If one wishes to emulate the classic flavor of terrapin, there are a few options. Perhaps the most famous(?) involves boiling a calves head. A 1900 article in the Baltimore Sun claimed that “Muskrats when served by the Eastern Shore cook as ‘mock terrapin’ will challenge the epicure to distinguish it from the real Chesapeake diamond-back.” Muskrats and calves-heads being hard to come by these days, the most appealing option uses cooked chicken. “Chicken terrapin” often appeared in housewives’ columns as a clever way to turn humble leftovers into something elevated nearly to the status of Maryland’s most famous gourmet dish.I actually suspect that Chicken Terrapin may have originated outside of Maryland. Why make an imitation of something that was so abundant? Chicken terrapin recipes appear in 19th-century newspapers in places like Kansas, Michigan, and Western Alabama.
Maryland can never say no to a good chicken dish, however, and before long Chicken Terrapin was a standard recipe in local cookbooks and newspaper columns. It died out by the 1940s, for the most part. The last time a recipe for Chicken Terrapin appeared in the Baltimore Sun was 1965.
The 725 recipes in “Maryland’s Way” were gathered from a variety of manuscripts and old cookbooks as well as from personal recipe collections of friends and colleagues of Mrs. Frances Kelly and Mrs. Hope Andrews (which is why they are concentrated in Anne Arundel County). Many of the recipes were adapted and adjusted by Alice Brown.
I’ve been able to determine the origin of most of the documents mentioned in Maryland’s Way – items kept in the Maryland Historical Society Library or Maryland State Archives. There are still a few that stump me – not to mention the identity of the various mononymously credited servants or relatives mentioned alongside the recipes.
This map attaches the book’s recipes to the manors and locations mentioned. When none is given, I defaulted to the main home of person who is listed alongside the recipe.
These maps are less an indication of any type of geographic culinary trends and more just a fun visualization of the culinary legacies of Maryland’s elite families at the turn of the 20th century.
This recipe for “Moonshines” is fairly mysterious. Outside of the Hammond-Harwood House cookbook, I couldn’t find an origin for it. What is most mysterious of all is why anyone would make their own crackers. Even the recipe in Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen (1873) entitled “Crackers for Tea or Lunch” goes like this:
See that? Just buy the damn crackers. But I was going to a pimiento cheese recipe party and I figured “why not,” so I made these sesame crackers.
The recipe, which also appears in the Southern Heritage Cookbook Library as “Maryland Moonshine Crackers,” was contributed to Maryland’s Way by Mrs. F. F. Beirne of Baltimore.
Baltimore Sun, October 1969
The name Francis F. Beirne (1891-1972) is most associated with his history of Baltimore, “The Amiable Baltimoreans,” among some other local history books and a humor column in the Evening Sun.
Mrs. Beirne was a historian in her own right, as it turns out. Born Rosamond Harding Randall in 1894 to a postmaster/lawyer, Randall attended Bryn Mawr (which she later wrote a history of.) She served on the Mt. Vernon (VA) Ladies Association board of regents for ten years, and co-authored a biography of Samuel Chase. (The book was published after her death.)
Rosamond also wrote history columns for the Baltimore Sun, including a three-part history of Baltimore City’s street names in 1914. This column introduced me to the fact that Baltimore once had a street named “Turtle Soup Alley.”
The Bryn Mawr history, “Let’s Pick the Daisies” has a preface in memory of Rosamond Randall Beirne, recalling her “bright eyes and handsome pompadour” during her days as a student there. “Rosamond’s human interests were wide,” wrote Millicent McIntosh, “as was her capacity for friendship with people of all ages.”
Rosamond was actually at a meeting of the Mount Vernon Association when she died in 1969. Walker Lewis wrote to the Baltimore Sun to eulogize Mrs. Beirne as a talented author and historian whose “mere presence made one feel more comfortable.” Baltimore, he wrote, had lost “one of its truly great ladies.”
Recipe:
1 egg
2 Tablespoons lard
2 Tablespoons butter
.25 Cup milk
2 Cups flour
.5 Teaspoon baking powder
.5 Teaspoons salt
1 egg white
sesame seeds
Beat egg until light; melt shortening and add to milk. Sift flour with baking powder and salt, and add to egg alternately with milk and shortening. Work well and chill dough. Break off a small amount of dough at a time and roll thin as your finger nail. Sprinkle with a little dry flour as you work which will make them easier to handle and crisp. Cut out with biscuit cutter, brush with unbeaten egg white and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake quickly in a 400° oven from 8 to 10 minutes, watching carefully. Serve with soup or sherry.
Recipe from “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cook Book
A lot of the names alongside the recipes in “Maryland’s Way” are associated with the Navy. This makes sense since the Hammond-Harwood house is in Annapolis, but it is interesting to see the different families that came to this region because of the Naval Academy and ultimately became lifelong Marylanders.
Frank Jack Fletcher was an Admiral during World War II, a commanding officer during World War I, and a lieutenant at the battle of Vera Cruz – part of the U.S. involvement in the Mexican Revolution.
That’s a lot of wars. According to Naval History magazine, he got a bum rap. I don’t know what his rap is, bum or otherwise, and I doubt he was too involved with this chicken recipe, what with all of his travels, so I’ll leave it at that.
Mrs. Frank Jack Fletcher was Martha Richards from Missouri; her family owned a hardware store in Kansas City. It’s unclear how the two met, but they were married in a rush in 1917 due to the United States entering the First World War.
In the 1930’s, the Fletchers purchased the historic Araby estate in Charles County. The house at Araby was originally built in the mid-1700s, and updated in the mid-1800s. The family of Colonel William Eilbeck owned the estate, and it is said that their only daughter Sarah once resided there with her husband George Mason. George Washington’s diaries mention frequent visits to Araby.
Historic pancake recipes tend to refer to something more like crepes than the pancakes we currently know. Illustrations in the Mrs. Beeton books show the thin pancakes rolled and stacked; they could be filled with sweet or savory fillings.
The basic recipe for these chicken filled pancakes makes frequent appearances in the Aunt Priscilla column in the Baltimore Sun. With slight variations, it was printed in 1926, 1936 and 1943. The recipe that Mrs. Fletcher contributed to “Maryland’s Way” does not specify whether the chicken should be cooked, but cooked chicken is used in the Priscilla columns, sometimes suggested as a way to use up leftovers. I cooked the chicken first just to be safe.
While it is highly possible that Mrs. Fletcher encountered the recipe through the newspaper or somewhere else, it may be worth noting that in the 1940 census, she had a black servant named Theodore Hawkins. Frank Jack Fletcher was away on duty at that time, so Hawkins may have been hired to assist with things that the Admiral wasn’t available for. However, ten years earlier, Hawkins had been employed at a hotel or kitchen at a Naval site in Indian Head Maryland, under a cook named Daisy Taylor. As the appearances in Aunt Priscilla indicate, the creamy chicken pancakes were the kind of food expected under hotel chefs and caterers of Maryland. The recipe may have reached Mrs. Fletcher through her servant whom the family may have met at Indian Head (now Naval Surface Warfare Center). We can never know these things for sure but recipe genealogy is intriguing.
Frank Jack Fletcher survived all of the wars he served in, and died in 1973, with Mrs. Fletcher passing away just over a year later. Both are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Recipe:
.5 Lb mushroom
3 Tablespoon butter
2 tb grated onion or shallot
2 white onions
1 Cup finely ground chicken
1 Cup cream
salt
pepper, black
cream sauce
cheese, Parmesan
Chop mushrooms fine and sauté in 1 tablespoon butter with grated onion. Brown sliced white onions in 2 tablespoons butter, then remove onions with slotted spoon and save for another dish. Sprinkle chicken with flour and stir it into onion seasoned butter. Add mushrooms and cook gently for about two minutes. Add cream, salt and pepper to taste, and cook for a minute or two longer. Spread the chicken on crepes (recipe below) and roll up. Arrange them in an oven dish, cover with cream sauce, sprinkle with cheese and bake at 350° for 5-10 minutes, until just browned.
Crepes:
1 Cup flour
1 whole egg plus 2 yolks
pinch salt
2 Cups milk
2 Tablespoons melted butter
Sift together flour and salt. Break egg into center; add 2 yolks. Pour in a little milk and milk with a fork until smooth. Gradually whisk in the rest of the milk; beat in butter. Cover batter and let rest for 2 hours. Batter should be the consistency of whipping cream. If it is too thick, whisk in more milk. Batter should be the consistency of whipping cream. If it is too thick, whisk in more milk.
To cook, melt additional butter in a pourable container. Heat a skillet and pour in a little butter. Turn skillet so that butter covers bottom and sides. When hot, ladle just enough batter to cover the bottom. Cook until lightly browned on each side.butter covers bottom and sides. When hot, ladle just enough batter to cover the bottom. Cook until lightly browned on each side.
Recipes adapted from “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cookbook”
On the suggestion of several friends, I recently watched “Fannie’s Last Supper,” a documentary about Christopher Kimball & company recreating a late 1800’s era meal based on the recipes of Boston Cooking School instructor Fannie Farmer. Although I thought that they could have been a little less rosy – this was an era of adulterated/tainted food and food poisoning – I did enjoy the film.
Most of all, it made me want to put forth a little extra effort with Victorian era dishes. I may not always have company coming, but some of these recipes were published with the purpose of impressing the reader with the sophistication and budget of the cookbook authors. They’re meant to be prepared with some pomp.
I recently spotted some quail in the case at the butcher shop and I was intrigued. I checked my collection for quail recipes. I only have six recipes specifying quail. This may be because the small game birds could be somewhat interchangeable. Still, quail seems like an elegant little fowl befitting the era.
One recipe suggested stuffing the birds with oysters and larding them with bacon. That sounds like a positively elegant idea, but I instead opted for a recipe from a positively elegant place – Readbourne manor. This recipe entailed browning the quails in butter and then cooking them in a gravy made with stock and sherry.
This quail recipe was contributed to “Maryland’s Way” by the wife of William Fahnstock, Jr., a wealthy New York Banker. The Fahnestocks restored the Readbourne mansion in the 1940′s. The land and surrounding grounds continue to be privately owned today.
Illustrations, Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management
The illustrations from Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management (1861) are ideal inspiration for a dainty presentation. If the photos that accompany most modern restaurant reviews are any indication, we still live in an era of asymmetrical food platings, jaunty stacks of cuisine, and sauce strewn around in squiggles and dots. I bet it won’t be long before Beeton’s showy precision and generous piles of garnish makes a comeback.
Ultimately, all that I did was make two concentric rings with rice and peas, and a dollop of jelly to the side promptly slid down the plate into the peas. Hey, I tried my best. Also, I poured my Budweiser into a goblet.
I think the quail may have tasted better for my effort. The beer, not so much.
Recipe:
4 quail
4 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons flour
2 Cup chicken stock
.5 Cup sherry
salt, black pepper to taste
Wash and truss four quail; place them in a heavy frying pan and brown in about four tablespoons butter.After browning on all sides, place them in a dutch oven or casserole dish with lid. Make gravy by adding 3 tablespoons flour to remaining butter in frying pan and whisk in slowly about 2 cups of chicken stock and ½ cup of sherry. Blend until thickened, add salt and pepper to taste, and pour over the quail. Cover tightly and cook at 350° for about 1 hour. “The birds are good and moist when cooked this way. Wild rice should be served with the quail.”
If one wishes to emulate the classic flavor of terrapin, there are a few options. Perhaps the most famous(?) involves boiling a calves head. A 1900 article in the Baltimore Sun claimed that “Muskrats when served by the Eastern Shore cook as ‘mock terrapin’ will challenge the epicure to distinguish it from the real Chesapeake diamond-back.” Muskrats and calves-heads being hard to come by these days, the most appealing option uses cooked chicken. “Chicken terrapin” often appeared in housewives’ columns as a clever way to turn humble leftovers into something elevated nearly to the status of Maryland’s most famous gourmet dish.I actually suspect that Chicken Terrapin may have originated outside of Maryland. Why make an imitation of something that was so abundant? Chicken terrapin recipes appear in 19th-century newspapers in places like Kansas, Michigan, and Western Alabama.
