Great-great Grandmother Lizzie (1854 - 1942)
Great Grandmother Elsie (1886 - 1960)
Clabber
![Picture](/uploads/2/3/4/2/2342820/7693862.gif)
Lizzie was Libby's great-great grandmother. As a very young child Lizzie saw Grant’s troops enter Richmond during the War Between the States. Married in 1883, Lizzie was widowed shortly after the birth of her fourth child. Lizzie was a schoolteacher of German language, a student of French cuisine, and a leader of tour groups in Europe.
Elsie, Lizzie's daughter and Libby's great-grandmother, enjoyed having her mother live with her family on Grace Street. Her children called Lizzie, Granny Elsie's brother Charles was so touched by the words of love and advice in Lizzie's Last Will and Testament that he offered each of her great-grandchildren a prize for making three copies of a part of it. Libby's mom confesses that she taped three pencils together to complete the mission!
Granny had the habit of making clabber on the back of the stove overnight. (Old gas stoves had pilot lights that remained on, providing a low level of heat which allowed the clabber to develop.) Lizzie was ahead of her time: in the early twenty-first century the U.S. spends several billion dollars annually on various cultured milk products!
In Lizzie’s and Elsie's memory we include a recipe for Clabber from Marion Harland’s Common Sense in the Household (New York, 1871).
Ingredient:
© Fresh milk, skimmed
Directions:
Set a china or glass dish of skimmed milk away in a warm place, covered. When it turns, it will become a smooth, firm but not tough cake. Serve in the same dish, or cut out carefully with a large spoon and serve with cream, powdered sugar, and nutmeg to taste. It is better, if set on the ice for an hour before it is brought to table. Do not let it stand until the whey separates from the curd.
Few people know how delicious this healthful and cheap dessert can be made, if eaten before it becomes tart and tough, with a liberal allowance of cream and sugar. There are not many jellies and creams superior to it.
Science note:
Beneficial bacteria in the air feed on milk’s lactose, causing lactic acid to form, causing the pH of the milk to drop and its taste to become tart. Milk proteins, most notably casein, are no longer as soluble under acid conditions and they precipitate out, causing what we recognize as clabbering.
Elsie, Lizzie's daughter and Libby's great-grandmother, enjoyed having her mother live with her family on Grace Street. Her children called Lizzie, Granny Elsie's brother Charles was so touched by the words of love and advice in Lizzie's Last Will and Testament that he offered each of her great-grandchildren a prize for making three copies of a part of it. Libby's mom confesses that she taped three pencils together to complete the mission!
Granny had the habit of making clabber on the back of the stove overnight. (Old gas stoves had pilot lights that remained on, providing a low level of heat which allowed the clabber to develop.) Lizzie was ahead of her time: in the early twenty-first century the U.S. spends several billion dollars annually on various cultured milk products!
In Lizzie’s and Elsie's memory we include a recipe for Clabber from Marion Harland’s Common Sense in the Household (New York, 1871).
Ingredient:
© Fresh milk, skimmed
Directions:
Set a china or glass dish of skimmed milk away in a warm place, covered. When it turns, it will become a smooth, firm but not tough cake. Serve in the same dish, or cut out carefully with a large spoon and serve with cream, powdered sugar, and nutmeg to taste. It is better, if set on the ice for an hour before it is brought to table. Do not let it stand until the whey separates from the curd.
Few people know how delicious this healthful and cheap dessert can be made, if eaten before it becomes tart and tough, with a liberal allowance of cream and sugar. There are not many jellies and creams superior to it.
Science note:
Beneficial bacteria in the air feed on milk’s lactose, causing lactic acid to form, causing the pH of the milk to drop and its taste to become tart. Milk proteins, most notably casein, are no longer as soluble under acid conditions and they precipitate out, causing what we recognize as clabbering.