hagerstown Archives - OLD LINE PLATE

“Ham-Lettuce Mixture”: the awkward title caught my eye. The recipe opened with this: “A hearty country dinner, fit for guests or family. A good conversation menu!” I thought the recipe was so odd, I had to make it immediately. I invited friends over for dinner. I told them what I was making. My friends politely declined.

In practice, “Ham-Lettuce Mixture” is basically a warm salad, packed with hearty eggs and potatoes and topped in a sweet-and-tangy cooked dressing. It was just fine! Tasty even.

The recipe appears in the 1969 “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread,” a hefty 350-page cookbook compiled by St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hagerstown.

The recipe’s author, Dodie Rupprecht, included lots of commentary in her recipe. “To serve, let each one help himself,” to helpings of ham, eggs, lettuce, onion, potatoes, and gravy. “Heap it on a dinner plate, and cut it all up finely (this is the true country spirit),” she wrote. “If you have enough small platters for each guest, this is an ideal way to eat lettuce mixture.”

I ignored this last bit and cut the items up in advance. Sorry, Dodie.

I believe “Dodie” Rupprecht to be Dorothy Eleanor Rupprecht, born in Baltimore in 1909.

“Shirley Fout Miller was a walking medical miracle.”

So opens her 2012 obituary in the Hagerstown Herald-Mail. “She contracted tuberculosis at age 12 from her mother… Shirley was not expected to live more than a few months.”

As an adult, she twice survived breast cancer and tuberculosis resurgence. Her daughter Holly Miller said, “She’s been cheating death for 75 years.”

Shirley spent many years being ill. Unable to participate in a lot of typical childhood and teenage activities, she turned to another outlet: art.

Shirley Fout Miller may not be a household name, but she left an admirable body of artwork celebrating regional and historic sites, including a calendar of sketches of Colonial Williamsburg, and prints of local sights in her hometown of Hagerstown.

*Shirley Fout Miller artwork of the Governor’s Palace in Colonial Williamsburg*

Miller’s obituary portrays a colorful and vivacious character. “She wanted to live in the kind of society of Edith Wharton and Jane Eyre,” Miller’s partner said.

“My mother was the queen of entertaining,” Shirley’s daughter Holly recalled. The obituary declared Miller’s life to have been filled with “style, entertaining and Chardonnay,” and invitations for guests to dine at a “beautiful table set with china, silver, flowers, and hand-painted place-cards.”

Shirley’s oldest son Barrick Miller said “She had such a zest for life. It came from the sanatorium, being a bystander in life for more than a decade. She had to figure out how to use this life that she didn’t expect to have.”

I had to figure out how to use some beef stock I didn’t expect to have, and I thought it a good opportunity to make a Pennsylvania-Dutch-influenced favorite, Slippery Pot Pie.

Many churches in the Hagerstown area make the dish as a fundraiser. A friend of mine who grew up there remembers it being served in the school cafeteria.

Despite the name, Slippery Pot Pie is not served in a crust. It is instead a variation on Slippery Dumplings, Chicken n’ Dumplings, or “Slick” Dumplings. Dumplings rolled out and cooked in a stew broth help to spread the ingredients further, creating a perfect hearty meal for a chilly evening.

Slippery Pot Pie is comfort food. I did not grow up eating this and yet I was somehow comforted by the feeling of biting into a dumpling, the rich gravy flavor, and the tender meat and veggies.

Tag: hagerstown

Ham-Lettuce Mixture, Dodie Rupprecht

Slippery Pot Pie, Shirley Fout Miller

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