The Wikipedia entry for “Chess pie” offers up several possible explanations for the name – the pie is named for a piece of furniture called a pie chest, or for the town of Chester, England. Some theories are just silly. “It’s jes’ pie.” Okay… whatever.
The likely explanation is that “chess pie” evolved from recipes like this recipe for “cheese cakes” and that the “cheese” morphed into “chess,” possibly due to the confusing lack of cheese in the filling.
These are not quite like the “cheese cakes” Elizabeth Ellicott Lea included in her 1845 cookbook. Lea’s cheesecakes are made from curd and combined with pulverized almonds and flavorings. This recipe, on the other hand, contains no actual cheese and very little dairy- but it is easy to see the similarity. The basic formula was very popular in British cookbooks at the time.
Many “cheese cake” recipes contain pulverized almonds. Some recipes, such as the one in Hannah Glasse’s 1786 “The Art of Cookery,” include the peel of the lemon, cooked and blended into the custard. Others present the pie filling as a preserved product that you can keep in a jar for a year before baking into a pie. A second recipe included in Glasse’s book appears to be a direct antecedent to Mrs. Schley’s recipe – a very tasty recipe, I might add.
Part of what remains of Conococheague Manor Manor, the Ringgold estate in Washington County. Maryland Historical Trust
Since Ann Ringgold Schley died in 1870, it is likely that her recipe book was written well before then. That would mean that her recipe for these lemon cheese cakes predates the identical recipe printed in “Queen of the Kitchen” (M. L. Tyson, 1870) and subsequently in “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” (Mrs. B. C. Howard, 1873). This wouldn’t be far-fetched. One of Ann’s daughters married William Key Howard, who was Mary Lloyd Tyson’s half-brother, and Mrs. B. C. Howard’s nephew.
Ann Cadawalader Ringgold was born in 1801 to a very prominent Maryland family. Her grandfather John Cadwalader had been a general in the Revolutionary War. A biography of her brother Samuel, who was 5 years her elder, describes the era of their childhoods as one in which “the scenes of [the Revolution] were yet too fresh in the memory, not to become an almost constant topic of conversation” “It still occupied men’s thoughts, and gave a coloring to their actions; it still found its way into the nursery.”
Ihe death of Ann’s brother, Major Samuel Ringgold, in the Battle of Palo Alto, illustration by Edward Williams Clay, loc.gov
Samuel became a major in the United States army who was remembered for innovating saddle and artillery techniques that earned him the unofficial title of “Father of Modern Artillery.” He died in the Mexican–American War. A younger brother, Cadawalader Ringgold, served in the Navy, and as a Union captain during the Civil War.
Despite the Union affiliation of Cadawalader (and of yet another Ringgold brother), the family enslaved many people at their Washington County farm, Conococheague Manor*. The Ringgolds’ father Samuel was a heavy drinker and gambler who apparently lost the family fortune and left them “destitute.”
Ann married a lawyer, William Ludwig Schley, in 1824 and it seems to have worked out alright, at least financially. When Schley died in 1872 he left behind wines said to be “perhaps the choicest stock of Old Wines in Baltimore,” including vintages dating back as far as 1803.
Detail of the Ann Cadwalader Ringgold Schley recipe book from the Cowan’s Auctions page
The Ann Cadwalader Ringgold Cookbook is one of the newer acquisitions at the Maryland Historical Society. Many of the recipes that Ann collected are from her social circle: a “Mrs. Hammond,” “Mrs. Caroll,” “Mrs. Potts.” The selections are typical: an old family recipe for gingerbread, jumbles, pickles, and a few household hints.
The front page of the book has cute illustrations of a book and a turkey with the note “Receipt Book of Mrs. Schley.” The inside cover says “Fish Balls! Don’t eat ’em.” I take this to mean that Ann was not fond of coddies. More for me I guess.
Recipe:
“Take two large lemons, grate off the yellow peel of both, take the juice of one & add to it 1/2 lb of butter melted, 1/2 lb of loaf sugar, the yolks of 12 eggs, 8 whites well beaten, 4 spoonsfull of cream. Mix all well together & set it over the fire stirring until it is thick_ Then take it off & when cold fill your patty pans little better than half full – a thin puff paste over your pans. Bake them in a quick oven half an hour. “
Recipe from the Ann Cadwalader Ringgold Schley cookbook c. 1834, Maryland Historical Society Special Collections MS 3219
* I didn’t find information on the numbers of people they enslaved or any obvious kitchen-connection to the handful of servants on the Schley’s census documents. I welcome further information.