Gormet Recipes from 19th century Old Westport

Missouri Plantation Recipe for Persimmon Beer, (1859, Mammy Pleasant)

Be sure the persimmons are fully ripe. Remove from them the stalk ends and the interior calyxes. Then mash the fruit and add enough wheat bran to make stiff dough. Form the dough into thin flat cakes and bake until crisp. Then break the cakes up into clean wooden barrels and fill them with water. Set the barrels upright and cover them with thin white cloths and set them in a place which is warm and dry. The cakes will rise to the tops and begin to foam. Three or four weeks later the barrels must then be moved to a cold place and wooden covers put on them. To make certain of success, toast dipped in yeast can be put into barrels with the persimmon cakes.

Elderberry Wine (1839, Mary Ellen Pleasants)

Pour 4 quarts of boiling water over 3 gallons of elderberries. Strain throughcheesecloth mashing the berries until all juice has been extracted. Mearsure the amount of liquid. Add 3 pounds of sugar, 1/2 ounce og ground ginger, 6 whole cloves and 1 pound of raisins to eveery 4 gallons. Boil for 1 hour, skimming off any scum which rises to the surface. Then let cool until liquid is just warm.  Next add 1/4 pint of brandy to each gallon of liquid and 1 yeast cake to every 4 gallons of liquid. Set aside for two weeks to ferment. Then the wine can be bottled and sealed but not used for at least three months.