When I looked through my database for a raspberry jelly recipe, I noticed that most of them had the addition of currants. This makes sense because the currants contain pectin to help the recipe “jell,” and the currants also add a little bit of tangy depth. This was particularly welcome in my case because I was not working with raspberries at all, but the less flavorful (but invasive and abundant) wineberry.
Interestingly, raspberries are native to North America but also to Asia Minor. They had already spread throughout Europe long before colonization.
It’s no surprise then, that raspberry-currant jams and jellies appear in the oldest Maryland cookbook manuscripts. With only three ingredients, there is not much variation. The distinction of jellies like this depended a lot on how good the cook was at clarifying the jelly. The more transparent, the more luxurious.
Virginia Appleton Wilson
Like most of the more common people of those times, I lean towards preserves that don’t waste the fruit’s pulp. But with wineberries growing free and abundant, why not live like the other half!
My chosen recipe comes care of Mrs. Franklin Wilson’s recipe manuscript at the Maryland Center for History and Culture. The Wilson family collection is a huge trove of legal documents, scrapbooks, photographs, and letters.
After falling in love with Rose Geranium Cake, I felt I had to try the other rose geranium recipe in my database. This jelly uses the pectin from apples and gets a light flavor from the geranium leaf. The small green apples I picked from a neighborhood tree worked great for this.
This recipe comes from the “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cookbook,” where it is one of many recipes attributed to “Miss Fanny.” For years I’ve been wondering about this – who was she? Who better to ask than a food historian who also happens to be vice president of the board of trustees of Hammond-Harwood House: Joyce White.
Joyce has been working on a project called the Great Maryland Recipe Hunt, aimed at preserving our modern culinary heritage. I figured I would also ask about how that has been going.
Do you happen to know the identity of the “Miss Fanny” of “Miss Fanny’s Receipt Book” that appears throughout Maryland’s Way?
I believe (but have not been able to confirm) that she might actually be Frances Loockerman who lived in Hammond-Harwood House from 1811 to the 1850s. Before she was married she was known as Fanny Chase, so recipes in which the “Miss Fanny” title is mentioned in Miss Ann Chase’s account book and in the Harwood papers points in this direction. She was Judge Jeremiah Townley Chase’s daughter and married Richard Loockerman. Judge Chase bought Hammond-Harwood House for them and remained the owner because he was afraid Richard might gamble the house away and leave his daughter homeless.
The header for Miss Olivia Harper’s 1899 marriage announcement read “Wedded to a Marylander.” Olivia’s mother, Mary C. Harper, and her father, storekeeper George W. Harper, were both born in Delaware. But 1880 and 1910 censuses show the Harpers living in Kent County – Maryland, not Delaware, so the announcement title is somewhat curious. Olivia Harper herself was born in 1876, in Maryland. But that’s no matter. Olivia, daughter of a shopkeeper, married William Medders, who would eventually become a merchant himself.
His store became a famous local fixture for nearly 70 years.
The Sisson Street Community Gardenhas become a sacred place to me. Some fifty neighbors and I put our tastes out on display, in neat little delineated squares, some (me) in unkempt chaos, others with towering beanpoles, and many burdened tomato cages. The crops are as varied as the methods: colorful peppers, luscious greens, beastly zucchini vines, and of course all manner of tomatoes. All summer long, our motley patch of vegetables soaks in the ample sun from behind the gas station.
In 2021 I decided to use my space to grow Citron Melons. My database contains a few dozen recipes for preserving the confusingly-named watermelon relative, but the actual melons are nowhere to be found in a Maryland farmer’s market. The only way to get them is to grow them from seed, or to know someone who does (intentionally or not – in warmer climates they grow wild in fields and pastures.)
Citrons are basically like watermelon minus the good part. Native to the Kalahari Desert in Africa, they are in fact related to watermelons – and are a possible ancestor. Unlike watermelons, they’re not especially palatable, but used to be widely grown for preserving. Due to their thick rinds, the melons can be stored (typically packed in straw in a cool place) for months on end. They are also full of pectin and can be combined with other fruits to extend their flavor in preserves. Their frequent pairings with citrus fruit may be the reason for their confusing name.
Because of that name, it is kind of hard to research citron and its uses, but most old recipes are essentially the same thing as watermelon rind preserves. A 1928 newspaper article indicated citron melon explicitly as one of the “best ingredients” for fruit cakes. By the time that piece was written, the melons had already become hard to find. “It is worth hunting for,” the author suggested.
Prince George’s County hasn’t made many appearances on this blog thus far, despite being my place of origin. Awhile back, I came across some “Maryland Cooking” recipes printed in The Washington Times in 1921, from “The Melwood Cook Book.” I managed to find a copy and photographed it for archive.org before passing it along to the Maryland Historical Society.
A lot of the names in the book are members of prominent families from the Upper Marlboro area – Duvall, Bowie, Pumphrey. This recipe was attributed to “Mrs. Fred Binger.”
Frederick Binger was the son of Henrietta and John Binger, Germans who moved to Pennsylvania before or around when Frederick was born (1851). Census records throughout his life list Frederick Binger as a farm “laborer.” Frederick’s first marriage ended in tragedy in 1876 when his wife dropped an oil lamp, which exploded and caught her dress on fire. She did not survive the accident.
Frederick and his brother John acquired an estate near Upper Marlboro known as “Mount Clare.” The property had been owned by Richard O. Mullikin, a planter (tobacco, presumably) who “moved in the same social circles as the Claggetts and Bowies, and other wealthy landowners of the Marlboro area.”
In 1896, Fred Binger married a distant relative of Mullikin’s. Rosa Lee Duckett, the daughter of farmer Benjamin Lee Duckett, who was “one of the most highly respected citizens of [Prince George’s County,]” according to the Washington Times.
Rosa is, I believe, the “Mrs. Fred Binger” found in the Melwood Cook Book. In the early 1900s, Rosa took prizes in the state fair for her rolls and sweet pickles. She contributed all kinds of recipes to the Melwood cookbook: cakes, chow-chow, apple butter, and scrapple (remember, Mr. Binger was technically a Pennsylvania German), just to name a few.
I haven’t done anything with rhubarb this year and I love pineapple, so this Pineapple Rhubarb Marmalade seemed like a good choice. Technically it is more of a preserve than a marmalade since there is no citrus peel in it. When it came off the stove, the cooked pineapple taste was dominant. I figured this recipe must have been an economical way to get more mileage out of the pineapple. As it cooled down and sat a few days, the rhubarb tartness came through.
I’ve always been a big fan of Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler but now I can see the appeal of rhubarb preserves. Without committing to finishing an entire cobbler, I can snack on this taste of spring at any time for weeks to come.
Rosa Binger died in 1959. Some Washington Post mentions indicate that some of Fred and Rosa’s descendants still reside in the Upper Marlboro area.
I’ll have to try to make more of the P.G. County recipes from the Melwood Cook Book and Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland. There is a lot of history to learn about, and plenty of recipes to go along with it.
Recipe:
5 Lb rhubarb*
5 Lb sugar
1 pineapple
Cut rhubarb and pineapple fine, add sugar and let it stand over night. Put in preserving kettle and cook until like jelly.
