Tag: seafood

Codfish Cakes / Coddies*

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“While recipes may differ slightly, at least one thing remains the same: the only way to eat a coddie is with yellow mustard!” – Gilbert Sandler, Glimpses of Jewish Baltimore

In the rush to canonize crabcakes, a lot of other regional foods have been pushed to the fray. That’s basically what this blog is about. But few of those foods arouse as much nostalgia and opinion as the lowly coddie.

Baltimoreans in particular associate coddies with memories of grandmother’s cooking, lenten church suppers, or cheap eats at drugstores. Some who remember coddies say they are best left to memory; deservedly dying off.

Of course I disagree, and I always pick one up for a snack when the option is available and my gut has the space for it. At Attman’s, they tempt you while you wait in line. At Faidley’s, a coddie order and a deviled egg is a quick lunch that fits most budgets better than their famous crabcake.

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The Practical Cook Book, 1888, Baltimore

While the precise history of coddies is unclear, their basic form has been around for a really long time. Salt cod and potato patties appear in all the old published Maryland cookbooks. Elizabeth Ellicott Lea suggests them as a way to use up leftover cod. Mrs. B.C. Howard calls them “fish balls” and recommends they be served with hasty pudding for breakfast. The 1888 Baltimore advertising cookbook “The Practical Cook Book” includes some chopped onion in their “Cod Fish Balls”, and you can bet that I did too (grated shallot, actually.)

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Gallery of Graphic Design

In the early 1900s, codfish cakes served as an early convenience item to finish by frying at home; “instant dinner.” The Gorton-Pew Fishing Company – which dates its commercial fishery back to just after the French and Indian War – made a concerted effort to market a processed convenience food to housewives.

According to a 1920 issue of Marketing Communications magazine, the Gorton-Pew company first considered developing an exciting new product; most importantly something that “would not add to a woman’s work.”   When the company instead decided to market a convenient version of an existing favorite – codfish cakes- they conducted surveys with over 10,000 women to gauge for the most popular proportions for the ingredients, preferences in meal planning and even packaging. In an early example of food processing having affecting flavor and nutrition, they chose a potato variety specifically for its ability to remain “snow-white after subjection to the greatest heat of processing.”

Once the machinery was built, manual labor was only needed to remove the eyes of the potatoes. By 1920, The Gorton-Pew codfish cake factory in Gloucester was churning out 30,000 cans of potato cod-fish cakes a day. These commercial codfish cakes were primarily popular in New England, and may be partially responsible for the passions that differentiate Baltimore ‘coddies’ from codfish cakes today.

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1949 Advertisement, Baltimore Sun

The most popular Coddies in Baltimore, which perhaps defined the term for Baltimoreans, were Cohen’s. Some stories credit the invention of the coddie as we know it to Fannie Jacobson Cohen, who ran a stall in Belair Market with her husband Louis in the early 1900s. The family eventually moved to distributing the coddies to other vendors and delis all over town.

Cohen used only a small amount of codfish, plus “10 carefully mixed commercial spices,” to make their coddies. These, it seems, are the one true Coddie. The name, however, has been diluted to mean any form of codfish cakes sold in Baltimore, as well as the various recipes that get printed from year-to-year.

I can say for certain that my 1 to 1.5 fish to potato formula was more fishy than my usual coddies from Faidleys. On the other hand, John Shields uses my same ratio in a recipe for “Lexington Market Coddies” in “Coastal Cooking” (2004). An old recipe printed alongside the coddie origin story in “Glimpses of Jewish Baltimore” by Gilbert Sandler is nearly identical to the one I used. At least Mrs. Cohen gets credit for the saltines and the mustard.

Cohen’s ceased production of their famous Coddies in 1971. Since then, the standards for what exactly a coddie is and isn’t have gotten more and more muddled. Some declare that coddies contain no cod at all. At least opinions about coddies remain strong. As long as we have that, the tradition is alive.

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Recipe:

  • 1lb salt cod (I got mine at Caribbean Supermarket)
  • 1 to 2 lbs peeled, cooked, mashed potato
  • 2 tb butter
  • 2 tb grated shallot
  • 2 tb milk
  • pepper to taste
  • flour
  • parsley, mustard and saltine crackers for serving

Rinse off fish and set to soak for 24 hours, changing water about every 6 hours. Plase the fish in cold water and bring to a boil for 10 minutes. Repeat. When it has cooled slightly, flake off the meat from the bones. Mix in other ingredients except flour. Dust in flour and fry until golden brown on each side. Shake with parsley just before serving with crackers and mustard.

Recipe adapted from “Queen of the Kitchen,” “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen,” “The Practical Cook Book”, “Tested Maryland Recipes,” “The Maryland Cook Book,” and “300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary’s County”

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* I forgot to buy saltines but hey I’m not even claiming this recipe is real coddies. Please don’t bully me!

Clam Fritters, Virginia Roeder

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Home Economics as a professional pursuit codified “women’s work” and amended school curricula, but it also opened doors for women professionally.

The name Virginia Roeder may ring a bell to longtime Baltimore recipe collectors. For 23 years she wrote for the “women’s pages” of the Baltimore Evening Sun, offering guidance on cooking and housekeeping. She penned three columns weekly, totaling around 3500 over the course of her career. The most enduring legacy of these columns is the “Fun with Food” and “Fun with Sea Food” cookbooks still serving many Baltimore kitchens today.

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Richard Q. Yardley illustration, “Fun With Sea Food”,1960

In 1953, the Sun profiled Roeder, who was then hosting a Television show called “Nancy Troy’s Food Show.” (I am not sure why she assumed the “role” of Nancy Troy on the show.) The Sun reported that Roeder’s days began at 5:30 a.m., preparing breakfast for her husband and three children before heading to work at the William S. Baer School where she taught home economics to disabled children. After a day’s work she prepared dinner for her family and then “[sat] down with her husband to bring his company’s books up to date” for his wholesale distribution business.

In 1961 the Sun ran a highly illustrated tour of the Roeder’s home on Meadowwood Road, asking “how does an advisor to housewives manage her own home?” They described the decor in the “immaculate” home, complete with pool table, children’s playroom, “roomy pink kitchen,” and a corner desk in the master bedroom where Roeder typed her columns on Saturdays.

Basically, Roeder was Baltimore’s own Martha Stewart. (Roeder served on the board of a bank – she did not get involved in any insider trading, however.)

Born Virginia Voigt in Oklahoma, Roeder followed in her mother’s footsteps to pursue a career in education, earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Science and Arts at Oklahoma (formerly Oklahoma College for Women). She soon ended up in Baltimore, where she made her mark on the school system, the food culture, and even in banking.

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She’s been inducted to the Oklahoma College for Women hall of fame, where a biography of her achievements declares itself to be “simply a list of firsts.” In addition to earning a master’s and a doctoral degree at Johns Hopkins, Virginia Roeder became the “first female Deputy Superintendent Baltimore City Public Schools,” “first woman president Maryland Association of Secondary School Principals,” and “first woman board of directors Carrolton Bank.”

After retiring from education she continued to be a successful businesswoman in real estate and travel agencies.

Even while working towards all of these goals, Roeder maintained the refined image of an ideal mid-century “housewife.”

I got my copies of “Fun with Sea Food” from the Book Thing. The photo at the front shows a smiling Virginia Roeder. The author’s biography lists one accomplishment after another before declaring “Mrs. Roeder does all the cooking for her family.”

Two recipes for crab cakes are included, one of which has been marked “excellent” by my book’s previous owner. Other sections besides “The Delightful Crab” are adorably titled: “The Fascinating Fish,” “The Sophisticated Scallop,” “The Admirable Oyster.”

The recipe for Clam Fritters asks below the title, “Haven’t you ever made them?” I hadn’t so I took Virginia Roeder up on her challenge.

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Recipe:

  • .5 Pint clams, minced
  • .75 Cups flour
  • .5 Tablespoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon crab seasoning (adapted – Roeder used nutmeg and salt._
  • 1 beaten egg
  • .5 Cups milk
  • 2 Teaspoons grated onion
  • .5 Tablespoons melted butter
  • oil for frying

Sift dry ingredients together. Combine egg, milk, onion, butter and clams. Add to dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Drop batter by teaspoonfuls into hot oil, 350 degrees, and fry until golden brown on each side.

Recipe adapted from “Fun With Sea Food,” Virginia Roeder

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Oyster Stew

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“A century ago in old New England and New York a bowl of piping hot oyster stew formed the traditional Christmas Eve supper, now practiced only by a few families who have preserved the tradition along with grandmother’s Chippendale and pewter… The homemakers of today would do well to revive this custom for the oyster has a happy way of inducing sleep of the deep and restful kind. Then too, it is easy to prepare, requires no expensive ingredients, no left overs striving for a corner in a refrigerator filled with Christmas foods. And then too, the ease with which the stew is digested may well prepare you to do justice to that Christmas dinner.” – Denton Journal, 1937

One of the main goals of Old Line Plate the blog is to highlight some of the less famed aspects of Maryland cuisine. Still, I probably deserve a slap on the wrist for under-representing the oyster. Crab may be king when it comes to Maryland seafood (or Maryland food, period) these days, but there can be no denying that the Maryland seafood industry was built upon the value of the oyster.

In fact, the most common recipe in my Old Line Plate database, by far, is for “Oyster Stew” (or “Stewed Oysters”). Coming in a distant second is recipes for “Jumbles” (including Waverly and Sotterly).

To get into the holiday spirit I thought I may as well take a crack at oyster stew. But where to begin? Almost all of the recipes are very similar. Variations occur in the use of fats or bacon, cream versus milk, flour as thickener, and of course seasonings. I knew that no matter what route I took I’d be disgracing someone’s sense of authenticity so I just winged it. I kept a few different versions on hand for reference.

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One thing that really confused me was the way some recipes would cook the oysters in their liquor whereas some prescribed draining the liquor altogether. Keeping the precious oyster liquor made sense to me. Finally, an 1890 housekeeping advice book clarified a possible reason for this variance. 

“When canned oysters are used, which is generally the case away from the sea-coast, do not use the liquor, but if fresh oysters can be had the liquor should always be used.” – “Home Dissertations,” published by Baltimore importers and grocers Hopper and McGaw. 

It is worth noting that even in 1890, the “r” month wisdom was being dismissed as out-dated.

I said yes to bacon, onion and celery. So what of seasoning? To keep the 1890s vibe I skipped Old Bay in favor of its predecessor, “Kitchen Pepper.” Each cook would have their own unique combination for kitchen pepper. Mine contained mace, ginger, white pepper, nutmeg and a small amount of cinnamon.

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Kitchen Pepper, “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen,” Mrs. B.C. Howard

The tradition of eating oyster stew on Christmas is said to stem from a Catholic observance of abstaining from meat on that holiday. If that is true then the craze for oyster stew did not take long to spread throughout the region – “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” alone contains five different recipes.

I intend to revive the Oyster Stew on Christmas tradition. Serving up oysters to loved ones feels like a duty if “Home Dissertations” is to be believed:

“By taking oysters daily, indigestion, supposed to be almost incurable, has been cured; in fact they are to be regarded as one of the most healthful articles of food known to man. Invalids who have found all other kinds of food disagree with them, frequently discover in the oyster the required aliment. Raw oysters are highly recommended for hoarseness. Many of the leading vocalists use them regularly before concerts and operas; but their strongest recommendation is the remarkable wholesome influence exerted upon the digestive organs.”

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Recipe:

  • 1 pint oysters
  • 4 slices of bacon
  • 2 cups half and half or milk, scalded
  • Celery, diced
  • Onion, diced
  • Paprika, seafood seasoning, etc
  • Worcestershire
  • 1-2 tb flour

Cook oysters in their own liquor until edges curl.

Strain oysters and combine liquor with milk on stove and heat to scald but do not boil. 

Cook bacon until crispy reserving 1-2 tb of the grease if desired.

Sauté celery and onions in bacon grease or butter in soup pot until fragrant and softened. Sprinkle flour over and stir in; add milk and continue to simmer but do not boil. Stir in seasonings and oysters.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with chopped bacon, oyster crackers or toasted bread, seafood seasoning or paprika… whatever you want really. 

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Free State Oyster Omelet

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This recipe comes from a popular cookbook produced by the Maryland Seafood Marketing Authority.

First produced in 1974, the book was developed with the aid of “state seafood home economist” Beverly Butler in order to “expand the role of the Chesapeake Bay seafood industry as a major contributor to the state’s economy.”

At the time, the seafood industry was reeling (oops no pun intended) from 1972 Hurricane Agnes’ devastating effects, particularly on the clam population.

Early editions of the book feature a 70′s looking cover that shows a pot brimming with uncooked mixed seafood sitting in the sand on a beach, and a sexy lady standing in the water in the background. Throughout the book she can be found clamming in short shorts, posing in the surf, and finally relaxing by a beach bonfire.

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The 1980s reprints did away with this lady and created a unified design scheme throughout the first book and the two slightly-less-popular follow-ups. They also discontinued encouraging people to consume rockfish, since it was banned – instead, consumers were guided towards bluefish, shark and even squid. 

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All three books are available in a bundle on Maryland DNRs website, currently for $15. If you want the 1970s eye candy, you could always find a used copy online. The slim volumes don’t take up too much space on a bookshelf and make a decent reference. Maryland Seafood Cookbook is how I learned about steaming shad so you could eat the bones.

There is some very useful information in these books, but for the love of god, please PLEASE don’t consider the microwave a viable way to cook a crab cake.

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Recipe:

  • 1 pint shucked oysters (preferably selects), drained
  • 9 large eggs
  • ¼ cup flour
  • 2/3 cup dry breadcrumbs (I used House Autry spicy & it was great!)
  • 6 slices bacon
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp lemon & pepper seasoning
  • 1 heaping teaspoon chopped chives
  • Paprika, for garnish

In a small bowl, beat 1 egg. Put flour in a separate bowl. Spread ½ of breadcrums onto about a square foot of waxed paper. Dip each oyster in flour, then in egg, then place on breadcrums. Sprinkle remaining breadcrumbs over top of oysters and set aside.

Fry bacon until crisp, in 12″ skillet. Remove bacon & drain off most of the grease. Add oysters to the pan in a single layer and cook on each side until golden brown, about 5 minutes.

Beat remaining eggs until foamy and add chopped/crumbled bacon, plus remaining seasonings. Pour mixture over oysters and cook until eggs begin to set. With a spatula, lift up the edges of the omelet and tilt the skillet to allow uncooked egg mixture to run under omelet. Cook until all eggs are set but moist.

Garnish with paprika, serve in slices.

Recipe adapted from Maryland Seafood Cookbook I

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Deviled Crab

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Crab-cakes may be king now, but it wasn’t always so. From the 1800′s right on up through the 1950′s, if you wanted to impress some guests, you’d serve them crab meat picked from the crab, mixed with an assortment of seasonings, packed back into the crab shell with some breadcrumbs on top and baked until golden brown. Très Élégante!

Not to be confused with the Southern dish of the same name, “Deviled Crab” is essentially crab salad or crab imperial, broiled in a crab shell. Some recipes, such as those from “Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Cookbook” (1981) and the Baltimore Evening Sun’s “Fun with Sea Food” (1960) just refer to this dish as Crab Imperial. With those recipes included, the Deviled Crabs recipes in my database out-number the crab cake recipes.

Whereas crab-cake formulas are all but set in stone these days (”NO FILLER YE INFIDELS!”), Deviled Crab is a nice alternative that allows a little leeway. Recipes from the late 1800′s books “Queen of the Kitchen” and “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” simply place the picked crab meat in the shell, top it with breadcrumbs and butter, and broil. 

Later recipes stuff the crab shells with a salad containing a variety of ingredients. Most contain some combination of breadcrumbs, egg, milk or cream, pepper, Worcestershire, mustard, parsley, mayonnaise and lemon juice. Other optional add-ins include onion, mushroom, green pepper, horseradish, sherry and Tabasco sauce.

I didn’t have all of the ingredients to make any one particular recipe, so I just winged it. The results were actually pretty fantastic… better than many crab-cakes I’ve had. Tasters attributed the success primarily to the flavorful shallot, and the fact that the crab meat was a combination from the entire crab. Such features included in a crab-cake recipe would have me pilloried. 

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Recipe:

(things I had around)

  • ½ lb crabmeat
  • ½ cup breadcrumbs
  • 1 shallot, minced fine
  • ½ cup mayonnaise
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • ½ tsp Worcestershire Soy Sauce
  • ½ tsp mustard powder
  • dash hot sauce
  • salt, pepper
  • topping: breadcrumbs, butter, paprika

Pick meat from crabs & clean shells thoroughly, if using. Mix mayo with shallot and seasonings and gently fold in crabmeat. Gently drop into crab shells or ramekins. Top with breadcrumbs, dot with butter, sprinkle with paprika. Cook for 15 minutes at 375° or until topping is browned.

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