Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #17 Part 2

Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #17

Myths and Legends

The Challenge: Myths and Legends (August 12 - August 25) It’s time to make some legendary food! Pick a story from folklore (a myth, fantasy, legend, or fairy tale) that features food, and use a historical recipe to recreate it. 

As a bonus challenge, I used the fairy tale "Seven Hills of Sweet" by Jane Yolen as my inspiration. An excerpt of the story is as follows: 

"Once in a lovely kingdom called Sweet, which was nestled among seven hills, there lived a noddy old king who loved chocolates. . . . This king loved chocolate above all else.

He had chocolate flakes for breakfast and chocolate sandwiches for lunch. He had chocolate burgers for dinner, which caused seventeen cooks and one dessert chef to quit over the years. He had his castle painted brown so the bricks would look like  chocolate bars and poured hot chocolate into the moat.  . . ."

Jane Yolen, "The Seven Hills of Sweet" in Fairy Tale Feasts : A Literary Cookbook for Young Readers & Eaters", Northampton, Mass: Crocodile Books, USA, 2006.

The Recipe: Chocolate Sandwiches

CHOCOLATE SANDWICH 

Cut thin slices of bread and butter as for other sandwiches have a cake of sweetened chocolate in a warm spot over night or long enough to become soft like cheese Scrape it and spread thickly over the bread and butter then make into sandwiches This sandwich when the appetite is jaded and craves variety will be agreeable to chocolate lovers A cake of chocolate between two crackers is another form of it

 Mrs. John A. Logan, William Mathews, Catherine Owen, Will Carleton, The Home Manual: Everybody's Guide in Social, Domestic, and Business Life , A.M. Thayer & Company, 1889

Chocolate Sandwich No1 

Melt two ounces Lowney's Premium Chocolate. Add two tablespoons hot cream or hot milk two tablespoons wine or one teaspoon vanilla and enough confectioner's sugar to make of the consistency to spread. Use for a filling between crackers or thin slices of bread or cake. Finely chopped nuts slightly salted may be added to the chocolate mixture. 

Maria Willett Howard, Lowney's Cook Book: Illustrated in Colors : a New Guide for the Housekeeper, W. M. Lowney, 1921 –

How did you make it? : I let a mini Hershey bar melt on the counter in the hot sun. I spread some not butter, not margarine spread on some white bread, cut off the crusts and spread on the chocolate.

I melted a mini Hershey Bar and the last of my Taza chocolate on the stove with some milk vanilla and confectioner's sugar. 

Time to Complete: 20 minutes including letting the chocolate melt

How Successful Was It?: Technically it was successful but tastewise, it wasn't as good as I had expected. As much as I love chocolate, this one didn't appeal to me.

I tried to mix a Hershey Bar, Taza Chocolate and some powdered sugar on the stove. It didn't get thick enough to spread before it got too sweet. It made really good hot chocolate though.

How Accurate Is It?: Mostly... Hershey bars were not available in 1889!