A reader contacted me looking for a caramelized broiled tomato recipe. They knew it had a connection to a country club. They also recalled that the club had had a history of discriminatory policies.
I checked my database. Fourteen recipes for broiled tomatoes. Among them: Mrs. Charles Gibson‘s recipe, Mrs. Spencer Watkins‘, BGE, The Baltimore Sun recipe contest… and then a recipe in “Wine and Dine with the Lake Roland Garden Club,” for “Broiled Tomatoes A La Elkridge.”
There it is.
The Elkridge Club was founded in 1878 as a fox-hunting club. Purebred hounds of elite lineage were shipped over from the UK. One history book about the Elkridge Club details the family trees of these distinguished hounds. Clearly, the 40 or so founding members envisioned themselves as Maryland nobility, and for all intents and purposes, they were.
The club moved to the area that would become Roland Park in 1888. According to the history on their website, “Elkridge leased 54 acres at $800 per year on Charles Street Avenue from the estate of Governor Augustus Bradford, and moved into the new clubhouse which was to be its permanent home. This acreage extended north from the entrance gate to the line between the present 5th and 6th holes. Governor Bradford had purchased 125 acres at the site for $12,000 in 1854, and had built a large house on the hill just west of the first green.”
Activities gradually expanded to include golfing, tennis, baseball, and trap shooting.
In 2005, the Elkridge Club made headlines when Governor Robert Ehrlich held a fund-raiser there and it was noted that the country club had a history of segregation and had in fact never had a Black member. One cringe-inducing Washington Times article stated that club members anonymously “said they have tried for years without success to get a black to join.”
“After a state law was passed prohibiting country clubs from getting a property tax break if they discriminated in their membership policies, the club gave up its tax break in 1977 rather than give its membership list to the state, Robert A. Zarnoch, an assistant attorney general,” told the Times.
The discrimination and “old world” airs are fitting with Maryland’s food culture mystique in the early 20th century. Mr. Alexander C. Nelson contributed the Elkridge Club’s recipe for Corn Cakes to Frederick Philip Stieff’s 1932 book “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland,” a book built partly around that mystique, complete with racist cartoons.
The tomato recipe was contributed to the 1935 Lake Roland Garden Club cookbook by Rosale Gans, who was born in 1905 around Baltimore. Her husband Hilary Gans was a lawyer, and the family lived in Roland Park, the whites-only garden suburb that would set the standard for segregated communities. A 1947 story in the society pages announced a debutante luncheon for the Gans’ daughter, also named Rosalie, at the Elkridge Hunt Club.
The tomatoes and corn cakes are fine. Recipes are an interesting thing – often, taste is affected by a memory, an experience, or an impression. Of course, my impression is different knowing all of that distasteful background. At the same time, these recipes are an irrefutable part of the Maryland food culture that my blog uneasily celebrates. The celebrated Black Caterer John R. Young had worked at the Elkridge Hunt Club. Perhaps he created or contributed to these recipes.
It’s a lot to think about when writing about a broiled tomato and some corn cakes, but I suppose that’s what Old Line Plate is all about.
Recipes:
Corn Cakes
“Three cups of cornmeal, one heaping tablespoonful of brown sugar, or two tablespoonsful of molasses, two eggs, one teaspoon salt, one-quarter cup of melted butter, three cups of milk. Have paste about as thick as thick cream. Have a very hot griddle, do not put in all the milk at first as all may not be needed.”
Recipe from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry In Maryland,” Frederick Philip Stieff, 1932
Broiled Tomatoes A La Elkridge
“Butter with melted butter a flat Pyrex dish. Sugar it well with granulated sugar. Cut in half, firm tomatoes, and pepper, salt and flour. Fry them until just brown in a hot frying pan. Take off and put tomatoes into the buttered and sugared Pyrex dish and sprinkle over with more sugar, then run them into a very hot oven for a few seconds. Serve immediately in Pyrex dish.”
Recipe from “Wine and Dine with the Lake Roland Garden Club,” The Lake Roland Garden Club, 1935
