• Mrs. Reid’s Cornbread (”The Cornbread Lady”)

    “Dozens of AFRO readers… have kept the AFRO switchboard busy since last week’s edition published a recipe for cornbread made by Mrs. Ronald [Fanniejoe] Reid of 1306 W. Lanvale St.” – Afro-American, February 4, 1956 After The Afro-American printed Harlem Park resident Fanniejoe Reid’s cornbread recipe in January 1956, the recipe kind of went ‘viral.’…

  • Sally Lunn

    It’s hard to know where to begin with Sally Lunn. As Wikipedia points out, “the origins of the Sally Lunn are shrouded in myth,” and I am not exactly the caliber of historian capable of cracking the Da Vinci Code of bread. That might be a good movie to someone though*. Sally Lunn is a delicious…

  • “Cornbread Harriet Tubman”

    This recipe comes from “The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro,” a fascinating cookbook compiled in 1958 by the National Council of Negro Women. The book is organized as a calendar of sorts, with recipes assigned to specific dates. Several recipes in this cookbook have particular Maryland connections, including a pie dedicated to Benjamin Banneker…

  • French Rolls

    I’ve been gradually getting to “know” Elizabeth Ellicott Lea a little better, and coming to really like her. At first her no-frills thrift seemed unexciting and maybe even a little stern. Certainly she doesn’t radiate the Maryland pride of other authors who boast their Maryland-ness in the titles of their cookbooks. Lea was a Quaker…