Turducken on the Menu at “The House that Jack Built”: How a Rhyme and a Recipe Crossed Paths in 1707

A platter of turducken can substitute for the traditional turkey on the groaning Thanksgiving table.   This elaborate dish made famous by New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme consists of a boned chicken inside in a boned duck inside a boned turkey, the empty spaces crammed with figs, bread stuffing, or a sausage force meat and the whole roasted until glistening brown.

For those of you who are wondering what on earth this has to do with a nursery rhyme, don’t sign off yet, because I can vouch for my credentials as a rhyme finder.  Before the publication of James Orchard Halliwell’s The Nursery Rhymes of England (1840), I swear that the ditties are more likely to be found in bawdy plays, descriptions of rambles around London, and nasty political satires than anthologies for children, which are not especially numerous before 1860.   Lowlifes and servants are more likely to repeat them than ladies and gentlemen.

I made this discovery trying to verify Iona and Peter Opie’s claim in the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes that the earliest printed appearance of “The House that Jack Built” was in Nurse Truelove’s New-Year’s-Gift (1750).  Being a long accumulative rhyme, different searches using various combinations of distinctive words had to be run. Nothing new had turned up on previous attempts, but this time  a 1707 translation of the Spanish novel Estevanillo Gonzales, the Most Arch and Comical of Scoundrels, popped up and I thought it was a really promising hit. Indeed it was!

In one of his escapades, the hero was hired on the strength of his assurance that he was the best cook in the army.  Here is the passage where he gives the recipe for “Imperial Stuffed Meat,” a more elaborate version of turducken, explaining to his audience:

It is just like the Tale the Children tell of, This is the Stick that Beat the Dog, the Dog that bit the Cat, the Cat that kill’d the Mouse, the Mouse that eat the Malt, the Malt that lay in the House that Jack Built; for this Egg is in the Pidgeon, the Pidgeon is to be put into a Partridge, the Partridge into a Pheasant, the Pheasant into a Pullet, the Pullet into a Capon, the Capon into a Turkey, the Turkey into a Kid, the Kid into a Sheep, the Sheep into a Calf, and the Calf into a Cow, all these Creatures are to be Pull’d, Flea’d [i.e. flayed], and Larded, except the Cow, which is to have her Hide on, and as they are thrust one into another like a Nest of Boxes.A dish fit for an emperor’s coronation after four hours’ roasting in a covered trench, brags Estevanillo.   The 1707 recipe is rather similar to the one called the “Roti sans pareil” in the 1807 Almanach des gourmands, cited by today’s foodies as the earliest reference.  But curiously enough, the 1707 edition was the only one of all the reprints I found elsewhere to include the reference to “The House that Jack Built”…

Cooking for Dolls in the Summertime: Marjorie Winslow’s Mud Pies and Other Recipes

Today I was reading a bookseller’s  catalogue and came across an extraordinary illustration in a late edition of a popular French alphabet book, L’abecedaire des demoiselles  (Paris: P. C. Lehuby,1839; Cotsen 52908).  I ran into the stacks to see if the 14th edition had the same engraved frontispiece of a little girl entertaining her friends outdoors with an elegant repast improvised with stones.  The story “Le diner de cérémonie” tells how little Elisa welcomes her friends in a corner of the garden shaded by lilacs on a tiny table with bricks for chairs, a sheet of paper for a table cloth, and leaves for plates.  Being a proper little French  girl, she serves them slices of small brioche, wedges of apple, and sugar-coated almonds.  The author notes approvingly how generous the little hostess was without lapsing into gourmandise, a good sign for the  future.

The reason I mistook the main course for two artfully arranged stones instead of a buttery brioche was I had leapt to the conclusion that I had discovered a nineteenth-century French equivalent of Marjorie Winslow’s enchanting cookbook for dolls, Mud Pies and Other Recipes (New York: Macmillan, 1961; Cotsen 13477), which assures readers that anyone with a little imagination can prepare a backyard picnic out of few ingredients:

Doll cookery is not a very exacting art.  The time it takes to cook a casserole depends on how long your dolls are able to sit at a table without falling over.  And if a recipe calls for a cupful of something, you can use a measure cup or a teacup or a buttercup.  It doesn’t much matter.  What does matter is that you select the best ingredients available, set a fine table, and serve with style.

Dolls dote on mud, according to Mrs. Winslow, so here are some recipes for choice dishes starring that tasty and tactile ingredient.  The illustrations are by the incomparable Erik Blegvad.Pair “Mock Mud Puddle Soup” with the “Molded Moss Salad” and a “Grilled Mud Sandwich.”  For a party of vegetarians, “Leaves en Brochette” are a nice substitute for the sandwiches.

Little girls and dolls adore gooey desserts.  “Instant Mud Custard” couldn’t be simpler and follow it with “Dollypops,”  which are not too sweet.  Seconds would not be out of order. On a day that isn’t too hot, a good late afternoon snack would be “Pie-Throwing Pies,” an easy variation on “Mud Throwing Pies,” that can take out big brothers or pesky neighbors.

We Americans may not rival the gracious hospitality for which the French are renowned, but we can show then a thing or two about outdoor cooking and dining!