“You don’t cry when someone dies,” Elsie Czerkovich told the Baltimore Sun in April 1974. “You rejoice because he is going to heaven to live with the Lord.” It was the day after Easter, and Czerkovich was gathering with other worshipers from the congregation of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church for a picnic. Women…
A lot has changed since the New York Times ran an article on Southern Maryland Stuffed Ham in 1982. That article described stuffed ham as a curious, acquired taste. “Occasionally one hears of a newcomer – a visitor, even – whose sensitive palate quivers with delight at the first piquant bite,” wrote the article’s author,…
“Just before Easter the air in St. Mary’s County is permeated by the odor of stuffed ham a-cooking.” – Maryland Farewell To Lent, Katherine Scarborough, Baltimore Sun 1950 It takes over an hour to drive from Baltimore to B.K. Miller Meats, but St. Mary’s County resident Bertha Hunt told me that that is where she gets…
My first inklings of Maryland’s varied Easter traditions came from the Southern Heritage Cookbook Library. A menu for a “Southern Maryland Easter Dinner” featured Southern Maryland Stuffed Ham, Creamed Red Potatoes, Baked Tomato Halves, Frilly Deviled Eggs, Biscuits Supreme and Cardinal Pudding. It features this apocryphal account of Stuffed Ham: Of course as with many…