Year: 2019

“Hoppin’ John -for New Year’s Eve” – Louise Kelly

The 1958 cookbook by the National Council of Negro Women, the “Historical Cookbook of the American Negro,” opens with a photograph of Sojourner Truth and Abraham Lincoln, opposite recipes for the first of January: “Emancipation Proclamation Breakfast Cake” and “Western Beef Steak” from Denver. “The Emancipation Proclamation New Years’ Day, 1863, is celebrated in all parts of the United States. The Council recipes assembled from the six geographical regions have been taken from the oldest files of Negro families,” the book explains below the recipes.

The subsequent recipe, from Council Regions III and IV is for “Southern Hopping John.” No further explanations are needed for what this recipe means and where it is from. The caption instead points out the similarity to another recipe in the book, for Haitian “Plate National,” a similar dish of rice and beans enjoyed in Haiti, where Independence Day is January 1st. The book also includes a rice and beans recipe from Ghana. Together, the recipes imply a powerful message about food and heritage.

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Christmas Cookies, Hallie A. Shinnamon

This belated Christmas Cookie recipe from the Lovely Lane Methodist Church in Old Goucher is inadvertently my third post in a row related to places I’ve lived. Lovely Lane has produced at least two cookbooks that I’m aware of – one from the 1990s and one from 1936. Both are called “Lovely Lane Cook Book.” The older book is a neat curiosity, full of advertisements from a time when the neighborhood where I live actually had more amenities. Sure, it was a streetcar ride to downtown, but groceries, bicycles, draperies, flowers and more were all available in the lower Charles Village area.

  • Lovely Lane Cookbook from 1936, Enoch Pratt Free Library
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Jam Buns, Elizabeth H. Patterson

When I traveled to Michigan to view cookbooks, I was overwhelmed with some of the options at both the University of Michigan AND Michigan State University. While my default priority is by the date of the cookbook, I factor in other things such as geographic and demographic representation of Maryland. Sometimes, my interest is personal. I knew I had to view the 1929 “Favorite Recipes” of the Ladies Guild of St. Andrews Church in College Park not only because I grew up near College Park, but because I attended a whole lot of (assorted hardcore and rock music) shows at that church in the late 90s.

None of the names in the book meant anything to me, but a friend from College Park pointed out that she recognized the name of Mrs. H.J. Patterson, who has nearly 80 recipes in the book.

  • Michigan State University Special Collections
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Chicken Leek Cobbler, Gil French

“There used to be a stone yard at 26th and Charles and in it was a large tool box about 6′ by 4′ by 4′. This the older boys called THE HOT BOX, and they took delight in locking the younger boys in there for a couple of hours, and believe me by that time they were scared to death.” – Marion deKalb Clark in “Charles Village: An Edwardian Memoir,” 1969

For a little over a decade, I’ve lived around the borders of Baltimore’s Charles Village neighborhood. Although I was sad when I had to leave Mt. Vernon, I do enjoy access to lots of different grocery stores, parks and bus lines. I also have come to enjoy the sense of history that permeates the neighborhood spirit.

When “A Brief History of Charles Village” by Gregory J. Alexander and Paul K. Williams came out in 2009, the book was sold all over the neighborhood. The book told the story of the colonial Merryman’s Lott and Huntington land grants, and the neighborhood’s past as a retreat for wealthy Baltimoreans to move to in the summer. The origins of what we now know as Charles Village lie in the 1870s when the Peabody Heights Company acquired the land which was gradually built into the relatively-dense neighborhood.

A lot of the photos and information found in Alexander and William’s book also appeared in Baltimore Sun Columnist Jacques Kelly’s 1976 book “Peabody Heights to Charles Village.” Although that book is slimmer, it contains thorough research including building dates and builder names of almost every house in the neighborhood.

  • 2600 block of Maryland Avenue shown in “Peabody Heights to Charles Village” by Jacques Kelly. Photos originated from the Peale Museum
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Crab Olio

Definition of olio
2a: a miscellaneous mixture : HODGEPODGE
⁠— Merriam-Webster

It didn’t take too many years of research for me to come to the disappointing realization that a lot of the romantic notions I’d held about recipes were simply not true. “Recipes” are not exact formulas. They can never really live up to the promise of conjuring up an exact place or time. Authenticity is a nebulous and possibly meaningless concept. Few recipes are truly as regional as we’d like to believe. Even fewer recipes were “invented” by any one cook or chef in some inspired moment.

Take the iconic crab cake: the ultimate ‘Maryland’ food. When I search for crab cakes in pre-1900s newspapers I find menu listings and recipes from Pennsylvania, California, New York, Texas, Kentucky… and more.

Other favorite recipes originated as corporate promotions, taking on a life of their own in the hands of home cooks until their unexciting origins become obscured.

I’ve come to accept all of this and I’ve largely dispensed with hierarchies of recipe value and validity.

Having said all that, how do I feel when I find a unique recipe, so unmistakably Maryland, created by a cook and spread organically by word of mouth? Pretty intrigued.

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