May 2017 - OLD LINE PLATE

Chicken Pancakes, Mrs. Frank Jack Fletcher (Araby)

May 28, 2017January 12, 2019

A lot of the names alongside the recipes in “Maryland’s Way” are associated with the Navy. This makes sense since the Hammond-Harwood house is in Annapolis, but it is interesting to see the different families that came to this region because of the Naval Academy and ultimately became lifelong Marylanders.

Frank Jack Fletcher was an Admiral during World War II, a commanding officer during World War I, and a lieutenant at the battle of Vera Cruz – part of the U.S. involvement in the Mexican Revolution.

That’s a lot of wars. According to Naval History magazine, he got a bum rap. I don’t know what his rap is, bum or otherwise, and I doubt he was too involved with this chicken recipe, what with all of his travels, so I’ll leave it at that.

Araby, willsfamily.com

Mrs. Frank Jack Fletcher was Martha Richards from Missouri; her family owned a hardware store in Kansas City. It’s unclear how the two met, but they were married in a rush in 1917 due to the United States entering the First World War.

In the 1930’s, the Fletchers purchased the historic Araby estate in Charles County. The house at Araby was originally built in the mid-1700s, and updated in the mid-1800s. The family of Colonel William Eilbeck owned the estate, and it is said that their only daughter Sarah once resided there with her husband George Mason. George Washington’s diaries mention frequent visits to Araby.

“Pancakes” illustration, Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Historic pancake recipes tend to refer to something more like crepes than the pancakes we currently know. Illustrations in the Mrs. Beeton books show the thin pancakes rolled and stacked; they could be filled with sweet or savory fillings.

The basic recipe for these chicken filled pancakes makes frequent appearances in the Aunt Priscilla column in the Baltimore Sun. With slight variations, it was printed in 1926, 1936 and 1943. The recipe that Mrs. Fletcher contributed to “Maryland’s Way” does not specify whether the chicken should be cooked, but cooked chicken is used in the Priscilla columns, sometimes suggested as a way to use up leftovers. I cooked the chicken first just to be safe.

Frank Jack Fletcher, The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia

While it is highly possible that Mrs. Fletcher encountered the recipe through the newspaper or somewhere else, it may be worth noting that in the 1940 census, she had a black servant named Theodore Hawkins. Frank Jack Fletcher was away on duty at that time, so Hawkins may have been hired to assist with things that the Admiral wasn’t available for. However, ten years earlier, Hawkins had been employed at a hotel or kitchen at a Naval site in Indian Head Maryland, under a cook named Daisy Taylor. As the appearances in Aunt Priscilla indicate, the creamy chicken pancakes were the kind of food expected under hotel chefs and caterers of Maryland. The recipe may have reached Mrs. Fletcher through her servant whom the family may have met at Indian Head (now Naval Surface Warfare Center). We can never know these things for sure but recipe genealogy is intriguing.

Frank Jack Fletcher survived all of the wars he served in, and died in 1973, with Mrs. Fletcher passing away just over a year later. Both are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Recipe:

.5 Lb mushroom
3 Tablespoon butter
2 tb grated onion or shallot
2 white onions
1 Cup finely ground chicken
1 Cup cream
salt
pepper, black
cream sauce
cheese, Parmesan

Chop mushrooms fine and sauté in 1 tablespoon butter with grated onion. Brown sliced white onions in 2 tablespoons butter, then remove onions with slotted spoon and save for another dish. Sprinkle chicken with flour and stir it into onion seasoned butter. Add mushrooms and cook gently for about two minutes. Add cream, salt and pepper to taste, and cook for a minute or two longer. Spread the chicken on crepes (recipe below) and roll up. Arrange them in an oven dish, cover with cream sauce, sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350° for 5-10 minutes, until just browned.

Crepes:

1 Cup flour
1 whole egg plus 2 yolks
pinch salt
2 Cups milk
2 Tablespoons melted butter

Sift together flour and salt. Break egg into center; add 2 yolks. Pour in a little milk and milk with a fork until smooth. Gradually whisk in the rest of the milk; beat in butter. Cover batter and let rest for 2 hours. Batter should be the consistency of whipping cream. If it is too thick, whisk in more milk. Batter should be the consistency of whipping cream. If it is too thick, whisk in more milk.
To cook, melt additional butter in a pourable container. Heat a skillet and pour in a little butter. Turn skillet so that butter covers bottom and sides. When hot, ladle just enough batter to cover the bottom. Cook until lightly browned on each side.butter covers bottom and sides. When hot, ladle just enough batter to cover the bottom. Cook until lightly browned on each side.

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

Chocolate Waffles, Miss Mary McDaniel

May 23, 2017January 17, 2021

Back when I first made Maryland Fried Chicken for my blog, I became a target of some amusing internet vitriol. The authenticity police took one look at my fried chicken leg served atop a waffle and saw heresy.

Although the disdain seemed a bit over the top to me, I can understand the confusion at its core. I always thought of the chicken/waffle combination as a Southern dish, dispersed our way during the Great Migration.

Waffle suppers had in fact been a popular church dinner dating back to at least the mid-1800’s, and in Maryland, they often featured chicken or “frizzled beef” aka creamed chip beef.

1924 advertisement, Salisbury Daily Times

Carvel Hall Hotel manager Albert H. McCarthy had been a Maryland resident for at least 37 years by the time he prescribed that “Maryland Fried Chicken” be served atop a waffle in “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” (1932, Frederick Phillip Stieff).

In fact, a lot of the times when waffle advertisements or recipes appear in 1930′s newspapers, a distinction is made when the subject is “dessert waffles.” Talbot County resident Miss Mary McDaniel’s recipe for “Chocolate Waffles”, also from Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland, certainly falls into that category. It is the only waffle in that book containing more than a tablespoon of sugar.

Dutch immigrants brought waffles to North America in the 1700s, when they were cooked in an iron over an open fire. According to culinary historian Joyce White, cast iron waffle irons can be commonly found among the kitchen items in 18th and 19th-century probate inventories of taxable properties.

Waffle recipes varied regionally. In the South, sweet potato waffles became popular. Rice and corn were common frugal additions that also caught on in Maryland. All of the late 1800s Maryland cookbooks include multiple waffle varieties.

The first electric waffle irons hit the scene around 1911 and waffles became easier than ever to make. A Frederick Y.M.C.A. reported raising over $2000 (adjusted for inflation) from a waffle supper in 1913.

Advertisement, 1930

Waffles seem to have experienced another resurgence in popularity in the 1970s. Less than a half a century before, Aunt Jemima ads and the Aunt Priscilla column in the Baltimore Sun promoted racist associations with waffles. The imagery and language can be jarring. In 1975, Harlem native Herb Hudson founded Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles -arguably the most famous purveyor of the classic combination- in Los Angeles. Chicken & waffles’ soul food identity was being cemented – and reclaimed.

If you order a waffle in Maryland today, you are likely to be served a chewy and sweet thick waffle made from pancake batter. I confess to routinely settling for this at diners.

True waffles can be had from the specialists like Connie’s & Taste This. These places frequently offer different sweet varieties like red velvet for the salty sweet set. In this spirit, I decided to go ahead and have some well-salted & honey-slathered chicken with my chocolate waffle. Although I can see the appeal, corn or rice waffles will remain my preference. Savory waffles will go better with chip-beef or chicken with cream gravy.

I’d like to see the chip beef waffle make a resurgence. Everything old becomes new again. Hopefully when it does there will be someone lurking in the shadows, ready to fight a war on behalf of toast.

Recipe:

.5 Cup butter
2 Teaspoon baking powder
1 Cup sugar
1.5 Cup flour
2 egg
.5 Cup milk
.25 Teaspoon salt
2 oz melted chocolate
vanilla extract, to taste

Cream butter and sugar, then add well-beaten eggs. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add flour to eggs, alternating with milk. Stir in chocolate and vanilla. Bake on hot waffle iron. “Serve with whipped cream or XXXX sugar.”

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

Hot Slaw, Mrs. Spencer Watkins

May 11, 2017January 12, 2019

Cole Slaw or Cold Slaw? I think I’ve personally always called it coleslaw, but I’m not even sure. And we are talking about a food that I love.

Cole/d slaw, it turns out, is one of those words that has been adapted to its meaning ala “scrapple” or “gingerbread”. In Dutch ‘koolsla’ means cabbage salad.

But this is American food we’re talking about and we don’t let linguistics quell our appetites.

In turn, “cold slaw” christened its less-famous cousin “hot slaw.”

I’ve got a handful of hot slaw recipes containing anything from sour cream to bacon fat. “Queen of the Kitchen” Mary Lloyd Tyson simply instructs the reader to heat up some cold slaw. Peasant of the Kitchen Old Line Plate is going to go ahead and tell you not to do that.

If you’ve enjoyed any “kil’t kale” or greens wilted with dressing you will understand why. Something about subduing those cruciferous vegetables with a splash of grease and acid brings out a wonderful sweetness.

I used a recipe from an 1897 church cookbook from Montgomery County, “The Up To Date Cook Book of tested recipes.” The book benefited St. John’s Church, and many of the recipes presumably came from its congregation. Also included are some recipes from a contemporary church cookbook from Kenton Ohio, entitled “The Kenton Cook Book.”

The Hot Slaw recipe comes directly from Mrs. Spencer Watkins, one of the compilers of “The Up-To-Date Cook Book.”

When I found this Montgomery county cookbook I was excited to see a different side of Maryland. So many Maryland cookbook authors of the 1800s (excepting Elizabeth Ellicott Lea, who also resided in Montgomery County) tend to be so Southern seeming and have plantation upbringings and Confederate leanings to show for it. “The Up-To-Date Cook Book” might be different. It has a page of Cuban recipes!

Mrs. Spencer Watkins, I soon learned, was from the Potomac area of Maryland, where she was born Maria Brooke in 1844.

Aside from the “The Up-To-Date Cook Book”, the other account of Mrs. Watkins’ past proved to me that she was not so unlike those other Confederate cookbook authors after all.

According to “The First Maine heavy artillery, 1862-1865”:

“She had been reared in Southern society, and believed in slavery as a divine institution. She was fully convinced that all this fuss and war, this loss and suffering, and this excitement, was due to the wild imaginings, perverse distractions, and evil intent of Northern Yankees. She, like most young ladies in the South, not only believed all this and many more awful things about the Yankees and their cause, but she believed in asserting herself and in defending her opinions and her sacred rights.” –
“
The First Maine heavy artillery”, 1862-1865 by Horace Shaw

According to this account, Maria Brooke, whose father’s Potomac plantation “had suffered severe loss by his slaves taking sudden leave,” was a fearless, dashing horseback rider, and skilled with a rifle. She rebuffed some (Pennsylvania) “Dutch” troops with her sassy attitude before a regiment from Maine arrived. She befriended these men, first enjoying their music and horses, then attending Sunday service with the regiment, and befriending their wives.

The First Maine Band in front of the Brooke residence. Maria was a lover of music and befriended the soldiers. (The First Maine heavy artillery, 1862-1865)

Young Maria Brooke’s allegiances changed. The story concludes:

“Rollicking romp on foot or horseback among her young companions, delightful entertainer of friends, supercilious scorner of whomsoever she disliked, tender-hearted nurse to the sick, motherly woman to the helpless and needy, and spiteful tormentor to the shiftless; attracting suitors, yet spurning softness and repelling audacity in any. She is a loyal Unionist now. She married Mr. Spencer Watkins, and at this writing is still living in Washington. Like the rest of us, time has been speeding her along.”

Maria Brooke became Mrs. Spencer Watkins around 1860. He passed away in 1904. They had at least four children, two of which survived to adulthood. She died in 1907, but not before contributing nearly forty recipes to “The Up-To-Date Cookbook.”

Recipe:

1 small head of cabbage
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon butter
3 Tablespoons cream
1 Tablespoon sugar
.5 Teaspoon mustard powder
Pinch cayenne pepper
minced onion
parsley
2 Tablespoons vinegar

Whisk together eggs, cream, butter, sugar, mustard, pepper and onion over low heat or in double boiler. Slowly whisk in vinegar. Cook until thickened and add parsley. Stir in chopped cabbage, cooking just until heated (do not let the eggs cook). Serve immediately.

Recipe from “The Up-To-Date Cook Book”

Peach Brandy Pound Cake, Commander Hotel

May 7, 2017May 22, 2019

The opening of the Atlantic Hotel in 1875 is often regarded as the official “founding” of Ocean City.

If you wanted to visit the little beach town in those days, you had to take a boat or a train across the Sinepuxent Bay.

Train passengers often arrived to town covered in ash and soot. Nonetheless, the journey was a part of the experience.

Ocean City train station, kilduffs.com

Besides, the soot wasn’t the last mess to deal with. There was, of course, lots of sand. In 1910 a permanent boardwalk was built to elevate vacationers from the perils of sand.

A highway bridge to Ocean City was built a few years later. At last, the beach could be enjoyed without too much inconvenience from soot OR sand.

Ocean City remained a sleepy little beach town. When John B. Lynch, his wife Ruth, and his mother Minnie built the Commander Hotel on 14th street in 1930, it was a bit of a risky prospect. On the northernmost end of the “city”, the property was beyond the end of the boardwalk and a bit out of the way.

In 1933, an August hurricane changed everything. Residents watched as huge waves battered the barrier island, buildings washed away, and the boardwalk was destroyed. Thirteen lives were lost, and the road and railways linking the island to the mainland were no more. At the south end of the island, the Sinepuxent Bay washed a stretch of land out into the ocean, creating an inlet directly from the Atlantic to the bay.

Fishermen were overjoyed at this last bit. No longer would they have to drag their ocean catches across the island to the safe harbor of the bay. Federal funding was quickly secured to preserve the inlet from filling back up with sand. The new inlet became a crucial fishing port. Ocean City was now much more than a sleepy resort; it was the “White Marlin Capital of the World,” attracting sport and commercial fishermen. In the year 1939, 161 white marlins were caught – two by President Roosevelt.

Commander Hotel, Boston Public Library

The Commander Hotel proved to be a gamble that paid off. It was expanded over the years and incorporated attractions like clambakes and dinner theater.

The hotel was known for their food; three meals were included with the price of a room. Sometimes, guests enjoyed clams and corn served at long tables on the beach, or they dressed up in coats and ties to have dinner in the dining room in the evenings. John Lynch, Jr., the son of founders John & Ruth Lynch, contributed this Peach Brandy Pound Cake recipe to the 1995 book “Maryland’s Historic Restaurants and Their Recipes,” noting that in addition to the cake being a favorite in the Commander’s dining room, his own family enjoys it around Christmas.

And it is indeed a great pound cake – moist, flavorful, and just sweet enough.

The old Commander Hotel was torn down in 1997 to make way for something larger and more modern. By this time, hotel meals were no longer an important part of vacationer’s stays, with the plentiful restaurant options in town. The current building fits in with the other large hotels full of generic rooms that serve more as a place to stay than a destination in itself. Guest Norris Lanford recalled as much on eve of the hotel’s demolition: “I didn’t go to Ocean City. I went to the Commander Hotel.”

In a town built on a barrier island, where everything could be one big storm away from washing into the sea, change is the one thing you can count on.

Recipe:

1 Cup butter
3 Cups sugar
6 egg
3 Cup flour
.25 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Cup yogurt (or sour cream as called for in the original)
2 Teaspoon rum
1 Teaspoon orange extract
.25 Teaspoon almond extract
.666 Teaspoon lemon extract
.5 Cup peach brandy

Cream butter and gradually add sugar. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with yogurt, beating well after each addition. Stir in flavorings. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until cake tests done.

Recipe adapted from “Maryland’s Historic Restaurants and Their Recipes” by Dawn O’Brien and Rebecca Schenck

Month: May 2017

Chicken Pancakes, Mrs. Frank Jack Fletcher (Araby)

Chocolate Waffles, Miss Mary McDaniel

Hot Slaw, Mrs. Spencer Watkins

Peach Brandy Pound Cake, Commander Hotel

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