Celery Sauce, from Girl's Own Paper, Autumn 1928

Girl's Own Paper was a semi-annual British publication that ran from 1880 into the 1950s. It's a fascinating mix of stories, crafts, recipes, and fashion. I have several copies of the bound annuals (one year in a hardcover binding), mostly from the late 19th-century through the 1930s.

I have always wanted to use some of the recipes in these books, a task made more difficult by the lack of indices in the volumes, and the random nature of the recipes. These aren't cookbooks, and the readers are assumed to have a certain amount of cultural knowledge we don't have today. For example, measurements are given in dessert spoons, teacups, and breakfast cups in the book I'm looking at today, from 1928. Sizes of dishware have increased dramatically since the early part of the 20th century. Some sets of dishware don't have teacups anymore, just mugs. And what exactly is a breakfast cup anyway?

There is a page of "Vegetable Soups and Sauces" in the autumn paper, by a Cora Hewett. It offers recipes for chestnut, lentil, and celery root purees, as well as sauces made from tomato and celery, amongst others. They're all fairly simple and seem like they'd be edible enough and work with modern tastes;  I have celery that needs using up though, so I've decided to go with the celery sauce.

There is a certain amount of cultural reference I'm missing here as well. While there are instructions for making the sauce, there is absolutely no indication of what this should be eaten with. As I've never heard of celery sauce before I did an internet search. Google brings up a selection of slightly different versions for chicken, pasta, steak, and fish. Most of the recipes that come up are dairy based, but I think the general premise would be the same.

It's also missing measurements and times. My husband and I had a discussion on how we felt this should go and ended up deciding that most of the liquid should come from the celery and the stock should just aid in the boiling down. We couldn't decide on if it should get boiled down to much, or remain a bit chunky; I ended up leaving it chunky, and thickening the stock around the celery. I added some salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar. The egg yolks didn't seem necessary once I'd gotten that far so I left them out.

It ends up being a pale green chunky gravy that tastes mildly of celery. The sugar helps to cut the bitterness down. We had it over a baked potato, which made the side to a turkey breast wrapped in bacon.

It's actually pretty good. This recipe would be great for using up those bits of celery that invariably end up getting tossed in the compost.



Celery Sauce
Use either roots or stalks of celery. Chop celery fine and boil it in a little stock. Melt 1 tablespn. butter in saucepan, add 2 tablspn. flour. Add stock with the celery to it. Flavour with salt, pepper, a soupcon of sugar. One or two yolks of egg stirred into the sauce just as it is ready will improve the sauce, which must on no account be allowed to boil afterwards.