.
Pour on a wet, stone surface. Form a long
roll and cut in little pieces with scissors.
When the babbelaars are cold and
hard, roll in sugar and keep in a bowl.
Serve with hot coffee.
Take the juice of 8 lemons and heat it on a low fire with 2oo grams of sugar,
until the sugar has melted.
Add 8 grams of dissolved jelly and leave to cool.
When the pudding stiffens add 3/4 liters of whipped cream.
1st day: semolina, water, juice and a few raisins with some currants.
2nd day: the same, with one egg.
3rd day: groats or prunes and an egg.
4th day: breadporridge, a thin slice of whitebread and eggs.
The best semolina is
made with 1 jug of milk, 100 grams of semolina and 100 grams of sugar,
then the
thickness is fine and the taste is good.
GROATS AND BUTTERMILK PORRIDGE
1 liter buttermilk, salt, 100 grams fine groats.
Cook the milk with
salt. Stir from time to time. Scatter the groats in the boiling milk and lower
heat to minimum.
Cook the porridge for 8 minutes. Serve hot, with treacle.