🎩 Just Plain Weird 1929

Bearnaise Sauce (invalid version)

Béarnaise rebuilt for the sickroom: shortening instead of butter, and no wine reduction at all.

From: Modernistic Recipe-Menu Book
Published: 1929
Yikes Scale: Iffy

Exactly as printed, 1929

4 tablespoons shortening 4 egg yolks 1/2 teaspoon salt Pepper 1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar 1 teaspoon each onion juice and chopped parsley Beat egg yolks, salt and pepper in top of double boiler until light. Cream the shortening till smooth, add a third of it at a time to the beaten egg yolks, beating until smooth. Add vinegar and onion juice. Cook over hot water for three minutes, beating constantly with egg beater. Remove from fire, add chopped parsley and serve with liver immediately.

Modernistic Recipe-Menu Book, 1929. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Safe enough — the yolks cook over hot water, briefly — and mostly just sad. What makes a béarnaise is a reduction of vinegar, shallot and tarragon cooked down to a spoonful of concentrated flavour, and that step is simply gone.

The shortening is the period showing. Butter substitutes were widely recommended as blander and easier to digest, though the recipe never says so.

Notes from the 21st century

Three minutes over hot water is marginal. Keep the water hot but not boiling, near 180°F. If it boils the yolks scramble into grains no amount of beating will smooth.
Onion juice, not shallot. Grate half a small onion and press the pulp through a sieve. A small piece yields the teaspoon called for.
This is a brand book. The Modernistic Recipe-Menu Book is built around a shortening, which is why the butter is missing from a butter sauce.

Also in this book

Mineral Oil Mayonnaise — Mayonnaise made with drugstore liquid paraffin, because it has no food value.
Squirrel Pot Pie — Prepare the squirrels as rabbits, flour and fry them brown, and put a biscuit crust on top.

Don't take our word for it. The complete book is online, free and searchable.

Read the original page →

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