Year: 2020

Hard Jelly Cake

When I finally took a stab at baking the Shady Side specialty Hard Jelly Cake, I nervously wondered how my reputation would fare.

Treading in the steps of experts is always a setup for embarrassment. If my beaten biscuit experience taught me anything, it’s that the flame-keepers of some of our state’s more forgotten foods tend to take their responsibility seriously. When my attempt cast disgrace on the reputation of beaten biscuits, seasoned bakers did not hold back criticism.

As I explored the history and culture of Hard Jelly Cake, one of Maryland’s more obscure traditions, I found a similar wellspring of passion.

Mrs. Edgar Linton’s recipe in the 1966 cookbook “Maryland’s Way” is the only recipe for it in my database so far. “This is an old southern Maryland receipt,” wrote Linton, “popular at Christmas time. A Shady Side specialty, it keeps very well and looks festive when sliced thin.”

With only Linton’s recipe to go on, I couldn’t really envision what the cake was meant to taste and feel like. A few years ago, my aunt from Shady Side purchased one from Elaine Catterton. Catterton is one of the few bakers carrying on the tradition, making cakes for raffle/sale around the holidays.

The wax paper wrapping and red string were clearly part of the experience of Hard Jelly Cake. The cookie-like layers were infused with the flavor of grape jelly. The cake was not like any cake I’d ever had before.

  • Elaine Catterton’s Hard Jelly Cake
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Interview: Bernard L. Herman, “A South You Never Ate”

Note: This interview is from April. I had the pleasure of seeing Bernard Herman speak not long before we all began isolating. I really enjoyed reading his book but had a hard time writing anything expository to go with this interview. The book makes a beautiful gift so I did my best to get this together for the holiday season. Please support independent booksellers.

  • Photographs care of The University of North Carolina Press

Summer is behind us, but thinking of the Eastern Shore puts me in a “late-July” mindset. Like many people who live on the “other side” of the bay, my experience of much of the Delmarva peninsula is a relatively narrow one. I was fortunate enough to grow up spending much of my summers in Chincoteague, where my grandfather was accepted among the fishermen.

In his little trailer, my extended family enjoyed lots of fish, tomatoes, corn, and so much more of what the region had to offer. My appreciation of these tastes and the associated memories left a lasting impression. The sound of tree-frogs at night still lulls me into a peaceful and safe state of mind.

More recently I began venturing out on long drives down through Virginia’s Eastern Shore. I found it to be a mesmerizing place. Route 13 runs along old railroad tracks. Rows of magenta crape myrtles sometimes line the road. Monoculture seems omnipresent – soy and sorghum dominate the land. Beyond the fields are roads leading to a diversity of landscapes. Some overgrown byways reveal faint traces of a different past – farmhouses and churches being digested by the marshy earth. The occasional grand manor still stands.

In one direction the ocean roars, in the other the bay can sometimes have an almost eerie calmness. And yet life is buzzing all around – the smells and sounds plants and animals living and dying.

To a wannabe writer like me, it feels like “a place you write about.”

To a scholar and a folklorist like Bernard Herman, it is a place full of history and stories that deserve to be heard and preserved. I eagerly anticipated his book, entitled “A South You Never Ate: Savoring the Flavors and Stories from the Eastern Shore of Virginia.”

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H. Franklyn Hall’s “Crab Cakes”

“Men become cooks because they have a love for the calling,” wrote Harry Franklyn Hall in “Good Housekeeping” in 1903. The article he wrote described the passion and career progression of men (specifically) in the food industry and the stress one must endure as he gains skills and experience to become “an eighth-degree cook.” Despite the annoying implication that only men can “excel in the art of cooking” and “reach its loftiest height,” the article details the many techniques Hall personally mastered in the rise from dishwasher to famed chef. Together with the listing of his places of employment in his 1901 book “300 Ways to Cook and Serve Shellfish,” it is closest thing we have to a career autobiography of Hall.


“Philadelphia Colored Directory”, 1910
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Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

Hello friends. This is not a Maryland recipe. I made this pie and wrote this essay on instagram on March 17th, five days after canceling a talk at the Pratt Library and beginning ‘social distancing’. I am posting it here so that I don’t go through all of July with no post, leaving me feeling even more isolated. I’ve made some recipes, but the writing isn’t coming – at least not the kind of writing I’d like to be doing. Lately, I mostly write from sadness, which is how I feel. The sadness I feel today is very different than the sadness of four months ago but I thought I’d share this post and the recipe. I will say that every connection I’ve made through Old Line Plate has brightened my day at some point so feel free to drop me a line and say hi.

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