We’re traveling around New England with Clementine Paddleford as she collects recipes and their stories for her cookbook, How America Eats (1960). She’s in Massachusetts now, telling us about the one-plate meal (pg. 24).

Read more of this history of the New England boiled dinner, and Herman’s story.

Companion recipe: RED FLANNEL HASH

NEW ENGLAND BOILED DINNER

“The yield: 6 being helpings, then pass again.”

4 lb corned beef, washed in cold water, “and if very salty, soak 30 minutes”
½ lb salt pork
3 quarts boiling water
½ C sugar
3 bay leaves
1 clove garlic
9 potatoes, peeled
3 yellow turnips, peeled, sliced thick
8 carrots, “scrubbed until their faces shine”
8 white onions, peeled neatly
6 parsnips, scrubbed, scraped
Water
1 small head cabbage, cored, cut into 6 wedges
9 small beets, cooked separately

Place corned beef and salt pork in a pot with boiling water, add sugar bay leaves, and garlic, and simmer 4 hours. “A half-hour before completion of cooking” add peeled potatoes, turnip slices, and carrots. Next add onions and parsnips. Dip out 2 C cooking liquid, add enough boiling water to cover cabbage wedges in a separate pot, and cook until just tender. “Arrange the dinner on your biggest platter, corned beef and salt pork in the center, the pink and white slices alternating. Carrots, beets and parsnips are sliced while hot to ring around the meat. Next the potatoes left whole and the pale green cabbage wedges.”

Accompaniments: English mustard, also horseradish for the corned beef; sweetened vinegar for the cabbage and beets. By all means a dish of green tomato pickle. Pass golden corn bread squares, split and buttered. No salad, but a big bowl of cottage cheese instead, sprinkled with caraway.

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