soups Archives - Page 2 of 3

Split Pea Soup

February 1, 2017November 17, 2020

“Bad cooking is largely responsible for the conditions of our insane asylums, almshouses, prisons and hospitals. Bad cooking not only engenders disease, but is directly provocative of crime, while good cooking is the art of making home a paradise for the breadwinner.” – Sarah Tyson Rorer

I recently pulled the holiday ham-hock out of the freezer and sought out a split pea soup recipe. I found one to fit my ingredients in a mysterious 1908 Baltimore book simply entitled “The Church Cook Book.” Rather than a community cookbook, “The Church Cook Book” is anonymously compiled, with a preface giving credit to The Baltimore Sun, Harper’s Bazar, Miss Ellen L. Duff and Mrs. Sarah Tyson Rorer.

The latter two, I learned, were popular cooking instructors at the time.

As mentioned in the “New Year’s Cakes” entry, our friend Elizabeth Ellicott Lea was a student of one of America’s first cooking schools, led by Mrs. Elizabeth Goodfellow in the early 1800s. Lea was a fairly well-to-do woman who could afford the luxury of cooking instruction. According to a Goodfellow biography by Becky Libourel Diamond, cooking instruction had become much more affordable by the late 19th century.

“Whereas Goodfellow’s concentration was primarily teaching daughters of the wealthy to prepare dinner-party fare, Juliet Corson [of the New York Cooking School] conceived a system of graded levels within cooking schools, providing many more options for potential students of various backgrounds. In addition to the introduction of classes in plain cooking and those for the children of working people, this four-tiered approach also included instruction in fancy cookery.” – Mrs. Goodfellow: The Story of America’s First Cooking School by Becky Libourel Diamond

The Philadelphia Cooking School opened in 1878 with a similar ethos of making education available to women of different economic levels. One of that school’s first students was Sarah Tyson Rorer. Not long after completing the three-month curriculum the Philadelphia Cooking School, Rorer became the school’s principal. In 1883, she opened her own cooking school. A decade after that, she appeared at the 1893 World’s Fair. “She became a household name,” wrote Diamond, “and traveled throughout the country to personally demonstrate cooking techniques to one packed auditorium after another.”

Thrift had been a popular theme with Juliet Corson, who penned a pamphlet entitled “Fifteen-Cent Dinners for Workingmen’s Families” and distributed it for free. Rorer continued the tradition of instruction on food budgeting, but her passion was nutrition. Her cooking school taught contemporary science on carbohydrates, protein, and sugars. Hospitals consulted her for advice on menus for the infirm. In her demonstrations, she declared that dessert was “unhealthy”, “unnecessary”, and even “deadly” before making a show of reluctantly demonstrating dishes such as Charlotte Russe with Chocolate Sauce, and admonishing the audience not to recreate such dishes at home. She took to heart an English physician’s condemnation of white bread as “the staff of death,” and with her own flair for the dramatic, she appropriated the saying.

“In the cooking school we do not especially teach elaborate or highly seasoned dishes; the latter we always guard against. The true principles of economy are taught; together with the proper combinations of foods. In fact, we try to teach what to eat and how to cook it.” – Sarah Tyson Rorer

The first cooking school in Baltimore (and possibly all of Maryland) opened in 1885 as an arm of the nursery and children’s hospital on Carrolton and Mulberry Streets. According to the Sun, “the lady managers will… endeavor by their personal influence to make the art of cooking honorable and fashionable.” The first class was taught by Juliet Corson from the New York cooking school.

Although some schools accepted Black servants, whose education was generally paid by the employer, it wasn’t long before Baltimore’s Black citizens organized their own school out of the YWCA on Park Avenue & Franklin Street in 1896. There the schoolwork included “moral and religious training,” housekeeping, and sewing. Beyond self-improvement and employment opportunities, it was implied that these skills offered an increased level of independence. It was emphasized that girls would be taught to make their own dresses in a twelve-course series of intensive lessons.

In December 1897, Sarah Tyson Rorer came to Baltimore to lecture at the “Santa Claus Food Show,” and espoused her prescient admonition that frying pans were a scourge upon the public health. She provided demonstrarions on salads, fish, and bread. She closed her lecture series with advice on feeding a family on ten cents a day. That’s roughly three 2017 dollars. Despite the lesson on thrift, she admonished against the eating of organ meats, deeming it dangerous. To back up her claim, she declared that she had inspected a calf’s liver under a microscope and found “the presence of small tumors, of which she counted over thirty.”

My split pea soup recipe didn’t quite turn out as I anticipated, but maybe I just need instruction on how to make it. I assumed that you do NOT drain the water and I ended up with watery soup and needed to add twice as many peas. After that it was alright. Maybe it’s supposed to be watery to save money?

I do believe it provided enough nutriment to keep me out of the insane asylum, at least for now.

Recipe:

.5 Cup split peas
1 Quart cold water
.5 small onion
2 Tablespoon butter
1 Tablespoon flour
1 Teaspoon salt
black pepper
1 to 2 Cups hot milk

Pick over and wash the peas. Soak 8 to 12 hours or over night in cold water. Drain off the water and cook peas and onion in 1 quart of water until soft. Press through a strainer, and add butter and flour cooked together. Add seasoning, and thin with hot water or milk, and reheat. Peas will not soften in salted water, so salt should not be added until they are cooked. A small piece of fat salt pork or a ham-bone may be cooked with the peas, and if so, the butter may be omitted. Lentil soup may be made as directed for split pea soup.

Recipe from “The Church Cook Book,” 1908

I saved the sources for the end…

Baltimore Sun:

“A Cooking School to be Established” 1/23/1884
“BANISH FRYING PANS: Advice Given In A Lecture On Cooking By Mrs. Rorer, Of Philadelphia” 12/16/1897
“HE DIDN’T LIKE MRS. RORER” 12/21/1897

Afro-American:

“Y. W. C. A.” 2/22/1896
“ABOUT THE CITY.: Cooking School To Open.” 10/05/1901

“Sarah Tyson Rorer: The Nation’s Instructress in Dietetics and Cookery,” Emma Weigley, 1977
“Mrs. Goodfellow: The Story of America’s First Cooking School” Becky Diamond 2012

Oyster Stew

December 1, 2016January 13, 2019

“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.

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.

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.”

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.

Broccoli Crab Soup

December 10, 2015January 13, 2019

Published in 2003, “I Can Cook You Can Cook” may not be the most historic in my collection, but it does offer a snapshot of a Maryland food personality and a time and place from whence it came. (Most cookbooks do, which is why I love them.)

The book itself hearkens to a less “sophisticated” era in cookbooks, in contrast to modern photo-laden coffee-table cookbooks. The recipes are mostly simple weeknight fare.

More importantly, the book serves as a record of its character of an author, Wayne Brokke. While you may not find artfully-composed photos accompanying each recipe, instead the book is peppered with Brokke’s stories and humor.

Beginning in 1978 Brokke operated a restaurant in Federal Hill called.. “The Soup Kitchen” (I know). He later opened a second location in the exciting new 1980 Harborplace development and later branched out into barbeque.

Following the trajectory of Brokke’s restaurants (and eventual advisable name changes) leads to documentation of the vicissitudes of Harborplace since its opening in 1980. Baltimore was abuzz with high hopes for this pocket of commerce. The press followed up occasionally as it experienced seasonal slumps in winter, business turnover and eventual stability.

1980, Baltimore Sun

“Wayne Brokke, proprietor of Wayne’s Bar- B-Que and one of the harbor’s original merchants, told me that Harborplace had experienced ups and downs over the past two decades. After an initial surge of success there was a period, about 10 years ago, when restaurants were closing and things were looking sketchy, he said. But in the past three years business has been on an upswing, he said, and now the harbor is booming – literally. As Brokke spoke, the Pride of Baltimore II fired its cannon, its way of saying good- bye to the crowd on the docks. “ – Rob Kasper, Baltimore Sun, 2000

Most Baltimoreans don’t spend much time in the Harbor, and I don’t actually remember Wayne’s Bar-B-Que. Sun reviews range from considering Wayne Brokke to be a fixture and a culinary master, to dismissing his restaurants for being too “trendy” and his cooking “a joke.” After reading these reviews plus stories about the various lean times and rent hikes, I shared in Brokke’s relief at leaving the industry.

Harborplace ad featuring Wayne Brokke front left

In a Baltimore magazine article he lamented the high rents and unoriginal shopping options left at Harborplace.

“Over the years, what was Baltimore’s main street got turned into just another mall,” says Wayne Brokke, who ran Harborplace eateries, like Wayne’s Bar-B-Que, for 23 years

“In the early going, the Rouse company celebrated the tenants and appreciated how we all put our blood, sweat, and tears in there,” Brokke says. “After a while, they shifted focus more to the bottom line.” – Brennen Jensen, Baltimore Magazine, 2010

According to a 2007 article updating his whereabouts, he was dabbling in commercial acting, real-estate and earning a philosophy degree from UMBC. During the 1990s, Brokke had also done a cooking segment on WBAL-TV. Readers, if you have recordings of this please do share.

Since Wayne Brokke is most famous for his soups – award winning crab soup being foremost- I made a soup recipe that he declared to be a “favorite of Mayor Schafer.” We had some broccoli from the CSA so “Broccoli Crab Soup” seemed as good as any.

I felt some reservation buying crabmeat, considering that I could have simply made this recipe without but I must say that the addition was DELICIOUS. This soup was so good, so wonderfully rich, and the crab flavor spread throughout to really enhance the dish.

As soups often do, it improved the next day. There was no day after that because we ate it all.

Recipe:

1 lb crab meat
4 cups stock
2 Cups half-and-half
1 lb chopped broccoli
1 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
1 stick of butter
4 oz flour
1 Teaspoon hot sauce
a few drops of Maggi (my addition – optional)
salt
black pepper

Sauté chopped onion in butter with Maggi (if using) until onions are translucent. Add curry powder and garlic and stir to combine. On medium heat, add flour and stir a few minutes until smooth. Gradually add stock, whisking to combine. Bring almost to a boil and stir in broccoli. Cook for 15 minutes. Add half-and-half and bring to a simmer. Stir in hot sauce and add salt and pepper to taste before gently folding in crab meat. Allow to simmer for about 5-10 minutes. Serve hot.

Recipe adapted from “I Can Cook, You Can Cook!” by Wayne Brokke

Mrs. Kitching’s Clam Chowder

September 3, 2015January 13, 2019

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”

Cheddar Chowder, Mrs. Janet Gadd Doehler

March 16, 2015January 13, 2019

First Published in 1962 by The Episcopal Church Women of St. Paul’s Parrish in Queen Anne’s County, this spiral bound cookbook is of a type I come across frequently – the church or fund-raiser “community” cookbook. Usually spiral-bound, printed by various specialty companies, and containing home-grown illustrations if you’re lucky, these volumes are a great resource of recipes of ordinary people throughout several decades of the 20th century. They are also a huge source of frustration to a completist such as myself.

This recipe was contributed to “Queen Anne Goes to the Kitchen” by a Mrs. Janet Gadd Doehler. Mrs. Doehler resided on the historical Sidney Gadd farm in Centreville Maryland, described in this Maryland Historical Trust document as “a very plain mid-19th century three bay; two and one half story frame building. It is unusual for that date in that the original kitchen was in the basement where there is a cooking fireplace.”
It seems possible that Janet is still alive – google turns up an award winning gardener in that general area and a ‘Janet and Sydney Gadd Doehler’ as supporters of Adkins Arboretum, also in that general area. I feel remiss that I did not get in touch with her – when working with newer recipes I sometimes forget that the involved parties may still be available.

Sidney Gadd Farm, Maryland Historical Trust

The first thing that most culinary historians will encounter in the older “receipt” collections or cooking texts is the lack of instructions by modern standards. “Cook it ’til it’s done,” is sometimes the extent of it. As cookbooks progress on to modernity, recipes get more and more informative. Yet even here we see examples of assuming a basic knowledge of cooking skills. “Make a white sauce with margarine, flour, and milk” is part of the instructions.

I used what I had on hand, substituting shallot for onion and cooked thick bacon for ham. Pretty liberal I guess. I also used butter instead of margarine because I don’t F around with the latter. I guess I ought to go post an angry review about how it didn’t turn out.
Actually it turned out tasty and hearty. In fact, using what you have on hand is often an accurate way to get in the spirit of older recipes. I also used stock instead of boiling water because I have to keep the constant kitchen scraps stock cycle going infinitely.∞

2 Cups boiling water or stock
2 Cups diced potato
.5 Cup sliced carrot
1 Cup celery
.5 Cup chopped onion
1.5 Teaspoons salt
.25 Teaspoons black pepper
.25 Cup butter
.25 Cup flour
2 Cups milk
2 Cups shredded Cheddar cheese
.125 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Cup cubed, cooked ham

Add water to vegetables, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Do not drain. Make a white sauce with butter, flour, and milk. Add cheese and soda; stir until melted. Cool the stock and vegetables to lukewarm. (Be sure vegetables are not hot. If cream sauce is added to the hot mixture, it will curdle.) Add ham and un-drained vegetables to cream sauce. Heat. Do not boil. Serves 6 to 8.
Variation: Omit ham and substitute 8 slices of crumbled bacon or 1 cup of cooked shrimp.