July 2015 - OLD LINE PLATE

Currant Jelly

July 30, 2015January 13, 2019

When I saw all the bountiful berry offerings from Reid’s Orchard at the Waverly Farmers Market, I had to take action.

Nearly all of my Maryland cookbooks contain recipes for currant jelly. It was popular with meats, especially game such as venison. It is also a frequent ingredient in more complicated sauces containing onions and such.
Being a fan of a little sweet-tartness on sandwiches, I figured I will have a use for this.
Mrs. B.C. Howard includes three different recipes for currant jelly in “50 Year in a Maryland Kitchen.” One recipe promises to yield a result that is beautifully clear and “will keep perfectly.” I have no-one to impress so I was a little more haphazard.
I sense that the clearest of clear currant jellies was a bit of a status symbol to impress guests.

Another currant jelly recipe was contributed to EDBMiM by “Mrs. Clarence J. Roberts née Miss Frances Fairfax.”
My research suggests that this is a typo and the husband is Clarence M. Roberts, a politician from Prince Georges County. Frances’ father was either the 11th or 12th “Lord Fairfax of Cameron,” whatever the heck that actually means.
The Fairfax family’s Bowie plantation, Northhampton, is now an archeological site in the middle of suburban development.
I also referenced a recipe from Elizabeth Ellicott Lea (more on her at a later date.)
These books promise many further uses for the jelly, from a jelly-roll cake, meat-sauces or inclusion in an sweet boozy punch.

Recipe:

currants
sugar
water

The currants should be picked from the bushes during dry weather. Place the currants in a pot and crush lightly. Place over heat with a small quantity of water to keep from burning. As soon as they are cooked soft, strain through fine cheesecloth or a sieve until all the juice is extracted, then strain it slowly through a finer cloth to remove all impurities and pulp. Measure the juice and put it in a clean pot with an equal weight of sugar. Let boil for five minutes, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Can immediately in sterilized jar(s).

Recipe adapted from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” and “A Quaker Woman’s Cookbook”

“Green Corn” in Imitation of Fried Oysters

July 23, 2015April 8, 2019

As a wise person once said:

“Green corn, we believe, is essentially a Maryland herb, for here only is it found in full perfection. Go south but a hundred leagues, and the best hotels will serve you corn that leaves a lingering feeling of imitation and inauthenticity. It is, as it were, a bit lousy. Go north, the same distance and you will find the green corn flabby and watery. Go west and it will disgust you utterly. In Maryland alone does it reach the flawless heights.” – Baltimore Sun, 1909 (via The Spokesman-Review)*

Green corn in this case probably means young corn. I wasn’t completely able to work that one out. However, there are many references to and recipes for “green corn” in old newspapers and cookbooks.
Most of them are positive but there is also this: During the “Maryland Campaign,” Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North, many of his soldiers, after eating “green corn,” allegedly became ill with diarrhea en route to the bloody Battle of Antietam.
So like, green corn won the Civil War?

I came across this fritter recipe in a few places – first was “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” as “Green Corn in Imitation of Fried Oysters” c/o Miss Rebecca Hollingsworth French of Washington County. They appear in “Maryland’s Way” as “Artificial Oysters” from “Aunt Ery.” I also came across them in a strange Baltimore Sun page in 1837:

Baltimore Sun Archives, September 23, 1837

I don’t know if the nubile young corn we got from One Straw Farm could qualify as this mystical “green corn” but I went for it anyway.
So the question now is.. did the result taste like oysters? Frankly, I didn’t get that. But they did make nice little sandwiches and snacks. You could really go any way with these.. part of a vegetarian meal, or in my case, make a sandwich, adding a little anchovy sauce to the bread for some umami of the sea. Still cheaper than real oysters, after all.
I guess the other question is.. did we feel any, uh…. less ready to face our foes in the battlefield? Thankfully, no. We survived with innards un-afflicted.

Recipe:

2 cups of young corn, cooked, grated from cob & mashed
3 tb flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp salt
Pinch each of black & cayenne pepper
Butter or oil for frying

Mix together first 5 ingredients. Fry in shallow oil or butter until golden brown on each side.

Recipe adapted from “Maryland’s Way” & “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”

*This article is recommended reading! Transcribed here for posterity.

Sources: “Maryland’s Way”

July 20, 2015January 17, 2021

Note: there is some further important background on this book found in this post.

A lot of my recent recipes have come from “Maryland’s Way”, the Hammond-Harwood House cookbook, and that is because I am having a bit of a rekindled romance with this book.

When I originally started an “Old Line Plate” blog in 2010 this was my main recipe source. In the years since I’ve come across so many great Maryland cookbooks such as “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” and “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” as well as less sweeping books presented by everyone from small churches to local television chefs to the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company. I guess after spending some time with these other books I have come to have a greater understanding of what a treasure “Maryland’s Way” truly is.

Inside cover, “Maryland’s Way”

“Treasure” is the first word that comes to my own mind but an article written by the former director of the Hammond-Harwood House, Carter Lively* refers to it as a “masterpiece” which is every bit as fitting.

On first glance you might assume this cookbook is similar to a church fundraising cookbook with recipe contributions contributed by members. But then the attributions reveal something more: Baked Seafood in Shells.. Mrs. William W. Paca; Mrs. Virgil Maxcy’s Fried Chickens.. original receipt 1815; Chestnut Stuffing.. Mrs. Dorsey’s receipt 1855; Charles, Talbot, Annapolis, Chestertown, Wye River..

“Maryland’s Way” is no ordinary community cookbook. It is a collection of historical documents, compiled in a gargantuan effort and preserved for posterity.

“Mrs. Hope Andrews of Tulip Hill, who was serving as the President of the Hammond-Harwood House Association, and her close friend and fellow trustee Mrs. Frances Kelly decided they needed to raise funds for the Hammond-Harwood House museum by producing and selling a cookbook which would incorporate the culinary traditions of Maryland’s historic past.

They started testing recipes and reading old manuscripts in 1958 and after five years of hard work they produced a masterpiece of 372 pages filled with classic photographs by Aubrey Bodine and Marion Warren and over 700 traditional recipes springing from historic 18th and 19th-century Maryland cook’s notes, diaries, and recipe books.” – A Historic Cookbook, Carter Lively, 2013

For a mid-century cookbook, it’s quite ahead of its time. I have not really done any digging into the food histories in other states but one wonders if they should all be so lucky.

Just in case I haven’t done enough gushing over the book, another thing about it is striking to me. For a fund-raising cookbook from the 1960s, “Maryland’s Way” is beautifully designed. If it weren’t for the yellowed pages on my copy, it would be hard to estimate a publication date. For a benefit cookbook, the illustrations, photo usage and layout are strikingly cohesive and thoughtful.

“Maryland’s Way” was published to raise funds for the Hammond-Harwood House, but it actually made me aware of the house’s very existence. This 1774 architect’s delight is full of paintings by Charles Wilson Peale, host to a unique variety of interactive educational events, as well as the usual tours of the house itself. Since it is right downtown in Annapolis it makes for a nice day-trip, perhaps alongside a stop in the nearby Paca House, and if you’re like me… a look at the place where William Faris’ garden once stood.

Sadly I can’t make it to Annapolis more often. However, my copy of “Maryland’s Way” is never very far from my reach when I feel the urge to browse some more Maryland history.

*A big thanks to Rachel Lovett, Assistant Director & Curator at the
Hammond-Harwood house for furnishing me with this document

Maryland Wineberry Shrub

July 16, 2015June 30, 2019

There comes a time in the life of every seasonal fruit, when having been consumed to excess and then lent to some other assortment of creative uses, finally what is left of the fruit must be preserved. In modern times we have some options here. We have freezers and dehydrators, in addition to those methods of antiquity; preserving with sugar or pickling.
Another preservation method from antiquity is currently having its day (again) and that is the shrub.

“Shrub” can refer to a vinegar-based syrup made with fruit or herbs, or it can refer to a drink made from this syrup. In this case it will be fruit, substituting wineberries and blackberries for raspberries in Maryland Raspberry Shrub.

Wineberry Fool

July 8, 2015January 13, 2019

On a recent hike I noticed that the bushes around me were teeming with the fuzzy red buds of soon-to-be wineberries. I came back and gathered as much as I had the patience for in humid Maryland July weather.

I love to blather on about my childhood days spent gathering, preserving and baking blackberries but those days are indeed gone. The invasive wineberry is now berry queen of mainland Maryland field and forest.

The upside of that is that wineberries are delicious, and that I don’t feel much guilt about tackling their thorny branches, plundering the generous sweet raspberry-like fruits to my hearts content.

The recipe for Raspberry Fool is printed in the “Maryland’s Way” cookbook from a book belonging to Hammond-Harwood house resident Mrs. F.T. Loockerman. The famous Annapolis house was bought for Frances Townley (married name Loockerman) by her father, Judge Jeremiah Townley Chase.

F.T. Loockerman miniature, Robert Field 1803.

The English origin of this dessert is perhaps obvious from its name. If it’s a ‘fool’, a ‘trifle’, or a ‘mess’ then you can safely assume Old World origin.

Many old dessert and beverage recipes tend to call for raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and sometimes blueberries interchangeably.

Although the recipe instructs it to be served with ‘wafers’, my use of vanilla wafers was probably less appropriate for the period.

Modern vanilla wafers would more likely be known as some kind of “little cake,” and “wafers” or biscuits could mean something such as the popular Naples Biscuit, or a dainty wafer made in a press, much like a waffle cone.

This made a refreshing summer snack, wafer scandal notwithstanding. I’ll bet “wafer scandal” is probably some type of British dessert…

Recipe:

2 Cups wineberries or other berry
.5 Cup sugar
.5 Pint whipping cream

Clean and dry berries, add sugar and let stand to extract juice. Mash berries slightly, put in a pot and bring slowly to a boil. Cook until soft, strain through a sieve and chill. When the juice is cold, whip the cream and add the fruit to it. Refrigerate or freeze for at least two hours before serving.

“Any other fruit may be used for a Fool. Serve with wafers or sweet biscuits.”

Adapted from “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cookbook”