Shad Roe Bánh Mì..

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Around this weekend every year since 2012, I host a “Maryland Spring Breakfast” where some friends and I enjoy shad roe while it’s in season and (for me at least) get into the spring spirit. Winter has been lingering here but it feels like it “broke” this past week and we’re all ready to swap coats for jackets, boots for shoes, and hot coffee for iced.

Despite my obsession with Maryland food, one of my favorite cookbook authors specializes in Vietnamese food. Through her writing and videos, Andrea Nguyen has helped me along as a cook, providing skills, ideas and ingredients that carry with me when I cook Maryland food. 

When she authored a book that was dedicated to banh mi this past year I pre-ordered it, eagerly awaited it and used it as inspiration for delicious sandwich creation all summer long.

As she is known to fearlessly experiment with American and Vietnamese food herself, I felt inspired to try a little fusing. After three years of cooking shad roe with bacon I feel ready to branch out, and besides that a few of my friends don’t eat meat.

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Shad roe has a love-it-or-hate-it funk to it that gave me the idea to use it as a liver pâté substitute. I simmered minced shallot, five-spice powder, fish sauce and the roe in a generous amount of butter. I then broke up the roe sacs and added cognac and mixed it all up. I stored it lined with bay leaves overnight. I had hoped that the extra butter would make it a little more spreadable but it turned out a little dry and crumbly.

As I’d made other fillings and condiments from her book, the roe is seen here with edamame pâté (along with some homemade spicy sesame-lime mayo & some Maggi).

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“The Banh Mi Handbook“ features a recipe for enhancing canned sardines that come in tomato sauce. I bought a can of tomato sauce and used this basic concept for the shad. Shad is a terribly bony fish but when you steam shad for five hours you can eat the bones. So I did that to make them sandwich ready. I added the can of tomato sauce during the last hour. That was the day before. Day of, I sauteed some shallots, added the pan liquid and then warmed up the shad in that liquid. The result was a good but not overpowering sandwich filler. It could have been more flavorful or perhaps some Vietnamese sausage would make a nice addition. We had some fried tofu and eggplant options as well. (I stuck with a pescetarian friendly menu.)

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Along with the usual suspects: cucumber, jalapeños, do chua, sriracha, cilantro.. we had some very tasty little sandwiches.

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I made a version of Maryland White Potato Pie using condensed milk, honey, seasoned with citrus & nutmeg and using some extra egg whites leftover from the mayonnaise, beaten and folded in. The result was perhaps the most moist version of this pie I have made.

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That stray piece of cilantro is driving me nuts but I wasn’t focused on food styling today, I was focused on delicious food, making traditions, and the company of friends.

Interview: Pam Williams

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I met Pam Williams at a hearth cooking demonstration at the Hays House and enjoyed the rare chance to interact with a lively group of culinary history enthusiasts. I knew I wanted to reach out to her to be the first of what I hope will be a series of little interviews with various historians, authors, and chefs involved in preserving and celebrating Maryland’s culinary traditions.

In what she describes as a “mid-life crisis sort of move”, Pam Williams took a job with a historical tour company in Annapolis. “It opened so many doors that I never knew I’d love to look in so much.” In 1996, after 12 years there, she took a part-time job with the City of Bowie Historic Properties Division as a Museum Assistant. From there she eventually moved on to Assistant Director, and Director. “I feel so very lucky, privileged, fortunate, whatever to be in the position I hold. I love my job! (Except at budget preparation time!!!!)”

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Which came first, your interest in cooking or your interest in history?

I think I’d have to say my interest in cooking came first. I’m from a large family, the eldest, and somehow I always knew how to cook something. My mother was an “intuitive cook,” making things that were really high level cuisine, and never realizing what she was doing. She was always my cooking inspiration. As a consequence of my historical employment, I got into reenacting. After being the chef de camp for a bit, I decided we needed to have some historical food in camp. It grew from there.

Can you tell me about some of the places you do or have done your hearth cooking demonstrations?

Belair Mansion, Hayes House, Smallwood’s Retreat, Jerusalem Mill…too many to recall!

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What, if anything, do you think we stand to gain from studying the history of food and cooking?

Food is a common denominator. We all have to eat. Our ancestors had to eat. The quote below sums it all up nicely.

“You could argue that cooking is the activity that most defines us as humans. Dolphins have a language; crows can create tools. But only humans can cook. By cooking, we transform the mundane into something sacred. And then we share it with others. Food is the most shareable currency we have. You probably don’t pass out money to your friends, but you can pass the paella. But first you have to know how to make it.“

– Jim Sollisch’ New York Times,Sept. 4, 2013

Food teaches us where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how basically, people are the same over time…it’s an incredible connection to the past.

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Has practice in reenactment and historical cooking methods changed the way you cook for yourself in every day life?

Actually, yes! I’ve learned to use spices in different ways, I’ve learned about the vast number of puddings, both sweet and savory, baked and boiled, and I make them at home. I make 18th century items for “home consumption,” as well as camp food.

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At the Hays House you were working from Mary Randolph’s cookbook – are there any others you like to use and why?

Mrs. Randolph is a go-to for many of us. But there are many that we use, many that are available on line. Hannah Glasse, in all her prints and reprints over the 18th and early 19th century, is a sort of bible. John Nott. Eliza Smith. Harriet Horry Pinkney. While I don’t own a real live antique 18th century cookbook, I probably have 25 reproduction ones.

What comes to mind when you think of Maryland food?

MARYLAND Stuffed ham (because there are other kinds.) Without a doubt! My roots are in St. Mary’s County! Crabcakes/oysters/rockfish/fried chicken. Kale (the “national vegetable of Southern Maryland”!) I grew up in the southern quarter of the state – Prince George’s County, and those transplant north from St. Mary’s and Charles! I grew up with them. But, in general, Maryland has a wonderful diversity of foodways…German, Pennsylvania Dutch influence, Jewish, Italian…you name it. We have a truly multicultural menu in Maryland.

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Do you have any future plans, goals or projects in mind with your work or upcoming appearances/events?

The Smallwood Foodways Guild cooks every third Sunday at Smallwood’s Retreat in Smallwood State Park in Marbury, below La Plata. I’ll be, along with some friends, cooking at the Market Fair at the Banneker Museum in Ellicott City in June. Those are the big ones…have spider/trivet, will travel!!!

All photos Kara Mae @ Hays House 2014.

Sweet Potato Croquettes, Miss Eliza Thomas

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I enjoy discussing and learning about history, as well as cooking, but since I am not an actual expert at either I feel like these blog entries are like.. enjoyable term papers. As though someone went to college and liked it. That someone is ME.. So let me get my “scientific method” of historical food blog entries together and enjoy this educational experience. Before your very eyes…

~~~~ {artistic visual segue}~~~~

Introduction: Croquettes appear in many forms throughout my various sources. I had two sweet potatoes left over from something else and thought I’d give this recipe a try. It also gave me an opportunity to use my neglected Kitchenaid grinder.

So… Fun* facts… the Wikipedia page for croquettes is unexpectedly** substantial and full of photos of delicious** fried things.

Unwelcome personal anecdote… these sweet potato croquettes reminded me of the “sweet potato sticks” that they used to sell at the Fireman’s Carnival in Chincoteague, VA. I love sweet potatoes and I always loved this annual treat – warm creamy center in a crispy, greasy** fried exterior.

Cooking details… My one regret is following this recipe too closely and adding the full called-for amount of salt. Too salty. Cooks at home: salt to taste! Always! But I keep making this mistake.

Historical background, the “meat” of ‘Old Line Plate’.. as for Miss Eliza Thomas, I could only find some facts indicating she is an heiress, inheriting lands from her husband’s grandmother, and maybe other family members? Research is complicated by the fact that several of her relatives share her name. She lived in Baltimore but inherited lands on the Patuxent, known as “Trent Hall,” here lamented to be in a state of neglect along with its super cool tombs.

“Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware” by John Martin Hammond asserts that she also inherited another estate on the Patuxent known as Cremona: “Among the charming homes in Saint Mary’s County Maryland of which an extended story has not been told… another Key house Cremona which has been inherited by Miss Eliza Thomas of Baltimore”

“Cremona Farm: Jewel of the Patuxent River” by Jamie Haydel

Outside of the above article I only found this photo of the interior, from the Baltimore Sun.

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Recipe: 

  • 2 cups cooked peeled sweet potato
  • 1 Tablespoon butter
  • Salt to taste
  • 1 Tablespoon sugar
  • ½ teaspoon of white pepper
  • 1 egg
  • breadcrumbs
  • fat

Run sweet potato through a vegetable mill or grinder. Add butter, salt, sugar and white pepper; mix thoroughly. Form into cylinders, dip in egg, then in bread crumbs and fry in smoking hot fat.

Recipe adapted from Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland 

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*the actual definition of fun is subjective

**TO ME

Source: Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland

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I could dedicate this entire blog to cooking from this book and researching the people in it. At times I may be appear to be doing so.

‘Frederick Philip Stieff, son of the piano-making Baltimore family, was a celebrated amateur chef and a sort of menu historian. He made a personal crusade of collecting—mainly using hand-written family papers and the memories of aged cooks—old Maryland recipes. This volume, he declares in his foreword, offers merely “a generalization, a diversification of the receipts [as he calls them] which have for decades contributed to the gastronomic supremacy of Maryland.”’ – JHU Press

I actually can’t find as much information as I’d like about Stieff, other than his lineage, the fact that he is buried in Greenmount (a visit is in order), and that he has written at least one possibly not food-related book.

Upon his death in 1964 he donated rare books covering “a wide range of cookery including recipe books, the provisioning of households, the history of beer, wine, and other beverages as well as histories of inns and taverns” to the Pratt Library.

Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland seems to be inspired by the same goals as my own interest in Maryland food. Yes there are crabcakes, but there are also biscuits, puddings, fried chicken, bear steaks from Western Maryland, stuffed hams and more hams, and a cursory archival of historic menus.

There are also celebrations of Maryland’s many historic homes, hunt clubs, railroad dining service, and hotel restaurants.

It must be noted, as the forward in my Hopkins Press 1997 edition states:  ‘while the book’s tie to the past is its strong point, that link also contributes to its weakness. The patrician tone, found both in Stieff’s writing and in the illustrations by Edwin Tunis, can be jarring. Ladies are lovely examples of “vivacious femininity.” Servants, housewives, and farmers are characterized as not too bright and are the object of many jokes. In reissuing this sixty-five-year-old-work, the Johns Hopkins Press eliminated the illustrations it considered racist. The past is not always pretty.’

The book primarily deals with the receipts of Marylanders of notable lineage, or those residing in large estates. I’m often left wondering about the enslaved people and servants behind this cooking.

Nonetheless, the book is like a gateway into Maryland culinary history, a model for enthusiasm and self-celebration, and an all-around fascinating read.

Invoice, Chas M Stieff Manufacturer of Grand & Upright Pianos

Celery Soup, Mrs. J. Alexis Shriver

This is a recipe for a cold and rainy day when you have nothing better to do but force the most notoriously fibrous of vegetables through a sieve. You will then mix it with cream and salty stock and annihilate that whole negative calorie thing that celery is famous for.

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There was a time before celery was the vegetable of misery, and it made its way into pot pies, chicken salads, and in this case into stock which, in a fiber-free double-whammy, goes back into this soup containing more celery. Well this was sort of a pain in the @%$ to make. Tasty but I’m not sure if it was worth the effort. If I had a more sturdy strainer maybe I’d reconsider. I also would have made this with more celery. Mrs. Shriver is very vague about the amount of celery to use despite being very particular about other things. For instance, a double-boiler was called for. I ignored this – double-boilers were often necessary for hearth cooking but hardly so on my gas range.Sadly I did not find much information on Mrs. Shriver. Instead, I read all about her husband, as is often the case with the misseses of “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland.”

James Alexis Shriver was a passionate historian. We apparently have him to thank for a lot of the first Maryland historical markets, including many of the “George Washington ___ here” variety.

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J. Alexis Shriver installing the ‘John Brown’ marker in 1938

“James Alexis Shriver was born in 1872. A Baltimore resident during his early years, Shriver moved to near Joppa in Harford County after graduating from Cornell in the early 1890’s. Born of a wealthy and well-known Maryland family… Just after the turn of the century, Shriver became very active in the Harford County Historical Society…. He caused a number of cast iron road markers to be raised along the highways and byways of the state. Most were concerning with Washington’s well-documented journeys, and all were unveiled with as much ceremony as could be gotten from the situation.” – MDHS

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Recipe:

  • celery
  • 1 pint chicken or veal stock
  • I Tb butter
  • 2 Tb flour
  • black pepper
  • salt
  • 1 Cup cream

Boil celery until soft, then press through a sieve. Discard the fiber. In a pot over medium heat, add the celery to the stock. Rub a tablespoonful of butter into two tablespoonfuls of flour, and add to soup to thicken. Season with pepper and salt, and strain again so the soup will be perfectly smooth. Return to low heat and add cream.

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Recipe adapted from Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland

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