Date nut bread in a loaf pan
A retro dinner the other night (my Mother made Swiss steak, remember that?) made me want to have something I have not had in a good 20 years: date nut bread. I have no idea if this was popular all over the country, but it was in New York City when I was a kid in the 1960’s. Chock full o’Nuts coffee shops sold date nut bread and cream cheese sandwiches. By the very early 1980’s, when most of the shops had already closed, there were still a few hanging on, and there was one at 116th & Broadway – across from Columbia University – that kept me alive for all those late-night classes with coffee and date nut bread, which, if you dropped it, would have broken your foot. If you check their site (they still hawk their brand of coffee, though I have no idea how many times the company changed hands) you can hear Mrs. Black singing the jingle about Chock full o’Nuts being “the heavenly coffee” (click on the old commercial links), but they don’t have the story there of the Blacks’ nasty divorce. Since this is not the kind of thing you’ll find in a new cookbook, I checked out one my old ones and, sure enough. I love old cookbooks because you’re likely to find names and notes written in them — and stains — and it gives me a feeling of continuity when I think that perhaps a woman back in 1952 was making the same recipe and had dropped her 1/4 pound of butter on page 869, only for me to find it in 2009. The chosen book was Meta Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking (Chicago: J. G. Fergusen and Associates, 1952), whose recipe turned out a winner of a loaf, if a bit less dense than I’m used to. Now for the cream cheese!
(Note that the recipe is missing the baking temperature. I bake it at 350 F.)
Old date nut bread recipe
home. We love them, and now that they are readily available at Joyco Foods (3288 Pierce Street, Richmond), we are able to have them often. I have also purchased them at Tokyo Fish Market (1220 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley), one of my main sources of sashimi grade fish and such things. Joyco is in Pacific East Mall, and they sell lots of good frozen things – but know your prices before you buy. When I was there the other day there was a guy unloading a large box of fresh hamachi collars, so that’s what I got, paying about $15 for two, huge, full collars, each yielding two servings. The collar is that part of the fish between the head and body, and you get bones and all. A whole collar equals 360 degrees around the fish. I threw them in a bowl with some Soy Vey teriyaki sauce (else just mix soy sauce, chopped garlic, sugar and a dash of pepper to make your own) and allowed them to marinate in the fridge until I was ready to convect-blast them, which you need to do right before service. You can also just salt and pepper them and serve with lemon wedges — it’s up to you. When you are ready, spread out on a rack over a sheet pan lined with foil. Use the foil if you use the teriyaki sauce because this will drip down and the sugar will caramelize into hard candy that you’ll need to blast out with sand. You have been warned. Preheat the oven to 375 F. convection (400 F. if you lack convection) and roast for 10 minutes. Turn down 50 degrees and cook until done, depending upon the size, but don’t overcook. For my humongous collars I added an additional 15 minutes.