Tag: dutch oven

Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s “Bread &c,” Muffins and Yeast

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When I made Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s French Rolls, I wrote a lot about the historical puzzles of flour and yeast.

Despite her wealthy background, Lea’s culinary style is fairly rural. Her book contains a lot of information on bread baking, calling bread “the most important article of food.” She included instructions for baking bread in a dutch-oven, brick oven, or a stove. The brick oven instructions are particularly detailed:

“If you have a large family, or board the laborers of a farm, it is necessary to have a brick oven so as to bake but twice a week… If you arrange every thing with judgment, half a dozen loaves of bread, as many pies or puddings, rusk, rolls or biscuit may be baked at the same time. [To rise bread overnight] the sponge should be made up at four o’clock in the afternoon.
You should have a large tin vessel with holes in the top, to keep bread in; in this way, it will be moist at the end of the week in cool weather.
Coarse brown flour or middlings makes very sweet light bread…
It is very important to have good oven-wood split fine, and the oven filled with it as soon as the baking is out [so it stays] ready and dry. Early in the morning, take out half the wood, and spread the remainder over the oven… light a few sticks in the fire… when it is burnt to coals, stir them about well with a long-handled shovel made for the purpose.
When it looks bright on the top and sides, it is hot enough; let the coals lay all over the bottom till near the time of putting in the bread…
Put in the bread first, and then the pies; if you have a plain rice pudding to bake, it should be put in the middle of the front, and have two or three shovels of coal put round it… pies made of green fruit will bake in three-quarters of an hour. Rusks, or rolls, take about half an hour.
When all is taken out, fill the oven with wood ready for the next baking.”

Bread was obviously a central part of her culinary routine. In addition to managing the baking, this would entail maintaining the live yeast cultures, and possibly included blending flours to suit her needs, from locally available types of wheat.

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Elizabeth Ellicott Lea

For yeast, Lea preferred hop yeast, made by feeding yeast with a slurry of flour and water boiled with hops. Yeast could also be made with potatoes, corn flour or milk.

When I saw that some people from the Baltibrew group were doing a wild yeast capture, my interest was piqued. I followed the blog all summer as they went through the phases of attempting to isolate wild yeast strains, examining them, and ultimately brewing beer with them.  Of the initial sixteen attempts, four captures were free enough of mold or airborne contaminants to experiment with. The strain I received came from a tree in Locust Point.

Continue reading “Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s “Bread &c,” Muffins and Yeast”

Spiced Carrot Soup

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In an attempt to jump-start the camping season, we headed to Green Ridge last weekend. The March weather opened up just enough time for two nights of campfire life, with a long walk on the C & O Canal and of course a hearty campfire dinner one night.

I found a lot of great recipes in “At the Hearth: Early American Recipes” by Mary Sue Pagan Latini, a hearth cook who demonstrated at the “Baltimore’s City Life Museums’” 1840 House, and the 1812 Flag House.

The Flag House still exists as the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House but sadly the 1840 house closed in 1997 and is now a bed & breakfast.

The City Life Museums encompassed the Phoenix Shot Tower, Carroll Mansion, H. L. Mencken House, Fava Fruit Company, Brewer’s Park, and the John Hutchinson House (a.k.a. The 1840 House.) Hutchinson was a wheelwright who lived in the home from 1835 to 1840 with his wife, three children, two boarders and an African American servant. Reenactors presented scripted dramas in different rooms of the house, providing visitors with a glimpse of the daily life and concerns during this tumultuous time in Baltimore.

Originally from Arkansas,
Latini got into hearth cooking after retiring from the Naval Academy. While
volunteering at the 1840 house she learned about hearth cooking – and taught
others in turn.

In addition to recipes, her
book offers some hearth cooking tips and some background on the Colonial
American diet. I’ve earmarked several recipes for future camp trips.

For once I didn’t cop-out and
use the little enameled dutch oven, and instead used my cast iron, and the
tripod. The afternoon offered a reminder of how laborious and slow of a process
cooking once was – how much effort was spent lifting, sweating and waiting.
Still, there is something calming and meditative about cooking over a fire or a
hearth.  And there is an extra relaxing
sigh of relief when you can sit back afterwards and watch while the fire lives
on, and not have to worry about controlling it.

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Recipe:

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • several sprigs of thyme
  • 4 medium sized potatoes, diced
  • ½ teaspoon pepper sauce (I did not have this so I used some
    jalapenos I diced up and put in in vinegar the night before)
  • 12 carrots, finely diced
  • 6 cups soup stock
  • 2 bay leaves
  • ½ teaspoon sugar
  • 2 Cups milk
  • 1 cup cream
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • Black pepper

Melt the butter in large pot hung from a crane or tripod. Saute
the onion in butter and then add the diced potatoes, carrots, stock, and bay
leaves. Cook until the vegetables are tender. Add cream, milk, thyme, pepper
sauce, sugar, salt, and pepper and heat to boiling*. Remove the bay leaves
before serving.

*The milk might curdle especially with the
vinegar! It still tastes good but you can prevent it if you’re finicky.

Recipe adapted from
“At the Hearth: Early American Recipes” by Mary Sue Pagan Latini

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Hey man I said it’s a long, slow process.

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Corn Bread with Rice

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There’s no camping like fall camping! And there’s no better camp bread than cornbread.

Once again I turned to Mrs. B.C. Howard for a good camp recipe… if this could even be called a recipe. Really this is just a list of ingredients:

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Dry rice you say? Well okay. I mixed the dry ingredients ahead of time. Camp cooking requires wise planning and mise en place.

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The first thing I do at a camp site after pitching the tent is getting the fire pit setup in workable order.

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On the fly tip for melting butter:

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After about 20 minutes I checked on the bread and the top wasn’t cooking fast enough so I took a coal from the fire:

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This cornbread was kind of dry and dense but that is not necessarily a bad thing! It went great with greasy eggs – would be perfect with chili.

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Recipe:

  • 1 Pint cornmeal
  • 2 Tablespoon flour
  • 4 Tablespoon raw rice
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tb butter, melted
  • ½ cup milk

Heat up a skillet or dutch oven 4-5 coals under and 6-7 on top, or in the oven at 425° Mix dry ingredients and stir in butter and milk. Beat eggs well & fold into batter. Pour into hot pan, bake for 20-25 minutes. When you can smell it it is done!

Adapted from “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” by Mrs. B. C. Howard

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