With our food culture fixated on ‘chef as singular genius, driver of innovation and change,’ I’ve come to brag about how I prefer to value the contributions of home cooks. I like to tout and uplift cooking born of tradition and love -and yes- sometimes plain old drudgery. I make a show of respecting these unsung heroes and shunning the professionals.
But it’s never quite that simple, is it?
While a small portion of my recipes hail from named chefs and restaurants, perhaps an even bigger segment hail from a different type of professionals: home economists and dietitians. These cooks – usually women – provided countless recipes to corporate cookbooks and newspapers. They disseminated recipes through cooking classes. They also contributed quite a lot of recipes to community cookbooks.
I often don’t know I’ve chosen the recipe of a home economist until I’ve made the recipe and embarked on my research.
Mrs. Lyman C. Whittaker contributed this recipe for Rock Chowder to the 1976 “Ladies of St. Mary’s Cook Book,” a cookbook put out by the church of the same name on Duke of Gloucester Street in Annapolis. The book subtitle boasts “colonial flavor,” and many of the recipes are for local favorites like crab cakes, and this rockfish chowder. I was surprised that the recipe author was not originally from Maryland.
Mrs. Whittaker was born Gertrude Marie Speck in East Moline, IL on July 11, 1917. The Specks were a very socially prominent family, and young Gertrude received mentions in the paper throughout her youth for birthday parties, music and dance recitals, and Catholic clubs. The family had a cottage on Campbell’s Island in the Mississippi, where Gertrude frequently entertained friends. Honestly, the coverage of Gertrude’s social life in Illinois newspapers at times borders on gratuitous. The the Moline “Dispatch” even mentioned when she came home for the holidays in 1939.
Moline Dispatch, 1943
She was also in the paper for rear-ending a bus full of people in 1937. Luckily no-one was seriously hurt.
After graduating with a food and nutrition degree from St Catherine’s College in St. Paul, Speck worked for the federal government developing school lunch programs under Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration.
In 1943, the “Dispatch” ran an engagement announcement for Gertrude, who intended to wed Sergeant Edwin Brumette from Kentucky. By this point, Gertrude had a Lieutenant ranking in the U.S. Army, where she served as a dietitian, stationed in Fort Knox. The military couple stated their intention to wed “after the war.” For whatever reason, this marriage never happened. (Brumette died in Kentucky in 1971. This is not particularly compelling information but hey I like to put it all out there, whatever I find!)
Gertrude was stationed in the Nurse Corps in England, and it is there that she met Connecticut-born Lyman “Whit” Whittaker, who she married in 1946. The couple settled in the Annapolis area in 1958 and Lyman became the administrator of Anne Arundel Medical Center. Lyman died in 1995.
Gertrude, also known as “Trudy” died in 2013. Her loving obituary lists 4 children and 12 grandchildren, as well as mentioning Trudy’s work with the WPA and the US Army dietetic corps. Trudy’s parents, George and Emma, are buried with her in Hillcrest Cemetery in Annapolis
It’s interesting to think about how dietetics and home economics, as a career for women, affected recipes in ways we may never know. Surely these professions affected the preferences and transcription of recipes when they made their way into community cookbooks.
Of course we can’t know the extent to which Trudy Whittaker’s dietetic experience influenced her recipe contributions to the Ladies of Saint Mary’s Cook Book – a Shrimp and Crab Casserole and this Rockfish Chowder. I don’t think there are any rockfish in the Mississippi, so I doubt this is a family recipe. And the instructions are pretty thorough. My favorite part about this recipe is the end-notes: “It can be strengthened, lengthened when unexpected guests arrive. Add more onions or potatoes, fish or milk. It will feed any amount. As it sits, it mellows!”
Recipe:
- .5 Cup chopped celery and leaves
- 1 sprig parsley, chopped
- .5 Cup chopped onion
- .5 Cup chopped carrot
- .5 bay leaf
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- 1 Quart water
- 2 Cup diced, pared potato
- 3 or 4 Lbs rockfish
- .25 Lb sliced and diced salt pork
- 1 Cup thinly sliced onion (2 large)
- 2 Tablespoon butter
- 2 Tablespoon flour
- 2 (13fl. oz) cans evaporated milk
- 1 Teaspoon salt
- .25 Teaspoon Accent
- 1 dash black pepper
Add first 6 ingredients to water. Bring to boil and simmer 1/2 hour. Add fish. Cover and simmer until fish is done (falls away from bones), about 15 minutes. Remove fish from stock and set aside to cool. Strain sock and save to be used later. Boil potatoes in 1/2 cup water. Simmer until tender. Fry salt pork pieces in large sauce pan. Add sliced onions to fat and saute until golden. Meanwhile, remove skin and bones from fish. Flake fish and add to onions. Add cooked potatoes (drained). In another saucepan, melt butter, add flour and stir. Gradually add milk and cook until thickened. Add strained fish stock (about 3 cups). Add to fish mixture and remove from heat. Season with salt, pepper and Accent to taste. Set aside for at least 2 hours, the longer, the better. When ready to serve, reheat but DO NOT BOIL. (It can be strengthened, lengthened when unexpected guests arrive. Add more onions or potatoes, fish or milk. It will feed any amount. As it sits, it mellows!)
Recipe from “Ladies of Saint Mary’s Cook Book,” St. Mary’s Church, 1976
