Jambalaya (1849)

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   This smashes the 1870s citation in DARE on this important food term, which I will have to solve without help of the online NEW ORLEANS PICAYUNE.
   The American Periodical Series online provided the cite, but I had to go to the reels to check it.  Imagine when LIFE and PUCK get added!


   May 1849, THE AMERICAN AGRICULTURALIST (APS II, reel 365), pg. 161, col. 1:

   _Louisiana Muffin Bread._--Take two pints of flour and one and a half of sifted corn meal, two spoonfuls of butter, one spoonful of yeast, and two eggs, and mix and bake for breakfast.  It is good.
   _Hopping Johnny_ (jambalaya).--Take a dressed chicken, or full-grown fowl, if not old, and cut all the flesh into small pieces, with a sharp knife.  Put this into an iron pot, with a large spoonful of butter and one onion chopped fine; sttep and stir it till it is brown; then add water enough to cover it, and put in some parsley, spices, and red pepper pods, chopped fine, and let it boil till you think it is barely done, taking care to stir it often, so as not to burn it; then stir in as much rice, when cooked, as will absorb all the water; stir and boil it a minute or so, andthen let it stand and simmer until the rice is cooked, and you will have a most delicious dish of palatable, digestible food.
   _Something for the Children._--Make a dish of molasses candy, and, while it is hot, pour it out upon a deep plate, and stir in the meats of pecans, hickory nuts, hazle nuts, or peanuts, just as thick as you can stir them in, and then let it cool.  Be careful and not eat too much of it, for it is very rich.  It is a very nice dish for evening parties of the dear little girls and boys; and I have known some "big children" to like it pretty well.
      SOLON ROBINSON.
_Alabama, March 25th_, 1849.