Eat Drink & Be Merry In Maryland Archives - Page 4 of 4

Sweet Potato Croquettes, Miss Eliza Thomas

March 9, 2015January 25, 2019

I enjoy discussing and learning about history, as well as cooking, but since I am not an actual expert at either I feel like these blog entries are like.. enjoyable term papers. As though someone went to college and liked it. That someone is ME.. So let me get my “scientific method” of historical food blog entries together and enjoy this educational experience. Before your very eyes…

~~~~ {artistic visual segue}~~~~

Introduction: Croquettes appear in many forms throughout my various sources. I had two sweet potatoes left over from something else and thought I’d give this recipe a try. It also gave me an opportunity to use my neglected Kitchenaid grinder.

So… Fun* facts… the Wikipedia page for croquettes is unexpectedly** substantial and full of photos of delicious** fried things.

Unwelcome personal anecdote… these sweet potato croquettes reminded me of the “sweet potato sticks” that they used to sell at the Fireman’s Carnival in Chincoteague, VA. I love sweet potatoes and I always loved this annual treat – warm creamy center in a crispy, greasy** fried exterior.

Cooking details… My one regret is following this recipe too closely and adding the full called-for amount of salt. Too salty. Cooks at home: salt to taste! Always! But I keep making this mistake.

Historical background, the “meat” of ‘Old Line Plate’.. as for Miss Eliza Thomas, I could only find some facts indicating she is an heiress, inheriting lands from her husband’s grandmother, and maybe other family members? Research is complicated by the fact that several of her relatives share her name. She lived in Baltimore but inherited lands on the Patuxent, known as “Trent Hall,” here lamented to be in a state of neglect along with its super cool tombs.

“Colonial mansions of Maryland and Delaware” by John Martin Hammond asserts that she also inherited another estate on the Patuxent known as Cremona: “Among the charming homes in Saint Mary’s County Maryland of which an extended story has not been told… another Key house Cremona which has been inherited by Miss Eliza Thomas of Baltimore”

“Cremona Farm: Jewel of the Patuxent River” by Jamie Haydel

Outside of the above article I only found this photo of the interior, from the Baltimore Sun.

Recipe:

2 cups cooked peeled sweet potato
1 Tablespoon butter
Salt to taste
1 Tablespoon sugar
½ teaspoon of white pepper
1 egg
breadcrumbs
fat

Run sweet potato through a vegetable mill or grinder. Add butter, salt, sugar and white pepper; mix thoroughly. Form into cylinders, dip in egg, then in bread crumbs and fry in smoking hot fat.

Recipe adapted from Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland

*the actual definition of fun is subjective

**TO ME

Source: Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland

March 5, 2015January 17, 2021

I could dedicate this entire blog to cooking from this book and researching the people in it. At times I may be appear to be doing so.

‘Frederick Philip Stieff, son of the piano-making Baltimore family, was a celebrated amateur chef and a sort of menu historian. He made a personal crusade of collecting—mainly using hand-written family papers and the memories of aged cooks—old Maryland recipes. This volume, he declares in his foreword, offers merely “a generalization, a diversification of the receipts [as he calls them] which have for decades contributed to the gastronomic supremacy of Maryland.”’ – JHU Press

I actually can’t find as much information as I’d like about Stieff, other than his lineage, the fact that he is buried in Greenmount (a visit is in order), and that he has written at least one possibly not food-related book.

Upon his death in 1964 he donated rare books covering “a wide range of cookery including recipe books, the provisioning of households, the history of beer, wine, and other beverages as well as histories of inns and taverns” to the Pratt Library.

Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland seems to be inspired by the same goals as my own interest in Maryland food. Yes there are crabcakes, but there are also biscuits, puddings, fried chicken, bear steaks from Western Maryland, stuffed hams and more hams, and a cursory archival of historic menus.

There are also celebrations of Maryland’s many historic homes, hunt clubs, railroad dining service, and hotel restaurants.

It must be noted, as the forward in my Hopkins Press 1997 edition states: ‘while the book’s tie to the past is its strong point, that link also contributes to its weakness. The patrician tone, found both in Stieff’s writing and in the illustrations by Edwin Tunis, can be jarring. Ladies are lovely examples of “vivacious femininity.” Servants, housewives, and farmers are characterized as not too bright and are the object of many jokes. In reissuing this sixty-five-year-old-work, the Johns Hopkins Press eliminated the illustrations it considered racist. The past is not always pretty.’

The book primarily deals with the receipts of Marylanders of notable lineage, or those residing in large estates. I’m often left wondering about the enslaved people and servants behind this cooking.

Nonetheless, the book is like a gateway into Maryland culinary history, a model for enthusiasm and self-celebration, and an all-around fascinating read.

Invoice, Chas M Stieff Manufacturer of Grand & Upright Pianos

Celery Soup, Mrs. J. Alexis Shriver

March 1, 2015January 13, 2019

This is a recipe for a cold and rainy day when you have nothing better to do but force the most notoriously fibrous of vegetables through a sieve. You will then mix it with cream and salty stock and annihilate that whole negative calorie thing that celery is famous for.

There was a time before celery was the vegetable of misery, and it made its way into pot pies, chicken salads, and in this case into stock which, in a fiber-free double-whammy, goes back into this soup containing more celery. Well this was sort of a pain in the @%$ to make. Tasty but I’m not sure if it was worth the effort. If I had a more sturdy strainer maybe I’d reconsider. I also would have made this with more celery. Mrs. Shriver is very vague about the amount of celery to use despite being very particular about other things. For instance, a double-boiler was called for. I ignored this – double-boilers were often necessary for hearth cooking but hardly so on my gas range.Sadly I did not find much information on Mrs. Shriver. Instead, I read all about her husband, as is often the case with the misseses of “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland.”

James Alexis Shriver was a passionate historian. We apparently have him to thank for a lot of the first Maryland historical markets, including many of the “George Washington ___ here” variety.

J. Alexis Shriver installing the ‘John Brown’ marker in 1938

“James Alexis Shriver was born in 1872. A Baltimore resident during his early years, Shriver moved to near Joppa in Harford County after graduating from Cornell in the early 1890’s. Born of a wealthy and well-known Maryland family… Just after the turn of the century, Shriver became very active in the Harford County Historical Society…. He caused a number of cast iron road markers to be raised along the highways and byways of the state. Most were concerning with Washington’s well-documented journeys, and all were unveiled with as much ceremony as could be gotten from the situation.” – MDHS

Recipe:

celery
1 pint chicken or veal stock
I Tb butter
2 Tb flour
black pepper
salt
1 Cup cream

Boil celery until soft, then press through a sieve. Discard the fiber. In a pot over medium heat, add the celery to the stock. Rub a tablespoonful of butter into two tablespoonfuls of flour, and add to soup to thicken. Season with pepper and salt, and strain again so the soup will be perfectly smooth. Return to low heat and add cream.