This recipe for “Moonshines” is fairly mysterious. Outside of the Hammond-Harwood House cookbook, I couldn’t find an origin for it. What is most mysterious of all is why anyone would make their own crackers. Even the recipe in Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen (1873) entitled “Crackers for Tea or Lunch” goes like this:
See that? Just buy the damn crackers. But I was going to a pimiento cheese recipe party and I figured “why not,” so I made these sesame crackers.
The recipe, which also appears in the Southern Heritage Cookbook Library as “Maryland Moonshine Crackers,” was contributed to Maryland’s Way by Mrs. F. F. Beirne of Baltimore.
Baltimore Sun, October 1969
The name Francis F. Beirne (1891-1972) is most associated with his history of Baltimore, “The Amiable Baltimoreans,” among some other local history books and a humor column in the Evening Sun.
Mrs. Beirne was a historian in her own right, as it turns out. Born Rosamond Harding Randall in 1894 to a postmaster/lawyer, Randall attended Bryn Mawr (which she later wrote a history of.) She served on the Mt. Vernon (VA) Ladies Association board of regents for ten years, and co-authored a biography of Samuel Chase. (The book was published after her death.)
Rosamond also wrote history columns for the Baltimore Sun, including a three-part history of Baltimore City’s street names in 1914. This column introduced me to the fact that Baltimore once had a street named “Turtle Soup Alley.”
The Bryn Mawr history, “Let’s Pick the Daisies” has a preface in memory of Rosamond Randall Beirne, recalling her “bright eyes and handsome pompadour” during her days as a student there. “Rosamond’s human interests were wide,” wrote Millicent McIntosh, “as was her capacity for friendship with people of all ages.”
Rosamond was actually at a meeting of the Mount Vernon Association when she died in 1969. Walker Lewis wrote to the Baltimore Sun to eulogize Mrs. Beirne as a talented author and historian whose “mere presence made one feel more comfortable.” Baltimore, he wrote, had lost “one of its truly great ladies.”
Recipe:
1 egg
2 Tablespoons lard
2 Tablespoons butter
.25 Cup milk
2 Cups flour
.5 Teaspoon baking powder
.5 Teaspoons salt
1 egg white
sesame seeds
Beat egg until light; melt shortening and add to milk. Sift flour with baking powder and salt, and add to egg alternately with milk and shortening. Work well and chill dough. Break off a small amount of dough at a time and roll thin as your finger nail. Sprinkle with a little dry flour as you work which will make them easier to handle and crisp. Cut out with biscuit cutter, brush with unbeaten egg white and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake quickly in a 400° oven from 8 to 10 minutes, watching carefully. Serve with soup or sherry.
Recipe from “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cook Book
Sometime in the early 1900s, Mabel Roberts took a vacation to the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. She returned with recipes from a memorable meal she had enjoyed: fried Sea Bass with Remoulade sauce. She jotted them down into her “Housekeeper’s Casket and Cook’s Delight,” a blank recipe notebook printed by the Baltimore press Cushings & Bailey. With leather tabs labeled “soups,” “meats,” “fish,” etc., the publisher modestly advertised that the blank book was “the only scientific and perfect form of book for preservation of recipes ever made.” Roberts filled its pages with recipes and household hints collected from Good Housekeeping, some from “Auntie” and “Mama,” and these two complimentary recipes from that vacation meal.
Although I’m not positive who Mabel Roberts was, my “prime suspect” is Mabel Junkins, who was born in 1881 to Baltimore pickle manufacturer J. Wm. Junkins and his wife Alice V. Davis. Mabel married William Calvert Roberts and lived in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore. She passed away in 1959. J. William Junkins was originally from Biddeford Maine, which is less than 100 miles from the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
When the Mount Washington Hotel was being built in the White Mountains, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle declared it a “modern palatial house” to rival the tourist palaces found at Niagara and Yosemite. “From the dining room… one looks into Jefferson Notch and across the green golf links to the Presidential range.” In addition to the dining and ballrooms, the hotel boasted offices and “public rooms,” 350 sleeping rooms with “the modern requirement of private baths.”
The hotel opened in 1902, built in nearly the same spot where Ethan Allen Crawford had operated an inn in the mid-1800s. The Crawford family had moved to the area as pioneers working the trade route, but eventually, they became a crucial part of developing the White Mountains into a New England tourist destination where people could escape the stresses of bustling cities like Baltimore.
New York Daily Tribute, 1903
According to Dona Brown in “Inventing New England,” in the nineteenth century, “an entirely new kind of tourism was shaping the region. This new tourism was driven by a profound ‘sentimentalization’ of… a mythic region called Old New England – rural, preindustrial, and ethnically ‘pure’ – a reverse image of all that was most unsettling in late nineteenth-century urban life.”
At first a destination for mountain-climbers, the White Mountains became a place that remained geographically wild but “overflowing with noisy, unquiet company… and… all kinds of noisy pleasures.” “Champagne corks fly about at the hotels, gentlemen sit and play cards in the middle of the day, ladies talk about dress-makers and fashions,” according to Frederika Bremer in 1849.
In the 1910s, travelers could spend time playing tennis or golf, hiking or taking a rail trip to Mount Washington’s summit. At the hotel, amenities included a ballroom, indoor pool, and meals prepared by a European chef who the New York Tribune declared had “the prestige of a chef from Delmonico’s.” In fact, the closest recipe I could find to this remoulade formula is in Delmonico’s chef Charles Ranhofer’s 1894 tome “The Epicurean.”
Indoor Pool at Mount Washington Hotel, baharris.org
Mabel Roberts may have reached the hotel by taking the famous B&O Royal Blue line to New York and transferring to the Connecticut River Line, or she could have followed the Evening Sun’s 1919 advice to take a boat to Boston and complete the journey on the Maine Central Railway. The trip by train or boat would have been accompanied by fashionable meals, time spent in library-smoker-observation or parlor cars, and socializing with other travelers.
But there was another option. In 1906, the Tribune wrote that “more than forty automobiles of regular guests in the Bretton Woods garage tell the store of motoring the hills and the hold it has upon the summer visitors here.” Brochures and newspaper guides provided maps of scenic routes for “tours” en route to and from the many vacation destinations. In 1917, a Baltimore Sun headline declared: “Vacation In Car Ideal.” “Expense of Month Costs Price of Railroad Fares,” read the subtitle. The next year, a similar article noted that “practically everything possible has been done by state and town officials to add to the comfort of automobile tourists.” The Sun “Hotel and Resort Bureau” offered travel assistance to readers by phone.
The rise of the auto age may have brought clientele to the grand old hotels, but cars also helped usher in their decline. Dona Brown wrote that “instead of large numbers of stationary guests who stayed for a month or more, the automobile brought unpredictable, vagrant overnight guests.” While the “old-fashioned Victorian hotels had been designed with public interaction with strangers in mind,” cars “made it possible to frame the entire touring experience, even getting there, in complete privacy… automobiles fostered industries that provided greater privacy on arrival” like motels, cottages and boarding houses.
“Most of the great White Mountain hotels burned down. Such large frame structures had always been susceptible to winter fires (often suspiciously well-timed to wipe out financial obligations without much danger to guests or workers), but by the end of the nineteenth century they were no longer being rebuilt,” wrote Brown.
One of the rare survivors is, in fact, the Mount Washington Hotel, which still stands in all its splendor on a mountain that Nathanial Hawthorne declared an “undecaying monument” to its namesake.
Recipes:
Remoulade:
“Blanche one shallot – anchovy paste to give flavor & color – 2 yolks of hard boiled eggs _ = raw eggs
Pinch English mustard salt and pepper to taste blended with tarragon vinegar – consistency of mayonnaise dressing add parsley chives”
Fried Sea Bass:
“Split fish and remove bones – Dip in flour then in egg then in bread crumbs.”
Notes: Anchovy paste to give color?! Uh. Anyway, the main thing to note for this is that I ended up cooking it to thicken it up, like a boiled dressing. Maybe I added too much vinegar or didn’t properly emulsify things. Luckily the herbs are added at the end so it turned out good. The Sea Bass recipe is a thing of beauty in its vagueness; I followed my heart.
Recipes from “Mabel Roberts Cookbook,” n.d., Maryland Historical Society MS 2755
The preface for the Melwood Cookbook gives a lofty -if somewhat bewildering- purpose for the book:
“This book is compiled and published as a means of raising money with which to build a club house, in order that the aims and purposes of [the Woman’s Club of Melwood District] shall be the more fully realized… for when we shall have a place of meeting, to which we shall feel free to invite others of like aim, we may find in the free discussion of existing conditions, a solution that shall result in the bettering of ourselves, our homes, and our neighborhood, known as it is as a ‘Pretty fine place to live in’.”
Although the book was compiled in 1920 by women from the Upper Marlboro area of Prince George’s County, the overall collection of recipes gives an impression similar to late 19th century cookbooks by Southern ladies like Jane Gilmor Howard and Marietta Gibson.
The Melwood Cookbook’s primary author, Mrs. Percy Duvall (nee Matilda Roome) was born in 1864 in New York, but she fancied herself a “Daughter of the South.” Her mother Catherine* Wilcox had been from Savannah Georgia, born to a family of tobacco merchants. When the family fled north during the Civil War, Catherine met and married William Oscar Roome – a Union Army Captain. After Matilda was born, the Roomes moved from New York to northern Virginia.
Young Matilda, according to her biography in “Littell’s Living Age,” suffered after her mother died and her father remarried. Her stepmother, a “Long Island Yankee,” made her do household chores in spite of the family having “black servants.” Woe is me, poor little Matilda. Matilda escaped her tragic homelife by taking art classes and learning to paint.
Around 1890, Matilda married William Littell, a tennis friend of her brother. In an exciting scheme to support his new wife, Will Littell signed on with Dr. Frederick Cook aboard the Miranda – an expedition to the North Pole.
Meanwhile, Matilda put her art schooling to work. She went into business decorating lampshades and selling them to local shops in New York. The lampshades became so popular that they were shipped to stores all over the country. “Tillie” Roome Littell also began to contribute recipes and crafts to women’s magazines like “Table Talk” and “The Delineator.”
Unfortunately, the Miranda hit an iceberg and Will had to head home empty-handed and without glory. According to the story, he hitched a ride on a fishing boat, sleeping on a pile of fish.
Matilda wasn’t too happy with her husband arriving back in New York broke and smelling like fish. Nor was Will feeling too adequate in light of his wife’s financial success. The couple was divorced and Matilda went on to work as a secretary to stockbroker J. Edward Addicks, providing the man with real-estate advice that made him quite wealthy.
Eventually, Matilda invested in her own piece of real estate. Mount Airy, a Southern Maryland home built by the Calvert family, would finally allow her to live out her dreams of being the “mistress” of a Southern home. And she played the part – her biography talks of her managing sharecroppers who would be “dishonest if not supervised” … oh brother.
Matilda’s second marriage was to an Upper Marlboro neighbor, Percy Duvall, in 1908. It was during this marriage that she compiled the Melwood Cookbook.
Mrs. Duvall belonged to a large social network that allegedly included U.S. Presidents, diplomats, politicians, and businessmen. Duvall’s cooking was renowned. Recipes from the cookbook frequently appeared in The Prince George’s enquirer and Southern Maryland Advertiser. To bring in more income, Duvall began opening her home for meals to business travelers. She renamed the mansion Dower House to avoid confusion with Mt. Airy in Montgomery County. The popularity of Dower House led to a real-estate offer that the savvy businesswoman couldn’t refuse. She sold Dower House to newspaper editor Cissy Patterson in 1931. She forever regretted it.
This ice cream recipe states that “this is the way chocolate ice cream is made in France.” Matilda did indeed visit France in the early 1900′s, when she went to Paris to take operatic singing lessons. Despite the recipe containing a staggering cup of flour, I followed formula. The end result tasted like a chocolate frosty! This recipe is best served directly from ice cream maker as it will freeze quite hard.
Matilda’s second marriage eventually ended in divorce as well. A 1930 census lists the value of her estate as $40k and the value of Percy Duvall’s at $50 dollars. At the time of his death in 1958, he was residing with his twin sister.
I couldn’t figure out what became of Will Littell. There is still debate over whether the captain of the Miranda, Dr. Frederick Cook, ever actually reached the North Pole. To some, he is considered a bit of a charlatan, although he has his defenders.
Matilda died in 1964, just a few weeks shy of 100 years. Who knows whether the Melwood women ever did build their clubhouse.
Recipe:
1 Quart rich milk
1.5 Cup sugar
1 Cup flour
.25 can cocoa (an antique cocoa can of the era appears to be 8 oz)
vanilla extract
.5 Cup butter
1 Pint cream
1 additional Pint milk, added the last thing
Bring milk to a boil, but do not allow it to boil before adding sugar and flour mixed and smoothed with the cocoa. When this is smooth, stir in the scalded milk. Allow to boil a minute, or until the milk is thickened. Remove from the fire and add the butter. When this is melted, add the vanilla and cream. If this is not sweet enough, add additional sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the cream and the additional pint of milk just before freezing. This is the way chocolate ice cream is made in France.
*some accounts list Mrs. Roome’s first name as “Matilda O.” I was unable to verify the correct name.
