This is another entry laden with tedious detective work, my unrestrained fanaticism ruining any possibility of ever attracting repeat readers. I’ll try to keep it brief. According to “The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle“, 1987, “famed Baltimore hostess, Mrs. B.C. Howard, compiled the earliest charity cookbook published in Maryland, Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen’(Baltimore,…
I’ve been gradually getting to “know” Elizabeth Ellicott Lea a little better, and coming to really like her. At first her no-frills thrift seemed unexciting and maybe even a little stern. Certainly she doesn’t radiate the Maryland pride of other authors who boast their Maryland-ness in the titles of their cookbooks. Lea was a Quaker…
While vacationing in 2015, on a day drive down the Delmarva peninsula, we found ourselves in the relatively sparse landscape of Bloxom, VA. We spotted a striped truck off of Route 13 with stenciled letters announcing “Mi Pequeña Taqueria” and pulled over into the scorching parking lot where this taco truck stood. We enjoyed classic…
“Effective October 1, 2008, the Smith Island Cake became the State Dessert of Maryland (Chapters 164 & 165, Acts of 2008; Code General Provisions Article, sec. 7-313). Traditionally, the cake consists of eight to ten layers of yellow cake with chocolate frosting between each layer and slathered over the whole. However, many variations have evolved,…
Nearly all of my old Maryland cook-books contain a few pages of ice cream recipes. It was an integral ‘domestic receipt’ by the time Elizabeth Ellicott Lea published the first Maryland cookbook in 1845. Her book contains a characteristically austere four recipes- less than half as many as later authors M.L. Tyson of “Queen of…