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Gross’ Coate Stewed Mushrooms

ByKara
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My uncle found a gigantic lion’s mane mushroom and gave me a piece. It was slightly browning, and compounded with the fact that these mushrooms are not exactly beauty queens, the photos are not appetizing. You’ve been warned – scroll down at your own risk.

This recipe was contributed to Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland by Mrs. Charles H. Tilghman of Gross’ Coate. The recipe includes a peculiar instruction:

“Cook a silver spoon in [the mushrooms]. If the spoon becomes black [they] must not be eaten.“

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Gross’ Coate, Maryland Historical Trust

I thought I should heed this advice, considering the sad state of my
mushroom. I used a necklace from my jewelry-making days, as I am not in
possession of any silver spoon. The silver remained untarnished, thank
goodness. I later looked into this and found that this advice is a
completely bogus way to detect poisonous mushrooms. Lucky for me, lion’s manes don’t really have a poisonous counterpart.

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Gross’ Coate is a historical estate on the Wye River in Talbot County. Built in 1760, the property remained in the Tilghman family until 1983.

The tract of land had been patented by Roger Gross in 1658. Through a sale to Henrietta Maria Lloyd, the widow of Philemon Lloyd, and a subsequent marriage of her daughter, the Tilghman family ownership of Gross’ Coate began.

With additions spanning through 1914, the house once boasted a dairy, a meat house, large kitchen wing, and a new dining room that was built in 1815.

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Gross’ Coate outbuilding, Maryland Historical Trust

In Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland, Frederick Phillip Stieff wrote:

“Situated overlooking the beautiful Wye River it requires but little to imagine oneself on the banks of the Thames, excepting that there is not the turbulent river life of the latter although in the humble opinion of the writer far more beauty.”

Stieff may be downplaying the turbulence just a tad.

In 1790, famed American painter and recent widower Charles Wilson Peale paid a visit to Gross’ Coate to paint the Tilghman family, then under the charge of Richard Tilghman. It seems that Peale fell in love with Richard’s sister Mary (aka Molly). Richard forbade such a marriage and locked Molly away.

Peale resorted to taking laudanum to help himself sleep during this stressful ordeal, to no avail. Some say that he spitefully painted a scowl upon Richard’s face in his portrait of the man. As for Molly, she later went on to marry Edward Roberts, allegedly  the “scapegrace of the county.”  According to “The Big Book of Maryland Ghost Stories,” scapegrace means LOSER.

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Molly Tilghman, & ole scowl-face Richard Tilghman, MDHS Museum Dept. 1973.13.3 & 1973.13.2

As for recipe contributor Mrs. Charles H. Tilghman, wife of Robert’s great-grandson, I couldn’t find out much about her except newspaper ads revealing that she’d lost a cow, was selling wheat, and an announcement forbidding trespassing on her property. Because everyone checks the classifieds before trespassing…

I had some extra cheddar-cheese pie crust, so I baked that into little crusts and put the mushrooms in there. Along with those raw carrots [seen in photos], which I did indeed eat, it made a nice lunch.

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Recipe:

  • ½ cup mushrooms
  • 1.5 tb butter
  • ½ tb or less white flour
  • black pepper
  • salt, ½ tsp

Peel & wash mushroom(s).  Heat butter in a skillet or pot, on medium-low heat. Add mushrooms plus dusts of white flour. Season with black pepper and salt. Stir  to prevent burning until water from mushrooms begins to collect. Cook for 45 minutes or until tender.

Recipe adapted from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”

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