H. Franklyn Hall’s “Crab Cakes”

“Men become cooks because they have a love for the calling,” wrote Harry Franklyn Hall in “Good Housekeeping” in 1903. The article he wrote described the passion and career progression of men (specifically) in the food industry and the stress one must endure as he gains skills and experience to become “an eighth-degree cook.” Despite the annoying implication that only men can “excel in the art of cooking” and “reach its loftiest height,” the article details the many techniques Hall personally mastered in the rise from dishwasher to famed chef. Together with the listing of his places of employment in his 1901 book “300 Ways to Cook and Serve Shellfish,” it is closest thing we have to a career autobiography of Hall.

Hall was one of the famed Black caterers working in posh hotels at the turn of the 20th century. Although Philadelphia had a hotel and seafood culture to rival Baltimore’s, it doesn’t appear to have been as much a point of pride for the city and its press. At least in the digitized documents I have access to, H. Franklyn Hall’s name isn’t mentioned in the papers as much as his Baltimore contemporaries like John R. Young.

Hall was born in D.C. on December 22, 1853. Both of his parents were born in Maryland. In 1872 he married Georgia Brown, also from D.C. In 1900, they were living in Philadelphia, where he was working as a chef. In 1910, he is listed as a restaurant “proprietor.” Georgia died in 1927, and in 1930, Hall was lodging with a family at 5609 Wyalusing Avenue with no occupation listed. He died of an aneurism on December 14th, 1935. His address at the time was 2048 Pemberton St. The informant on his death certificate was a Madelyn P. McPherson of New York City.

Unfortunately, Hall’s financial woes are one of the few remnants of his life that ended up documented. In “300 Ways to Cook and Serve Shellfish,” he made pleas for money. His name sometimes appeared in newspapers in connection with his money troubles.

Still, he must have had some degree of celebrity in his lifetime. His most known chef position was at the Boothby Hotel, which seems to have been highly regarded. Hall’s claim in his book’s preface that Boothby had “the generally acknowledged largest and finest oyster and shell fish department in the world” was at least somewhat backed up by the press, which frequently mentioned the business and its owners’ other ventures. Newspapers in Accomac County Virginia also frequently mentioned employees of the Boothby. One of the hotel managers, D.J. Whealton, owned a huge oyster bed in Chincoteague.

In 1904, Hall used his prestige to promote a kitchen appliance that he invented “to save labor in hotels, hospitals and restaurants.” Advertisements show a variety of attachments for whipping eggs, mashing potatoes, and sifting flour.

As far as I can tell, the “Hall Kitchen King,” as it was known, was manufactured into the 1920s. It is possible that Hall sold or lost the rights to his machine as his name is not mentioned in trade publications after 1904. In the 1910 “Philadelphia Colored Directory” he took out an ad naming himself as the inventor of the device, called “the greatest invention of the age.”

“300 Ways to Cook and Serve Shellfish” was successful enough that Hall wrote another book, “How to Make and Serve 100 Choice Broths and Soups” in 1903. That book has unfortunately not made it into the public domain yet although there are copies in library collections.

I hope to access the soup book one day and see if Hall shared any more information about his career (or even his finances.)

Maryland is well represented in “300 Ways to Cook and Serve Shellfish” which contains well over a dozen named for Maryland or Baltimore. The recipe for “Lobster Claws Á La Maryland” may be inspired by Maryland Fried Chicken. The claws are battered and fried, served with bacon, a cream sauce, and “fried diamond or crescent shaped hominy” fritters.

Hall included recipes for soft shell crab sandwiches served essentially as they’re eaten today – on white bread with tartar sauce and lettuce. Another very contemporary-seeming sandwich recipe calls for thinly sliced chicken breast, served with crab meat and lettuce on bread.

The instructions on picking hard crabs is even more opaque than the recipes are:

“After the crab has thoroughly cooled simply cut the body in half and crack the claws, pick out all of the firm white meat and fat; throw everything else away.“

One of the unique and notable things about “300 Ways to Cook and Serve Shellfish” is that it contains an entire section on Oyster Crabs, with sixteen recipes. I have recipes in my collection that mention oyster crabs, which were sometimes served atop soup, but they rarely merit more than a mention. With the high volume of oysters sold at Boothby, Hall was apparently able to serve them in salads, timbales, on toasts, and in omelets with “twenty-five to forty live oyster crabs for every portion.” The tiny crabs within the omelet were to be boiled and served in a cream sauce, on a plate garnished with additional oyster crabs and chopped parsley. It must have been quite a presentation.

I mentioned Hall’s Crab Cake recipe in my History of Crab Cakes post. This recipe is essentially a seafood pancake made with crab.

There are recipes for crab cakes as we now know them that pre-date Hall’s book, but there is no reason that Hall would be reading cookbooks aimed at housewives. Hall’s own book, though ostensibly directed at “the lady of the house”, is arranged similarly to Delmonico chef Charles Ranhofer‘s epic 1893 cookbook, “The Epicurean” which had a chef audience in mind. Many of the recipes reference a cascade of other recipes in the book, leaving the reader flipping around through the book to follow the steps in order.

H. Fryankln Hall is another Black chef whose contribution to our dining culture should be recognized. His “Crab Cakes” bear too little similarity to modern crab cakes to bother getting riled up about authenticity. They stand on their own merit. Despite Hall’s Philadelphia citizenship, paired with some eggs and seasonal vegetables this felt like a very Maryland breakfast.

Recipe:

“Make a stiff, rich cake, batter thin, mix in enough crab meat to make stiff. Cook on grid- iron or in a smooth bottom fry pan same as griddle or pan cakes; serve with drawn butter for breakfast or lunch.”