Moonshines, Rosamond Beirne

This recipe for “Moonshines” is fairly mysterious. Outside of the Hammond-Harwood House cookbook, I couldn’t find an origin for it. What is most mysterious of all is why anyone would make their own crackers. Even the recipe in Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen (1873) entitled “Crackers for Tea or Lunch” goes like this:

See that? Just buy the damn crackers. But I was going to a pimiento cheese recipe party and I figured “why not,” so I made these sesame crackers.

The recipe, which also appears in the Southern Heritage Cookbook Library as “Maryland Moonshine Crackers,” was contributed to Maryland’s Way by Mrs. F. F. Beirne of Baltimore.

Baltimore Sun, October 1969

The name Francis F. Beirne (1891-1972) is most associated with his history of Baltimore, “The Amiable Baltimoreans,” among some other local history books and a humor column in the Evening Sun.

Mrs. Beirne was a historian in her own right, as it turns out. Born Rosamond Harding Randall in 1894 to a postmaster/lawyer, Randall attended Bryn Mawr (which she later wrote a history of.) She served on the Mt. Vernon (VA) Ladies Association board of regents for ten years, and co-authored a biography of Samuel Chase. (The book was published after her death.)

Rosamond also wrote history columns for the Baltimore Sun, including a three-part history of Baltimore City’s street names in 1914. This column introduced me to the fact that Baltimore once had a street named “Turtle Soup Alley.”

The Bryn Mawr history, “Let’s Pick the Daisies” has a preface in memory of Rosamond Randall Beirne, recalling her “bright eyes and handsome pompadour” during her days as a student there. “Rosamond’s human interests were wide,” wrote Millicent McIntosh, “as was her capacity for friendship with people of all ages.”

Rosamond was actually at a meeting of the Mount Vernon Association when she died in 1969. Walker Lewis wrote to the Baltimore Sun to eulogize Mrs. Beirne as a talented author and historian whose “mere presence made one feel more comfortable.” Baltimore, he wrote, had lost “one of its truly great ladies.”

Recipe:

• 1 egg
• 2 Tablespoons lard
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• .25 Cup milk
• 2 Cups flour
• .5 Teaspoon baking powder
• .5 Teaspoons salt
• 1 egg white
• sesame seeds

Beat egg until light; melt shortening and add to milk. Sift flour with baking powder and salt, and add to egg alternately with milk and shortening. Work well and chill dough. Break off a small amount of dough at a time and roll thin as your finger nail. Sprinkle with a little dry flour as you work which will make them easier to handle and crisp. Cut out with biscuit cutter, brush with unbeaten egg white and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake quickly in a 400° oven from 8 to 10 minutes, watching carefully. Serve with soup or sherry.

Recipe from “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cook Book