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Mushroom Pie, The Glebe Kitchen

May 25, 2016January 13, 2019

This recipe appeared in “Maryland’s Way,” care of Mrs. Carroll Rede Harding’s “Glebe Kitchen.” Researching The Glebe I learned that a glebe is actually like a church’s home and lands where the priest lives. I always thought it was a person’s name because there’s so many “Glebe” this-or-thats around.

Although Mr. Carroll Rede Harding was in fact the son of a Reverend, the “Glebe” in question is a “typical late 19th century farmhouse” in Talbot County.

Harding mostly grew up in Baltimore, where he delivered hats for a milliner, worked as a copy boy for the Associated Press, and attended

Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. After graduating from Cornell, Mr. Harding worked in railroad industries most of his life, finally serving as the president of the Pullman Company from 1947 through 1958, at which point he retired to the Glebe. He passed away in 1963.

From here, an interesting course of events befalls the Glebe.

The Glebe, Maryland Historical Trust

The estate came into possession of conservative politician Robert Bauman, member of the House of Representatives who lived at The Glebe with his wife Carol and four children.

His career and marriage came to an end following a scandal in 1980 when Bauman was caught soliciting a 16 year old male prostitute. Bauman penned an autobiography in 1986 entitled “The Gentleman from Maryland: The Conscience of a Gay Conservative.”

The Glebe, setting for this turmoil, stands today as part of a million-dollar estate.

But back to the mushroom pie. Although people have been eating mushrooms for ages, its hard for me to pinpoint the 18th and 19th century sources of mushrooms in Maryland. It is doubtful that people were growing them, for the most part. Newspaper searches indicate a fairly-frequent occurrence of foraging gone wrong, if you know what I mean. But then, there would not be much reason to mention successful mushroom hunting.

A lot of mushrooms probably reached Maryland kitchens dried, powdered, or in the form of mushroom ketchup.

Personally, I don’t have the greatest of luck with foraging. I’m not talking unfortunate soul meeting my doom through bad judgement, but rather that I’m usually coming home empty-handed. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about this so excuse me if I indulge in some food-blogger style rambling.

I’ve just had this lifelong neurotic superstition that maybe I wanted it too bad, or I didn’t give off the right vibes to the universe. Meanwhile my family members were always and still are being rewarded with decent mushroom hauls, or at the very least one gigantic morel the size of a human head. Its an uncanny gift that skipped over me.

An ancestor of mine once found this record-breaking puffball:

This year has been no different. Aside from one blessed morel, I’ve left the woods empty handed.

The woods gods threw me a bone the other day when I found this Sulphur Shelf aka “Chicken Mushroom.” I know this thing doesn’t look edible but do some searching, there’s no mistaking this one. I know because I checked and checked again. A Sulphur Shelf is no spectacular find by most metrics but they grow to a nice size for something requiring a lot of mushrooms, such as mushroom ketchup or this mushroom pie.

Mrs. Carroll Rede Harding’s recipe is open to an array of seasonings, so I copied the flavors of some ravioli I once had and used rosemary and some parmesan cheese. So what if it’s wood pulp or whatever?

I made some quick puff pastry for the top. It may not be picturesque but the pie was delicious. Mrs. Harding suggested serving with roast beef so I did just that, along with some Currant Jelly. I will definitely make this again, woods gods permitting. I pick up litter to win their favor.

Recipe:

2-3 Lb mushrooms
1 large or 2 small chopped onions
2 Tablespoons flour
1 Cup strong stock
.5 Cup Madeira
salt
celery salt or seasonings of choice
freshly ground black pepper
cayenne pepper
butter – 2 tb plus more for sautéing
pastry

Sauté onions in butter until golden, add mushrooms and cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Place mushrooms and onions in pie dish. Brown flour in 2 tablespoons of butter over low heat. Slowly add stock and Madeira wine, stirring or whisking until thickened and smooth. Season to taste. Pour sauce over mushrooms and cover with a rich pastry crust. Bake in a 375° oven for ½ hour*.
“Excellent accompaniment for Roast Beef.” – Mrs. Carroll R. Harding

* If using pastry, follow instructions for baking pastry before reducing heat

Recipe adapted from “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cookbook”

Braised Duckling Bigarrade, Fort Cumberland Hotel

May 20, 2016January 13, 2019

This is another recipe from the glamorous hotel era – this time from Cumberland, Maryland. At the time of the publication of “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” in the 1930s, Cumberland was a booming town connecting the rest of Maryland to the west, particularly mineral-rich western Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Trains, the National Road, and the C&O Canal moved freight and people from DC & Baltimore through this mountain town, and many of those people expected to wine and dine in style just as they had in Baltimore and on the train-ride itself.

To that end, the Fort Cumberland Hotel was built in 1916. This “typical small city hotel” offered middle-class residents of western Maryland a chance to feast on Sunday dinners of “Filet of Sole Au Vin Blanc,” “String Beans Au Beurre,” and yes, “Chicken A La Maryland.”

Early advertisements boasted the hotel as “fireproof,” a legitimate concern for the times but amusing and baffling today. The hotel ultimately did experience a fire in 1952 but it was minor, and the Cumberland Times reported that “no panic ensued.”

The Fort Cumberland Hotel was visited by no less than future President Harry Truman during a 1928 journey to dedicate twelve “Madonna of the Trail” monuments along the “National Old Trails Road.”

trumanlibrary.org

Digging into the past of hotel manager Ivan Poling, who shared this recipe with Frederick Phillip Stieff, provides some more damning evidence (if the racist cartoons weren’t enough) on Stieff’s character – if this is the company he kept. A businessman from a family involved in the coal business and then the hotel trade, Poling was the owner or manager of many hotels throughout Maryland and his home state of West Virginia. A news item from Fairmont, WV in 1924 indicates that Poling was almost certainly a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He was fined $500 for his part in a conspiracy to kidnap and batter a black man suspected of making advances on a white woman. Several of the other people charged were “officials” in the Klan. It is unusual that this incident made it into the news at that place and time – there is no way of knowing how he conducted himself thereafter. Upon his death in 1948, Cumberland obituaries recalled his “genial personality and friendly interest in people.”

Today the Fort Cumberland Hotel is a senior’s home. The population of Cumberland peaked in 1940 and has been steadily declining since. Perhaps some of the seniors living there can remember the time when the hotel offered another luxurious stop for the wealthy, and the town of Cumberland was bustling not just with wealthy travelers, but with the chefs and waiters, miners, and factory workers who made their lavish lifestyle possible.

Recipe:

1 duckling
carrots
onion
celery
butter or lard
½ cup currant jelly
stock
2 oranges
1 lemon
flour

Brown whole duckling, along with carrots, onion and celery in a saucepan with lard or butter. Sprinkle with a little flour and cook until the flour is well browned; add some tomato puree and stock, cover the pan and put in moderate oven until the duckling is well done. Remove the duck from the sauce and stir in a cupful of currant jelly and the juice of two oranges and one lemon. Peel strips off of the orange and lemon peel and boil until tender. Add them to gravy, serve over the duck and garnish with quartered orange.

Notes:

Although I adapted these instructions slightly (for legal reasons), they were equally vague in the original. I had no idea how much of anything to use. I got the duck at Potung. There are lots of kinds of duck and the one I bought is probably quite different from those served in Maryland in the early 1900s. This recipe is available online in more decipherable details.

Lamb Chops Brasseur, Edwina Booth

April 22, 2016January 13, 2019

“There is, assuredly, no other country on earth in which Shakespeare and the Bible are held in such general high esteem as in America … If you were to enter an isolated log cabin in the Far West and even if its inhabitant were to exhibit many of the traces of backwoods living … you will certainly find the Bible and in most cases also some cheap edition of the works of the poet Shakespeare.” – Karl Knortz, 1880’s

The popularity of Shakespeare with 19th century audiences seemingly has no modern parallel. Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville assessed that “there [was] hardly a pioneer’s hut that [did] not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare” during his travels in 1830’s America. Ragtag troupes of actors traveled the frontiers to perform on makeshift stages for pioneers, gold-miners, and businessmen alike. Audiences were known to be intimately and passionately familiar with the Bard, memorizing lines and offering vocal judgement during performances. In 1849, a riot broke out at a New York opera house during a Shakespearean showdown between English actor William Charles Macready and his American counterpart, Edwin Forrest. Class tensions and nationalism erupted into violence and chaos. Militia intervened with deadly results.

Around the year of that riot, Edwin Booth, a 16-year old actor who’d been named after Forrest, was performing with his actor father on nearby American stages. The young actor would grow to surpass his namesake in Shakespearean achievement, but that accomplishment remains overshadowed to this day by the fact that his brother shot and killed president Abraham Lincoln.

The lives of the Booth family were filled with drama to rival the roles they played on the stage. Like many families, they were torn apart by the Civil War. After his brother assassinated the president, it is said that Edwin (and presumably his reputation) took some comfort in the fact that, by bizarre coincidence, he had saved Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert from being hit by a train a year or so before the assassination.

History may remember Edwin as the brother of John Wilkes Booth first and foremost, but his Shakespearean triumphs are not undocumented. “The greatest Hamlet of the 19th century” doesn’t exactly imply a household name at any rate.

Tudor Hall, Maryland Historical Trust

The Booth brothers were born in Bel Air Maryland at an estate known as Tudor Hall. Although Edwin didn’t reside there for long, the house remains associated with -and some say haunted by– the Booth family.

Edwin Booth’s daughter, Edwina Booth Grossman, devoted much energy to honoring her father’s legacy. In 1894 she penned a book of recollections, including snippets from letters while Edwin was on the road. She also contributed several ‘Tudor Hall’ recipes to “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland.”

I inaugurated grilling season by making “Lamb Chop Brasseur,” a simple if confusingly named treatment for lamb wherein it is seasoned with cayenne pepper, buttered and grilled and then drizzled with lemon juice and more butter. According to Edwina, Edwin “was fond of Southern cooking and employed colored cooks by preference.”

Edwin Booth with daughter Edwina, National Portrait Gallery

The lamb chops turned out delicious and were juicy enough that I omitted the called for “gravy of butter” when serving. I also opted for adding the lemon juice during grilling so as not to overpower the chops. Remaining juice can be used on side dishes such as grilled vegetables.

Tudor Hall has just recently been opened again to the public and is hosting guided tours and historic programming, including lectures about “the Genius of Edwin Booth”, Tudor Hall’s most esteemed -if not most famous- son.

Recipe:

lamb chops
cayenne pepper
salt
butter
juice of 1 lemon
black pepper

Season lamb chops with cayenne pepper and salt. Butter on both sides and cook over hot charcoals or in the broiler, turning once. When chops are nearly done, drizzle with lemon juice and move to medium heat to finish cooking. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

Recipe adapted from Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland

Robert Morris Inn Cranberry Muffins

January 7, 2016January 13, 2019

Hopefully I’m posting this recipe in time to catch any post-holiday abundance of fresh cranberries available in grocery stores near you. It’s finally cold in Maryland, and a warm muffin from the oven falls somewhere on the list of comforts for chilly days… probably.

There are quite a few recipes online for Orange-Cranberry Muffins and it is likely that they are all pretty good. This particular recipe, however, uses the aforementioned fresh cranberries. Also, it is attributed in the “Southern Heritage Cookbook Library” to the historic Robert Morris Inn on the Eastern Shore.

The Inn is built upon the one-time home of Morris, father of the “financier of the revolution.” The latter also once lived there as well. He’s the one everyone cares about with that whole Declaration of Independence signing and whatnot.

The elder Morris was a merchant who imported goods into the busy little port in Oxford. At the time Oxford and Annapolis were the bustling ports of Maryland – Baltimore rose to significance later.

1745 advertisement for imported goods

After Morris’ death in 1750, the house was converted to a hotel. Through the decades the inn changed names and owners and expanded too many times to list (which didn’t stop the current management from trying). Most of the presently visible exterior was constructed around 1870.

Today, visiting the inn from the west makes for a quaint trip; taking the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry across the Tred Avon River, the inn is the first prominent Oxford building that comes into view.

Oxford-Bellevue Ferry

For the record, I tend to believe that the muffin recipe is a
more recent product of the famed inn. When Robert Morris, Sr. arrived in
Oxford in 1738, the word ‘muffin’ would still have referred to what we
now think of as an English muffin. Which makes sense when you think about it.

Newspaper searches turn up a flurry of mentions of the Robert Morris Inn in the early 1950s. The Inn has remained a well-known charming getaway ever since. The muffin recipe probably came to be some time along the way.

Today the inn is owned by chef Mark
Salter. This past summer I enjoyed a nice lunch there, although muffins were not on the menu. The surrounding historic town of Oxford is lovely, with a tiny river beach and a nearby destination for amazing ice cream.

A lot of us here on the other side of Maryland may not be passing through Oxford until beach season, but these delicious muffins could be a fall and winter staple.

Recipe:

½ teaspoon grated orange rind
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons orange juice
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup flour
½ cup sugar
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped fresh cranberries
¼ cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts)

Beat egg in a small mixing bowl, then beat in orange rind, juice, and butter. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt.
Make a well in center of dry ingredients; pour in orange juice mixture.
Stir just until dry ingredients are moistened. Gently fold in
cranberries and pecans.

Spoon batter into greased muffin pans. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes. Remove from pans, and serve warm.

Recipe adapted from Southern Heritage (Oxmoor House)

I accidentally made a face out of the ingredients

Gross’ Coate Stewed Mushrooms

December 23, 2015April 14, 2019

My uncle found a gigantic lion’s mane mushroom and gave me a piece. It was slightly browning, and compounded with the fact that these mushrooms are not exactly beauty queens, the photos are not appetizing. You’ve been warned – scroll down at your own risk.

This recipe was contributed to Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland by Mrs. Charles H. Tilghman of Gross’ Coate. The recipe includes a peculiar instruction:

“Cook a silver spoon in [the mushrooms]. If the spoon becomes black [they] must not be eaten.“

Gross’ Coate, Maryland Historical Trust

I thought I should heed this advice, considering the sad state of my
mushroom. I used a necklace from my jewelry-making days, as I am not in
possession of any silver spoon. The silver remained untarnished, thank
goodness. I later looked into this and found that this advice is a
completely bogus way to detect poisonous mushrooms. Lucky for me, lion’s manes don’t really have a poisonous counterpart.

Gross’ Coate is a historical estate on the Wye River in Talbot County. Built in 1760, the property remained in the Tilghman family until 1983.

The tract of land had been patented by Roger Gross in 1658. Through a sale to Henrietta Maria Lloyd, the widow of Philemon Lloyd, and a subsequent marriage of her daughter, the Tilghman family ownership of Gross’ Coate began.

With additions spanning through 1914, the house once boasted a dairy, a meat house, large kitchen wing, and a new dining room that was built in 1815.

Gross’ Coate outbuilding, Maryland Historical Trust

In Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland, Frederick Phillip Stieff wrote:

“Situated overlooking the beautiful Wye River it requires but little to imagine oneself on the banks of the Thames, excepting that there is not the turbulent river life of the latter although in the humble opinion of the writer far more beauty.”

Stieff may be downplaying the turbulence just a tad.

In 1790, famed American painter and recent widower Charles Wilson Peale paid a visit to Gross’ Coate to paint the Tilghman family, then under the charge of Richard Tilghman. It seems that Peale fell in love with Richard’s sister Mary (aka Molly). Richard forbade such a marriage and locked Molly away.

Peale resorted to taking laudanum to help himself sleep during this stressful ordeal, to no avail. Some say that he spitefully painted a scowl upon Richard’s face in his portrait of the man. As for Molly, she later went on to marry Edward Roberts, allegedly the “scapegrace of the county.” According to “The Big Book of Maryland Ghost Stories,” scapegrace means LOSER.

Molly Tilghman, & ole scowl-face Richard Tilghman, MDHS Museum Dept. 1973.13.3 & 1973.13.2

As for recipe contributor Mrs. Charles H. Tilghman, wife of Robert’s great-grandson, I couldn’t find out much about her except newspaper ads revealing that she’d lost a cow, was selling wheat, and an announcement forbidding trespassing on her property. Because everyone checks the classifieds before trespassing…

I had some extra cheddar-cheese pie crust, so I baked that into little crusts and put the mushrooms in there. Along with those raw carrots [seen in photos], which I did indeed eat, it made a nice lunch.

Recipe:

½ cup mushrooms
1.5 tb butter
½ tb or less white flour
black pepper
salt, ½ tsp

Peel & wash mushroom(s). Heat butter in a skillet or pot, on medium-low heat. Add mushrooms plus dusts of white flour. Season with black pepper and salt. Stir to prevent burning until water from mushrooms begins to collect. Cook for 45 minutes or until tender.

Recipe adapted from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”