Christmas dinner in the dining car — a second helping

Christmas dinner in the dining car

Fun travel and good food, along with presents and tasty egg nog, are essential parts of the Christmas holiday season. As noted many times previously, in today’s “get there now” expedient travel environment, the journey is no longer part of the adventure. Thus, the fun of travel combined with good food no longer pairs well for the holidays.

When railroads were the way to travel, those who found themselves aboard a train on Christmas could be assured of a fine meal in the dining car. Today, those struggling through an airport on Christmas should prepare themselves for a significant investment to obtain a turkey hot dog with less than all the trimmings.

We do hope your Christmas travels are safe, enjoyable and, possibly via a train. More so we hope your journey takes you to family and friends to share gifts, tasty egg nog, and good food. To the end of edible delights, we present you with a second helping of Christmas dinner in the dining car. In 2023, we discussed railroad dining at Christmas time and offered a menu based on official railroad dining car recipes, which you could prepare at home.

For 2024, we have again looked into the dining car cookbooks and instructions to chefs to find a culinary adventure for your holiday enjoyment. The recipes here are not necessarily from railroad holiday menus, but combine to create an interesting and delicious meal. The fun comes not only in enjoying the results, but in preparing the meal as well. Invite family and friends into your kitchen, give everyone a role to play in the preparation, share the stories behind the recipes, and, above all, enjoy the experience. After all, travel by train was part of the adventure.

Menu

Appetizer

• Grapefruit and Crème de Menthe Cocktail (Union Pacific Railroad business car service)

Soup

• Salmon Soup (Pullman Private Car Service)

Main Course

• Braised Duck Cumberland (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway)
• Turkey a la King on Toast (Baltimore & Ohio Railway)
• Chestnut Dressing (Pullman Co.)
• Sweet Potatoes Provencale (Baltimore & Ohio Railway)
• Corn Pudding (New Haven & Hartford Railroad)
• Cauliflower Polonaise (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway)

Dessert

• Peach Cobbler (Southern Railway)
• Big Baked Apples (Northern Pacific Railway)

A note to home chefs: In writing recipes and dining car instructions railroads took for granted a chef’s basic kitchen knowledge. Therefore, in some instances, recipes did not enumerate all the precise details. Example: a recipe may say to roast a meat in a slow oven, but not give a temperature. It was assumed the chef knew this meant an oven setting of 300 to 325 degrees; and to roast the meat to an appropriate internal temperature, ensuring doneness.

With this in mind, we have added instructions — noted in [brackets] — where appropriate.

Appetizer 

Grapefruit and Crème de Menthe Cocktail (Union Pacific business car service, chef-caterer Otto Hoffstaetter)

• 4 large fresh grapefruit
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup crème de menthe

Halve grapefruit and remove fruit sections, taking care to leave behind all traces of section walls. Place sections in a covered dish, sprinkle sugar over, and chill for at least 1 hour. To serve, mix sections well, place in individual dishes, and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of crème de menthe over each portion.

In culinary terms, a cocktail can be a food or drink preparation made by mixing a limited number of ingredients — two or more. Food cocktails are generally appetizers. Drink cocktails do not require alcohol. A salad, meanwhile, is a dish with multiple ingredients, and is usually served with a dressing.

During the 1920s, the UP operated one of the largest dining car fleets in the United States. The railroad also had a significant number of business cars for executive travel. When a railroad official traveled he would request a chef and steward from the dining car department to staff the assigned car. These top UP chefs developed recipes specifically for their guests. Union Pacific, the railroad’s employee magazine, selected a number of these recipes and published them in its annual holiday editions between 1925 and 1927. This is one such recipe.

Soup

Salmon Soup (Pullman Private Car Service — Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus)

• 1 can salmon
• 1 thick slice onion
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 tablespoon butter
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt

Take the skin and bones from canned salmon and drain off the oil. Chop fine enough of the fish to measure ²⁄₃ of a cup. Cook a thick slice of onion in a quart of milk 20 minutes in a double boiler. Thicken with ¼ cup of flour rubbed smooth with one rounding tablespoonful of butter. Cook 10 minutes, take out onion, add a saltspoon [approximately ¼ teaspoon] of pepper, one level teaspoon of salt, and the salmon. Rub all through a fine strainer, and serve hot. The amount of salmon may be varied according to taste.

Rufus Estes is believed to be the first African-American chef to have published a cookbook, doing so in 1911. Estes, a slave from Tennessee, began working for the Pullman Co. in 1883. He was assigned to Pullman’s Private Car Service. During his time with the company, Estes cooked for U.S. Presidents Cleveland and Harrison and Princess Eulalie of Spain. Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gould Railroad owner Arthur Stillwell hired him in 1897 as chef aboard his private car. After 1907, Estes could be found as the private chef for United States Steel in Chicago.

His cookbook collection of 591 recipes not only provided the ingredients and preparation procedures, but detailed cooking techniques and talked about what it was like to work in a small kitchen aboard a moving train in the late 1800s.

Main course

Braised Duck Cumberland (Santa Fe — Fred Harvey, Super Chief chef Joseph Stoesser)

• 1 5- to 6-pound duck
• Salt and pepper
• ¼ cup chopped onion
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup rice
• 2 ½ cups boiling chicken broth
• ¼ cup butter
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 large stalk celery
• 1 large carrot
• 1 small onion
• 1 cup water

Sauce

• 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup bouillon
• 1 large orange
• ⅓ cup Burgundy wine
• ¼ teaspoon English mustard
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon currant jelly
• Dash cayenne pepper

Season cavity of duck with salt and pepper. To make stuffing: Cook chopped onion in butter until tender; add rice and cook until rice turns yellow. Add chicken broth, butter, and salt, cover, and simmer 20 minutes. Stuff duck with mixture and truss. Place duck on trivet in roasting pan, breast up. Add celery stalk, whole carrot, onion, and water. Cook in a slow oven (325 degrees) 25 minutes per pound (about 2 ½ hours) basting duck occasionally.

Remove duck from pan; drain off excess fat. Sprinkle flour in pan, add bouillon and simmer about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally; strain. Peel orange, remove white membrane and cut peel into thin strips. Boil 5 minutes, drain and add to hot mixture with wine, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, jelly and cayenne pepper. Separate orange into sections, removing white membrane. Place duck on a serving platter; arrange orange sections in two rows over duck. Pour a few spoonfuls of sauce over all. Serve remaining sauce with duck.

The Santa Fe’s Super Chief was labeled “the train of the stars” as it was the choice of Hollywood’s elite and society’s upper class between Chicago and Los Angeles. Fred Harvey’s dining car service was part of this all-Pullman train. In the promotional publication Super Chief Cook Book, the Santa Fe shared some of its dining car recipes. Comments included with this recipe state: “Braised Duck Cumberland will make your guests feel as expansive as they would if they were dining on the Super Chief. The sauce alone should win you kudos as an epicure.”

Turkey a la King on Toast (B&O — B&O General Notice, Jan. 7, 1964)

• ½ pound turkey, cooked, diced
• 1 quart Cream Sauce [recipe below]
• ¼ cup green pepper, diced, sautéed
• ½ cup pimentos, diced
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons sherry wine
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Method: Beat egg yolks, add to cream sauce and let come to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from stove and add other ingredients. Serve on a dinner plate on slices of trimmed toast, garnished with small wedges of toast and parsley.

Chef’s comments: Yields two servings. If possible, add the egg yolk while the sauce is fairly cool and be sure to mind those instructions to “stir constantly” while it comes to a boil. This will keep the sauce smooth and free from floating bits of cooked yolk.

If these instructions are followed as written, the green pepper will be nearly raw when the dish is served. To avoid this, it can be sautéed or simmered a bit first, or simply added to the sauce before the other ingredients and simmered for a few minutes.

Cream Sauce (B&O General Notice, June 2, 1960)

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups turkey stock
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup cream
• 3 tablespoons sherry wine

[Melt butter in a saucepan and add the flour, stirring until thoroughly combined. Add stock, bring to a boil, immediately reduce to a simmer. Continue stirring constantly until thick, approximately 10 minutes. Add the milk, cream, and sherry; leave on heat approximately 5 minutes to combine flavors. Season to taste with salt and pepper.]

While serving turkey in a traditional manner is delicious, a nice dish with the leftovers is tasty as well. The cream sauce portion of this recipe is an example of the railroad expecting its chefs to interpret the preparation based on standard kitchen skills. The original B&O instructions do not describe combining the butter and flour first to make a roux. Following the instructions here will add flavor to your sauce and avoid creating lumps of flour in your finished dish.

Chestnut Dressing (Pullman — The Pullman Company Repertory for Commissary Employees)

• 1 pound loaf, stale white bread
• ½ cup celery, finely chopped
• ¼ cup onion, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh butter
• 1 tablespoon parsley, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons poultry seasoning
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 pound chestnut
• ½ pound pork sausage
• Enough milk to cover chestnuts

Break 1 pound loaf of stale white bread without crust into small pieces and wet with cold water. Add ½ cup finely chopped celery with ¼ cup of minced onions. Simmer with 1 tablespoonful of fresh butter in shallow pan until done. Add 1 tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley, 2 teaspoons of poultry seasoning, 1 tablespoonful of salt. Peel and boil 1 pound of chestnuts in milk until done. Fry ½ pound pork sausage a little in frying pan. Squeeze bread thoroughly to remove the water. Combine chestnuts, pork sausage and other ingredients, mix well and stuff dressing in body of turkey. Sew slit in skin and tie turkey with string.

While Pullman chefs cooked this dressing in a turkey, you can also bake it separately. Cooking it in the turkey does, however, add additional flavor. If you bake the stuffing separately, set your oven between 325 and 350 degrees. Cook to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.

Sweet Potatoes Provencale (B&O — Old Standard B&O Recipes — Recipe No. 24)

• 2 sweet potatoes, peeled, rough chopped
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 2-3 tablespoons seedless raisins
• Fat for cooking, as needed
• Maple syrup, 1 tablespoon per cake

Boil sweet potatoes, mash, season with salt, pepper, and butter and add a few seedless raisins. Form into cakes, fry in deep fat until brown, place in dish. Pour 1 tablespoon of Maple syrup over cake and place in over about 10 minutes, serve hot.

[To keep the cakes firm, chill them for 30 minutes before frying.]

Corn Pudding (New Haven & Hartford Railroad — New Haven Standard Recipe Book — Recipe No. 11-T)

• 8 cups corn
• 6 eggs
• ⅓ cup butter, melted
• ⅓ cup flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 4 cups milk
• Additional butter to coat baking pan

Cut enough corn from the cob to fill 8 cups or use the equivalent amount of canned [or frozen] corn. Chop the kernels fine. Combine the corn with 6 slightly beaten eggs, ⅓ cup melted butter, ⅓ cup flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons salt, ½ teaspoon black pepper, and 4 cups milk in a bowl. Put into a buttered baking pan and bake in a slow oven (325 degrees) until firm. Makes 24 portions.

Cauliflower Polonaise (Santa Fe — The Harvey House Cookbook)

• Cauliflower
• Melted butter
• Bread crumbs
• Lemon juice

Pour over the cooked cauliflower a sauce of melted butter and lightly browned bread crumbs, seasoned with lemon juice.

This is another recipe that relies on your knowledge as a dining car chef. To make your preparation a success, here are some additional tips:

Toast (brown) the bread crumbs, adding the lemon juice while toasting. Clean and cut the cauliflower into small pieces. Boil the cauliflower in lightly salted water or chicken or vegetable broth until tender. Drain the cauliflower and place in a serving dish. Add the melted butter, enough to generously coat, and top with the bread crumbs.

Dessert

Peach Cobbler (Southern Railway)

• 2 cups peaches
• ½ cup self rising flour
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup milk
• ½ cup butter
• Additional sugar to sweeten peaches

[Peel and cut peaches into slices. Sweeten slightly.] Mix other ingredients into a batter. Dot bottom of baking dish with butter. Pour batter into the dish. Add 2 cups peaches. Bake 30 to 45 minutes, until top is lightly browned.

The dining car became a showcase for ingredients produced along the railroad. Such is the case with the fruit in both dessert suggestions — Georgia peaches along the Southern and Washington apples on the Northern Pacific. Using local produce offered a regional flavor to dining car menus and helped curry favor with producers to ship via the railroad.

Big Baked Apples (Northern Pacific)

• 4 large Rome Beauty apples
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons butter, melted

Core apples; pare 1-inch strip of skin from tops. Place in a cake pan. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon. Fill the center of each apple with a quarter of the mixture. Pour ½ teaspoon butter on sugar. Fill the bottom of the pan with ¼ inch of water. Bake at 350 degrees until done, about 45 minutes. Baste frequently with juice from the pan. Serve warm with cream. Makes four servings.

Like this article? Check out the first installation, “Christmas dinner in the dining car.”

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours from all of us at Trains.com.