elizabeth ellicott lea Archives

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

November 14, 2018January 10, 2019

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.

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”

To Spice Beef (An Irish Receipt)

March 15, 2018January 12, 2019

There are some very appealing options in the Old Line Plate database for an “Irish” theme.

In “Domestic Cookery”, Elizabeth Ellicott Lea suggests a hearty Irish Stew of mutton chops with onions, potatoes, black pepper and mushroom catsup for extra umami. (No, she did not use that word but that’s what it’s there for!) “A slice of ham is a nice addition,” she wrote.

“Queen of the Kitchen” author Mary Lloyd Tyson added “a cup of rich milk or cream” to her Irish Stew of Mutton. Sounds good to me!

Instead of indulging that route, I decided to reckon with a dish from my youth that I was never on very good terms with: Corned Beef and Cabbage.

The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1737

In Ireland, Corned Beef is considered more of a Christmas dish, and beef in general has historically been less popular there than it is here. But this isn’t an Irish food blog, it’s a Maryland food blog, and Marylanders have probably been consuming “Irish Beef” since European colonization. The semi-preserved beef was favored for its ability to survive the journey across the Atlantic.

The first digitized newspaper mention that I found of “Irish Beef” is in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1737. The fact that it is “sold by the barrel” makes it apparent that this beef was corned beef.

According to “Irish-American Trade, 1660-1783,” by Thomas M. Truxes, Irish beef was readily available in most mainland ports in small casks “fit for family use.” This is likely meant in contrast to the portion used as provisions on the weeks at sea… maybe less appetizing to non-sailors.

Domestic colonial beef was “considered second-rate by comparison” at the time.

As the young nation began to sprawl westward, it made more and more sense to produce beef domestically. Interestingly, some of the first American recipes for what we might recognize as corned beef were printed in Maryland.

Although the method of curing beef with salt and nitrates and seasoning with cloves, mace, and allspice is ancient, Mary Randolph didn’t include such a recipe in her book. She only included a recipe for corning beef in hot weather (no spices mentioned, but she did include molasses.)

Before that, Eliza Leslie described brining and spicing the meat – but goes on to smoke the beef. Amelia Simmons stuck to more of an ‘á la mode’ dish in her slim 1796 cookbook.

Elizabeth Ellicott Lea in 1859 suggests serving corned beef (or pork) with Cabbage.

It was Mary Lloyd Tyson, in 1870, who printed the “Irish Mode of Spicing Beef.” Like so many other recipes in “Queen of the Kitchen,” it was copied by Mrs. B.C. Howard and altered slightly into “To Spice Beef (An Irish Receipt.)”

As it turns out, neither of these recipes even contains cabbage. Instead, the beef is served with carrots and turnips and a buttery sauce made with some of the cooking gravy.

This was a very gradual way for me to come to terms with Corned Beef and Cabbage… because there was no cabbage. The problem is that cabbage can be so easily overwhelmed by the power of corned beef. But curing and seasoning the meat yourself gives you more power over the end result. Newer recipes include mustard seeds and garlic, which sounds inviting. Undertaking the process of spicing the beef helped me get an appreciation of the flavors – and the possibilities.

Recipe:

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

What I did, more or less:

Most recipes say to use brisket. I bought a way cheaper cut of beef because I’m not Rockefeller over here. Rubbed it with brown sugar and pink curing salt (this contains

sodium nitrite not

potassium nitrate but I had it on hand) and sat overnight. The next day, added crushed up black pepper, cloves, allspice, and on a whim some bay leaves. Turned once a day for the next 7 days.

Cooked the meat for 8 hours in a slow cooker.

Boiled the vegetables and cooked in a generous amount of butter plus some of the beef-cooking broth, strained. Then thickened it a little to serve.

New Year’s Cookies

January 2, 2017January 12, 2019

In 1906, The Frederick News printed a whimsical explanation for the ‘bakers dozen.’ A Dutch baker in the 1600’s bickered with an “ugly hag” over whether a dozen was twelve or thirteen, stingily sending the woman away with only twelve New Year’s cakes. His shop became cursed until the baker conceded that a dozen was thirteen.

The New Year’s Cakes (cookies were often known as cakes or “little cakes”) mentioned in this story would most likely be cookies bearing close relation to Speculaas, a spiced biscuit made around St. Nicholas Day in early December in the Netherlands and Belgium, and around Christmas in Germany.

Another similar but thicker molded biscuit, the German “Springerle”, are flavored with anise and also made around the Christmas holidays. These types of cookies bear close relation to gingerbread, which was never related to bread at all. Much like the confused etymology of scrapple, the word gingerbread originally came from the word ’gingerbrar’, simply referring to the preserved ginger used to spice these kinds of cookies.

The Montrose Democrat, PA, January 4th 1912

Caraway seed cakes had long been a customary food to commemorate the harvest in Europe. Harvest customs naturally drifted and morphed into Christmas celebrations, which in turn stretched into “New Years.”

Dutch New Years cakes were popular throughout the northeast united states but were most commonly associated with New York. Although the cookies appear in bestselling cookbook author Eliza Leslie’s 1828 book as “apees cakes”, her 1851 book “Directions for Cookery” refers to the same recipe as “New York Cakes,” noting that they are also known as “New Year Cakes.”

According to historian William Woys Weaver in “A Quaker Woman’s Cookbook,” Leslie’s recipe traces to the cooking school of Elizabeth Goodfellow in Philadelphia. Earlier versions appear as far back as the first American cookbook published by Amelia Simmons in 1796.

Amelia Simmons “American Cookery” 1796

Eliza Leslie’s many books were wildly popular and influential (and in fact her own parents were from Cecil County), but Weaver drew a closer connection between Maryland-born Goodfellow, whose husband was a Quaker clockmaker, and Quaker cookbook author Elizabeth Ellicott Lea. “Lea’s contact with Goodfellow may have been indirect, but it is clear that many of Lea’s friends and acquaintances had attended the cooking school,” resulting in many versions of Goodfellow recipes making their way into Lea’s book.

“For rural Quakers, [these cookies were] a special treat for Children at New Year’s… related to New Year’s cookies that were associated with the Dutch settlers in Colonial New York. Those cookies were often shaped with elaborate carved molds. The leavening in them was potash or pearl ash.” – William Woys Weaver, “A Quaker Woman’s Cookbook”

Dutch cookie mold for sale on etsy

I actually first noticed this recipe in a handwritten manuscript at the Maryland Historical Society; a personal cook-book belonging to Becky Amos, wife of a Baltimore bricklayer. That recipe, it turned out, was copied verbatim from Lea’s. That’s how these things work sometimes.

Mrs. B.C. Howard also published a nearly identical recipe in her 1873 book. Being the high-roller that she was, there is a little more butter, and a pinch of salt added. She also called for ‘soda’ instead of saleratus.

Although all three of my Maryland recipes opted for caraway seeds, I followed my palate and opted for coriander. If no less authority than Joyce White says its authentic then I’m in the clear.

I did have a New Years brunch and these cookies proved popular with adult humans, babies, and dogs.

Recipe:

2 c flour
1 c sugar
8oz butter, softened
½ tsp baking soda dissolved in…
.25 to .5 pint milk
.25 tsp salt
caraway seeds, or crushed coriander seeds, grated lemon peel, nutmeg, etc. to taste

Preheat oven to 400°. Cream together butter and sugar. Gradually blend in flour (mixed with salt) until dough resembles pebbles. GRADUALLY add milk until all ingredients are moistened and dough forms a solid ball that is no longer sticky to touch. You may not need all of the milk! I used too much then had to add a ton of flour. I blame Mrs. B.C. Howard for that one. One 1890s recipe uses only 3tb of milk.

Roll thin and cut into shapes. If desired, stamp with designs or use a patterned rolling pin. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned on bottoms.

Apple Butter

October 18, 2016January 13, 2019

“Being at the house of a good old German friend in Pennsylvania, in September last, we noticed upon the table what was called apple butter; and finding it an agreeable article, we inquired into the modus operandi in making it, which we give for the gratification of such in New England as may wish to enjoy the luxury of Pennsylvania apple butter.” – Poughkeepsie Journal, NY 1838

Again, we turn to Elizabeth Ellicott Lea for guidance on preserving the harvest. Apple butter, Wikipedia will tell you, originated in Germany and the Netherlands, and has been a popular way to preserve the apple harvest in the U.S. since Colonial times. The spread is considered a Pennsylvania Dutch specialty. Lea’s cooking has a lot of overlap with the Pennsylvania Dutch, so unsurprisingly she has two recipes -or “ways”- in “Domestic Cookery.”

One of her recipes, “[Apple Butter] Another Way” prescribes the use of a huge kettle, where cider is reduced and apples are boiled in it for hours, while constantly stirred with “a stick made of hickory wood, somewhat like a common hoe, with holes in it.”

Jackson’s Orchard, flickr

This considerable undertaking became a family or even a neighborhood communal effort. The scene at the modern-day Berkeley Springs Apple Butter Festival in WV is not all that different. Every year, people gather in the town square and labor over the hot cauldrons as the smell wafts around the bustling town.

Apple butter seems particularly primed to evoke feelings pure and nostalgic for people in this region.

Advertisement, 1923

This is, of course, the part where I mention that it hasn’t always been that great. I found at least two instances where a young child died from falling into the boiling vat.

Additionally, many who ate apple butter were killed as a result of primitive canning technology.

Before the widespread use of glass jars for canning, it was common to “put up” various preserves in earthen vessels. These vessels often contained a poisonous glaze that was corroded by acidic foods like apple butter, with deadly results. Elizabeth Lea cautions about this in her other apple butter recipe, entitled “Apple Butter. With Remarks on the Use of Earthen Vessels.” This recipe is a little more user-friendly, with no need for a vat or a hickory stick. She even mentions that if you cannot finish the apple butter in a day, you can put it in a tub to continue the next day. I opted to put mine in the slow cooker when I needed to step away.

The farmers market is awash with apples right now. It’s overwhelming. I was going to ask one of the friendly vendors for advice on a good apple-butter apple but I saw that Lewis Orchards was selling a mixed crate of ugly apples (and the odd pear) and figured that was the way to go. Not all apples broke down at the same rate but I eventually got them all into submission.

Some recipes use cider. Others, like the recipe in “300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary’s County,” use vinegar. I opted to use a blend of hard and fresh cider.

The lovely aroma did indeed fill me with nostalgia for Berkeley Springs, campfires, and ‘jacket weather.’ It also filled me with anticipation for grilled cheese, barbecue sauce, and scrapple sandwiches.

Recipe:

“Have your kettle well cleaned, and fill it early in the morning with cider made of sound apples, and just from the press; let it boil half away, which may be done by three o’clock in the afternoon; have pared and cut enough good apples to fill the kettle; put them in a clean tub, and pour the boiling cider over; then scour the kettle and put in the apples and cider, let them boil briskly till the apples sink to the bottom; slacken the fire and let them stew, like preserves, till ten o’clock at night. Some dried quinces stewed in cider and put in are an improvement. Season with orange peel, cinnamon or cloves, just before it is done; if you like it sweeter, you can put in some sugar an hour before it is done. If any thing occur that you cannot finish it in a day, pour it in a tub, and finish it the next day; when it is done put it in stone jars. Any thing acid should not be put in earthen vessels, as the glazing is poisonous. This way of making apple butter requires but little stirring; you must keep a constant watch that it does not burn.

Pears and peaches may be done in the same way, and if they are sweet,
will not require sugar.”

Recipe from “Domestic cookery, useful receipts, and hints to young housekeepers” by Elizabeth Ellicott Lea

Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s Smearcase

September 22, 2016January 13, 2019

This isn’t the official Smearcase post- that’s to come later. (Update: Click here for Official Smearcase Post) This is just a brief post with two recipes from Elizabeth Ellicott Lea’s book. I thought they might offer some insight into the history of smearcase.

Many Baltimoreans know “Smearcase” as a beloved cheesecake of German origin, available at many of the same bakeries that peddle Peach Cakes. Much like Baltimore Peach Cake, Smearcase has enjoyed a fair share of nostalgic press. The word “smearcase,” readers may know, referred originally to the cheese that this cake was made from. That is what the word meant to Elizabeth Ellicott Lea.

I had some milk that had gone a little off so I decided to try and make use of it. Modern cottage cheese advice suggested adding a little acid, in the form of vinegar or lemon juice, to curdle the milk. I opted for that method. Modern milk is pasteurized, and so I was essentially working with a different ingredient than Lea would have been.

By 1845, when Lea’s book was published, the recipe was named “Cheese Cake,” but in truth, cheesecake is more the direct descendent of pudding than any cake. Most early American cookbooks and their English predecessors have recipes for making “curd” or “cheese puddings”.

This recipe was about as close to hearth cooking as it gets in my kitchen, owing to a lack of air-conditioning on a very hot day. The buttercrust had to be worked quickly, and it looks quite “rustic” as a result. It is humbling to think of the ways that experienced hearth cooks of the past would cope with these challenges.

Even with the 19th-century flavors (rose water and currants), the pie was suitable for a modern sweet tooth. The cheesemaking process, however, is a little unappetizing looking, so don’t be surprised if this post makes you want to swear off dairy…

“Cottage Cheese, or Smearcase

The best plan of making this dish, is to set the tinpan of clabber on a hot stove, or in a pot of water that is boiling over the fire. When the whey has risen sufficiently, pour it through a colander, and put the curd or cheese away in a cold place, and just before going to table, season it with salt and pepper to your taste, and pour some sweet cream over it.”

“Cheese Cakes

Take one quart of curd, after the whey has been strained off, mix with it half a pound of fresh butter, an ounce of pounded blanched almonds, the whites of three eggs, a tea-cup of currants; season with sugar and rose water to your taste, and bake in plates with paste.”