There has probably been no greater force for the dissemination of recipes developed by home cooks than recipe contests. State and county fairs in the 19th century hosted many cooking contests as a part of their “ladies” programming. These fairs were an opportunity for women gather and to show off their “domestic arts”, from needlework…
Crab-cakes may be king now, but it wasn’t always so. From the 1800′s right on up through the 1950′s, if you wanted to impress some guests, you’d serve them crab meat picked from the crab, mixed with an assortment of seasonings, packed back into the crab shell with some breadcrumbs on top and baked until…
Update (2023): The recipe in this post was apparently invented by a woman named Connee Rauser Sheckler, who won a contest with it. It appeared in the “Cooking with Old Bay” cookbook under the name she gave it, “Old Bay Bianca Pizza.” I think I should make this dish again and share a few more…
Published in 2003, “I Can Cook You Can Cook” may not be the most historic in my collection, but it does offer a snapshot of a Maryland food personality and a time and place from whence it came. (Most cookbooks do, which is why I love them.) The book itself hearkens to a less “sophisticated”…
Crab season is finally in full swing for those of us who cling to the ‘late-summer through Thanksgiving is crab season’ principle. In my opinion, September is a great time to enjoy crabs because the weather is usually amazing, the last of the corn and watermelon are demanding to be eaten, and the frenzy of…