Things got off to a mildly alarming start along Paper Mill Run one morning last week; Walter Staib inadvertently added blood to the copious sweat he was giving to the production of his A Taste of History public television series.

Paper Mill Run is the didactically named tributary of Wissahickon Creek along which still stand the structures of RittenhouseTown, where the colonies' first paper mill was erected in 1690, currently the lower reaches of Mount Airy.

It was in its original bake house, dating to about 30 years later, that Staib, the bearish chef-owner of Old City's historic City Tavern, was demonstrating cookery, circa 300 years ago: "You didn't just go in the kitchen," he noted, "and turn a knob."

Indeed not. You built a fire of hardwood (in this case, apple, maple, and oak) first. And there it was, blazing down to fiery coals in the bake house's 15-foot-long hearth. Then with various long-handled rakes and tongs, hooks and Dutch ovens, you redistributed the heat.

Things went smoothly in Episode I. Staib knocked out a rabbit stew with spaetzle - "a tribute to the Germans [such as the Rittenhouse clan, nee Rittenhausen] who came here," birthing water-powered industry and bequeathing their name, later, to the city's most elegant square.

But toward noon, Episode II - the intricate assemblage of a dish called Veal Olives - got off to an inauspicious start. The fire was roaring just behind Staib, probably at 850 degrees at its center. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dabbed at repeatedly by a production assistant.

He was instructed by producer Jim Davey to look down at the massive, 53-pound leg of veal he was beginning to butcher with a surgically sharp boning knife. And then to look up at Camera 1. No, Camera 2.

The eye and hand lost coordination momentarily. But the tip of the knife continued its course, stabbing under the nail of Staib's left thumb.

History TV was suddenly Reality TV, a bright, red trickle of blood running down the chef's hand.

But as Staib likes to point out, he is a stoic man of the Black Forest. And as he pressed a cloth to the wound and a hunt for Band-Aids was launched, he rinsed the thumb off and sealed the cut smartly with a dab of Krazy Glue.

The show, as it must, went on.

Veal Olives does not, in the end, involve olives at all.

It is so named because of the finished look of the dish - a favorite, Staib told the cameras, of Martha Washington, and prepared by the legendary Hercules Caesar, the slave chef at the President's House when it was located on what is now Independence Mall.

An updated recipe for it is in Staib's handsome new volume, The City Tavern Cookbook: Recipes from the Birthplace of American Cuisine ($35, Running Press, 2009).

In it you will find butter listed as an ingredient, and veal cutlets. But for the Taste of History show (scheduled for release in September on WHYY and other public television stations), Staib aimed for more authenticity.

"You couldn't get scaloppine at the supermarket," he said, butchering a rosy hunk of inside round from the massive hindquarter.

Butter wasn't as easily procured, either. So for cookery, especially, the preferred fats were goose, pork, and other rendered animal fats.

For this rendition of Veal Olives, goose fat was employed, sizzling in a skillet, a so-called spider, standing on three legs over the hot coals. Staib rolled the thin veal strips around a filling of crabmeat and plunked the meaty rolls in the hot fat.

As they cooked, he made a rich sherry cream sauce. This was a dish, he noted, that was not exactly served on the frontier; it was sophisticated cookery, borrowing from French tradition, its complicated timing and pricey ingredients the province of the colonial upper crust.