Hopefully the first of several recipe maps on Old Line Plate, I’ve put the 512 recipes in “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” on a map. A lot are just pinned to counties, but if you zoom in you can also view recipes connected to specific locations like hotels, steamship ports, and manors. The Maryland Historical Trust Medusa map has been instrumental in locating some of these places. Links to MHT documents included when possible.
Let me know what you think – the eventual plan is to map all of the recipes posted on this site but it could take awhile to pinpoint some of the locations!
Back when I first made Maryland Fried Chicken for my blog, I became a target of some amusing internet vitriol. The authenticity police took one look at my fried chicken leg served atop a waffle and saw heresy.
Although the disdain seemed a bit over the top to me, I can understand the confusion at its core. I always thought of the chicken/waffle combination as a Southern dish, dispersed our way during the Great Migration.
Waffle suppers had in fact been a popular church dinner dating back to at least the mid-1800’s, and in Maryland, they often featured chicken or “frizzled beef” aka creamed chip beef.
1924 advertisement, Salisbury Daily Times
Carvel Hall Hotel manager Albert H. McCarthy had been a Maryland resident for at least 37 years by the time he prescribed that “Maryland Fried Chicken” be served atop a waffle in “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” (1932, Frederick Phillip Stieff).
In fact, a lot of the times when waffle advertisements or recipes appear in 1930′s newspapers, a distinction is made when the subject is “dessert waffles.” Talbot County resident Miss Mary McDaniel’s recipe for “Chocolate Waffles”, also from Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland, certainly falls into that category. It is the only waffle in that book containing more than a tablespoon of sugar.
Dutch immigrants brought waffles to North America in the 1700s, when they were cooked in an iron over an open fire. According to culinary historian Joyce White, cast iron waffle irons can be commonly found among the kitchen items in 18th and 19th-century probate inventories of taxable properties.
Waffle recipes varied regionally. In the South, sweet potato waffles became popular. Rice and corn were common frugal additions that also caught on in Maryland. All of the late 1800s Maryland cookbooks include multiple waffle varieties.
The first electric waffle irons hit the scene around 1911 and waffles became easier than ever to make. A Frederick Y.M.C.A. reported raising over $2000 (adjusted for inflation) from a waffle supper in 1913.
Advertisement, 1930
Waffles seem to have experienced another resurgence in popularity in the 1970s. Less than a half a century before, Aunt Jemima ads and the Aunt Priscilla column in the Baltimore Sun promoted racist associations with waffles. The imagery and language can be jarring. In 1975, Harlem native Herb Hudson founded Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles -arguably the most famous purveyor of the classic combination- in Los Angeles. Chicken & waffles’ soul food identity was being cemented – and reclaimed.
If you order a waffle in Maryland today, you are likely to be served a chewy and sweet thick waffle made from pancake batter. I confess to routinely settling for this at diners.
True waffles can be had from the specialists like Connie’s & Taste This. These places frequently offer different sweet varieties like red velvet for the salty sweet set. In this spirit, I decided to go ahead and have some well-salted & honey-slathered chicken with my chocolate waffle. Although I can see the appeal, corn or rice waffles will remain my preference. Savory waffles will go better with chip-beef or chicken with cream gravy.
I’d like to see the chip beef waffle make a resurgence. Everything old becomes new again. Hopefully when it does there will be someone lurking in the shadows, ready to fight a war on behalf of toast.
Recipe:
.5 Cup butter
2 Teaspoon baking powder
1 Cup sugar
1.5 Cup flour
2 egg
.5 Cup milk
.25 Teaspoon salt
2 oz melted chocolate
vanilla extract, to taste
Cream butter and sugar, then add well-beaten eggs. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add flour to eggs, alternating with milk. Stir in chocolate and vanilla. Bake on hot waffle iron. “Serve with whipped cream or XXXX sugar.”
Recipe adapted from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”
“The root cellar, when properly made, will always be found one of the best paying out-buildings upon the farm.” – The Baltimore Sun, 1861
It was unpleasantly cold this past week. The warmth of family members crammed into small spaces cooking and eating comforting meals is a quickly fading memory. It’s been replaced by drafts, piles of blankets, and cold lunches at work.
Luckily I had some White Haymans down in the fridge. I bought them around Thanksgiving and never got around to using them. They’ve been patiently standing by as a rotating cast of collards, lettuce and beans have come and gone from the crisper. Sweet potatoes, even haphazardly stored as mine were, will hold up a pretty long time. As discussed here before, that makes them pretty important.
If you need something a little more long-term, you can join the ranks of people who use a root-cellar. According to the New York Times, at least as of 2008, this 40,000-year-old storage method is/was making a comeback.
Most 19th century cook-books make at least some mention of cellar use. “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” and “Queen of the Kitchen” do not offer explicit cellar guidelines, but do make many references to storing various preserved items, and wines, in the root cellar.
Unsurprisingly, the thrifty and practical Elizabeth Ellicott Lea has the most to offer on this front.
“Beets, parsnips, carrots and salsify should be dug up before the frost
is severe; those wanted for use in the winter should be put in barrels,
and covered with sand; what you do not want till spring should be buried
in the garden, with sods on the top. Celery may be dug in November, and
set in a large box covered with sand, in the cellar, with the roots
down; it will keep till the frost is out of the ground. Or it may be
left in the ground all winter, and dug as you want it for use.” – Domestic Cookery, Elizabeth Ellicott Lea
She also offers up advice for storing eggs in grease or lime water. During the summer she recommends using the root cellar for meat and other items that might spoil in the heat.
Roulette Farm, Root Cellar, Sharpsburg, Washington County. loc.gov
There is some science to the storage. According to the New York times, apples can’t be stored near carrots because the gas they give off will make the carrots bitter.
Lea laid out a lot of rules for the spring cleaning of cellars – emptying out unused vegetables, sprinkling lime over the floors, washing and draining storage barrels.
She also offers cautionary tales of people being killed by rat poison that was used too close to stored food.
“The eastern halves of America and Canada contain thousands of old root cellars, and the small Newfoundland town of Elliston actually claims the title of “Root Cellar Capital of the World,” and boasts of over 135 root cellars, some dating back 200 years.” – Rick Gush, Hobby Farms
Although the Maryland Historical Trust documents on Lea’s former homes do not mention surviving root cellars, there are many historic sites with a root cellar, and at least one historic site that IS a root cellar. The Spring Grove Hospital root cellar in Baltimore County was built in 1930 as a part of the hospital’s farm program. Like many old cellars, it has been repurposed for storage.
This candied sweet potato recipe was contributed to “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” by a Mrs. E.W. Humphreys of Wicomico County. Born Mary Josephine Tarr, she married Eugene Humphreys, a doctor from a prominent Salisbury family, in 1869. The family resided in downtown Salisbury in a Greek revival home with Eugene’s medical practice operating out of the front of the house.
Towards the rear was a “large cooking fireplace,” and Mrs. Humphrey’s own root cellar was no doubt in one of the two outbuildings adjacent to the kitchen.
Family documents including correspondence, photographs and recipes are kept at Salisbury University.
This recipe might not be the best use for White Haymans. They turned out rather ugly. Even so, with a cup of cocoa they brought a little warmth into a bitter January day when my whole house felt like a dang root cellar.
Recipe:
6 sweet potatoes
salt
.5 Cup water
1 Cup brown sugar
piece of butter the size of an egg
Peel six sweet potatoes and peel cook until nearly done in boiling salted water. Drain, cut in pieces, and put in an oven dish. Combine one-half cup water, one cup brown sugar and lump of butter to make a syrup. Cook until sugar is dissolved. Cover potatoes with the syrup, put back in oven and bake at 350° until done, basting occasionally if necessary.
Recipe adapted from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”
My uncle found a gigantic lion’s mane mushroom and gave me a piece. It was slightly browning, and compounded with the fact that these mushrooms are not exactly beauty queens, the photos are not appetizing. You’ve been warned – scroll down at your own risk.
This recipe was contributed to Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland by Mrs. Charles H. Tilghman of Gross’ Coate. The recipe includes a peculiar instruction:
“Cook a silver spoon in [the mushrooms]. If the spoon becomes black [they] must not be eaten.“
Gross’ Coate, Maryland Historical Trust
I thought I should heed this advice, considering the sad state of my
mushroom. I used a necklace from my jewelry-making days, as I am not in
possession of any silver spoon. The silver remained untarnished, thank
goodness. I later looked into this and found that this advice is a
completely bogus way to detect poisonous mushrooms. Lucky for me, lion’s manes don’t really have a poisonous counterpart.
Gross’ Coate is a historical estate on the Wye River in Talbot County. Built in 1760, the property remained in the Tilghman family until 1983.
The tract of land had been patented by Roger Gross in 1658. Through a sale to Henrietta Maria Lloyd, the widow of Philemon Lloyd, and a subsequent marriage of her daughter, the Tilghman family ownership of Gross’ Coate began.
With additions spanning through 1914, the house once boasted a dairy, a meat house, large kitchen wing, and a new dining room that was built in 1815.
In Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland, Frederick Phillip Stieff wrote:
“Situated overlooking the beautiful Wye River it requires but little to imagine oneself on the banks of the Thames, excepting that there is not the turbulent river life of the latter although in the humble opinion of the writer far more beauty.”
Stieff may be downplaying the turbulence just a tad.
In 1790, famed American painter and recent widower Charles Wilson Peale paid a visit to Gross’ Coate to paint the Tilghman family, then under the charge of Richard Tilghman. It seems that Peale fell in love with Richard’s sister Mary (aka Molly). Richard forbade such a marriage and locked Molly away.
Peale resorted to taking laudanum to help himself sleep during this stressful ordeal, to no avail. Some say that he spitefully painted a scowl upon Richard’s face in his portrait of the man. As for Molly, she later went on to marry Edward Roberts, allegedly the “scapegrace of the county.” According to “The Big Book of Maryland Ghost Stories,” scapegrace means LOSER.
As for recipe contributor Mrs. Charles H. Tilghman, wife of Robert’s great-grandson, I couldn’t find out much about her except newspaper ads revealing that she’d lost a cow, was selling wheat, and an announcement forbidding trespassing on her property. Because everyone checks the classifieds before trespassing…
I had some extra cheddar-cheese pie crust, so I baked that into little crusts and put the mushrooms in there. Along with those raw carrots [seen in photos], which I did indeed eat, it made a nice lunch.
Recipe:
½ cup mushrooms
1.5 tb butter
½ tb or less white flour
black pepper
salt, ½ tsp
Peel & wash mushroom(s). Heat butter in a skillet or pot, on medium-low heat. Add mushrooms plus dusts of white flour. Season with black pepper and salt. Stir to prevent burning until water from mushrooms begins to collect. Cook for 45 minutes or until tender.
Recipe adapted from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”
“From 1896 to until 1954, they never really accepted the doctrine of “separate but equal” to which they now look back with so much longing.
They embraced the “separate” all right, but with stubborn consistency rejected the “equal.”
One gathers the impression that the only decision which has ever won their wholehearted approval was that of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the celebrated Dred Scott case.
Mr. Taney’s court held that in America a colored man has no rights which a white man under the law is bound to respect.
That was back in March 6, 1857.
The “Southern Manifesto” shows that almost a century later their thinking hasn’t changed one whit.“ – The Baltimore Afro-American March 1956
This unremarkable recipe for “Indian Pudding” was contributed to “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” by The Misses Alice and Lelia Taney of Frederick County. Their claim to fame is their relation to infamous Marylander Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 until his death in 1864.
The newspaper mentions I found featuring these two ladies consisted primarily of their obituaries or stories about the unveiling of various statues of Taney that were erected in Maryland.
A 1937 story in the Afro-American
While my grade-school education on the Dred Scott decision didn’t center much on Taney himself, a friend from Frederick explained it to me as it was taught to him in school: Taney, being the very opposite of an “activist judge” was interpreting the law as was his duty, and was not necessarily a racist or pro-slavery. He had, after all, manumitted his own slaves.
Many older articles in Maryland papers espouse that view of Taney. As recently as 1993, the Sun ran an editorial, “Happy Birthday Taney,” with the concluding statement that Sun staffer Theo Lippman Jr. “understand[s] why black Americans hate Taney, but we all need to remember
two things. (1) There was more to him than Dred Scott. (2) Dred Scott
probably advanced the timetable for emancipation by at least a
generation.”
Afro-American, 1957 (Dred Scott Decision centennial)
Many lamented that the statement about black people having “no rights which the white man was bound to respect” was taken out of context by misinformed “northern writers.” It is true that he was referring to the sentiment at the time of the writing of the Constitution. His ruling, however, in effect sustained that sentiment.
In 1986, Grason Eckel of Cambridge wrote in to the Sun suggesting
removal of the Taney statue in front of the state house:
”Though couched
in legal terms, Taney’s Dred Scott opinion contained a moral dimension
that repudiated society’s responsibility for the civil rights of blacks.
The opinion, therefore, became a symbol of shame.“ – Get Rid of Taney’s Statue, June 1986
In addition to statues, Taney has had some streets and such named in his honor, including a middle school in Camp Springs, Prince George’s County. This school faced turmoil after integration.
”To date the school athletic teams have been known as the Rebels, and the school emblem has been a confederate flag.
Integration at Taney – January 29 the school changed from about 99 per cent white to 20 per cent black – has been among the most touchy jobs facing the county school system…
Taney almost closed last month after a rock-throwing racial melee involving about 200 of the school’s 1,136 students.“ – Baltimore Sun, “Taney is Still Shaky with Race Tension”, April 1973
The president of the PTA dismissed the black students’ desire to change the name of the athletic team, under the basis that “they only number 20 percent of the student body [therefore] they would get voted down if they took a vote on the name.” I am not sure when the team name changed but the school’s name was changed in the 1990s. By then the student body was 83% black.
The Afro-American offers multi-faceted views of Taney. One article quotes him as saying:
”Slavery is a blot upon our national character, and every real lover of freedom confidentially hopes that it will be effectively wiped away. And until the time shall come when we can point without a blush to the language held in the Declaration of Independence, every friend of humanity will seek to lighten the galling chains of slavery.“ – Roger Brooke Taney, 1818
“Not until we read Henrietta Buckmaster’s new book, “Let My People Go,” did we realize that Judge Taney, an old scoundrel, was quite a decent individual in his younger days,” noted the 1941 editorial.
The quote at the beginning of this entry was one of many which bitterly recalled the Dred Scott ruling and its dehumanizing language as Jim Crow and civil rights struggles continued.
Afro-American, 1957 (Dred Scott Decision centennial)
As for Alice and Lelia, it is possible that at least one of them resided at the Roger Brooke Taney House in Frederick, or that their parents did. Although Roger Brooke Taney once owned this property, he never actually lived there. An illustration of the “Taney Kitchen” in “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” appears to be of that house. The historical home is open to the public and conducts hearth demonstrations that look far more delicious than this pudding.
Recipe:
1 Quart milk, scalded
cornmeal
.5 tsp salt
1.5 teaspoon ginger
.5 cupmolasses
2 tb butter
Scald milk. Stir in enough cornmeal to make a thin mush. Add salt, ginger, molasses, and butter. Bake in a tin or earthen pan for two hours.
Recipe adapted from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”
