Rum

1655, Admiral William Penn, whose son of the same name became the famed American colonist, seizes Jamaica, a relatively unimportant provisioning base, from Spain.  Rum, distilled there and throughout the West Indies, began to replace beer as a British seaman's ration in the Caribbean waters.  The custom would later spread throughout the fleet and remain in effect until 1970.

Distilled from sugar cane juice or molasses, a process that occurs almost naturally in the hot climate of the islands, rum is essentially colorless.  Caramel, added as a matter of style, makes it pale gold, amber, tawny, or dark brown.  There is mention of it in Barbados in 1600 and it became the overwhelmingly favorite drink of American colonists, as well as an essential part of the triangular trade that made considerable fortunes for New England ship owners.  Their ships sailed to Africa with a cargo of rum, returned to the West Indies with black slaves to work on the plantations, and took molasses from there back to New England to be made into rum.  When Paul Revere started out on his famous ride to warn of the coming of the British, he began shouting only after a stop and several drinks of rum at the house of a distiller, Isaac hall. 

Many fine rums have beautiful island names:  Rhum Barbancourt from Haiti; Demarara from Guyana; Mount Gay from Barbados, rich and smooth; Rhum St. James and Rhum Clement from Martinique, the latter aged for six years; and Ron Rico and Bacardi from Puerto Rico.  Were it not for rum, who would ever have heard of the tiny West Indies island called Dead Man's chest. 

Cuba was once famous for rum, and, in fact Bacardi originated there in 1862 but later moved to Bermuda and Puerto Rico.  A mass producer, it has come to dominate both the U.S. and world markets.

Legend says that when Horatio Nelson was killed at Trafalgar, his body in order to be preserved, made the voyage back to England in a cask filled with the spirits of the navy-rum-although, in fact, it was brandy.

Taken from "Life is Meals" by James and Kay Salter.

The following book is not for sale on my Amazon storefront.  This is one of those spiral cookbooks, "Atlanta Cooks for Company", published in 1968 by The Atlanta Music Club and sells for $7.99.  If you are interested, place contact me by email crazyvalbrown@yahoo.com.  I still have 1400 cookbooks though available at www.amazon.com/stores/oneofakindcookbooks.

Rum Angel Food Cake

1 1/2 cups milk

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar, granulated

1/4 tsp salt

1 envelope plain gelatin

1/2 cup cold water

1/4-1/2 tsp rum extract (or I'm sure you could add the real thing)

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 Angel Food Cake

Blend first four ingredients together in top of double boiler. (Do not let water boil in bottom).  Stir until mixture is of custard consistency and coats spoon.  Remove from heat.

Add plain gelatin softened in 1/3 cup cold water.  Add to custard and heat.  Add rum extract.  Chill until firm.

Whip heavy cream into peaks and fold into chilled custard.  Pile onto angel food cake!

Happy Cooking!