File:Frances (Appleton) Longfellow to Anne Longfellow Pierce, 12 March 1845 (7369fbcc-cf75-4452-aacb-da7c3427efe8).jpg

Manuscript letter

Archives Number: 1011/002.001-015#006

Cambridge. March 12th 1845.
Dear Annie,
I send you a few recipes which I hope will be comprehensible & successful. The one for Gombo has been lately sent us by Mr Christie of N. Orleans with the promise of some Gombo. It seems to me to be intended for a very large dish but I suppose we might divide the water & oysters if necessary. However, I advise you to try it as set down, as I intend to do when mine arrives. I send you another pleasant kind of soup easily made. To have it good you must allow the beef foundation to cool the night before, & reserve every particle of fat from the surface. – We are enjoying our visit from Stephen very much, & hope his health will be benefited by a change of air & scene. Have I yet told you how happy I am to be this summer in having my sister & her children as guests. They promise to be here in April, & I wish you could time your visit to meet them, as I long to make you acquainted with one another.
I am very sorry your envelopes were forgotten. They shall be sent by Stephen as also a book of stitches, Henry has lately bought me. Charlie is well & stout as ever. He flounders about on the floor very funnily not having yet mastered the idea of creeping entirely. Slow & sure, tho’, is my wish [p. 2] in regard to such accomplishments, although I am rather impatient for his first tooth, fearing they will come hard if too long delayed.
My few words are hurried to a close.
With much love to all the family circle ever, dearest,
thy affte Fanny –
[verso]
Gombo.
Put 2 Table-spoons full of lard into a soup pot. When dissolved, thicken with flour.
Let it simmer gently.
Add sufficient salt & pepper to season a pot of soup.
Dissect a Turkey & add it, with ½ pound of ham cut in small pieces.
Cook the above slowly until done brown.
Add one gallon of boiling water.
Cook slowly for five hours.
10 minutes before serving put in 4 doz oysters with parsley.
Immediately before serving add one & a half table spoons full of Gombo – Stir very hard. Then, let it boil once, & remove it the instant it boils.
To be served with boiled rice.
Bavaroise.
Boil 2 quarts rich cream; beat the yolks of 12 eggs only a little, pour the cream on the eggs, while it is hot stirring it till cool; strain it; put it on the coals or over the fire; sweeten, boil and stir exactly like custard.
Dissolve 1 oz of Isinglass in a little cream, with a Vanilla bean, strain it, and add it to the custard; cool it a little and put it in your moulds to harden like blancmange.

Vegetable soup.
Slice 6 large carrots, 6 large onions, 4 large turnips 4 beets & 3 stalks of celery. Put into the pot a piece of butter, a piece of sugar as large as half an egg; they must be allowed to discolor by remaining on the fire. When they begin to color they should be wet with the soup (made the day before or whatever quantity of beef you desire) they must then be strained through a sieve.
Do not suffer the soup to be too thick.
Salt at discretion.
ADDRESSED: MRS PIERCE. / CARE OF HON S. LONGFELLOW. / PORLAND / ME.

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