Tag: interviews

Interview: Joyce White

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Joyce White kitchen demo, Hampton Mansion

In a way, White Potato Pie led me into the world of uniquely Maryland food, and so it is fitting that it also led me to the website of one Joyce White, culinary historian.

As the foremost expert in Maryland food (in this author’s humble estimation), Joyce White’s expertise spans far beyond that into American and European historic foodways. She has recently curated a Maryland exhibit at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (oh no, someone called Maryland the South! Here come the angry letters from all sides).  I recently had the privilege of attending one of her engaging demonstrations, and I would recommend that food history enthusiasts follow her website for updates on similar opportunities. She has appeared at countless museums and libraries such as the Maryland Historical Society, Riversdale House, Sandy Spring, and the Charles County library, plus senior centers, genealogical societies and similar venues all over the DC/Maryland region. Although she has not authored any print publications currently, she may be writing a book on late 18th – early 19th century baking in America, highlighting British origins of the recipes. 

A little bit about yourself and the path that led you to be a food historian:

I started out with food history as an intern at the Geneva Historical Society in New York State during college. I was forced to dress as an 1840s kitchen maid for a program for local 4th graders, I had to make a cake with them in the hearth. I never had done any historical cooking before, nor had I ever even built a fire. It was a good way to immerse myself in open hearth cooking as I had to do this several times per week over the course of the spring semester.

What type of perspective do you think that your work has given you into Maryland/American/World history?
I have learned so much and am continually learning every day. What I enjoy is being able to make connections between time periods (change over time),
regionalism (how the local economy, natural landscape, and rate of immigration and industrialization) affects the food choices that are made. I try to focus less on the origins of foods and more on what makes them persist within a culture. How do recipes adapt over time? Do recipes fall out of fashion and why? How are old world food traditions incorporated in a new world setting and time?

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Do you have particular favorite “culinary eras” or geographic regions?
I seem to spend lots of time on eastern US foods from the late 18th – late 19th century. It is a time in Maryland that is still very British in foundations but also a time when a definite American angle becomes obvious in the food choices made. For example, hominy corn (a very American crop associated with lower classes originally from settlement through the 18th century) eventually becomes popular with all classes in Maryland (hominy croquettes found on a high class menu for Baltimore’s Hotel Rennert by the late 19th c.).

Have you noticed any increase/decrease in public interest in culinary history and if so do you have theories as to why?
People seem to be very interested in my programs. Of course, I try to provide topic options that are appealing such as Chocolate, Tea, Maryland, and Dessert.
It also doesn’t hurt that I offer samples at the end of all of my programs! I am actually at a point where I have to decline invitations to speak because there just aren’t enough days in the week and hours in the day for me to do it all.

Are there any other historians, writers, chefs, whose work you admire or who have influenced you?
Ivan Day, British Food Historian
Peter Brears, British Food Historian
Susan Plaisted, Pennsylvania Food Historian
Leni Sorenson, Monticello
Michael Twitty, Kosher Soul
Elizabeth David, cookbook author
The Two Fat Ladies (mainly for their very British take on things and humor)
And many more …

You contributed to an exhibit on Maryland food at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum – can you tell us anything about that for those of us who haven’t seen it?
I wish I could – I haven’t seen it yet! The exhibit was just installed this past spring. I did the research but was not involved in the actual exhibit design and
installation. There is a bit of anxiety in this type of collaboration because I cannot be sure those on-site will interpret my research correctly. A trip to New Orleans is on the list and I will hopefully get there sooner rather than later.

Do you still do any active research/learning and if so, what type of subjects are you exploring?
Always. I am constantly researching and revising all of my current programs and always thinking of new program topics. I am looking at creating programs based on the foods of Jane Austen, the foods of the Edwardian period for a Downton Abbey program, and the foods of Shakespeare.

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What comes to mind when you think about Maryland food traditions specifically? Anything particularly unique or notable?

Recipe fossils, meaning something that was popular at one time but not so much any more:

  • White Potato Pie (look at my blog for that one);
  • Baltimore Fish Peppers: a type of very spicy African serrano pepper that was picked unripened and dried. It was made into a powder used to spice fish dishes (the light color of the unripe pepper did not discolor the fish dishes). Very popular in the late 19th century, not anymore though.

Beer – Baltimore was flooded with breweries in the 19th century. There were 40 breweries by the end of the century!

Muskrat – An Eastern Shore tradition popularized during the Great Depression of the 1930s

Pennsylvania Dutch Influences:

  • Smearcase Cheesecake
  • Scrapple
  • Pot Pie
  • Fastnacht donuts for Shrove Tuesday
  • Markets
  • And many others …

German influence: Sauerkraut with turkey for Thanksgiving and pork for New Year’s Day

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What, if anything, do you feel is left for culinary historians to learn at this juncture? Are there any particular resources that haven’t been tapped to their fullest potential?
There is always more to learn. I would love to spend several days exploring local and national archives looking for hand written recipe manuscripts and journals dating as far back as possible. You can get a fantastic insight into the preferences of our ancestors by looking at their personal recipe books. You can
see which recipes are more popular than others (grease stains, notations in the corner, etc), and you can really see what types of crops were popular on a
seasonal basis. If only there were more hours in each day!

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Joyce White’s Nutmeg Grater

Any ways in which your work has affected your home/personal cooking habits?
My family is less than enthusiastic about most of the historic cooking I do. I get made fun of a lot. My husband calls me Martha Washington Stewart! However, they are happy for me to try new things as long as I have a back-up in case they don’t like my experiments. I live with some very picky eaters!

Visit “A Taste of History with Joyce White”

Interview: Andrew Moore (Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit )

This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the Ohio Pawpaw Festival. I’ve been known to travel far and wide for festivals celebrating foods that are relevant to Maryland.

Some festivals are better than others and I have to say that the Ohio Pawpaw Festival is probably the best of the bunch (pun intended) I’ve attended so far. Paw-paws were EVERYWHERE, from the beer to the food to the artwork. I had some paw-paw pizza, paw-paw curry puff, paw-paw ice cream, a few of those paw-paw beers and I watched a paw-paw tasting and information session. 

I also got the chance to shake the hand of this interviewee and finally get a copy of his book in hand. I became aware of this book because of the Michael Twitty introduction and I knew instantly that this would provide some good information to go along with my (forthcoming) paw-paw cream pie recipe.

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The most satisfying part in all this is that the book has turned out to be entertaining. One reviewer compares Moore to such writers as Mark Kurlansky and I have to agree that this is a book that I will be recommending to friends. It is an engaging read beyond my own obsessive interest in these things. So without further ado here are a few words with the author:

Tell us about
yourself, writing background, etc.

I am the former development news editor of Pop City, a
weekly e-magazine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and my stories have appeared in
the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Daily Yonder, The Biscayne Times, and the
Lakeland Ledger.

What is it about
paw-paws that made you feel that a book was necessary?

To many of us enthusiasts the pawpaw is endlessly
interesting—it’s the only member of the vast Annonacea family not confined to the tropics; it’s the
largest edible fruit native to the United States; and it tastes great, like a
banana-mango mix, with a custard-like texture. And yet despite these
exceptional traits the pawpaw is largely unknown. When I first learned about
the pawpaw I wondered how did this unusual fruit come to be, and why is it that
so few of us know that it even exists?
Then I began to wonder, does it have a future as a commercial crop, on
farms and in backyards? I continued to ask questions, and traveled to meet
pawpaw growers in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland, and once it became
clear I had caught the pawpaw bug I was already well-along the path to writing
this book.

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Did you find any
interesting historical facts about the way these fruit might have been used by
people, and what kinds of people ate them and how?

Various Native American groups ate fresh pawpaws and likely
cooked or dried them too. The inner bark of pawpaw trees was also used as fiber
for a number of purposes, including the stringing of fish. Over the centuries,
the new Americans—Europeans and Africans, among others—also ate pawpaws, and
the tradition of late summer pawpaw pickin’ has endured in some locales, but
especially in the southern Appalachian Mountains, including Western Maryland
and West Virginia. There are even places named for the fruit—including Paw Paw,
West Virginia, and Paw Paw Cove, in Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

In 1916, a contest was held by the Journal of Heredity to find the best pawpaws in America. Fruit was
mailed to the journal’s office from 26 states, and included over 230 entries.
And among the top seven fruits was a selection from Maryland.

Beginning around 1990, Neal Peterson conducted his pawpaw
breeding experiments in Maryland, in cooperation with the University of
Maryland.

Today, the largest commercial orchard currently in
production, is located near Westminster, Maryland. The farm mail-orders pawpaws
all across the country.

How did you end up
connecting with Michael Twitty for the introduction?

I met Michael Twitty a number of years ago when he spoke in
Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University. If you’ve had the privilege of
listening to a presentation by Micheal, you already know he’s a talented,
dynamic speaker. And if that wasn’t enough, Michael was familiar with pawpaws
and shared his knowledge of how the fruit contributed to the diets of African
Americans, before and after the Civil War, and the tree’s other uses—including baiting
nocturnal mammals such as opossums and raccoons.

What were some of
your best resources in researching the history portion of the book?

There were so many great resources, but I’ll choose two to
highlight: Daniel F. Austin’s Florida
Ethnobotany, for early American history; and the library of the Northern
Nut Growers Association, for its wonderful archive of writings by experimental
fruit growers of the past century. Pawpaw has attracted curious characters for
a long time, and I’m thankful these horticulturalists took the time to record
their thoughts and observations, and that the NNGA has remained a repository
for that information.

Have you tried the
different types of paw-paws? Do you have a preference and/or can you describe
the differences?

All pawpaws, regardless of cultivars (or cultivated
varieties) are of the same species, Asimina
triloba. When plant people find exceptionally good pawpaws—“good” often
being a subjective term, but usually with respect to taste, size, or yield—they
sometimes name the tree and propagate it via grafting. There are a number of
pawpaw cultivars available through various nurseries. In the early 2000s, Neal
Peterson, one of the pawpaw’s longtime champions, released six named varieties
after several decades of analysis and observation. These Peterson Pawpaws are
all named for American rivers with Native American names—Shenandoah,
Susquehanna, Potomac, Allegheny, and so on—as a tribute to the fruit’s earliest
eaters and horticulturalists.

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Do you have any
information to share on their nutritional benefits?

Pawpaws are thought to be highly nutritious, offering high
amounts of potassium, vitamin C, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, and
niacin, among other vitamins and minerals. However much nutritional research is
yet to be done.

Do you have a
favorite recipe or way to eat them?

My favorite way to eat a pawpaw is fresh from the tree, and
my favorite prepared dish is without a doubt ice cream.

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I collected some
paw paw pulp and froze it one year and I found that parts of it were bitter. My
theory is that the bitterness came from the part close to the peel, any idea?
You can help me improve my pie!

Your theory is correct. There is some bitterness near the
skin, with the skin itself being extremely bitter. The other source might be
the pawpaw itself—some wild fruits are bitter, while others are as sweet and
luscious as any fruit you might find in the grocery store.

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Pawpaw: In Search of America’s Forgotten Fruit at Chelsea Green Publishing

Interview: Pam Williams

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I met Pam Williams at a hearth cooking demonstration at the Hays House and enjoyed the rare chance to interact with a lively group of culinary history enthusiasts. I knew I wanted to reach out to her to be the first of what I hope will be a series of little interviews with various historians, authors, and chefs involved in preserving and celebrating Maryland’s culinary traditions.

In what she describes as a “mid-life crisis sort of move”, Pam Williams took a job with a historical tour company in Annapolis. “It opened so many doors that I never knew I’d love to look in so much.” In 1996, after 12 years there, she took a part-time job with the City of Bowie Historic Properties Division as a Museum Assistant. From there she eventually moved on to Assistant Director, and Director. “I feel so very lucky, privileged, fortunate, whatever to be in the position I hold. I love my job! (Except at budget preparation time!!!!)”

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Which came first, your interest in cooking or your interest in history?

I think I’d have to say my interest in cooking came first. I’m from a large family, the eldest, and somehow I always knew how to cook something. My mother was an “intuitive cook,” making things that were really high level cuisine, and never realizing what she was doing. She was always my cooking inspiration. As a consequence of my historical employment, I got into reenacting. After being the chef de camp for a bit, I decided we needed to have some historical food in camp. It grew from there.

Can you tell me about some of the places you do or have done your hearth cooking demonstrations?

Belair Mansion, Hayes House, Smallwood’s Retreat, Jerusalem Mill…too many to recall!

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What, if anything, do you think we stand to gain from studying the history of food and cooking?

Food is a common denominator. We all have to eat. Our ancestors had to eat. The quote below sums it all up nicely.

“You could argue that cooking is the activity that most defines us as humans. Dolphins have a language; crows can create tools. But only humans can cook. By cooking, we transform the mundane into something sacred. And then we share it with others. Food is the most shareable currency we have. You probably don’t pass out money to your friends, but you can pass the paella. But first you have to know how to make it.“

– Jim Sollisch’ New York Times,Sept. 4, 2013

Food teaches us where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how basically, people are the same over time…it’s an incredible connection to the past.

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Has practice in reenactment and historical cooking methods changed the way you cook for yourself in every day life?

Actually, yes! I’ve learned to use spices in different ways, I’ve learned about the vast number of puddings, both sweet and savory, baked and boiled, and I make them at home. I make 18th century items for “home consumption,” as well as camp food.

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At the Hays House you were working from Mary Randolph’s cookbook – are there any others you like to use and why?

Mrs. Randolph is a go-to for many of us. But there are many that we use, many that are available on line. Hannah Glasse, in all her prints and reprints over the 18th and early 19th century, is a sort of bible. John Nott. Eliza Smith. Harriet Horry Pinkney. While I don’t own a real live antique 18th century cookbook, I probably have 25 reproduction ones.

What comes to mind when you think of Maryland food?

MARYLAND Stuffed ham (because there are other kinds.) Without a doubt! My roots are in St. Mary’s County! Crabcakes/oysters/rockfish/fried chicken. Kale (the “national vegetable of Southern Maryland”!) I grew up in the southern quarter of the state – Prince George’s County, and those transplant north from St. Mary’s and Charles! I grew up with them. But, in general, Maryland has a wonderful diversity of foodways…German, Pennsylvania Dutch influence, Jewish, Italian…you name it. We have a truly multicultural menu in Maryland.

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Do you have any future plans, goals or projects in mind with your work or upcoming appearances/events?

The Smallwood Foodways Guild cooks every third Sunday at Smallwood’s Retreat in Smallwood State Park in Marbury, below La Plata. I’ll be, along with some friends, cooking at the Market Fair at the Banneker Museum in Ellicott City in June. Those are the big ones…have spider/trivet, will travel!!!

All photos Kara Mae @ Hays House 2014.

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