Food Fight: Liesl’s Bethlehem vs. Lafayette’s Versailles
This special blog is a joint effort with my Parisian friend Martinn who first suggested a foodie article comparing the different food styles of Liesl’s early Bethlehem with Lafayette’s Versailles. She also developed the French side of this story: un grand merci à Martinn!
Please join us as we travel through time to experience two aspects of 18th century cuisine. We even have some recipes for you to try, including the famous Moravian sugar cake!
Liesl’s Bethlehem
In the earliest days, Moravians lived in their Gemeinhaus and ate meals together at a long dining table in the basement. Later, meals were served in individual choir houses. For example, each day at 11:00 a.m., the Single Sisters would have filed, two-by-two, into the Sisters’ House dining room.
The Moravian diet followed the seasons with a fresh and varied menu for much of the year including turnips, cabbage, onions, potatoes, and salad greens. They even cultivated sunflowers for salad dressing. The winter menu focused more on salted and pickled foods; however, Schnitz und Knepp (dried apples with dumplings and pork) was always a crowd pleaser.
Initially, Moravians ate meat only twice a week, but that changed by the 1770’s when Bethlehem had one of the largest cattle-raising operations in the area. Shad was also popular, and with help from the local American Indians, Moravians rigged nets in the Lehigh River that could catch 600-700 shad at a time. The record catch was 2,000 fish!
Sweets, such as fruit pies, cookies, and gingerbread, were particularly popular in early Bethlehem. It’s been reported that in the year 1746, Moravian consumed over 630 pounds of sugar–about two pounds per person.
Typical Bethlehem Menu
Attribution: Creative Commons: https://openverse.org/image/b76cff75-855d-4cfd-bce1-8a3634fec977?q=cooking%20hearth
Cooking was done on the open hearth and often took much of the day. The menu below was created by Chef Walter Staib in conjunction with Historic Bethlehem.
This typical dinner menu would have been served at lunchtime:
Chicken stew with oats and root vegetables
Beef Rouladen (beef rolls with onion, mustard, bacon, and pickles)
Picked beef tongue
Stir-fried cabbage with caraway seeds
Moravian Sugar Cake
Click here to watch Chef Staib prepare this meal on the hearth in early-Bethlehem style: A Taste of History: Moravians in Bethlehem.
Moravian Sugar Cake
Attribution: By Ommni1 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64104704
In The Bookmark, Mother Boeckel is renowned for her moist and tasty sugar cake. Because Lafayette takes such an interest in the baking process, she describes how she pokes holes in the dough with her fingers and fills them with a mixture of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. She even shares her secret ingredient: potatoes.
By the way, legend has it that Moravian men sought out women with fat fingers to ensure more buttery sweetness in their sugar cake!
This is the most authentic-sounding Moravian Sugar Cake recipe I could find. Disclaimer: I haven’t tried it, but you may want to give it a whirl (or a poke)! Moravian Sugar Cake (Authentic)
Lafayette’s Versailles
Attribution: Marc Vassal, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Beginning around 1650, French chefs started a culinary revolution by incorporating more vegetables, herbs, and fruit--plus plenty of butter and cream. These innovative chefs also created recipes using newly discovered ingredients imported from America. Thanks to Columbus, French chefs introduced new foods like potatoes, tomatoes, thyme, and poule d’Inde (turkey).
Table settings became more exciting and elaborate as well with fancy centerpieces and new serving dishes such as tureens and sauceboats. Le service à la française became universally accepted as the only civilized way to dine. This required that all the different dishes for a given course be placed on the table at the same time and in exactly their prescribed locations.
Diners would help themselves to whatever was nearby without moving the dishes. Since it was impractical for guests to sample all the dishes, it was important to have an interesting selection of foods near each guest. For example, the menus for Lafayette’s wedding reception consisted of one hundred plates of appetizers, thirty platters of roasted meats, and forty-six desserts!
Despite the array of choices, refinement was more important than abundance. If a diner spotted a must-have food beyond their own reach, they could pass their plate to a neighbor and ask for assistance, but this was considered uncouth.
It’s worth noting that many of the common people were starving while the nobility at the court of Versailles were suffering gout attacks!
Typical French Menu
While well-known chefs of the age claimed they liked simple and natural food, in actuality, their recipes could be quite complicated.
Here is a menu Lafayette would have appreciated:
Brioches (like Italian Panettone)
Oeufs à la negligence (an egg dish similar to scrambled eggs that doesn’t require much effort)
Asparagus
Salmon
Duck
Mashed potatoes
Tomatoes
Corn
Steamed greens
Cantaloupe
Charlotte Red Fruit (a beautiful molded dessert made with ladyfingers, red fruit filling, and cream—similar to a trifle)
Biscuits à la Reyne (a small cookie, originally created for the queen and perfect for dipping in hot chocolate)
Brioche and Asparagus Omelet
Brioche, a French bread with a high butter and egg content, can be found in the grocery store (available at Walmart and Trader Joes), but you can also make your own following a recipe like this one: The Flavor Bender’s Brioche Bread.
INGREDIENTS (six servings)
6 Parisian brioche
½ lb. asparagus
¼ - ½ teaspoon of butter
drop of canola oil
1 small onion, minced
1 branch thyme, chopped
pinch of nutmeg
¼ cup parsley, chopped
½ bunch chives (about ¼ cup), chopped
6 eggs
½ cup heavy cream
salt and pepper
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Take each Parisian brioche and cut off its head! (Just like the guillotine.) Gently remove the delicate insides and place the shell in a baking dish.
Clean and cut asparagus into 1-2 inches chunks (no need to peel). Lightly sauté. (Do not overcook).
In a pan, melt butter and a drop of canola oil (to prevent burning). Brown the onion, thyme, nutmeg, half of the parsley, and half of the chives.
Season and cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
In the meantime, beat the eggs with cream and add the rest of the parsley and the chives. Season and add the cooked asparagus.
Pour the mixture into the brioches. Bake until the omelet inside is cooked. If brioche is drying out, cover with aluminum foil.
Serve with steamed vegetables such as peas and artichokes.
And the winner is (drumroll please):
I have to call this food fight a draw. since each one has its pros and cons. Bethlehem gets high marks for simple healthy food with lots of vegetable and fruits, but their sugar consumption was frightening. Even though Versailles appears to have been a glutton’s paradise, who wouldn’t adore those sumptuous surroundings?
Thank you for joining Martinn and me on this culinary adventure. We wish you a blessed holiday season. And Bon Appétit!
References
Sketches of Early Bethlehem by Richmond E. Myers
“Gathering at the Table” by The Morning Call
“Colonial and Early American Fare” by Food Timeline
Visit Martinn in Paris
If food, tableware, history, markets, recipes, and even food-related exhibitions are part of your hobbies, do not hesitate to contact Martinn when you visit Paris. She’ll be your foodie guide in Paris providing extensive historic and up-to-date information. Contact Martinn via her website key2paris or at info@key2paris.com.
