Mrs. B. C. Howard’s “Binderloo” Curry

Benjamin Chew Howard wrote genuinely loving letters to his wife, the former Jane Grant Gilmor. In one he quoted a poem, telling Mrs. Howard “time has not ‘dimmed your eye.'” It was 1835 and Jane Howard was 34, hardly an old matron. Still, the sentiment was sweet.

The letters between Mr. and Mrs. B. C. Howard also occasionally offer a peek into something that would seal Jane’s legacy: food.

In 1837, Mr. Howard wrote of having fish for breakfast on his travels. He referenced not being a fan of fish skin. He mentioned eating saddle of venison for most meals on a trip south. And he singled out something to Jane: “There was some soup the like of which I never saw before. It was so ropy that half of it slipped out of the spoon. On looking at the bill of fare I found that it was called Chicken Gumbo. I wonder if this is the kind of Gumbo you wanted which is not made out of gumbo at all but something else.”

Benjamin Howard used the word ‘gumbo‘ to refer to okra, language possibly used by many of the people he enslaved in Maryland. Perhaps the very recipe he tried on that trip ended up, in some form, in Mrs. B.C. Howard’s 1873 book “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen.” That book contained four recipes for “Gumbo Filet Soup,” among recipes influenced by regions around the country and world. But despite it’s wide range of source material, this is the book that would write Maryland’s cuisine into history.

Jane Grant Gilmor was born in 1801 to wealthy mercant and art collector William Gilmor, and Virginian Mary Ann Drysdale Gilmor. In 1818, she became the wife of Benjamin Chew Howard, a politician and businessman. She moved to Belvidere, the Howards’ estate in what is now the Mt. Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore. The manor became known for hospitality.

Over the course of Jane’s life, the world changed dramatically. She spent most of her time as a plantation mistress at Belvidere, overseeing the kitchen and an enslaved staff whose names we may never know.

In 1842, the Howards sold Belvidere. Jane wrote a letter to her husband, brokenhearted at moving, and lamenting how life was changing. The letter mentions that Jane hoped “Caroline [would] be again in the kitchen.”

“Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” became such a famous book that it overshadowed a previous Maryland recipe book, “Queen of the Kitchen,” written three years earlier by a semi-anonymous “Miss Tyson.” Miss Tyson was actually Mary Lloyd Tyson, daughter of Rebecca Ann Key, a relative of Francis Scott Key. Rebecca Key’s first husband William Howard was Benjamin’s brother, making Rebecca and Jane sisters-in-law.

Whether Jane Howard’s niece cared that Jane copied a large amount of her recipes into a more-successful book is unknown. The practice was common at the time, and Tyson herself copied recipes from elsewhere. Jane Howard’s book also pilfered recipes from another Maryland cookbook, “Domestic Cookery,” 1845, by Elizabeth Ellicott Lea. One other source was Mary Randolph’s classic “Virginia Housewife,” first published in 1828. Despite the decades between the books, the recipes changed little.

At any rate, many of the recipes in these books had come from the hands of enslaved workers in the kitchen. Whether they were taken down firsthand, or passed through networks of wealthy women, the recipes often serve to obscure who was doing the actual work in these authors’ kitchens.

“Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” contains a number of recipes by way of India, from chutney and pickled mangoes to rice pilau, to this recipe for “Binderloo Curry.”

The journey of curry making its way from India to England and to the United States is a long and complicated story fraught with colonialism and empire, not to mention the strange warping of the recipes themselves along the way.

In “Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerers,” Lizzie Collingham wrote, “curry was firmly established as a part of the British culinary landscape by the 1850s.” In fitting with Mrs. B.C. Howard’s Binderloo recipe, “curries came into favor as an excellent way of using up cold meat… In Mrs. Beeton’s definitive middle-class [British] recipe book, all the beef and chicken curries were labeled as suitable for ‘cold meat cookery.’ The irony of this state of affairs was unappreciated by most British consumers of curries who were unaware that consumption of leftovers was taboo among the majority of Hindus.”

Several vindaloo recipes appeared in an 1869 book called “The Indian Cookery Book; a Practical Handbook to the Kitchen in India, Adapted to the Three Presidencies By a Thirty-five Years Resident.” That author wrote “this well-known Portuguese curry can only be made properly of beef, pork, or duck,” and presented a few variations, including one with shelf-life in mind: “Pickled Vindaloo (adapted as a Present to Friends at a Distance).”

If you caught that reference to Portugal, the history of vindaloo lies within it. According to Collingham, “Vindaloo is normally regarded as an Indian curry, but in fact it is a Goan adaptation of the Portuguese dish carne de vinha e alhos, or meat cooked in wine vinegar and garlic. The name vindaloo is simply a garbled pronunciation of vinha e alhos. The Portuguese particularly savored the sour, but fruity, taste of meat marinated and cooked in wine vinegar. When they arrived in India, however, they found that Indians did not make vinegar… some ingenious Franciscan priests are said to have solved the problem by manufacturing vinegar from coconut toddy, the alcoholic drink fermented from the sap of the palm tree.”

Mrs. B. C. Howard’s unusual spelling “binderloo” may be indicative of a recipe passed along orally. She also gives the Hindi names of several of the spices, perhaps in an attempt to demonstrate authenticity.

The recipe is really something. To make eight to ten pounds of meat, Howard used a half pound of garlic, three-quarter pounds of ginger, over a cup of coriander and turmeric, and almost as much cumin and chili peppers. The meat is marinated – or rather, pickled – in vinegar for nearly 24 hours and then slow cooked and jarred for future use.

Howard didn’t mention salt. This could be because it was a given, or maybe even that the meat was meant to be already salted. I added salt because I didn’t want to ruin my meat any further than this flavor-blast of ingredients already was at risk of doing.

This wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever eaten but we got through it, with lots of rice and vegetables to dilute the seasoning. Imagining Americans eating like this in the 19th centry changes your whole perspective on historic food.

Jane Howard’s vantage point, too, must have changed, as Baltimore grew and densified around her, and the country transformed even more. In 1837, Benjamin Chew Howard wrote of “abolition which that miserable state of Vermont is meddling with.” In 1861 he ran for the governorship of Maryland under a “states rights” platform. He lost.

Mrs. Howard dedicated herself to “Southern Relief” after the war – raising funds for formerly wealthy families whose fortunes had turned downward.

When Benjamin died in 1872, one obituary in the Charleston South Carolina Daily Courier wrote “When friends were rare, and gaunt want came pinching, Benjamin Chew Howard, and the revered ladies of his household, noiselessly as the dews of morning, but effectively as the meridian sun, lifted up many a bowed spirit.” “The eye of many a Confederate window moistens with genuine sorrow,” to learn of his death, the paper concluded.

“Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” saw publication the year following Benjamin’s death. With its lavish ingredients and massive quantities, Howard’s book bore a subtle message of a fabled time of plenty and a life of ease – a Southern fantasy that continued to sell well into the civil rights era.

Howard’s cookbook spoke to readers who upheld this fantasy, but also to plenty of people who just liked good food. For decades after its publication, newspapers continued to share Howard’s recipes, often affixing the word “Maryland” to them, such as “Maryland Cream Waffles.” A 1944 edition, revised by Florence Brobeck, reduced the serving quantities as well as the butter and sugar ratios. It omitted the “Binderloo” entirely.

Jane Howard died in 1890, and is buried in Green Mount with generations of her parents’ family. She left five children; she was preceded in death by five others. Her name continued to be associated with Maryland cuisine, which enjoyed prestige for over a half-century after her death.

The recipes she left behind reflect the complicated and ugly histories of the ways imperialism and slavery benefitted Maryland. They also contain traces of the obscured talent of anonymous cooks like Caroline.

While the legend of Belvidere hospitality has largely been forgotten, Howard’s recipes still serve as references for all the Maryland classic dishes, from Maryland Fried Chicken to Deviled Crabs. Even her “Kitchen Pepper” recipe reveals a template for the seasoning that would become Old Bay. Her Binderloo, though, is one recipe best left in the past.

Recipe:

“Garlic, half a pound.
Ginger, three-quarters of a pound.
Coriander seed (Dhunia), three-eighths of a pound.
Turmeric (Huldee), three-eighths of a pound.
Cummin seed(Zebrah),quarter of a pound.
Chili peppers, quarter of a pound.
Pepper, one ounce.
Bay leaf,one ounce.
Vinegar, one and a half bottles.
Pork, eight or ten pounds.
Mix some salt and vinegar with the meat and leave
it for six hours—no water. Then mix to a paste in a mortar with the vinegar, the ingredients mentioned above. Let it stand twelve hours after adding to it the meat, after which it must be carefully cooked over a slow fire until all the water in the meat has evaporated, after which let it cool and put it in stoppered jars for use. When it is required, it must be thoroughly warmed and sent to table to be eaten with rice.“