Month: March 2015

Pizza Chicken, Mrs. William Strieber

Well let me preface this with some (ugh) personal facts.

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I live with this fellow burgersub. He is allergic to chicken.

That is weird, right?

But I made this recipe as a family meal so I got some fake chicken patties and went for it, ‘his and hers.’

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So anyway, Maryland is all like ‘crabs oysters blah blah blah’…

But in truth, as of the last century, Maryland has distinguished itself with a robust poultry industry.

(It may be that same poultry industry had an effect on our once-famous seafood industry…)

Up until this year, the big public event of the MAryland (and DELaware, and VirginiA) poultry industry was the annual Delmarva Chicken festival.

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According to the source:

“The National Chicken Cooking Contest was the first of the big national food contests having been started in 1949. Delmarva poultry industry people originated it as a highlight for the Delmarva Chicken Festival that year. It was devised as a replacement for a then ensuing national contest to develop a better breed of chicken.

In the early years, participants were just from the tri-state area. Later, the entire northeast.. became involved. Now, interest in the Contest has expanded until it has become an important chicken promotion for all broiler producing areas throughout the United States.”

“Pizza Chicken” represented Maryland in the 1971 cooking contest, whose winners by state were published in the annual booklet of recipes (also containing prize-winning recipes from previous contests.)

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According to the bio of contestant Mrs. William R. Strieber aka Shirley, she “cooks to please her family” and combined their loves of pizza and chicken. Shirley is not a Maryland native; she was from Iowa, her husband a vet with the USDA. “Hobbies include cooking, reading, bicycling, gardening and bird-watching.” I wrote a letter to Shirley in AZ but she passed away on March 21, 2015. She was 88 years old.

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This is 1971 but the booklet still has a pretty strong mid-century vibe. For the most part the cooks are self-described home-makers, although there are a few men and teens as well.

The pizza craze is reflected in a handful of other recipes, as is a lot of pineapple for “exotic appeal,” and a lot of smothering chicken in some special sauce and baking it.

Shirley did not take home the first prize – that honor went to Norma Young of Arkansas.

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Norma Young, Baltimore Sun Photo. I am sorry I can’t buy these but YOU can!

Still, the all-expenses-paid trip to Ocean City and the thrill of competition in an era before the bevy of miserable competitive cooking shows had to be a memorable experience.

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Shirley Strieber, Baltimore Sun Photo

Somewhere between 1950 and 1971, the requirement to use some Mazola Corn Oil was added. I used some other kind of oil.. I also used chicken breasts because a broiler-fryer seemed like a messy hassle to eat.

Recipe:

  •     1 chicken, broiler-fryer
  •     1 Teaspoon salt
  •     .125 Teaspoon black pepper
  •     .25 Cup Mazola corn oil
  •     10.5 oz pizza sauce
  •     1/3 Cup water
  •     2 Tablespoon grated Parmesan Cheese
  •     1 medium onion, sliced
  •     1 green pepper,  cut into rings
  •     4 thin slices Mozzarella cheese

Sprinkle chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Heat oil in large skillet; add chicken and cook until brown on all sides. Place browned chicken in a medium shallow baking pan (about 13 x 9 x 2 inches). Combine pizza sauce, water and Parmesan cheese; pour over chicken. Add onion and green pepper rings. Cover and bake in 350°F (moderate) oven 45 minutes. Remove cover and place cheese slices on top. Return to oven for 15 minutes or until chicken is tender and cheese is melted. Makes 4 servings.  

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2014 was the last ever Delmarva Chicken Festival, but we will soon revisit the festival, their super-large gigantic frying pan, the booklets of chicken recipes, and other winners including a beloved Baltimore character.

Until then let us gaze upon fellow 1971 contestant Beverly Chiles, who represented her home state in cooking as well as in hairdo.

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Crab Flake Maryland, Charles Bitterli, Hotel Emerson

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I had some illustrious company and wanted to serve a classy meal. Where better to take cues from than the illustrious Hotel Emerson.

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Hotel Emerson by Aubrey Bodine @ MD Historical Society

The hotel was the brainchild of Capt. Isaac Emerson, the man behind Bromo-Seltzer and its parent company, the Emerson Drug Co…the 220-foot-high, 17-story building at the corner of Baltimore and Calvert streets.. opened its doors a quick 20 months later….

And long before the current fashion for local ingredients, the Chesapeake Room offered a traditional Maryland-themed menu made from products raised on Capt. Emerson’s Green Spring Valley estate, Brooklandwood (now the home of St. Paul School for Boys). The hotel’s milk and cream came from Brooklandwood’s herd of Guernsey and Jersey cows, and the estate also produced chicken and eggs, as well as lettuces, tomatoes and other vegetables. The hotel even bottled its own water from a spring near Brooklandwood. – Mary Zajac

Please read the article for more on how the Emerson’s history is both illustrious and horrific.

In its later years, the Emerson was known for its “Hawaiian Room,” a seemingly immersive tiki bar. A lot of ephemera has been collected on this facebook page.

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Drink menu from the Emerson’s Hawaiian Room.

Because our city’s self-loathing dates back further than I care to think about, the building was razed in 1971. There is a great web 1.0 site showing many of our lost hotels, as well as some still standing, at kilduffs.com.

This recipe was provided to Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland by “Chef de Cuisine” Charles Bitterli. According to a trade publication called “The Alarm Clock”:

Mr Charles Bitterli the chef of The Emerson Hotel Baltimore Maryland was born in Switzerland. The years since 1904 have been a steady advance in his chosen profession. The first five years were spent in Swiss hotels and famous eating houses one year was spent in Paris at the Regina Hotel. ln order to gain the experience necessary for the goal in view Mr Bitterli was associated with the Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam; Royal Pavilion, Folkstone, England; Hotel dos Estrangeiros Rio de Janiero and The Exhibition Restaurant in Berne.

Mr. Bitterli arrived in New York City in 1915 and began his duties at the Hotel Astor. Some of the other well known houses with which he was later affiliated were Sherman Hotel, Chicago; Adolphus Hotel, Dallas, Texas; Hammel’s Restaurant, Miller’s Cafeteria, Motor Square Hotel and Chamber of Commerce all in Pittsburgh. Chef Bitterli shouldered his new responsibilities at the Emerson Hotel in September of this year and is well liked not only for the good food that leaves his department but also for his optimism and his sense of humor.

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Bitterli in “The Alarm Clock,” “published monthly in the interests of the staff of Horwath and Horwath”

Searching google and facebook turns up possible relatives of Bitterli but I was unable to successfully contact anyone for more information.

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This recipe from Bitterli appears on a New York Post page alongside diet and health tips from celebrities such as Dorthea Dix.

Crab being woefully out of season, I used this pricey and possibly shady meat from Garland Fulcher Seafood of North Carolina. I picked many shell bits from it. Not a huge deal but all in all the price, unfamiliar source and quality should serve as a cautionary tale to mind the seasons.

I made the mistake of using salted butter AND using the generous recommended quantity of a half ounce of salt so of course that was a disservice to the crab meat I’d paid so dearly for.

This method of serving something in a cream sauce, often in a chafing dish, was very common of hotels and railroads at the time and it of course always turns out a tasty salty creamy indulgence, apparently to the delight of travelers. I served it over asparagus on a crepe to our guests. Much water was consumed. I used the leftovers to make a less-salty cream of crab soup later.

  • 1    Lb    lump crab flake
  • 1    Pint milk, scalded
  • .5    Pint     cream
  • .25    Lb unsalted butter
  • .25    oz salt
  • 1    pinch cayenne pepper
  • 1    glass sherry
  • 2    Tablespoons flour
  • toast

Melt half the butter in saucepan, add the flour and make the cream sauce with the heated milk, set aside to keep it hot. Heat the rest of the butter in a saucepan, add the crab meat and fry a little, trying not to break up the lumps. Add salt, pepper, cream sauce and cream. Let boil for two of three minutes, then add  the sherry and mix well. Make sure that it doesn’t boil. Serve very hot in chafing dish with toast.

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Recipe Adapted from “Eat, Drunk & Be Merry in Maryland”

Easter in Maryland

My first inklings of Maryland’s varied Easter traditions came from the Southern Heritage Cookbook Library. A menu for a “Southern Maryland Easter Dinner” featured Southern Maryland Stuffed Ham, Creamed Red Potatoes, Baked Tomato Halves, Frilly Deviled Eggs, Biscuits Supreme and Cardinal Pudding. It features this apocryphal account of Stuffed Ham:

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Of course as with many such things, Southern Maryland stuffed ham has a likely slave origin. Stuffed Ham was new to me but as I sampled the various offerings of Raleys, Murphy’s, WJ Dent and other local purveyors, it fast became a favorite. Much has been written about stuffed ham, with more to come, and it will certainly be revisited on Old Line Plate (i hope!).

As fats get eaten up for Lent you will find an array of delicious doughnuts hit the scene. Recipes for fasnachts appear in several old Maryland cookbooks, sometimes under varied names like “fost nock”, or fossnock. Bafflingly, fasnachts go by the name of “Kinkling” in the Frederick area. Not bafflingly, they receive much fanfare.

Baltimore’s large Eastern European population offered contributions and variations on Easter Season menu. Burgersub introduced me to Pączki, another kind of doughnut, for sale in Baltimore. You just have to know where to look.

“The cry of “Who’s got an egg?” would bring youngsters out of their homes, ready to do battle with hard-boiled eggs dyed in shades of blue and pink and yellow.
The game, which today endures around Easter tables in certain families, worked like this:
One kid wrapped a fist around his egg, leaving only the point exposed through a hole between his thumb and index finger. The challenger used the point of his egg to aggressively tap his foe’s egg until one of the shells cracked. The eggs were then turned over and the game repeated with the butt end of the eggs.
The stronger egg would usually win at both ends, and the owner of the weaker egg would forfeit the ovum that had failed him. If there was a draw, the uncracked point would battle the uncracked butt. The loser surrendered his egg.
‘Picking eggs was a big thing around the neighborhoods, I don’t really know where it started,’ said Gene DeCarlo Sr., 68, who keeps the tradition alive in Highlandtown with his grandchildren. ‘You’ve got to remember, in them days eggs weren’t as plentiful as they are now. You won a hard-boiled egg from another kid – that was something good to eat.’
Old-timers remember the sight of champions running the alleys with the pockets of their Easter Sunday trousers bulging with eggs.
‘I think picking eggs was just something they did around Baltimore,’ said Dorothy Kraft, 68, who grew up on Decker Avenue. ‘I never heard of out-of-towners doing it.’
For generations it was part of local Easter along with cakes that looked like chickens and lumps of butter shaped like lambs; pre-dawn street processions with Easter lilies; taking baskets of food to church to be blessed; boys chasing girls on Easter Monday – known to some as “dingus day” – to beat them on the legs with switches; sunrise services at Memorial Stadium; and the annual Easter parades along Charles Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.”

– Good Eggs And Nice Memories Of Easter (Baltimore Sun)

There’s a lot more to Maryland than Catholicism and a lot more Easter traditions to look into but its kind of hard to tear myself away from hams and doughnuts.

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Southern Maryland Easter Dinner. Images: Southern Heritage Cookbook Library

Cheddar Chowder, Mrs. Janet Gadd Doehler

First Published in 1962 by The Episcopal Church Women of St. Paul’s Parrish in Queen Anne’s County, this spiral bound cookbook is of a type I come across frequently – the church or fund-raiser “community” cookbook. Usually spiral-bound, printed by various specialty companies, and containing home-grown illustrations if you’re lucky, these volumes are a great resource of recipes of ordinary people throughout several decades of the 20th century. They are also a huge source of frustration to a completist such as myself.

This recipe was contributed to “Queen Anne Goes to the Kitchen” by a Mrs. Janet Gadd Doehler. Mrs. Doehler resided on the historical Sidney Gadd farm in Centreville Maryland, described in this Maryland Historical Trust document as “a very plain mid-19th century three bay; two and one half story frame building. It is unusual for that date in that the original kitchen was in the basement where there is a cooking fireplace.”
It seems possible that Janet is still alive – google turns up an award winning gardener in that general area and a ‘Janet and Sydney Gadd Doehler’ as supporters of Adkins Arboretum, also in that general area. I feel remiss that I did not get in touch with her – when working with newer recipes I sometimes forget that the involved parties may still be available.

Sidney Gadd Farm, Maryland Historical Trust

The first thing that most culinary historians will encounter in the older “receipt” collections or cooking texts is the lack of instructions by modern standards. “Cook it ’til it’s done,” is sometimes the extent of it. As cookbooks progress on to modernity, recipes get more and more informative. Yet even here we see examples of assuming a basic knowledge of cooking skills. “Make a white sauce with margarine, flour, and milk” is part of the instructions.

I used what I had on hand, substituting shallot for onion and cooked thick bacon for ham. Pretty liberal I guess. I also used butter instead of margarine because I don’t F around with the latter. I guess I ought to go post an angry review about how it didn’t turn out.
Actually it turned out tasty and hearty. In fact, using what you have on hand is often an accurate way to get in the spirit of older recipes. I also used stock instead of boiling water because I have to keep the constant kitchen scraps stock cycle going infinitely.∞

  • 2 Cups boiling water or stock
  • 2 Cups diced potato
  • .5 Cup sliced carrot
  • 1 Cup celery
  • .5 Cup chopped onion
  • 1.5 Teaspoons salt
  • .25 Teaspoons black pepper
  • .25 Cup butter
  • .25 Cup flour
  • 2 Cups milk
  • 2 Cups shredded Cheddar cheese
  • .125 Teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 Cup cubed, cooked ham

Add water to vegetables, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Do not drain. Make a white sauce with butter, flour, and milk. Add cheese and soda; stir until melted. Cool the stock and vegetables to lukewarm. (Be sure vegetables are not hot. If cream sauce is added to the hot mixture, it will curdle.) Add ham and un-drained vegetables to cream sauce. Heat. Do not boil. Serves 6 to 8.
Variation: Omit ham and substitute 8 slices of crumbled bacon or 1 cup of cooked shrimp.

Recipe Adapted from “Queen Anne Goes to the Kitchen”

Shad Roe Bánh Mì..

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Around this weekend every year since 2012, I host a “Maryland Spring Breakfast” where some friends and I enjoy shad roe while it’s in season and (for me at least) get into the spring spirit. Winter has been lingering here but it feels like it “broke” this past week and we’re all ready to swap coats for jackets, boots for shoes, and hot coffee for iced.

Despite my obsession with Maryland food, one of my favorite cookbook authors specializes in Vietnamese food. Through her writing and videos, Andrea Nguyen has helped me along as a cook, providing skills, ideas and ingredients that carry with me when I cook Maryland food. 

When she authored a book that was dedicated to banh mi this past year I pre-ordered it, eagerly awaited it and used it as inspiration for delicious sandwich creation all summer long.

As she is known to fearlessly experiment with American and Vietnamese food herself, I felt inspired to try a little fusing. After three years of cooking shad roe with bacon I feel ready to branch out, and besides that a few of my friends don’t eat meat.

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Shad roe has a love-it-or-hate-it funk to it that gave me the idea to use it as a liver pâté substitute. I simmered minced shallot, five-spice powder, fish sauce and the roe in a generous amount of butter. I then broke up the roe sacs and added cognac and mixed it all up. I stored it lined with bay leaves overnight. I had hoped that the extra butter would make it a little more spreadable but it turned out a little dry and crumbly.

As I’d made other fillings and condiments from her book, the roe is seen here with edamame pâté (along with some homemade spicy sesame-lime mayo & some Maggi).

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“The Banh Mi Handbook“ features a recipe for enhancing canned sardines that come in tomato sauce. I bought a can of tomato sauce and used this basic concept for the shad. Shad is a terribly bony fish but when you steam shad for five hours you can eat the bones. So I did that to make them sandwich ready. I added the can of tomato sauce during the last hour. That was the day before. Day of, I sauteed some shallots, added the pan liquid and then warmed up the shad in that liquid. The result was a good but not overpowering sandwich filler. It could have been more flavorful or perhaps some Vietnamese sausage would make a nice addition. We had some fried tofu and eggplant options as well. (I stuck with a pescetarian friendly menu.)

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Along with the usual suspects: cucumber, jalapeños, do chua, sriracha, cilantro.. we had some very tasty little sandwiches.

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I made a version of Maryland White Potato Pie using condensed milk, honey, seasoned with citrus & nutmeg and using some extra egg whites leftover from the mayonnaise, beaten and folded in. The result was perhaps the most moist version of this pie I have made.

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That stray piece of cilantro is driving me nuts but I wasn’t focused on food styling today, I was focused on delicious food, making traditions, and the company of friends.

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