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 first and foremost, and a Marylander by chance. But thrift as an ethos suits me well, and more and more I’ve come to trust Lea with what to do with seasonal ingredients and simple comforts, like home-baked bread.
I recently chose her recipe for “French Rolls” to make some grilled sandwiches with.
“Patapsco Superlative Flour” (Orange Grove Flour Mill) 1856-1905
I’m no bread expert, so I’m not sure what makes these rolls “French.” A recipe in the Maryland Gazette in 1831 -14 years before Lea’s book- bears little resemblance to Lea’s method.
Lea offers ample general advice on baking bread, “the most important article of food” by her estimation.
“It is significant to note that within the context of the broader regional culture in which Elizabeth Lea lived, there was a large class of poor whites and blacks who depended upon hearth baking [in a dutch oven] as their sole source of bread. It is interesting that Lea’s recipe took this into account, because very few period cookbooks, American or British, devote much space to it. “Baking in dirt,” as some Welsh cooks characterize it (the pot is covered with ashes), was generally considered primitive by the 1840s and an unappetizing way to go about the business of bread baking, regardless of the delightful ‘hearthy’ flavor.” – William Woys Weaver, “A Quaker Woman’s Cookbook: The “Domestic Cookery” of Elizabeth Ellicott Lea”
Lea’s tips on rising, testing stove heat, using a dutch oven or a brick oven, etc. may be somewhat useful to a hearth cook but I can’t say for sure what her yeast would’ve been like. The 1831 recipe in the Gazette suggested ‘distillers yeast’ or ‘ale yeast’, brewing being just as common an activity as baking. Lea has advice on making the yeast from hops, corn flour, potatoes, or milk. Hop yeast is declared best.
I also can’t claim to know what her flour would have been like. Let’s be real here – Maryland is corn country. Although once home to many mills, the types of wheat that grow well in Maryland are not what we would pass off as bread flour today. According to Lynne Hoot from The Maryland Grain Producers Association, “Maryland grows soft red winter wheat which is not a good bread flour, it is used more for cookies, pretzels and pastry.”
Frederick Town Herald 1832
This may have differed slightly in the past, as flour had not been industrialized to the uniform consistency we now know.
“Millers produced a variety of flours depending upon the moisture in the grain, its quality, starch and gluten content, and the fineness of the grinding. Typically the miller blended various types of wheat to produce a particular product. Mills yielded several grades of flour. The best or most pure was the pastry white, followed by white, then seconds, thirds, and middlings. The bran, which was the husk of the grain, and the pollard, or the part of the wheat next to the husk, were discarded or fed to animals.“ – Tillers of the Soil: A History of Agriculture in Mid-Maryland, Paula S. Reed, 2011
Maryland was home to dozens of grist mills, and millers created their own blends that varied from mill to mill.
Milling regions, “A Guide to Patapsco Valley Mill Sites”
James Walter Peirce 2004. Each section hosted 5-10 mills. About a fifth were grist mills.
Before transportation brought in large-scale competition from the midwest, Maryland’s rivers were dotted with mills, including Elizabeth Lea’s family’s mill. Many ruins remain along the banks of the Patapsco, or have been reduced to the innumerable algae-covered bricks that can be found in the riverbed.
“Most of our wheat for harvest is double cropped with soybeans so we get 3 crops in 2 years. Corn, winter wheat, short season soybeans, a cover crop and then year 2, back to corn. Our production acreage is about 250,000 acres and about 18 million bushels. We grow a lot more wheat as a cover crop but that is not harvested, it is simply used for environmental protection to take up any remaining nutrients left from the previous crop (and mineralized from crop residue left on the field), and to protect the soil from erosion.”
Lynne Hoot from The Maryland Grain Producers Association
Curious how the most uncompromising of local-food evangelists deal with this, I reached out to Woodberry Kitchen. Much like in Lea’s time, the bakers compensate with blends that vary based on what is available.
“We are indeed using quite a bit of local flour, thanks to the incredible work of a few farmers. Heinz Thomet at Next Step Produce in Charles County, MD is growing a number of varieties of wheat, as well as barley, rye, sorghum, buckwheat, and rice. He has a German made Haussler 20” stone mill that he uses to mill flour for us. Omar Beiler in Kinzer, PA is the other significant source of flour for us. He grows heritage varieties of wheat, as well as emmer, einkorn, and some heritage varieties of corn. We get our corn products from him, as well as our whole wheat flour and a “T-85” or high extraction flour. He has an Austrian made Ostiroller 20″ stone mill. Our last local source is Small Valley Milling; they specialize in spelt and we get our whole and white spelt flours from them.” – Russell Trimmer, bread baker at Woodberry Kitchen
Luckily for the buying public, their spelt bread is -bafflingly- not gross.
Maryland newspaper ad, 1944
As anyone who bakes bread is aware, this type of baking requires a level of intuition that is hard to comprehend in the age of industrialized flour. But according to some, we have been paying a price for consistency.
“Before the advent of industrial agriculture, Americans enjoyed a wide range of regional flours milled from equally diverse wheats, which in turn could be used to make breads that were astonishingly flavorful and nutritious. For nearly a century, however, America has grown wheat tailored to an industrial system designed to produce nutrient-poor flour and insipid, spongy breads soaked in preservatives. For the sake of profit and expediency, we forfeited pleasure and health” – Ferris Jabr, “Bread Is Broken” New York Times 2015
Lea advises that “coarse brown flour or middlings makes very sweet light bread, by putting in scalded corn meal, say, to two loaves, half a pint, and is also good to use for breakfast made as buckwheat cakes…” For some recipes she recommends saleratus, a baking-soda precursor.
Her french rolls recipe (as I attempted it) turned out lovely, and took relatively little effort. Most importantly, it helped us get further acquainted when she asserted “there is nothing in any department of cooking that gives more satisfaction to a young housekeeper than to have accomplished what is called good baking.”
Recipe:
“To one quart of sweet milk, boiled and cooled, half a pound of butter, half a tea-cup of yeast, a little salt, and flour enough to make a soft dough; beat up the milk, butter and yeast in the middle of the flour; let it stand till light, in a warm place; then work it up with the whites of two eggs, beaten light; let it rise again, then mould out into long rolls; let them stand on the board or table, to lighten, an hour or two, then grease your pans and bake in an oven or stove.”
Recipe from “Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers” by Elizabeth E. Lea
Adaptation:
- 1 pint milk, scalded and cooled to 110°
- 4 oz butter, melted
- pinch of salt
- 3 tsp yeast
- ~ 5 to 6 cups of flour? I don’t know honestly
- 1 egg white, beaten
Mix yeast with a small amount of the milk and let sit until creamy and bubbly. Combine remaining milk, butter, yeast, salt and about half the flour and stir until ingredients are moistened. Add more flour and continue stirring until dough forms a rubbery ball that is sticky but not wet – pulls away from the bowl like gum. If using a mixer, start with the beater, switch to the hook to add flour and watch for the dough to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
Form into a ball, leave covered in a greased bowl until doubled – about 1 hour in summer temperatures.
Work the egg whites into the dough as you knead it down again, kneading for a few minutes. Return to the bowl for a second rise.
Remove from bowl and beat down into a ball – divide into half, then quarters, etc. until you have the desired number and size of rolls or loaves.
Bake at 350° until it is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped. I have no idea how long that is. I have stopped timing my baking because I am a champ I guess. Don’t worry, it’ll backfire.
