April 2024 - OLD LINE PLATE

a slice of zucchini hors d'oruvres on a plate

William Earl Travers was just one on a list of names printed in the Evening Sun on June 20, 1945. Two killed; 18 wounded; 2 missing.

21-year-old Travers was one of the two missing. Just two years earlier, the Wilmington Delaware News-Journal had reported on his engagement to Naomi Louise Roe. “The couple will live in Denton,” read the announcement.

“I felt I was fortunate to lose only one” son, Nellie Travers told the Eastern Star-Democrat in 1995. The lifelong farmer had sent four sons to World War II. While she was glad to have three of them return, the loss of William stayed with her through the years. And so, fifty years later, at age 93, Nellie Travers told the Star-Democrat she still felt the pain of William’s death. She also felt pride that her sons had served.

There is only one thing that excites me more than finding an old cookbook that I didn’t know about, and that’s finding a local dish that I didn’t know was local.

When Matthew Korfhage wrote to me last summer to ask about Delmarva Barbecued Chicken I was confused. We have a barbecue tradition in Maryland other than pit beef? Don’t organizations everywhere raise funds by selling chicken by the side of the road?

Maybe they do, but on the Eastern Shore, the chicken in question is a little bit different.

With a sauce made from vinegar, oil, poultry seasoning, and the strange addition of an egg, this “barbecue sauce” is nothing like the dozens of ketchup-based personal barbecue sauce recipes found in my database.

Korfhage’s email inspired me to take a closer look at those recipes. It wasn’t long until I found exactly what I was looking for.

In none other than Maryland First Lady Helen Avalynne Tawes’ 1964 cookbook, “My Favorite Maryland Recipes” is a recipe for “Eastern Sho’ Bar-B-Q Chicken.” Later local cookbooks like “What Is Cooking On Party Line” and cookbooks from local fire departments had similar recipes. The style of chicken is particularly associated with volunteer fire departments, for which the roadside sales are a big money-maker.

Month: April 2024

Zucchini Hors D’oeuvres, Nellie Travers

Eastern Sho’ Bar-B-Q Chicken a.k.a. Delmarva Barbecued Chicken

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