This is another entry laden with tedious detective work, my unrestrained fanaticism ruining any possibility of ever attracting repeat readers.
I’ll try to keep it brief.
According to “The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle“, 1987, “famed Baltimore hostess, Mrs. B.C. Howard, compiled the earliest charity cookbook published in Maryland, Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen’(Baltimore, 1873).” Certainly, “50 years” is one of the more famous and important of Maryland cookbooks.
A few months ago, in my quest to print-on-demand every Maryland cookbook in the public domain, I found a lesser-known Maryland cookbook entitled “Queen of the Kitchen,” written by a mysterious “Miss Tyson” or “M. L. Tyson” in 1870. The name of course resonated but Tyson is no Paca, Howard or even Pratt – not as unquestionably Maryland upper-crust.
“Queen of the Kitchen” certainly disseminated around Maryland. Some of the recipes in “Maryland’s Way” came from different Marylanders’ personal copies of the book.
When I began to enter the recipes into my database I noticed something – many of the recipes were strikingly similar to recipes in “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen.” Copying recipes into new cookbooks hardly qualified as plagiarism at the time. It was rampant. Still, it is pretty interesting to see the source of so many recipes from Mrs. B.C. Howard’s book!
Howard may have owned a copy of the book, or she may have known Tyson and they both sourced the recipes from common friends or from each-other.
So… who was M. L. Tyson?
Apparently “Queen of the Kitchen” was a cookbook by a Baltimore woman, published to raise money to build an Episcopal church in Oakland Maryland. Kind of random but… ok.
By researching the church I was able to determine that M.L. Tyson was Mary Lloyd Tyson, born in 1843. And she was indeed Maryland upper-crust. Mary Tyson’s mother was none other than Rebecca Ann Key, cousin of Francis Scott Key. Her father, physician and planner Alexander H. Tyson was Rebecca’s second husband. According to accounts, Rebecca Ann Key was a stunning woman.
“What was she, you will ask—she was no Queen or Goddess—she represented
no character in Shakespeare—neither was she attired in any costume as a
princess—she was herself only and as herself dressed in some white
material familiar to you ladies, but unknown to me. She paraded through
those rooms—crowded with all the beauty of this city of beauties—the
acknowledged Queen of the Night—not that she received more attention,
but she elicited the most admiration.” – “Some Account of Mr. and Mrs. Cohen’s Fancy Ball,” MDHS Underbelly blog
It’s agonized me that I could not find her portrait.
Dr. William Howard’s home, Charles and Franklin Street, (loc.gov)
So anyway, Rebecca’s FIRST husband was William Howard. William was Benjamin Howard’s brother. Basically, Mrs. B.C. Howard and M.L. Tyson were related, and certainly knew one-another.
What’s more, Mary Tyson’s half brother, William Key Howard, married a woman named Clara Haxall Randolph in 1860. Clara was Mary Randolph’s niece. How about that!
There’s a few other asides. Pretty much all of the people involved were Confederate sympathizers – William Key served in the war. Here is his picture:
Mary’s younger sister Nannie married an actor named Robert Lee Keeling. He was twenty years younger than her. Future mayor James H. Preston (I made his corn pone) was an usher at their wedding. The marriage quickly soured. Robert Lee Keeling went on to become a celebrated painter of miniature portraits.
When “Queen of the Kitchen” was published, Mary Lloyd Tyson was a single woman of 27. She was likely not the female head of her household as her mother was still alive. (As opposed to Mrs. B.C. Howard who was 72 when her book was published.)
I think the Tyson’s lived here, on the 500 block of Park Avenue (loc.gov)
Mary Tyson became Mrs. George Tucker in 1875. The Tuckers resided in Virginia. Both Rebecca Ann Key and Mary’s sister Nannie spent their final days there, and Mary herself passed away in 1908.
I made Tyson’s macaroons – what would today be called ‘macarons’. This is not one of the recipes that Howard reprinted, although she did use a second macaroon recipe, with slight adjustments. The Tysons lived in Baltimore city, not far from Belvidere at all. Especially considering that M.L. Tyson was not the head of her household at the time of the books publication, the families might have shared receipts.
I don’t have a good way to finish this post but if you’ve made it this far, what does it matter? These cookies were delicious for the record.
