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Kohn Cookies

November 28, 2017January 12, 2019

“If any department store in Baltimore gave Hutzler’s a run for its money, it was Hochschild’s.“ – Michael J. Lisicky, Baltimore’s Bygone Department Stores: Many Happy Returns

According to Jacques Kelly, “Hochschild’s sold what you needed, not what you aspired to get.” In 1997, the Baltimore Sun columnist reminisced about the bargain basement at Hochschild Kohn’s, with its creaking wooden floors, in-store post office, and shelves of “pots, pans, cabinets full of embroidery thread, inexpensive tablecloths, phonograph records and scissors displays.”

Hochschild Kohn’s may not have had the high-fashion and prestige of Hutzler’s, but shoppers needed lamps, typewriters, pet supplies and fountain pens too. According to department store historian Michael J. Lisicky, “with a very strong line of basic merchandise, Hochschild’s was seen as ‘the people’s store’.” Hutzler’s had all the glamour, but Hochschild’s was a necessary mainstay.

Advertisement, Der Deutsche Correspondent, 1912

Hochschild Kohn’s was the outgrowth of a South Charles Street clothing store founded by the Kohn family in 1862. In 1897, brothers Louis & Benno Kohn pooled resources with friend Max Hochschild to open a “palace” at Howard and Lexington. The store was infamously cramped and confusing, with ad-hoc expansions built as the business empire grew. In 1923, the company announced plans to finally build a bigger space on a city block bounded by Howard, Franklin, Park, and Center Streets. As it was being built, Hochschild sold his stake in the store to retire, although he did maintain an office where he would “sit around and loaf” for many years until passing away at age 101 in 1957. Financial difficulties prevented the larger property from ever being fully completed as planned.

By 1945, the leadership of Hochschild Kohn’s consisted of Treasurer/V.P. Louis B. Kohn II, president Martin B. Kohn, and his wife Rosa. Rosa had been an editor for the New York Times Sunday magazine, and according to the family, her publicity acumen deserves credit for much of the department store’s success and growth during this era. In the 1950s, Hochschild Kohn’s expanded into the growing suburbs to reach markets in such as Anne Arundel County.

Hochschild’s Thanksgiving parade, Retro Baltimore

It was the wife Louis B. Kohn, II who contributed this cookie recipe to the Park School Cookbook. Born Frances Josephine Levy in 1916, she married Louis B. Kohn II (grandson of store founder Louis B. Kohn) in 1940. She charitably contributed to many organizations around Baltimore including Goucher College, Baltimore Clayworks, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Planned Parenthood. She passed away in 2012.

In the cookbook, the cookies are entitled “Kohn Cookies.” I am not sure whether that is referring to the family or to something served at the store. Certainly, Hochschild Kohn’s leaves a legacy of recipes behind, having produced at least one “Salad and Dessert Cook Book,” in 1933. That book was actually written by cookbook author Mabel Claire, and released as a promotional item for different stores, including Macy’s. These cookies do not appear in the Macy’s version of the recipe book, at any rate.

It bears infinite repetition that nostalgia for the glamorous era of downtown department stores deserves careful reconsideration. As stated in Baltimore Style Magazine: “in 1960, Hochschild’s served 120 Morgan State student demonstrators in the downtown store restaurant, becoming the first of Baltimore’s department stores to integrate and eventually change their strict policies of not allowing African-Americans to either try on or return clothing.“

Afro-American, 1945

The chain went out of business in 1983, just a few years before its rival, Hutzler’s threw in the towel. The store downtown on Lexington & Howard had been abandoned in 1977.

According to Baltimore Style, what many Baltimorean’s remember most about Hochschild Kohn’s was their Thanksgiving parade which made it’s way from the BMA to downtown each year from 1933 to 1966, signaling the start of Christmas Shopping season with a “jovial to some, terrifying to others” mechanized Santa Claus.

Christmastime advertisements boasted “dolls that look like real live children,” ostrich-plumed hats, Parisian ivory toilet accessories, aprons & caps “for the maid,” turkey roasters, and inexpensive fabric, ideal for men’s shirts or modern “women’s mannish waists.” The advertisements promised that “the delicious food, the dainty surroundings and the quiet restfulness” of their sixth floor Tea Room would “send you to your afternoon shopping refreshed and invigorated.”

Recipe:

4 eggs
.5 Lb grated bitter chocolate
1.5 Cup brown sugar
1.5 Cup sugar
1 Cup flour

Beat sugar and eggs together. Add chocolate and beat well again. Add flour gradually. Drop from teaspoons to well-buttered cookie sheet (they spread quite a lot). Bake in 350° oven for 9 minutes for crisp cookies. 6 minutes for chewy cookies. This makes 100 cookies.

Corn Pudding, Betty Worthington Briscoe

October 4, 2017January 12, 2019

I don’t know about you but I’m not through with corn just yet. You can hold the pumpkin until I’m done scraping kernels from the last fresh cob I can find.
I like to broil it (or grill it) and add it to things or freeze for later. This time I opted for a plain corn pudding to best utilize the taste of the flame-caramelized corn.

I found a recipe in “Maryland’s Way” care of Betty Worthington Briscoe. The Briscoe name can be found throughout Southern Maryland in the descendants of some of Maryland’s original volonists as well as the descendants of people who had been enslaved at plantations such as Sotterly.

In this case, the branch of the family in question resided in Calvert County where the father of Everard Briscoe was a physician. Everard too would become a physician, marrying Harriett Elizabeth “Betty” Worthington in 1923 and moving to Baltimore. The family was prominent in Maryland, frequently mentioned in the Baltimore Sun as well as newspapers in Washington County where Betty was from.

The daughter of a well-known railroad conductor (who had a route from Hagerstown to Baltimore), Betty had received a degree from what is now Towson University. Although she never used her teaching degree until after her husband’s sudden 1944 passing, she did lots of other work from serving the Red Cross to being the secretary of the Calvert County Historical Society. She wrote a weekly column in the Calvert Independent newspaper called “Know Your County.” The column has served as a resource, especially for the Maryland Historical Trust’s cataloging of historically significant structures in the region.

Old Field, Maryland Historical Trust

One such structure was the home that Betty and Everard eventually resided in, known as “Old Field.” It had been built in 1891 by Everard’s uncle, Judge John Parran Briscoe, “a prominent judge in the Maryland Circuit Court and Court of Appeals.” Everard Briscoe practiced medicine in the downstairs of the large home.

Still residing at Old Fields, Betty died in 1981 at age 79. Shortly after, the house (presumably the doctor’s office portion) was converted into a restaurant. According to “A Taste of History: A Guide to Historic Eateries and Their Recipes” by Debbie Nunley and Karen Jane Elliott, the restaurant served a cake named in Betty’s honor.

It was really only natural that corn should find it’s way into pudding. Pudding is THE most time-honored British-descended American food tradition. (I need to write a whole thing about that eventually…) While rice pudding still lives on, the often-less-sweet corn pudding is somewhat more obscure. It’s a shame because this versatile dish can make a great side, dessert, or even a main dish with a little creativity. You could top it with hot sauce, honey, or both for that matter. It’s a good way to transition away from fresh summer goodness into the warm, goopy dishes of fall.

Recipe:

2 eggs
1 Teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon flour
1 Teaspoon sugar
1 Cup milk
1 Cup grated corn
butter

Beat eggs. Add salt, flour and sugar; then whisk in the milk and corn. Pour into a greased baking dish and dot with butter. Bake at 350° oven until it is solid but wobbly, about 45 minutes.

Recipe adapted from “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cookbook”

Fresh Garden Corn Chowder, Ivy Neck

August 23, 2017January 12, 2019

This rich corn soup is not unlike Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s Corn Fricassee. The flavor of the corn is front and center (or, depending on your palate and your corn, the soup is bland).

The attribution in “Maryland’s Way” is “Mrs. Murray’s Bride’s Book, 1858.“ It is possible the recipe is to be found somewhere within the voluminous Cheston-Galloway papers at the Maryland Historical Society. The collection encompasses many descendants of Samuel Galloway, a Maryland merchant and slave trader in the 1700s.

Galloway owned an estate, Tulip Hill, in Anne Arundel County. His son James Cheston would build Ivy Neck nearby on the Rhode River in 1787. The homes remained within their large and tangled family tree for many generations.

Ivy Neck, Maryland Historical Trust

Mrs. Murray was born Mary Hollingsworth Morris somewhere down that family tree, at an intersection of cousins Anne Cheston and Dr. Caspar Morris. Tracing family connections demonstrates the many ties between Baltimore and Philadelphia families, and Philly is where the Morris family resided before settling at Ivy Neck, on the Rhode River in Anne Arundel County.

Morris family Philadelphia home, The Morris family of Philadelphia

In 1844 the Morrises signed documents to gradually manumit all of the people that they had enslaved there. Four years later, Dr. Morris wrote a biography of abolitionist Margaret Mercer, an Anne Arundel County neighbor who worked with the controversial American Colonization Society.

In Dr. Morris’ biography, he credits Mercer with influencing another local enslaver, Daniel Murray Esquire, to release his slaves. Murray then joined the efforts of the Colonization Society. There is still a county in Liberia named Maryland, a vestige of this attempt to “resettle” people who had in most cases become naturalized to North American culture and terrain.

Ivy Neck photo showing outbuildings, E.H. Pickering, loc.gov

It was Murray’s son, Henry M. Murray, who married Mary Hollingsworth Morris in 1856. The family lived at Ivy Neck, perhaps with Mary’s “bride’s book,” but also with the help of servants, many of whom were probably the same people manumitted by Mary’s parents. The Ivy Neck property has two different tenant houses, one of which was home to a man named Daniel Boston who cooked for the Murray’s daughter Cornelia and her family at Ivy Neck in the 1930s.

The house at Ivy Neck burned down in 1944, and part of the property eventually went to the Smithsonian Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies.
Well, there you have it, “Fresh Garden Corn Chowder.”

Recipe:

6 ears fresh corn
6 cups milk
3 egg yolks
3 Tablespoons butter
1.5 Teaspoons salt
1.5 Teaspoons sugar
white pepper
chives
paprika

Shuck corn and remove silk, then grate corn off the cob into the soup pot; add milk and heat slowly. Beat egg yolks and work the soft butter into them; add a little of the hot corn and milk mixture to egg and butter, beating well; then stir this into the soup. Add salt, sugar and a dash of pepper and bring to a simmer. Serve hot with chopped chives and paprika.

Recipe adapted from “Maryland’s Way”, “Mrs. Murray’s Bride’s Book, 1858”

Peach Brandy Pound Cake, Commander Hotel

May 7, 2017May 22, 2019

The opening of the Atlantic Hotel in 1875 is often regarded as the official “founding” of Ocean City.

If you wanted to visit the little beach town in those days, you had to take a boat or a train across the Sinepuxent Bay.

Train passengers often arrived to town covered in ash and soot. Nonetheless, the journey was a part of the experience.

Ocean City train station, kilduffs.com

Besides, the soot wasn’t the last mess to deal with. There was, of course, lots of sand. In 1910 a permanent boardwalk was built to elevate vacationers from the perils of sand.

A highway bridge to Ocean City was built a few years later. At last, the beach could be enjoyed without too much inconvenience from soot OR sand.

Ocean City remained a sleepy little beach town. When John B. Lynch, his wife Ruth, and his mother Minnie built the Commander Hotel on 14th street in 1930, it was a bit of a risky prospect. On the northernmost end of the “city”, the property was beyond the end of the boardwalk and a bit out of the way.

In 1933, an August hurricane changed everything. Residents watched as huge waves battered the barrier island, buildings washed away, and the boardwalk was destroyed. Thirteen lives were lost, and the road and railways linking the island to the mainland were no more. At the south end of the island, the Sinepuxent Bay washed a stretch of land out into the ocean, creating an inlet directly from the Atlantic to the bay.

Fishermen were overjoyed at this last bit. No longer would they have to drag their ocean catches across the island to the safe harbor of the bay. Federal funding was quickly secured to preserve the inlet from filling back up with sand. The new inlet became a crucial fishing port. Ocean City was now much more than a sleepy resort; it was the “White Marlin Capital of the World,” attracting sport and commercial fishermen. In the year 1939, 161 white marlins were caught – two by President Roosevelt.

Commander Hotel, Boston Public Library

The Commander Hotel proved to be a gamble that paid off. It was expanded over the years and incorporated attractions like clambakes and dinner theater.

The hotel was known for their food; three meals were included with the price of a room. Sometimes, guests enjoyed clams and corn served at long tables on the beach, or they dressed up in coats and ties to have dinner in the dining room in the evenings. John Lynch, Jr., the son of founders John & Ruth Lynch, contributed this Peach Brandy Pound Cake recipe to the 1995 book “Maryland’s Historic Restaurants and Their Recipes,” noting that in addition to the cake being a favorite in the Commander’s dining room, his own family enjoys it around Christmas.

And it is indeed a great pound cake – moist, flavorful, and just sweet enough.

The old Commander Hotel was torn down in 1997 to make way for something larger and more modern. By this time, hotel meals were no longer an important part of vacationer’s stays, with the plentiful restaurant options in town. The current building fits in with the other large hotels full of generic rooms that serve more as a place to stay than a destination in itself. Guest Norris Lanford recalled as much on eve of the hotel’s demolition: “I didn’t go to Ocean City. I went to the Commander Hotel.”

In a town built on a barrier island, where everything could be one big storm away from washing into the sea, change is the one thing you can count on.

Recipe:

1 Cup butter
3 Cups sugar
6 egg
3 Cup flour
.25 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Cup yogurt (or sour cream as called for in the original)
2 Teaspoon rum
1 Teaspoon orange extract
.25 Teaspoon almond extract
.666 Teaspoon lemon extract
.5 Cup peach brandy

Cream butter and gradually add sugar. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with yogurt, beating well after each addition. Stir in flavorings. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes or until cake tests done.

Recipe adapted from “Maryland’s Historic Restaurants and Their Recipes” by Dawn O’Brien and Rebecca Schenck

Hutzler’s Potato Chip Cookies

December 21, 2016January 13, 2019

“Every year in the 50s, my mother, my grandmother and I went downtown to do our Christmas shopping,” A. Zoland Leishear fondly recalled in the Baltimore Sun in 1989. The store had been closed all of two months and the nostalgia was stirred. Leishear recalled a picturesque scene of streetcar wire sparks lighting up the snow, dazzling window displays and shopping trips ended with hot fudge sundaes.

feature in the Baltimore Sun, 1989

Hutzler’s had it’s origins in the late 1850’s, and opened the famed “palace” on Howard street in 1888. Long before Hutzler’s charmed patrons from Barbara Mikulski to John Waters, the stores may well have been patronized by early Maryland cookbook authors Jane Gilmor Howard or “Queen of the Kitchen” Mary Tyson.

1930 advertisement for Hutzler’s

A generation later, department store shopping had developed from a convenience into an experience. Good food is such a direct route to pleasant associations that it makes complete sense that retailers would want to impress on shoppers in this way. Any fan of IKEA meatballs could attest to that. Whether it is these potato chip cookies, the cheddar bread or something more substantial, many shoppers have fond recollections of snacks and meals eaten at one of Hutzler’s numerous dining facilities.

Jacques Kelly (who has to be quoted in this blog more than any other individual!) reminisced:

“What do I miss about Hutzler’s? For starters, the coffee chiffon pie from the Quixie restaurant. When that particular lunch area closed about 1972, I wrote a two-page letter of complaint.”

As is so often the case when we look to the past -especially in Maryland- these pleasant memories are not a universal experience. In the 1910s, columns began to appear in the Afro-American, complaining of Hutzlers and other department stores increasing efforts to alienate black shoppers. This period of segregation lasted from roughly 1930 to 1960, during which time black patrons couldn’t dine in Hutzler’s, try on clothing or hats, or open store accounts.

As sit-ins and protests erupted at lunch counters and department stores around the city in the 60s, Hutzler’s eventually changed with the times.

Michael Lisicky’s comprehensive book “Hutzler’s: Where Baltimore Shops” recounts the Hutzler empire’s rise and fall. Alongside so many other institutions, its lifespan was a reflection of the beauty, excess, and disgrace of Baltimore.

Hutzlers Towson Valley View Room Jan 1989, Kevin Mueller on flickr

Back to the food. I reached out to Lisicky who offered this insight into why the food memories of Hutzler remain so near and dear to many Baltimoreans:

“There was a time when department store restaurants, or tea rooms, acted as some of the finer dining spots in the cities they served. That was especially true at Hutzler’s. Hutzler’s 6th floor Colonial Restaurant was one of Baltimore’s finer diner rooms and was a downtown social epicenter. Most people called it the Tea Room but Hutzler’s never did. In the end, it didn’t matter and still doesn’t. The Maryland Historical Society houses many of the store’s archives, including the recipe files for the Valley View Room at Towson. A number of Baltimoreans preferred the food downtown. Hutzler’s diehards say that Towson wasn’t downtown, at least culinary-wise but that popular and important Towson store kept the company alive. People fondly recall the Chicken Chow Mein served in the downstairs Luncheonette. It was cheap and was an introduction to ethnic food for many mid-century diners. Little did they know it was made with turkey. The most requested recipe from Hutzler’s? Lady Baltimore Cake. Of all of the recipe cards that still remain, Hutzler’s Lady Baltimore Cake recipe went the way of the store. Department store restaurants are few and far between these days. I’m not sure where exactly to send people these days, at least within an easy drive. There’s always Nordstrom, they are an anomaly, but they aren’t Hutzler’s.” – Michael Lisicky, department store historian

“Where Baltimore Shops” contains recipes for crab cakes, imperial crab, crab and shrimp casserole, deviled filet of cod, Scampi di Marsala, Spaghetti a la Caruso, shrimp salad, cheese bread, chocolate chiffon pie, and fudge cake.

It does not contain the recipe for these famous potato chip cookies. Instead, the recipe has been circulated for years via the Baltimore Sun Recipe Finder, as well as other Maryland cookbooks such as my BGE “Chesapeake Bay Cooking.”

These cookies are best served with a glass of milk and some philosophical questions about nostalgia.

“There are places that may be as luxurious or as opulent. But there are none so fine, nor any so grand, none that capture my imagination or so define an experience as Hutzler’s, downtown at Christmas.” – A. Zoland Leishear, Baltimore Sun, 1989

Recipe:

1 Cup softened butter
1 Cup sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
2.5 Cups sifted flour
.5 Cups chopped nuts
.5 Cups crushed potato chips
egg white slightly beaten

Thoroughly cream butter or margarine and 2/3 cup sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Fold next three ingredients into creamed mixture. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2-inches apart on greased baking sheet. Flatten with tines of fork in two directions. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with remaining 1/3 cup sugar. Bake at 350° for 15 to 20 minutes. Makes approximately 4 ½ dozen cookies.