I'm browsing through an 1879 cookbook from Virginia and have come
across some pretty strange recipes. Three for "pickled martinas". For
the life of me I cannot discover what sort of food a "martina" is.
Fruit? A nut? Any help out there? And, there are many recipes for
"stuffed mangoes". You can make peach mangoes or just plain stuffed
mangoes. The peach mangoes are made by steeping the peaches for days,
removing the stones and stuffing with spices, then sewing up the
peaches and pickling them! The stuffed mangoes are made the same way.
Surely mangoes did not grow in Virginia back in 1879? From a much
earlier British cookbook I gather that any fruit opened up and stuffed
& pickled was called a "mango" - but the fact baffles me that, in
Virginia in 1879, they actually call for mangoes. Can anyone tell me
if they were available in that part of the USA then? Please, please
reply by e-mail to as I'm not sure I could ever find my
way back into this newsgroup!

Dog3 wrote:
> (Ruth) deliciously posted in
> om:
>
>> I'm browsing through an 1879 cookbook from Virginia and have come
>> across some pretty strange recipes. Three for "pickled martinas".

>I'm assuming nothing. I think
> Martina may be referring to a specific individual. Sorry I couldn't
> be more help.
>
> Michael

Aye, the Spanish maid that the mistress couldn't stand! Pickle her! <G>
Oh, okay, pickle all three of them!

Interesting reading, these old cookbooks. I haven't found a reference to a
'martina' in one of mine yet. I'll keep looking and see if I can deduce for
the OP, from any mention, what one might be.

Jill

I looked up "martina" in _Uncommon Furits & Vegetables: A Commonsense
Guide_ by Elizabeth Schneider and found nada. There's nothing in my
American Heritage Dictionary on it either. I'll be interested in the
answer when someone finds it. I suspect it will be found in the OED. I
don't have a copy.


The American Heritage did supply a clue on mangoes. The second
definition is "any of various types of pickle, especially a pickled
stuffed sweet pepper." I'd say your cookbook is using "mango" to mean
"pickled" and "stuffed mangoes" means "stuffed pickled sweet peppers."


--Lia

I checked with a friend who is interested in both cooking and history
and has a nice collection of old cookbooks herself. She writes:

-------------------------------------
Mrs. Child in her _Frugal Housewife_ of 1833 tells how to pickle
martinoes. ("Martinoes are prepared in nearly the same way as other
pickles. The salt and water in which they are put, two or three days
previous to pickling, should be changed every day; because martinoes are
very apt to become soft. No spice should be used but allspice, cloves,
and cinnamon. The martinoes and the spice should be scalded in the
vinegar, instead of pouring the vinegar over the martinoes.")

Webster's Third New International Dictionary says that a martinoe is a
unicorn plant. Under unicorn plant we find: A No. American annual herb
(Martynia louisianica) having large whitish or yellowish flowers mottled
with purple or yellow within and a capsule with a long curving beak.

I would guess that the capsules are the part to be pickled, since
another of my old cookbooks gives a recipe for pickling radish pods.

I did find several recipes for mangoes, too. Looking through them
briefly, they seem to involve scooping out the center of any of a number
of types of fruit (such as melons or peaches), mixing the pulp with
spices, stuffing it back into the skin, and doing various things
involving scalding, vinegar, etc. Perhaps it's the stuffing it back into
the skin that makes it a "mango."
-------------------------------------------


--Lia

On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 02:53:43 GMT, Julia Altshuler
> wrote:

>I looked up "martina" in _Uncommon Furits & Vegetables: A Commonsense
>Guide_ by Elizabeth Schneider and found nada. There's nothing in my
>American Heritage Dictionary on it either. I'll be interested in the
>answer when someone finds it. I suspect it will be found in the OED. I
>don't have a copy.

it's obviously a corruption of the masculine form 'martinus.'

your pal,
blake

"blake murphy" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 02:53:43 GMT, Julia Altshuler
> > wrote:
>
> >I looked up "martina" in _Uncommon Furits & Vegetables: A Commonsense
> >Guide_ by Elizabeth Schneider and found nada. There's nothing in my
> >American Heritage Dictionary on it either. I'll be interested in the
> >answer when someone finds it. I suspect it will be found in the OED. I
> >don't have a copy.
>
> it's obviously a corruption of the masculine form 'martinus.'
>
> your pal,
> blake

Doesn't it refer to a single female martini?

Which reminds me of an old, bad joke.

Drunk to bartender: I'll have a martinus.
Bartender: Don't you mean martini?
Drunk: If I wanted more than one I would have said so.


--
Peter Aitken

Remove the crap from my email address before using.