Many home cooks dream of achieving what Emily Frances Kitching did. Kitching’s Smith Island boardinghouse was no restaurant. Guests ate at a set time. Meals were served at communal dinner tables. There wasn’t a menu to choose from – there was a smorgasbord of seafood soups or chowders; crab cakes; clam fritters; ham; hot rolls; stewed vegetables; pickled carrots; macaroni, bean or potato salads; corn pudding; iced tea. No one went hungry. Guests kept coming, and word spread. Frances Kitching achieved culinary fame on her own terms.
While some credit Kitching with the invention of Smith Island Cake, a recipe for the cake does not appear in the original 1981 edition of “Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Kitchen.” Still, there can be little debate that Kitching’s food was synonymous with Smith Island cooking. What began as a way to feed the men who were installing electricity on the secluded island in the 1950s became a force that attracted outsiders to experience life on Smith Island.
In a 1981 Washington Post article about Mrs. Kitching, food writer Joan Nathan declared that “Frances Kitching is a slow starter in the kitchen,” strolling into her world-famous kitchen with a cigarette, waiting until the last minute to prepare some fried fish. “The last minute is when she spies from her kitchen window the ‘Captain Jason’ ferry approaching,” Nathan wrote.
Frances Kitching in the Wilmington Evening Journal, 1978
“Effective October 1, 2008, the Smith Island Cake became the State Dessert of Maryland (Chapters 164 & 165, Acts of 2008; Code General Provisions Article, sec. 7-313). Traditionally, the cake consists of eight to ten layers of yellow cake with chocolate frosting between each layer and slathered over the whole. However, many variations have evolved, both in the flavors for frosting and the cake itself” – Maryland Manual On-line
I confess to being a onetime Smith Island Cake skeptic. When the layer-cake was declared the state dessert in 2008 I was baffled. What of the white potato pie? Or Lady Baltimore? (Not a Maryland cake by the way. Shame on me.) And then, in my haste to try this famed cake, I ordered up a slice at one of the many restaurants along Route 50 boasting the dessert. Hoping to lure in tourists on their way to or from the beach, many such establishments scrambled to procure some form of “Smith Island Cake.” I was disappointed by nine dry, lifeless layers, probably straight from Sysco, foe of all that is authentic.
I was missing the point of the Smith Island Cake Act. This cake wasn’t coronated to reign above all other Maryland desserts and to add a token “must try” to diners’ lists for corporations to cash in on. This is about more than cake. It is about recognizing a unique place and culture in our state.
Many Marylanders have, unbeknownst to us, had Smith Islanders to thank for our soft crabs and crab cakes, dishes widely known and ‘owned’ from the shore up through the panhandle. When you eliminate the clams, crabs, oysters, and fish that comprise the seafood-centric sustenance of Smith Islanders, what is left to distill into an emblem of tradition and the meticulousness of skilled island cooks is Smith Island Cake.
It is hard to pin down the cake’s origin from newspapers or books. The name “Smith Island Cake” is a relatively recent convention, and the number of layers varies and bloats through the ages. Some early news-writers mention trying the famous “seven layer cakes” of Smith Island. Layers eight, nine and ten have been slapped on in the last 20 years or so, with authority enough that many would scoff at seven layers today.
Mrs. J. Millard (Helen Avalynne) Tawes’ “My Favorite Maryland Recipes” features a seven-layer cake with a cake and chocolate icing composition that is nearly identical to available recipes for Smith Island Cake. Tawes grew up in Crisfield, the closest town on the mainland, a departure point for ferries to the Ewell community on Smith Island.
My 1981 copy of “Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Cookbook” does not include the recipe for the cake – it was added by popular demand to later editions in the 1990′s. According to “Ethnic American Food Today: A Cultural Encyclopedia” (2015, Lucy Long), “many incorrectly credited the late island hostess, innkeeper and cookbook author Frances Kitching with the cake’s appearance. She helped popularize it with the thousands of guests she served at her home and boarding house…“ This account claims that the thin layers were the result of a primitive wood oven in which it was hard to get a larger layer to rise properly.
Others maintain that the large icing ratio helped to preserve the cake for longer. The rising fame of the cake only serves to further confuse the cake’s true origin or ‘purpose’ – as if a cake ever needed a purpose.
At the risk of incurring the wrath of purists everywhere, I used Kitching’s recipe for the cake layers to make two miniature layer cakes, and swapped out a cream-cheese icing. I gave my tiny cakes a patriotic flair with food coloring, and I did a characteristically incompetent job of icing them. Nonetheless, the cakes were a hit; moist soft layers held together with a thin slathering of icing.
Smith Island Cake, Bayside Inn
In 2015 I visited the island. After a 30-minute breezy ferry ride to the Ewell community, we watched a video of a resident swiftly and expertly picking crabs for packing. I inquired into Mrs. Kitching’s old place – it had long since burned down. We strolled the streets for awhile. They resembled a sleepy Eastern Shore fishing community, but due to population (and land) loss it was even quieter. Occasional boat motors buzzed like cars on a distant highway, cicadas sang nearby. I was surprised to see pomegranate trees surviving the climate. Biting flies terrorized us, distracting from the picturesque calm summer day. We retreated indoors to Bayside Inn to finish our visit with a soft crab sandwich and yes, a slice of Smith Island Cake. I chose the “Peaches and Cream” variety. It was the best slice of cake I have ever tasted.
Recipe:
2 cups sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into chunks (1 cup)
5 eggs
3 cups flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
1 cup evaporated milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
½ cup water
Cream together sugar and butter. Add eggs one at a time
and beat until smooth. Sift together flour, salt, and baking
powder. Mix into egg mixture one cup at a time. With mixer
running, slowly pour in the evaporated milk, then the vanilla
and water. Mix just until uniform.
Put three serving spoonfuls of batter in each of ten 9-inch
lightly greased pans, using the back of the spoon to spread evenly. Bake three layers at a time
on the middle rack of the oven at 350° for 8 minutes. A layer is done when you hold it near your
ear and you don’t hear it sizzle.
Start making the icing when the first layers go in the oven. Put the cake together as the layers
are finished. Let layers cool a couple of minutes in the pans. Run a spatula around the edge of
the pan and ease the layer out of the pan. Don’t worry if it tears; no one will notice when the
cake is finished. Use two and three serving spoonfuls of icing between each layer.
Cover the top and sides of the cake with the rest of the icing. Push icing that runs onto the plate
back onto the cake.
To further emphasize my status as an unqualified Maryland food appreciator, I will confess that of all the seafood offerings at crab houses, I’ve consumed “New England” clam chowder the most in my lifetime.
My love of crab came slowly (and I still haven’t caught the craze for oysters) but I will never turn down a cup of clam chowder.
I finally had the chance to visit Smith Island recently. On a beautiful day we took a ferry ride from Crisfield to the Ewell community. The ferry passed by bird-inhabited marshlands, abandoned fishing shacks, and osprey-crowned channel markers. Finally we pulled in through clusters of boats and crab pots, past a bakery advertising Smith Island’s famed eponymous cake, and disembarked to wander the island and provide a novel feast for isolated mosquitoes.
In many ways, Smith Island feels much like an Eastern Shore fishing
community in the summer. Waving at passing cars (or golf-carts as the case may be) is mandatory.
The air is infused with the soothing yet faintly fishy salty marsh
smell, plus heaps of humidity. Island cats either duck under porch steps
or glare back with indifference. Mosquitoes and biting flies descend eagerly.
It is the quietness that gives
indication at the isolation of Smith Island. This is a place that has
been losing population and land for decades, for environmental, economic
and cultural reasons. The tourism industry provides what is surely to some a reluctant alternative to the booming seafood industry that once supported nearly all of the families here.
After a day spent walking around Ewell, visiting the museum there, and viewing a short film about life on Smith Island, we went to the Bayside Inn Restaurant to have a soft crab and of course a slice of cake.
Pomegranates, Smith Island
On our way out, I inquired about where Mrs. Kitching’s Restaurant used to be. As it turns out, the building that housed it had burned down.
Frances E. Kitching closed her famous restaurant in 1987, and passed away in 2003, but her book, “Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Cookbook” can still be found everywhere in that region and her legacy and her cooking are very much a part of the tourism industry of Smith Island.
“[Mrs. Kitching] began preparing food in her home for linemen installing electricity in
the 1950s and ended up operating a world-famed boardinghouse where
guests and islanders ate Maryland tidewater cuisine.
Food critics from The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and
The Washington Post, along with writers from travel and food magazines,
beat a path to her table, but Mrs. Kitching remained unfazed by all the
fuss.
There in her old-fashioned dining room, they ate platters of
french-fried jimmy crabs, crab loaf, clam and oyster puffs, pan-browned
wild duck, baked rock fish with potatoes, stewed crab meat and
dumplings, corn fritters, broiled flounder, fried apples, broiled red
drumfish, pickled carrots, oysters and, of course, crispy fried crab
cakes…
Mrs. Kitching spent all but three years of her life on her native Smith
Island, 10 miles off Crisfield in the Chesapeake Bay, where she was born
Frances Evans.
[She] often puffed a cigarette before going to work in her
kitchen and never wore an apron. And she offered simple, straightforward
advice for the novice when sauteing soft crabs: Use a well-seasoned and
oiled cast-iron skillet.” – Baltimore Sun
“The best thing you can do to a crab is let it be,” according to Mrs. Kitching. And that tells me she is a cook after my own heart.
And so I decided to entrust Mrs. Kitching with these clams we picked up at the Chincoteague Farmers Market. I’m a big fan of Chincoteague clams (to hell with the oysters) but these are a little different.
These clams were farmed on Chincoteague. I proceeded with caution, knowing the high salinity of Chincoteage Bay clams. Usually, no additional salt is required when using clams and their liquor. When it’s Chincoteague Bay clams you may need to leave the liquor out altogether (or save it to use sparingly.) I used these clams and their liquor, adding no salt.
We paid a visit to the aquaculture farm. The role of shellfish farms like this is an interesting topic which we’ll have to explore further soon. This is the new food system and therefore a part of Maryland cuisine.
I liked this recipe and its light use of milk as opposed to cream. I did not feel the need to add extra salt. A dash of Maggi might have been nice. I had some greens and some corn so I chopped them up and added them. As a result, the chowder tasted strongly of corn.
“Why bother,” you may ask, “making these authentic recipes and adding random things to them?”
My answer is that there is nothing more authentic than using what you have.
Recipe:
24 clams
2 large onions or shallots
water for boiling potatoes
4 large potatoes
1 quart milk
1 Tablespoon butter
salt (optional)
black pepper
Before using any clams, discard clams that do not close their shells when tapped. Soak the clams in clean water, changing the water a few times, then place them in a plastic bag. Put the bag into the freezer for a few hours. Before use, thaw clams for about 30 minutes. This facilitates opening the clams. When the shells are open, slip a paring knife inside and cut the meat out and discard the shells. Chop up the clams finely reserving the juice. Dice the onions and add them to the clams. Boil the potatoes and mash thoroughly. Add the mashed potatoes to the clams and onions. Heat the quart of milk just short of boiling and add to the clams, onion and potatoes. Simmer in a soup pot and salt to taste. Just before serving add pepper to taste and stir in the butter. Serve piping hot.
Recipe adapted from “Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Cookbook”
