Maryland cooking (like that of many places that were/are dining destinations), has two sides to it. Front and center we have the legacy represented by the hotels and caterers – the terrapin, the deviled crab, the fine wines from around the world straight from the Port of Baltimore. On the back end are the legions of home cooks who worked with limited resources but far more flexibility to put white potato pies, stuffed ham, and scrapple on the tables of their family and friends – plus a given assortment of heritage foods.
The blurred lines and exchanges between the two are too complex to get into, but one thing is certain: we are blessed with pretty good documentation of the recipes and preferences of the home cooks.
Interestingly, it is the historically limited roles of women that we have to thank for this. Since the end of the 19th century, when women wanted to raise money for a cause, the most popular course of action was to produce a community cookbook. As times changed, so did the cookbooks – incorporating more business and design resources, and recipes from all kinds of cooks.
I don’t have a point of comparison, but either way, Marylanders (mostly women) have produced an astounding number of impressive cookbooks. To stand out among them is a bit of a feat.
The 1983 cookbook “The Chesapeake Collection,” by the Woman’s Club of Denton is one of those standouts. The Woman’s Club was founded in 1919, and had engaged in a range of activities from providing soup & clothing to the needy to securing a nurse for Caroline County in the 1920s. The club also had a hand in the founding of the local volunteer fire department and public library.
The purpose of The Chesapeake Collection was to raise funds to restore the clubs headquarters, an 1883 schoolhouse that was in a pretty dire state of disrepair.
The book, as the many Maryland newspapers that covered it were sure to mention, was “marketed nationally” and published in Tennessee. Although I didn’t find many references to The Chesapeake Collection in digitized newspapers farther away than Ohio, the Maryland papers alone surely generated a lot of interest. The book sold 15,000 copies in its first two printings.
The Chesapeake Collection‘s runaway success allowed the club to seek out another beneficiary in 1984. They settled on the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The logic was that the book had preserved the recipes, and its sales had allowed the Woman’s Club to preserve the schoolhouse. Supporting preservation of the Bay ecosystem was an ideal next step, according to club president Beth Adams.
Successful marketing campaign aside, the Woman’s Club had created a high-quality community cookbook, with original photos, artwork, and a well-curated range of recipes.
In the Easton Star-Democrat, Mary Siemer wrote that some of the recipes were older than the historic schoolhouse that the club was restoring, “so they must be good.” Old Line Plate readers are invited to have a little chuckle at that assumption.
Nonetheless, The Chesapeake Collection is indeed filled with tempting fare.
Among the recipes sourced from people outside of club members are a crabcake recipe from then-Governor Harry Hughes, who passed away on March 13th, 2019. There’s a chicken recipe from Frank Perdue. Several restaurants shared recipes, including the Tidewater Inn’s crab imperial and ‘Oysters A La Gino’ from the Robert Morris Inn.
Theres a stuffed ham recipe from Roy Dyson, who won a seat in congress after Robert Bauman’s scandal. (Website note: The word ‘scandal’ there links to a related recipe post, believe it or not.)
One of the most notable sections of the book, aside of course from the seafood recipes, is the game section, which contains many recipes for waterfowl alongside muskrat, squirrel pot pie, and more surprisingly, “Choptank Frog Legs.”
The recipe I made, for a corn pone, was contributed by Regina Mueller (1910-1998.)
Mueller was a member of the Woman’s Club’s “bell-ringing committee,” in charge of deciding when and how many times to ring the bell at the old schoolhouse that the club used as a headquarters. In 1983, on the centennial of the building of the schoolhouse, the bell was rung 100 times. In 1987 it was rung to honor the 353rd anniversary of the Ark & the Dove reaching Maryland. The newspapers never mentioned how many times the bell rang on that day, but I am sure the committee settled on an appropriate number of rings.
Recipe:
- 1 Cup flour
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- 1 Teaspoon baking soda
- 3 Tablespoon sugar
- 1 Cup cornmeal
- 3 Tablespoon melted bacon fat
- 2 Cup yogurt
Preheat a skillet or cookie sheet in oven at 400°. Sift together flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda. Stir in corn meal, then yogurt and melted bacon grease. Pour into pan. Bake 35 minutes or until golden on top.
Recipe from “The Chesapeake Collection: A Treasury of Recipes and Memorabilia from Maryland’s Eastern Shore” by the Woman’s Club of Denton
