Sour Beef from a Baltimore Food Memoir

“A calico-covered journal filled with handwritten recipes” left by her paternal grandmother inspired a high-schooler to write an entire book.

The year was 2010. I was starting and lazily giving up on Old Line Plate. Meanwhile, Grace Kenneth Collins was finishing a chapter every month on a book filled with stories and recipes. Presumably, the young go-getter was also completing her homework. According to a list in the Baltimore Sun, she graduated in 2012.

I can’t begrudge Collins for having an enviable amount of gumption, however, because the resulting book, “Sour Beef & Cheesecake: A Food & Family Memoir,” is pretty enjoyable. “I must confess that I am more of a storyteller and an eater than a cook,” wrote Collins in her introduction. The book is filled with charming anecdotes from the vantage point of youth, about adventurous eating, family lore, and of course, food.

“I Think I’d Be Her Favorite” was the title of the chapter with the titular Sour Beef recipe. Collins, having never met her grandmother Mickey, knew her only from family stories and the recipes in the calico journal.

“Grandma Mickey” was born in Newark New Jersey in 1922. The Sour Beef recipe came by way of a German neighbor there. It became a fixture for the Collins’, leaving an impression on family and friends. It took Mickey’s son some doing to convince the woman to write down the recipe.

Mickey’s technique for the potato dumplings that accompany Sour Beef involves mashing potato through a ricer, forming it into golf-ball-sized dumplings, and browning them in a pan before serving them with the beef and gravy. The recipe (which I have adapted due to the book’s relatively recent publication date) uses Crisco and Gravy Master. I no longer second-guess these kinds of ingredients in favor of “natural” ones. They are the tradition now.

Collins advises to make everything a day ahead, “as it is much better the next day.”

I was unable to get in touch with Ms. Collins for this post. Perhaps that will change. Old Line Plate has reached a surprising amount of community connections. All I know for now is that “Sour Beef & Cheesecake” is a unique contribution to the Maryland cookbook catalog.

Recipe:

• 3 lbs top round or rump roast
• 1 pt cider vinegar
• 1 qt water
• 1 heaping tablespoon pickling spice
• .5 tb salt
• 3 onions, sliced
• crisco
• dash of gravy master
• 12-16 ginger snaps
• flour and water

Mix together vinegar, water, spice, salt, and onions, and submerge the beef for 4 days in the refrigerator. Turn the meat once a day.
Remove and dry the meat, and brown it in hot Crisco. Lightly brown the onions, then deglaze the pan with the marinade, placing meat back in pan. Simmer for three hours. Add some Gravy Master.

Remove the meat from the liquid and set aside in refrigerator. Add gingersnaps to the liquid, crush them, and simmer. Thicken gravy with additional flour if needed.
Strain the gravy through a sieve to remove solids. To serve, slice the meat and add back in, cooking until warm.

Potato Balls (kartoffelkloesse)

• 2.5 lbs potatoes
• 1 tsp salt
• .5 tsp pepper
• 1 egg
• .5 c flour
• .5 c plain bread crumbs
• 1 med onion, grated
• .5 tb dried parsley

Boil potatoes until cooked. When slightly cooled, remove the peels and push potato through a ricer while still warm. (Collins contends that doing this while still warm makes a better potato ball because steam escapes.) Add remaining ingredients and mix until well blended. Form into balls slightly larger than a golf ball.
Drop balls in a pot of boiling salted water and simmer until they float. When cooled, refrigerate for at least a few hours. Slice the balls in half and brown in a mixture of half butter and half Crisco, until golden brown.

"Best to serve this meal with bottled red cabbage on the side in a separate little dish."

Recipe adapted from "Sour Beef & Cheesecake: A Food & Family Memoir," 2011, Grace Kenneth Collins