Cream stewed squash is my very first adapted a vintage recipe I have made. I, personally, have three different vintage cookbooks that I have been dying to make recipes. This recipe comes from my most favorite cookbook, The Williamsburg Art of Cookery. This cookbook has recipes dating back to the early 1700s. I had purchased it when we vacationed in Williamsburg, VA, last summer (2016).
I have tried to mimic the directions as best as possible. Below is the exact wording from The Williamsburg Art of Cookery. It is rather straightforward in the directions except for a few things that I had changed. First off, I came up with the amount of squash or what kind to cook since it did not state. Most likely, this was because most households had their gardens and ate whatever they grew. I have noticed most vintage recipes are not specific to one type of vegetable or fruit.
Second I renamed the recipe. As you can see below, it was just named Squash or Cimlin. Having the title of squash was much too general for a blog post plus I didn’t know what Cimlin was and figured most other people wouldn’t either. So I looked it up on Google and wouldn’t you guess it misspelled. The correct spelling is Simlin and it is an American variety of a squash plant. Yup, even more, general than just the use of the word squash. But no matter what, I thought it was interesting to know, and now you do too.
The last thing I didn’t do was rub the squash with a wooden spoon through the colander. I am not sure of the reasoning behind this step. My guess was that maybe it was to dry the squash a bit more than just draining through the colander.
Squash or Cimlin
Gather young Squashes, peel, and cut them in Two; take out the Seeds, and boil them till tender; put them into a Colander, drain off the Water, and rub them with a wooden Spoon through the Colander; then put them into a Stewpan, with a Cup full of Cream, a small Piece of Butter, some Pepper and Salt – stew them, stirring very frequently until dry. This is the most delicate Way of preparing Squashes.
(from The Williamsburg Art of Cookery; adapted from Virginia Housewife 1831)
The image above is from my attempts of trying to make this squash recipe as close to the original as possible. The taste of the squash stewed in cream was not as bland as you might of expect. Our entire family enjoyed this side dish. The only thing that I was not fond of was the mushiness of the squash as an after product. The boiling and then stewing the squash for another 15-20 minutes makes the entire dish look like mush and the vegetables fall apart. I think in the future I will omit the part of boiling the squash first and just add it to the cream, salt, and pepper and cook the cream to reduce to half and the squash becomes soft.
Cost to make this recipe.
This is a relatively cheap side dish that fits any meal. If all ingredients are purchased, this recipe could cost roughly $4.81 for the entire dish or about $0.60 per serving. I made this side dish because I always have an abundance of yellow summer squash in the garden that is virtually free. Thus, this side dish costs our homestead about $1.81 or $0.23 per serving.
We would love to hear from you, so comment and rate the recipe down below. Also, check out other vintage recipe posts on our website.
A vintage apple pecan cake recipe is perfect for the autumn season. Chopped with fresh pecans and slow baked for a super soft inside and a crispy top crust.
This recipe was adapted from Williamsburg Art of Cookery cookbook. All images and text are all my own and original to One Acre Vintage Homestead – Pumpkin Patch Mountain Homestead.
Clean and cut squash lengthwise. Remove the seeds and chop the squash into bite size pieces. Boil the squash pieces until tender, for about 10 minutes.
Drain and dry the squash as much as possible by pressing lightly with a towel in a colander and put them back in the saucepan with the remaining ingredients.
Cook over low-medium heat and bring the cream to a low simmer. Stir often so nothing burns to the bottom. Simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until the cream reduces to nearly half. Serve as a side dish.
