The (possibly questionable) story of the late-1970s “Grannie’s Goodies from Somerset County” cookbook is that the residents of the Tawes Nursing Home in Crisfield complained about the food so much that the director asked for recipes, which were later compiled into the book. In the books’ preface, the nursing home’s activity director and compiler of the book, Becky Blizzard, simply stated that it was a fundraising project to buy a minibus. Whatever the circumstances, this book was a happy find for me at the Pratt Library. A second edition, “Tawes Home Cookbook #2,” was produced a few years later and sold well enough to go into a second printing.
Continue reading “Pocomoke Lace Cookies, Elizabeth Hall”Month: September 2019
Egg Flake Soup, M. Henri Casalegno
The Baltimore Sun advertised in April of 1909 that they would be running two features in their Sunday editions, with soup recipes from M. Henri Casalegno, a former chef at the Maryland Club. That credential was apt to make Baltimore housewives pay attention. H.L. Mencken certainly knew that when he gave the chef the freelance writing assignments. Mencken later recalled that the Italian-born chef’s articles were “done in very fair English.”
Caselagno did not apparently hold the “housewife cook” in high regard. “The failures of the housewife cook are often due to her failure properly to season the food she cooks,” he wrote. To be fair to Casalegno, a preachy condescending tone was the norm for cookery advice of the day. Casalegno may simply have been embellishing his prowess by emulating others. It wouldn’t be the last time he did so.
Caselagno had been working as a chef in hotel kitchens since his arrival in the U.S. in 1904. In his first stateside position at the Hotel Renssalaer in Troy New York, he’d had a quarrel with another chef, Paul Lescaux. The altercation resulted in Lescaux’s death. According to Caselagno, Lescaux had lunged at him, landing with a knife in the heart. Caselagno served four years in prison for this “accident,” before finding his way into the Maryland Club and the Baltimore Sun columns.
What came after is somehow even more bizarre.
from the Baltimore Sun, 1909
Peach Pie Supreme, Alice Heckman Millett
I’ve been a fan of the cheddar-apple pie combination for many years now and I often make my apple pies with a cheddar cheese crust. Somehow, I’d never considered doing the same for peach pies.
I made this simple pie for a Labor Day crab feast and my family raved about it – despite the fact that I kinda burned the crust. All this is to say, this is a surprisingly forgiving recipe.
The recipe was contributed by Mrs. Kenneth B. Millett to “A Cook’s Tour of the Eastern Shore,” a 1948 community cookbook benefiting the Memorial Hospital of Easton Md. The book contains over 400 handwritten recipes, and includes Eastern Shore wisdom on seafood and game.
“Dolphin,” a boat built by Kenneth B. Millett, on the Chesapeake Bay