Risotto , “College Cookery”

“Boxes of confectionery, cake, etc., sent to students, so far from being the kindness intended, are a positive source of evil. Their contents, eaten, as is generally the case, irregularly and late at night, produce sickness and impair scholarship, perhaps more than any other single cause. Unless parents and friends heed this remark, we shall be obliged to make the reception of such boxes and parcels by the pupils ground for animadversion.” – Connecticut Literary Institution 1870-71 catalog, quoted in “College Girls” by Lynn Peril

After several failed attempts to found a women’s college in Baltimore, the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church finally succeeded in 1885. The main building on St. Paul Street was constructed to harmonize architecturally with the First Church (now Lovely Lane Methodist.)

According to the 1905 book “The College Girl In America And The Institutions Which Make Her What She Is,” the school’s co-founder Dr. John F. Goucher did not hold many other women’s’ colleges in high regard. His philosophy was paraphrased: “The ordinary girls’ college turns out… an occasional scholar, some pedants, many teachers, and a few – a very few – all-around girls… Every effort is made at this college to develop appreciation, ripe culture, and womanliness.”

Goucher College & Lovely Lane Methodist Church, Goucher College Library 

Nonetheless, sources indicate that life at the “Women’s College of Baltimore City” was not too different than at other women’s colleges. “The History of Goucher College” by Anna Knipp and Thaddeus P. Thomas describes rigorous academics. At 659 pages, Knipp and Thomas’ 1939 history book IS rigorous academics. One aspect that I grasped before dozing off was that the school had a special focus on physical fitness.

Considerations for student health at women’s colleges was not entirely out of the ordinary. Wellesley College founder Henry Durant believed that health was critical to learning, stating that “pies, lies, and doughnuts should never have a place at Wellesley College.”

Out of context, this sounds a like a bizarre fixation, but in fact, snacking and junk food had been the secret scourge of women’s colleges from the beginning. Some schools implemented rules that barred families from sending foods. This only resulted in clandestine dormitory makeshift meals known as “spreads.”

Often made in a chafing dish, with tools on hand (think nail files and powder boxes), the late-night meals became a central part of social life in women’s colleges at the beginning of the 20th century. In a 1906 article in Ladies Home Journal, called “Christmas Pranks of College Girls,” one student reported that “spreads were forbidden and the halls were vigorously patrolled for the suppression of them.”

Fudge is by far the most famous and enduring result of dormitory snacking, and a popular origin story credits the candy to Vassar students.

College Cookery, 1912 by H.A.B. 

 Fudge was far from the only food served up – it wasn’t even the only candy. In “College Cookery,” a 1912 cookbook printed in Baltimore, there are six recipes for chocolate fudge, as well as recipes for taffy, toasted marshmallows, sandwiches, Welsh Rarebit (a popular chafing dish item), as well as several recipes “brought from Italy by a member of Goucher College.” Of these recipes from Italy, I opted to try the risotto.

“College Cookery” was compiled by Harriet A. Blogg from Norfolk VA. Blogg’s date of birth varies wildly across censuses, but her family moved to Baltimore in the late 1800s. Her father Edward N. S. Blogg was a preacher from Germany and her mother Charlotte Collins Thayer hailed from the large Massachusetts family of Colonel Collins Thayer. The family became prominent in Baltimore. From their home base on 2506 St. Paul Street, the Bloggs engaged and entertained doctors and Peabody Professors, women’s college clubs and charitable organizations. Harriet’s brother Percy T. Blogg was a “sportsman, naturalist, essayist, and poet” according to his 1947 Baltimore Sun obituary. Another brother, Edward R. F. Blogg, was a bookseller whose frequent business travels and illnesses were regularly reported in the Baltimore Sun society pages.

Harriet and her sister Minnie were both librarians. Minnie was one of the first librarians for the Johns Hopkins Hospital Library which became the Welch Medical Library in 1929. She worked with doctors to compile bibliographies for their publications. After she retired in 1935, she volunteered at the Johns Hopkins Nurses Home Library until shortly before her death in 1959.

Miss H.A. Blogg’s second place crab recipe in the Sun, 1911

As for Harriet, she was a librarian for Goucher from 1896-1917, and a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. She too was involved with medical research work. At Goucher, she founded the Press Club in 1898. According to her 1935 obituary, she was “well known in literary circles.”

As the publication of a cookbook glorifying College Cookery might tip you off, late night dormitory snack-parties eventually became an accepted, even sanctioned, part of college life. As Lynn Peril wrote in “College Girls”: “The 1947 edition of Stephens College’s Within the Ivy student handbook called the spread ‘one of the joys of college life’ proving without a doubt that its authority-flouting nature was deader than a doorknob.”

Needless to say, this coincided with the slow demise of the tradition. Next Friday, when I’m watching all the co-eds at the liquor store conceal their purchases deep inside backpacks, part of me will wish that their rule-flouting could ever be so beneficial to humanity, to popularize something like fudge.

Recipe:

RISOTTO (ITALIAN RICE)
(Brought from Italy by member of Goucher College)

• ½ cup rice
• 1 onion
• 2 tablespoonfuls Grated Cheese (Parmesan)  
• 1 qt. Beef stock—(may be beef extract)
• Zaferano, pinch (may be purchased at Itl. shop)*

Chop onion and brown in butter. Add rice dry
(don’t wash it), and cook until brown. Add beef
stock and boil until soft. Add part of cheese and
the powder. Serve with remainder of cheese on
top. This is delicious.

Recipe from “College Cookery”, 1912, compiled by H.A.B.

*I had to look this up. It’s saffron!

Much of the research for this post came from “College Girls” by Lynn Peril. Peril’s “Mystery Date” zine and her books were some of my favorites in the early 2000s, when I was just dipping my toe into “history” as anything other than classroom drudgery. I really enjoyed revisiting “College Girls.”