Skip to content

Mushroom Catsup

A historical recipe from Margaret Brown's French Cookery Book, by Margaret Brown (1886).

A historical recipe

Margaret Brown's French Cookery Book, by Margaret Brown (1886). Project Gutenberg eBook #44915.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards. Its words name: preserving or pickling. Check current food-safety guidance before following this.

Source and licence

From Margaret Brown's French Cookery Book, by Margaret Brown (1886). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #44915 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44915). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

France. Associated with France by the book is about French cookery (its title: French Cookery Book); the recipe itself names no place (confidence 0.4). "Associated with" means only that the evidence named here links this recipe to that place. A recipe isn't labelled as representing an entire country because a source associates it with one, and regional origins are kept where the source gives them.

  • Preserving. Old preserving methods may not make food safe to keep. Use current tested guidance.

Create an image with FoodStudio Made by our AI generator from your own prepaid SecondMem credits. We keep no picture from the source.

Ingredients

Method

  1. Full grown mushrooms are preferred.
  2. Put a layer of these in a deep earthen pan, and sprinkle them with salt;
  3. then another layer of mushrooms and more salt, and so on alternately salt and mushrooms.
  4. Let them remain 2 or 3 hours, by which time the salt will have gone all through the mushrooms, and make them easy to break;
  5. then pound them in a mortar or mash them well with your hands, and let them remain for a couple of days, not longer, stirring them up and mashing them well each day;
  6. then pour them in a stone jar, and to each quart add 1-1/2 ounces of whole black pepper, 1/2 ounce of allspice;
  7. stop the jar very close, and set it in a stewpan of boiling water;
  8. let it boil for 2 hours.
  9. Take out the jar, and clear the juice of settlings by pouring through a hair sieve into a clean stewpan;
  10. let it boil gently for 1/2 hour.
  11. Keep in a dry, cool place;
  12. cork tightly or it will spoil.