December 15, 2009
What is this Junket, Anyway?
As I wrote yesterday, I’m having fun flipping through a century-old cookbook that once belonged to my great-grandma. Most of the recipes are somewhat familiar, but there was one title in the desserts section that stopped me cold: “Junket Pudding.”
Since the only kind of junket I’m aware of is a “press junket,” I was left scratching my head. The recipe itself didn’t help, either:
Junket custard mix at VT Country Store, courtesy Flickr user jyllish
1 junket tablet
1 quart milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoonful vanilla
Break up the junket tablet into small pieces, and put them into a tablespoonful of water to dissolve. Put the sugar into the milk with the vanilla, and stir till it is dissolved. Warm the milk a little, but only till it is as warm as your finger, so that if you try it by touching it with the tip, you do not feel it at all as colder or warmer. Then quickly turn in the water with the tablet melted in it, stirring it only once, and pour immediately into small cups on the table. These must stand for half an hour without being moved, and then the junket will be stiff, and the cups can be put in the ice-box. In winter you must warm the cups till they are like the milk. This is very nice with a spoonful of whipped cream on each cup, and bits of preserved ginger or of jelly on it.
Okay…so what’s a junket tablet? Google was quick to answer: Rennet. I have heard of that: it’s an enzyme that makes milk proteins coagulate, used in many types of cheese and ice cream.
The mention of rennet has always made me squirm a bit, because I’ve also heard that it is made from the linings of calves’ stomachs. Yet I never really wanted to find out for sure, because for a long time I was a vegetarian, and I happened to LOVE cheese and ice cream. After making the crushing discovery in college that marshmallow Peeps were NOT vegetarian (because of gelatin), I concluded that a certain amount of ignorance was indeed bliss. Life without cheese was a fate too terrible to ponder.
Well, I can stop squirming. According to this biology professor’s site, since about 1990 most rennet (also called chymosin or rennin) has been made in a lab, using genetically modified bacteria. There are also vegetarian rennet products available.
As for junket tablets, I was surprised to realize that this obscure product still has at least one manufacturer in the United States: Junket Desserts, with a factory in upstate New York. Founded by a Danish chemist in the 1870s, the company is now part of food giant Redco. You can order tablets and dessert mixes on their web site—there’s even a junket gift set. Now there’s something I should have included on my holiday gift guide!
So, am I the only one who’s never heard of junket before? Do any of you use it? I’d love to hear your comments.
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I’d heard of junket, knew what it was. Or knew what I thought it was: I thought it was still from calf stomach.
Why does one need rennet for ice cream? I’ve never seen a recipe that calls for it.
Amanda–I’m afraid it’s an age thing because I have certainly heard of junket and ate it as a child, when those packages now marketed as “old-time food”(!) were everywhere on store shelves! So I guess I’m old(er). I was never a big junket fan; I like more standard custards in which the eggs do the work!
If ignorance is bliss when it comes to gelatin, have you considered ignorance about Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) recently? Perhaps a subject for a blog post soon?
Just fell over this blogpost of yours when trying to figure out was tykmælk was called in english (junket) and though I’d tell you that it apparently is a product mainly popular in Denmark, where I live. I’m not sure if it’s quite the same as A38 or Tykmælk which my wordbook tells me is junket in english, but I (and a lot of other danes) often use it, either for dessert or as breakfast with sliced fruits and oatmeal on top. I haven’t ever seen vanilla, strawberry or chocolate editions of it like the on in the photo (and I haven’t either heard of junket-tablets (before reading this post)). :)
Where I come from Junket was a way of life, as was Bosco, Sorghum, and mustard/sugar sandwiches. Junket came in a wooden cylinder. But the real reason for my posting is to ask if anyone has the recipe for what we called “Double Three Cream”. I remember it was made of 2 oranges, 2 lemons, 2 bananas, 2 (some amount) of water, 2 (some amount) of sugar, and I think the 6th ingredient was 2 eggs. Mixed together; partially frozen in an ice cube tray (in those days), then stirred and frozen solid. I know they must make it in heaven, but I sure would like to have the recipe now.
When I was a kid (around 1950), my mother made Junket from a package–probably from the factory in upstate NY. When a kid had collected the specified number of product labels, (s)he could send away for a tiny, but free Jimmeny Cricket book. Does anybody remember this? Later in life I became a philosophy professor, but the Jimminey Cricket philosophy has stuck with me: “It’s what you do with what you got that counts!”
I made junket weekly for my kids as babies until they left school. Left out the sugar ( they were none the wiser) and topped with nutmeg. Kids are now 31 and 29 – I made it just last week for fun – forst time since they left school. It’s a great dessert and amakes the milk easy to digest.
I know my comments are way after the fact as I see your post was back in 2009, but I wanted to draw your attention to the GM bacteria that you referred to for making the product in the lab.
Perhaps in the beginning GMO’s seemed like a good idea, but they are totally devastating our food supply. Monsanto, well know for producing GMO’s, is a very evil company that wants to control our food at all levels, and they produce chemicals that ruin our health (think aspartame or Nutrasweet).
Also, most processed foods are laden with HFCS that comes from GMO corn, and bacteria that produce something by fermentation are grown in/on GMO HFCS.
I did enjoy the information you posted on Junket. Thank you for that.