Stewed Red Cabbage

Name: Stewed Red Cabbage
Ingredients: 1 head red cabbage; butter; 1 teacup water; salt; pepper

Source: Anonymous, 1846

History

"Stewed Red Cabbage" is a recipe printed in The Jewish Manual (London, 1846), which is widely regarded as the earliest known English-language Jewish cookbook. The book was published anonymously, its title page reading only "Edited by a Lady". It is traditionally attributed to Lady Judith Montefiore, but that attribution is scholarly inference rather than established fact — the anonymous author was "recently identified" as Montefiore after researchers noted similarities between the recipes and dishes served in the Montefiore household, and sources describe the authorship as "believed" or "probably" rather than certain.

The recipe as printed is brief and plain: "Clean and remove the outer leaves, slice it as thinly as possible, put it in a saucepan with a large piece of butter, and a tea cup full of water, salt and pepper; let it stew slowly till very tender". It is simply buttered stewed cabbage — it contains none of the vinegar, apple, or sugar associated with later sweet-and-sour "Jewish" red cabbage.

The Jewish Manual set out to supply recipes for the Jewish kitchen, a gap its preface says existing English cookbooks left unfilled: "there have been none which afford the slightest insight to the Cookery of the Hebrew kitchen". The book combined such dishes with "plain English" and fashionable French ones, and scholars characterise it as refining the kosher table with an "English and Western Sephardi emphasis". Nothing in this recipe is distinctively Jewish, and it appears among the book's general vegetable dishes.

The historical record does not document who ate this stewed red cabbage, what social meaning (if any) it carried, or any geographic lineage for the dish. Beyond its appearance in this 1846 London volume, its earlier history is not established by the sources consulted here.

Ingredients

1 head red cabbage
butter
1 teacup water
salt
pepper

Instructions

Clean the red cabbage and remove the outer leaves. Slice it as thinly as possible. Put the sliced cabbage in a saucepan with a large piece of butter, a teacup full of water, salt, and pepper. Let it stew slowly until very tender.