What’s on the Menu? by Penny Zeller

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Howdy, y’all! I am so honored to be a guest again on Petticoats & Pistols. This time, I’m taking us on a culinary journey.

While writing Dreams on the Horizon, I discovered through research a recipe for shoo-fly cake that included cinnamon. Many of us have heard of shoo-fly pie, but what about the cake variety? After reading the ingredients and knowing that Landon, my hunky main male character, loved cinnamon and was fond of the shoo-fly pie, I knew I had to incorporate the cake into the story.

I also found a recipe for clear soup from President Benjamin Harrison’s wife, Caroline. It inspired me to mention it in the book as the recipe Mae and her younger sister, Ruby, are making for supper in a fun scene where Ruby tries her feeble attempts at matchmaking. One of the ingredients is mace.

Mace? Because we authors are known to do three hours of research to write one sentence, I discovered mace is a spice that enhances the flavor of soup.

Read on for a fun excerpt:

Mae stirred the clear soup while Ruby chopped the carrots and separated the yolks from the whites of four eggs.

“Are you fond of Landon?”

One could always rely on Ruby to unexpectedly raise a topic unrelated to the current task. “Why do you ask?”

Ruby positioned her round face directly in front of Mae’s. “Your face is infused with blush.”

“It’s the heat of the stove.”

“Hmm.”

“Besides, you and Timothy really need to mind your manners and refrain from being utter pests when we have a guest.”

Ruby shrugged and returned to the carrots and eggs. “It was necessary at the time.”

“To converge on Landon and me all the while attempting to hide behind a sheet? Really, Rube, we could see you. Your eyeball and the top of your head, anyway.”

“It’s good practice for when I write articles for The Horizon Herald. I’m sure Mr. O’Kane may occasionally send me on a secret mission.”

“Secret mission indeed. I doubt it. Horizon isn’t a big city, and you aren’t Nellie Bly.”

Ruby lifted the knife in midair. “I may not be Nellie Bly, but I am assiduous, dauntless, and stealthy. All important traits for a successful newspaper reporter.”

I’m not sure what it was about food for this book (maybe I was hungry while writing it), but another topic I researched was restaurant menus. These days, we take for granted when we visit a nice restaurant, a café, or even the fast-food drive-through, that we’ll have a plethora of choices from which to choose. While conducting research for food choices for Landon’s uppity and wealthy parents, I discovered that, according to fastingtable.com, “The first restaurant menus in the U.S. were offered at Delmonico’s in New York City. Historical evidence confirms their use in the iconic restaurant by the 1830s.”

Most of us remember dollar menus, but what about feeding a family of four for a dollar? An article in Women’s Chronicle dated July 26, 1890, informs readers that the magazine, Table Talk, includes a menu for feeding four people for one dollar (seen below). According to the magazine, “It tells how to make everything…and gives the price of each ingredient used.”

Thank you for joining me on this culinary journey. Dreams on the Horizon releases on June 25. Can love overcome all obstacles? Will Mae Shepherdson’s dream of a school for the deaf be for naught when the company Landon Bennick works for determines the location of the new railroad spur? When a nefarious character with vengeful intent threatens Mae, will Landon intervene before it’s too late and save the woman who has claimed his heart?

***GIVEAWAY***

I’m giving one lucky winner their choice of a paperback or ebook of Dreams on the Horizon. (Limited to U.S. residents only). To enter, please leave a comment about the most unique food you’ve ever eaten. Can’t wait to read your comments!

Go here to snag your copy of Dreams on the Horizon.

Thank you for joining me today. As a special gift, be sure to snag An Unexpected Arrival, a Wyoming Sunrise novelette, for free by going here.

Penny Zeller is known for her heartfelt stories of faith-filled happily ever afters and her passion to impact lives for Christ through fiction. Her books feature tender romance, steady doses of humor, and memorable characters that stay with you long after the last page. She is a multi-published author of over two dozen books and is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency. She is also a fitness instructor, loves the outdoors, and is a flower gardening addict. Penny resides with her husband and two daughters in small-town America and loves to connect with her readers at her website at http://www.pennyzeller.com,

 

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59 thoughts on “What’s on the Menu? by Penny Zeller”

  1. Growing up, our street used to have a block party in the summer. A neighbor family rented a room to a Japanese man (guess he worked nearby). His contribution to the meal was seaweed candy, a hard candy; I didn’t much care for the strong taste of the kelp, nori or whatever was used in it.

  3. I am not sure which is most “unusual” : chicken feet, durian candy, or turtle, may be common in some cultures. I have also sampled several dishes of unknown name or content from Ethiopian and Cameroon friends-I have to be cautious as I have multiple food allergies.

  4. I have had shoo-fly pie but did not like it. I have not heard of shoo-fly cake. I will have to look up a recipe!

  5. On my first trip to Kenya in 1992 we ate at a restaurant called The Carnivore where they served 8-10 kinds of meat. Many usual kinds like chicken, but we ate crocodile, zebra, and eland. They are not allowed to serve the game meat anymore, but it was quite an experience.

    • Oh, wow, ekiefer323! That would for sure be an experience you wouldn’t forget! I hadn’t ever heard of people eating zebra. What did you think of the different kinds of meat? Crocodile sounds especially gross. 🙂

    • Believe it or not, crocodile tastes kind of like chicken and my husband said part of it tasted like lobster. The eland didn’t sit well with either of us.

      • Interesting on the crocodile tasting like chicken and lobster. I actually had to Google eland as I had no idea it was a type of antelope. You are brave for trying both!

  9. I have eaten foods around the world. In Oaxaca, Mexico, I even tasted barbequed chapulines (grasshoppers). I liked the taste okay, but not the texture. The legs were scratchy.

  11. I’m not sure about unique foods! Though I worked for a doctor from India and had Indian food I’d never eaten before (and found out I do NOT like tofu!!), and I’ve had calamari, though that’s not that unique, either! lol!! It was good, though!! Of course, I am a Native Floridian, and have eaten turtle and gator, so there’s that, too!

  13. It’s calamari for me. My Pop suggested I try it for years but I never liked the idea of eating octopus. I was at a holiday lunch one year and it was on the appetizer platter so I tried it and loved it. But it all depends on where you get it because I ordered it someplace else and it was terrible. Thanks for the chance to win a prize.

  15. I think it just depends on how or where you were raised on what would be considered unique food. I grew up in a city, but moved to the country when I was a teen. So deer, ramps and Squirrel were all strange and unique foods for me. Where as the locals thought that gyros, cabbage rolls and Chinese food were unique to them at the time. It’s fun to travel around the world in our kitchens.

  16. I did have some chocolate covered grasshoppers once. To get my students to try them, I had to eat some myself. I am generally not too brave as I have many food issues.

    • Hi Debby! Yikes, not even sure I could eat grasshoppers with chocolate on them, lol. What was the general consensus of your students after trying that delicacy?

  18. Oh but this sounds like a wonderful story. Cant wait. When my husband and I went on our Honeymoon to Hawaii, the people there invited all the new comers at the place we stayed at, for a dinner. Well guess what to our surprise, the main course was raw fish. Ugghh. I ate all the fruits and loved it. Than one of the other men noticed I did not touch the fish. Well that seemed to start a thing where everyone nicely got on my case for not trying. And my new husband just stood there grinning. Ugggghhhhh. I was given some fish on the end of a fork and I swallowed it. Forget chewing. I was upset with my new husband the rest of the night. And I burped raw fish all night. Not the first night on the island I had expected. quilting dash lady at comcast dot net

  19. I live in Arizona so I eat Cactus Jelly often. Others eat the napales-the pads of cactus plants.
    We also eat Indian Fry Bread-a Navajo Indians specialty

  21. Sorry I don’t/can’t eat unique foods. I have a very weak stomach due to having migraines with vomiting since I was ten years old.

  23. I ate Shepard’s Pie in London and it was blah. American cooks do it better. I have also tasted Escargot…yuck. Give me a good old American beef steak anyday. One of the best meals I ever ate was Reindeer. Wonderful

  24. I create content for a friend’s lifestyle blog. There was a monthly subscription box for food from around the world I reviewed regularly. I received some interesting samples. Some good, some not to my taste.

    There were some snack puffs made from crickets. Not for me, but one of my kids ate them.

    • Hi Lynn! What were your thoughts on it? I recall in third grade at our seafood dinner there was octopus being served, but I stayed far, far away, lol.

  26. I cannot think of a single food item that I’ve ever eaten or tried that would be considered unique. I keep to traditional foods.

  27. Rocky Mountain oysters (beef testacles) at a high school graduation party. They really were similar to fried oysters. I have seen them on the menu at a few restaurants in the west.

    • Hi Alice! I’ve heard of those before and have also seen them on restaurant menus, but haven’t had any desire to try them. Thank you so much for stopping by!

  29. I have been lucky enough to try lots of things. I got scorpion lollipops for my grandsons and tried one. They do make your tongue numb. While in the Peace Corps, I had many things not normally eaten here. Dog (which is actually pretty good), jumping salad (dip little shrimp out of the ponds used to raise them, put them on a plate, sprinkle with vinegar, catch them and pop them into your mouth), and a dish of dark brown gravy with duck feet and bat wings served with rice.

    • Hi Patricia! I think you win for most interesting food items! Scorpion lollipops? Dog? Duck feet? Bat wings? Wow! Suddenly I am feeling rather blah in my food choices, lol. Thank you for sharing. Have a wonderful weekend!

  31. The most unique food I ever ate was frog legs. They were on a buffet at a restaurant in Pennsylvania. They tasted like chicken.

  32. I have tasted turtle and deer. I am not a fan of either. I do not eat anything that I unusual. Thank you for sharing. God bless you.

  33. Hello everyone!
    First of all, a huge thank you to Karen and the rest of the gang at Petticoats and Pistols for the blessing of being a guest on the blog. Second, thank you to you readers for your fabulous comments. I am absolutely amazed by some of the interesting foods you have eaten. Thank you for sharing!

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