Tag: ice cream

Bisque Ice Cream / Cauliflower Salad with Chef Charlotte

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Now and then I encounter an unfamiliar recipe enough times that I just have to give it a try. Such is the case with “Bisque” Ice Cream, a recipe that has popped up in various forms in 19th-century manuscripts, later transforming into a jello pudding dish before disappearing altogether.

1940s and 50s recipes such as the one in “A Cook’s Tour of the Eastern Shore” have more or less a banana pudding structure – with a crust and/or topping of crushed vanilla wafers and a creamy lemon-gelatin-pudding center.

Originally, “Bisque” was a sweet-cream ice-cream containing crushed macaroons or cookies, and sometimes sherry. It was obviously originally a way to use up the stale sweets. Some recipes even specify that the macaroons *must* be stale.

The Bisque Ice Cream formula was (and is) virtually limitless. A 1912 trade publication, “The American Produce Review,” defined bisque ice cream as “a frozen product made from cream, sugar and bread products, marshmallows or other confections, with or without other natural flavoring.”

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Advertisement, 1955, Salisbury Daily Times

The name doesn’t need much explaining – Wikipedia says this of the soup for which bisque ice cream is named: “In an authentic bisque, the shells are ground to a fine paste and added to thicken the soup.”

I’ve been wanting to take recipes out of my kitchen and socialize and share the food (and perhaps, when applicable, the failure.)

I met Chef Charlotte Galley at her work, where I took a class on eggs for an omelet blog post that I never got around to.

When I returned to take a chocolate class and she happened to be teaching that one too, I suggested we get together to try out some recipes together. I visited her at home where I got to see her chickens and family heirloom recipe box.

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Galley is a native Marylander, trained at the Baltimore International Culinary College, and a farmer’s market enthusiast. We gathered what we could find at Waverly and chose a few recipes.

For the bisque, we used the macaroon recipe from Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen. The basic bisque ice cream appears in several Maryland cookbooks as: 1 pint of milk, 1 quart of cream, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 1 dozen macaroons and 4 cups of sugar. We used way less sugar than that because… that is a lot of sugar.

We also made a Cauliflower Salad from “The Melwood Cookbook”, and took another stab at Baltimore Peach Cake. Peach Cake merits its own post so I’ll get back to that later. 

I’ve been lagging on my weekly posts lately due to a job change and upcoming (Maryland-recipe-filled!) vacation, but I’ve got a few posts lined up in the coming weeks. In the fall I hope to make the rounds of local kitchens. If you’re a blogger, chef, or neighbor, drop me a line! In the meantime, enjoy all of the wonderful fresh vegetables and every kind of ice cream possible.

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RECIPES

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Macaroons:

A pound of almonds, blanched and well beaten; a pound and a quarter of sugar; the whites of two eggs, dropped into it without beating, and stir up all with a knife; two or three spoonfuls of peach water [I used rose water – also authentic]. Roll them in your fingers, and put them on white paper to bake, in a slow oven.

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

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Bisque Ice Cream

  • 1 quart cream
  • 1 pint milk
  • 4 cupfuls sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Roll 1 dozen macaroons, and add to the cream.

Recipe from “The Church Cook Book”

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Cauliflower Salad – Mrs. Percy Duvall

Clean and separate a fine large head of cauliflower, taking care to leave the center of the flower without breaking. Boil in salted water and chill. When serving use lettuce leaves to garnish the dish, and place the cauliflower with the largest piece in the center of the dish.
Make the following dressing, which should be poured over the cauliflower and served on the table. If, however, the salad must be served from the pantry, it may of course be done, but the beauty of it is as a table-served dish.

Dressing for Cauliflower Salad

Chop very fine:

  • 1 onion
  • 1 small cucumber pickle
  • 1 green pepper
  • the heart of a stalk of celery 
  • a few leaves of parsley
  • 1 small tomato or a tablespoonful of canned tomatoes will do if the fresh tomato is impossible
  • 3 tablespoonfuls French mustard
  • ½ cupful thick sour cream 
  • 3 tablespoonfuls olive oil

This will serve ten people easily, as a course.

Recipe from “The Melwood Cook Book”

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Chocolate Ice Cream, Mrs. Percy Duvall

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The preface for the Melwood Cookbook gives a lofty -if somewhat bewildering- purpose for the book:

“This book is compiled and published as a means of raising money with which to build a club house, in order that the aims and purposes of [the Woman’s Club of Melwood District] shall be the more fully realized… for when we shall have a place of meeting, to which we shall feel free to invite others of like aim, we may find in the free discussion of existing conditions, a solution that shall result in the bettering of ourselves, our homes, and our neighborhood, known as it is as a ‘Pretty fine place to live in’.”

Although the book was compiled in 1920 by women from the Upper Marlboro area of Prince George’s County, the overall collection of recipes gives an impression similar to late 19th century cookbooks by Southern ladies like Jane Gilmor Howard and Marietta Gibson.

The Melwood Cookbook’s primary author, Mrs. Percy Duvall (nee Matilda Roome) was born in 1864 in New York, but she fancied herself a “Daughter of the South.” Her mother Catherine* Wilcox had been from Savannah Georgia, born to a family of tobacco merchants. When the family fled north during the Civil War, Catherine met and married William Oscar Roome – a Union Army Captain. After Matilda was born, the Roomes moved from New York to northern Virginia.

Young Matilda, according to her biography in “Littell’s Living Age,” suffered after her mother died and her father remarried. Her stepmother, a “Long Island Yankee,” made her do household chores in spite of the family having “black servants.” Woe is me, poor little Matilda. Matilda escaped her tragic homelife by taking art classes and learning to paint.

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Tilly Roome with painting, “Littell’s Living Age”

Around 1890, Matilda married William Littell, a tennis friend of her brother.  In an exciting scheme to support his new wife, Will Littell signed on with Dr. Frederick Cook aboard the Miranda – an expedition to the North Pole.

Meanwhile, Matilda put her art schooling to work. She went into business decorating lampshades and selling them to local shops in New York. The lampshades became so popular that they were shipped to stores all over the country. “Tillie” Roome Littell  also began to contribute recipes and crafts to women’s magazines like “Table Talk” and “The Delineator.”

Unfortunately, the Miranda hit an iceberg and Will had to head home empty-handed and without glory. According to the story, he hitched a ride on a fishing boat, sleeping on a pile of fish.

Matilda wasn’t too happy with her husband arriving back in New York broke and smelling like fish. Nor was Will feeling too adequate in light of his wife’s financial success. The couple was divorced and Matilda went on to work as a secretary to stockbroker J. Edward Addicks, providing the man with real-estate advice that made him quite wealthy.

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Mount Airy, 1936, John O. Brostrup, loc.gov

Eventually, Matilda invested in her own piece of real estate. Mount Airy, a Southern Maryland home built by the Calvert family, would finally allow her to live out her dreams of being the “mistress” of a Southern home. And she played the part – her biography talks of her managing sharecroppers who would be “dishonest if not supervised” … oh brother.

Matilda’s second marriage was to an Upper Marlboro neighbor, Percy Duvall, in 1908. It was during this marriage that she compiled the Melwood Cookbook.

Mrs. Duvall belonged to a large social network that allegedly included U.S. Presidents, diplomats, politicians, and businessmen. Duvall’s cooking was renowned. Recipes from the cookbook frequently appeared in The Prince George’s enquirer and Southern Maryland Advertiser. To bring in more income, Duvall began opening her home for meals to business travelers. She renamed the mansion Dower House to avoid confusion with Mt. Airy in Montgomery County. The popularity of Dower House led to a real-estate offer that the savvy businesswoman couldn’t refuse. She sold Dower House to newspaper editor Cissy Patterson in 1931. She forever regretted it.

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Matilda’s prize-winning recipe in the Ryzon [Baking Powder] cookbook, 1917, MSU library digital collection. 

This ice cream recipe states that “this is the way chocolate ice cream is made in France.” Matilda did indeed visit France in the early 1900′s, when she went to Paris to take operatic singing lessons. Despite the recipe containing a staggering cup of flour, I followed formula. The end result tasted like a chocolate frosty! This recipe is best served directly from ice cream maker as it will freeze quite hard.

Matilda’s second marriage eventually ended in divorce as well. A 1930 census lists the value of her estate as $40k and the value of Percy Duvall’s at $50 dollars. At the time of his death in 1958, he was residing with his twin sister.

I couldn’t figure out what became of Will Littell. There is still debate over whether the captain of the Miranda, Dr. Frederick Cook, ever actually reached the North Pole. To some, he is considered a bit of a charlatan, although he has his defenders.

Matilda died in 1964, just a few weeks shy of 100 years. Who knows whether the Melwood women ever did build their clubhouse.

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Recipe:

1 Quart rich milk
1.5 Cup sugar
1 Cup flour
.25 can cocoa (an antique cocoa can of the era appears to be 8 oz)
vanilla extract
.5 Cup butter
1 Pint cream
1 additional Pint milk, added the last thing

Bring milk to a boil, but do not allow it to boil before adding sugar and flour mixed and smoothed with the cocoa. When this is smooth, stir in the scalded milk. Allow to boil a minute, or until the milk is thickened. Remove from the fire and add the butter. When this is melted, add the vanilla and cream. If this is not sweet enough, add additional sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the cream and the additional pint of milk just before freezing. This is the way chocolate ice cream is made in France.

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*some accounts list Mrs. Roome’s first name as “Matilda O.” I was unable to verify the correct name.

Ice Cream, Mrs. Boddy’s / Eloise Hampton Wilson

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In 2018 I’m hoping to branch out to some of the interesting archives and historical collections in other parts of the state outside of Baltimore.

The Historical Society of Harford County has Saturday hours once a month so I nervously planned a visit. As a “not a real scholar” I often feel out of place in historical societies – like some kind of intruder – but my experience at HCHS was overwhelmingly positive. The place was bustling with potential volunteers visiting the Open House, plus researchers pulling items for genealogy & school projects. Welcoming staff informed me about their collection of community cookbooks, and one volunteer brought out an over-200-year-old British cookbook to show me. Perhaps the book traveled from England to Harford County with a colonist.

The oldest local historical society in the state, Historical Society of Harford County is in the process of organizing and cataloging their collection of documents, relics, and textiles.

During my time there I got to examine two different books – one commercial cookbook from North Avenue Market (more on that at a later date), and an item from the Eloise H. Wilson collection.

The book is dated to 1810 – probably due to a note written beneath a recipe for Apple Pudding: “Bridgetown March 7th 1810 for Mrs. Fanny Giles.”

Its impossible to truly know the year such a cookbook was started, but it certainly is older than the manuscripts I typically handle. 19 of the books 152 recipes are for puddings – a percentage that would go down over time in American cookbooks as technology and tastes changed. A recipe for a suet pudding known as “The Duke Of Buckingham Pudding” contains rosewater as a flavoring and is boiled in a cloth. Similar recipes appear in cookbooks dating to the 1700s.

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Eloise Hampton Wilson Etching, Setting Tomatoes, sturgisantiques.com

The Eloise H. Wilson collection contains everything from 1770s ledgers to Christmas Cards engraved by Wilson. Born in 1906, Eloise Hampton Wilson created engravings primarily depicting workers, many of which were used in magazines such as the New Yorker in the 1930s. She later served on the board of trustees for the  Baltimore Museum of Art.

After doing some research, I believe that the recipe book may have belonged to Wilson’s great-grandmother Ruth Jeffers (maiden name Westcott). Jeffers lived from 1797-1866 in New Jersey. Frances “Fanny” Giles, the daughter of Revolutionary War general James Giles, would have been Ruth Westcott’s sister-in-law, having married Westcott’s half-brother in 1810. Perhaps the Apple Pudding was served at a wedding shower type gathering.

I didn’t make the Apple Pudding, however. I made this lemon-flavored ice cream which is attributed to a “Mrs. Boddy.” Sadly I couldn’t deduce who this person was – possibly a neighbor. It’s kind of a needle in a haystack. 

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Daguerreotype courtesy of Stephen Haynes of Minneapolis, Mercy (Harris) (Hampton) Westcott’s 3rd great-grandson

Another possible author candidate for the recipe book is Westcott’s mother Mercy Harris Westcott (1755-1837), whose life spanned opposite ends of New Jersey – born in Bound Brook, she died in Bridgeton.

It was Eloise H. Wilson’s parents, Fanny Hampton Kennard and Robert L Wilson who moved the family to Maryland in the 1930s. Other than that, the family tree has the most roots around the Pittsburgh, PA, and Cumberland County New Jersey areas.

That means that this ice cream never was a Maryland recipe. Well, it is now.

My day at the Historical Society of Harford County was a reminder that fascinating recipe manuscripts and cookbooks may be scattered throughout all corners of the state. There could be one in a library near you… or perhaps in your own home. (If it’s the latter… invite me over!)

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Recipe:

“Take 3 qts of new milk, boil it, have ready ten eggs, 2 lbs of white sugar, 4 tablespoonfuls of flour, beat them altogether with grated rind of three lemons, when the milk boils pour it on the ingredients, stir it up, put it on the fire, let it just come to a simmer, set it away to cool, when cold add the juice of the lemons, 1 qt of rich cream, strain through a sieve, then freeze.”

Recipe from “Cookbook 1810,” Eloise H. Wilson Collection, Historical Society of Harford County 

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(Strawberry) Extract for Ice Cream

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While vacationing in 2015, on a day drive down the Delmarva peninsula, we found ourselves in the relatively sparse landscape of Bloxom, VA. We spotted a striped truck off of Route 13 with stenciled letters announcing “Mi Pequeña Taqueria” and pulled over into the scorching parking lot where this taco truck stood. We enjoyed classic tacos filled with meltingly tender tongue or smoky pork prepared ‘al pastor’, and topped with a modest sprinkling of diced tomato and onions. Optional hot sauce waited at the picnic table. This taco truck and the syndicated Spanish-language radio station we listened to were the only indications of another side of the Eastern Shore. 

Every summer, droves of people pass to and from the beaches and beach towns, crowding into the narrow slices of paradise in an attempt to squeeze the most joy out of summer vacation days. Off of the back roads is a hidden workforce for whom summer means the opposite of vacation. Summer means crops to be harvested, one after another: strawberries, beans, tomatoes, fruit – first down South and then further North as the climate ripens crop after crop.

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Aubrey Bodine, “Strawberry Picking” Marion Station 1953 (preservationmaryland.org)

As I did research on Strawberries for this post and the previous strawberry post, I was struck by the transience, the true impermanence of this workforce. Whereas immigrant groups have been known to come for the labor, weaving new traditions into local culture, and some people settling down to become a permanent part of it, farm labor is so seasonal and isolated that some of us may hardly know that thousands of people are living nearby.

In our region, it seems pretty glaring that the economic predecessor to this work force was slavery.

After emancipation, the system of labor migration fell into place. In some instances, employers were even caught re-enslaving their “employees.” Involuntary servitude cases occur to this day.

An 1891 Baltimore Sun article described the life of strawberry pickers living in the “farm barracks”:

“About ten thousand men, women and children, armed with cooking utensils and bed clothing, have just invaded Anne Arundel county. Here they will remain until the last vestige of the season’s crop of berries, peas and beans have disappeared… The strawberry pickers are recruited from the neighborhoods about the packing-houses in Baltimore, and they are of almost every nationality. Bohemians, Poles and Germans predominate, with a fair sprinkling of Americans, Italians and colored people.

The barracks where the pickers live while on the farms vary according to the means of the farmer and the size of the patch… often they are simply old tenant houses… The life is as near gypsy-like as anything can be. The first thing done is to build a fireplace of mud in the open air, which is used in common by all the pickers.” – Army of Harvesters, The Sun May 27, 1891

Despite describing the sparse sleeping quarters where workers “sleep close” sometimes even sleeping outside, plus the long hours, and the watchful eyes of the “row boss” ensuring they don’t “eat as many berries as they pick,” the article depicts the situation as a fun “summer vacation” for the workers.

In 1900 the Sun reported that hundreds of African-Americans from the Eastern shore flocked to the strawberry-picking jobs in Anne Arundel County and then in Delaware. This was the height of the strawberry boom and there were not enough laborers to go around.

The labor shortage didn’t last long, however, and job competition may have fueled a spate of terrorism in 1937, as black laborers’ cabins in Somerset County were mysteriously burned to the ground. Several people were killed, and although a coroner’s jury ruled the fires an accident, the State’s Attorney was on record suspecting foul play. The Sun pointed out that even accidental fires should have merited scrutiny of the housing conditions.

Shortly after, an ample labor source came from WWII “prisoners of war.” A few of the camps were later used to house migrant workers.

The state created a commission to tackle the issues of housing and healthcare for the large force of migrant workers in Maryland. Their reports offer at least some insight into the demographics of workers and their lives in labor camps.

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Abandoned Migrant Camp, Bishopville MD, Lee Cannon

The commission reported in 1983 that of the 57 licensed migrant camps in Maryland “more than a third experienced major deficiencies in meeting established health and safety standards.” Westover was a particularly infamous large camp in Somerset County:

“The Westover Camp, once a World War II holding pen for German prisoners, has acquired such notoriety that migrants from as far away as Texas refuse to stay there… Families live in single-room units without running water. Most units have refrigerators and small gas plates for cooking; sometimes doors, sometimes not. Latrines offer stools without stalls, gang showers with no privacy… ditches filled with stagnant water and.. gaping bins of garbage…” – Migrant Workers on Maryland’s Eastern Shore (1983)

In 2014, public health official Thurka Sangaramoorthy reported on her blog that she was “astonished” at the camp’s cleanliness and upkeep, considering its past reputation.

Sangaramoorthy’s website offers a more recent look into the humanitarian issues that still exist in some of Maryland’s labor camps.

While the workforce is now comprised largely of people of Mexican origin, there have been varying percentages of African-American, Haitian, Guatemalan, and Puerto Rican people making up significant numbers of workers over the years. Workers keep to each-other and their families, and travel too frequently to leave many obvious signs of influence on local culture. Aside from the occasional taco truck spotting, many Marylanders have no awareness about this aspect of our economy. And yet most of us partake in it- at the grocery store, the produce stand, and yes, when we eat those ‘fancy’ tacos on the way home from the beach.

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Recipe:

  • 1 Pint sharp vinegar
  • 5 Quart strawberry
  • 1 Lb brown sugar

“1 pint sharp vinegar poured on 1 quart of strawberries, to remain 24 hours. Then strain it on a second quart of fruit, and so on until you get the extract from 5 quarts of strawberries; add to it, 1 pound of brown sugar. Then boil and keep skimmed; then let it cool before bottling it. Cork it tightly and keep it in a cool place.Extract of raspberries may be made in the same way.”

Recipe from “The Queen of the Kitchen: a collection of “old Maryland” family receipts for cooking” by M. L Tyson

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Extract shown next to Preserved Strawberries

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Vanilla Ice Cream

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Nearly all of my old Maryland cook-books contain a few pages of ice cream recipes. It was an integral ‘domestic receipt’ by the time Elizabeth Ellicott Lea published the first Maryland cookbook in 1845. Her book contains a characteristically austere four recipes- less than half as many as later authors M.L. Tyson of “Queen of the Kitchen” and Mrs. B. C. Howard in “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen.”

Although it’s been around since colonial times, ice cream experienced a surge in popularity in the 1800′s with the advent of ice-houses and the increased transport of ice.

This popularity continued to grow despite the rather disturbing frequency with which people died from eating it. 

Newspapers regularly reported incidents of people – even large groups of people – getting sick or dying from ice cream tainted with “Ptomaines” – essentially a catch-all theory behind food poisoning.

“The average man wants to know whether his food has these things in it, and what antidote he can take if he finds himself poisoned. On these subjects science has little to say. It is established that the poisonous portion of any particular sample of food cannot be distinguished either chemically or microscopically.” – Baltimore Sun, “IN AWE OF PTOMAINES: Scientists Baffled By The Insidious Poison Which Killed Anton Seidl And Others” 1898

The frequency of food poisoning may explain why there were various crackpot beliefs about foods that should not be consumed with ice cream. Later press releases would occasionally assure readers that, as it turns out, it actually was safe to eat ice cream after eating things such as lobster and oysters.

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1934

110 years before this exciting news, Mary Randolph had included, amongst her dozen-plus ice-cream recipes in “The Virginia Housewife,” a most revolting-sounding oyster flavor. (I suppose I should mention, if you’ve come across the misinformation that Randolph’s relative Thomas Jefferson introduced ice cream to America, that is incorrect. Read about it here.)

I’ve made custard-based ice creams so many times (my go-to is Ina Garten’s Creme Anglaise) that I kind of forgot there was an alternative. Imagine my surprise when this recipe, taken from the 1874 book “The Queen of the Kitchen: A Collection of ‘old Maryland’ Family Receipts,” was just a matter of combining four ingredients and freezing. Laziest OLP post ever.

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1899, Baltimore Sun

One might be inclined to hand-wring over the raw egg-whites. They could maybe be left out. I took my chances, especially since I had some farmers-market eggs.

When we feel compelled to romanticize the past, it is worth remembering that the degree of food safety we now enjoy could not always be taken for granted. We also have the luxury of knowing that it is safe to eat oysters and ice cream together, and the wisdom not to.

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Recipe:

2 quarts of rich cream, 1 pound of white sugar, whites of 4 eggs well beaten, and added. Flavor to taste, and freeze. If preferred, leave out the eggs.

Recipe from “The Queen of the Kitchen: A Collection of “old Maryland” Family Receipts for Cooking : Containing 1007 Practical and Useful Receipts, All of which Have Been Tried and Approved, and Been in Use for Many Years”

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