Legend has it that Clara May Downey discovered the site of the Olney Inn when she got a flat tire near the 1875 Montgomery County farmhouse. It was the mid-1920s and Downey was considering following many women into the business of operating a tearoom.
Instead of a dainty tearoom catered towards women, Downey’s restaurant (it never operated as a true inn) would become a local institution that operated for 50 years. It is still fondly remembered today.
Baltimore certainly didn’t have a monopoly on the grandiose “Welcome to the South” style of dining that was fashionable in the early 20th century. Montgomery County, though once home to many abolitionist Quakers, also had many citizens who “did not forget their Southern Bonds.*” Downey’s restaurant offered up Southern-style hospitality – complete with house-cured hams and produce grown on the Inn’s sprawling grounds.
The books that got me curious about Maryland food were not Maryland cookbooks, strictly speaking. This cookbook set had been a constant in my household growing up, and I never thought of them as regional at all, despite the “Southern” in the name.
On my mother’s kitchen bookshelf they served as a source of inspiration and reference. Everything we could need was in “The Southern Heritage Cookbook Library.” When, as a child, I wanted to try and make cheesecake. We turned to the “Just Desserts” volume which gave us a decadent cake with mounds of cream cheese and sour cream, seven eggs, and which required about five hours in the oven.
That cake became an annual birthday tradition for me and it was what eventually led me to discover the concept of “Maryland food.” Feeling nostalgic in my 20s (and wanting to impress my friends), I borrowed “Just Desserts” for that cheesecake recipe. Thumbing through the book I noticed all of the information – illustrations, ephemera, anecdotes. I fell in love with this cookbook in a new way, and I began to acquire copies of the entire series for myself.
Illustration from “All Pork”
Eventually, I noticed various recipes with names like “Old Maryland Baked Ham,” “Maryland White Potato Pie,” and “Maryland Fried Chicken.” Aside from feeling surprised to see Maryland in a cookbook dedicated to the South, I was surprised that Maryland had any food tradition outside of crab cakes. Some of these dishes were unknown to me. I had to try them for myself. And maybe… blog about them?
So here we are.
The Southern Heritage cookbook series was first published in 1983 by Oxmoor House (Southern Living Magazine.) My mother remembers it as a subscription – one book a month for 19 months (the 19th is a master index to the entire book set). Copies of any of the books can now be found cheaply online, or occasionally in thrift stores or Book Thing in Baltimore.
Several of the cookbooks (e.g. “Company’s Coming,” “Sporting Scene,” “Breakfast & Brunch”) take a menu-based approach, listing a sample menu with the story behind them.
menu in “Company’s Coming” volume
For example, “Maryland Garden Pilgrimage Luncheon” features:
Old Durham Church Crab Cakes
Green Peas with Spring Onions
Cold Slaw
Jubilee Rolls
Maryland Fudge Cake
Glazed Strawberry Tarts
The “Cakes” book or “Plain and Fancy Poultry” might include recipes but also instructions on icing a cake or trussing a chicken, respectively.
Basically, they were the only reference I needed throughout my 20s, right up until I decided I wanted to, say, try to cook Vietnamese food… or to collect every Maryland cookbook just for the heck of it.
While it is true I now have many more ‘authentic’ sources for Maryland recipes, the Southern Heritage Cookbook library has continued to be a useful reference and a visual delight.
The weathered page of my beloved cheesecake recipe
Two Illustrations from “Cakes”
menu in “Family Gatherings” volume
Recipe:
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2.5 cups cooked mashed sweet potatoes
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
.5 teaspoon ground nutmeg
.25 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
.5 cups flaked coconut
.5 cups chopped pecans
Cream butter. gradually add sugar, beating well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add sweet potatoes and beat until blended.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; gradually add to sweet potato mixture, beating well after each addition. Batter will be stiff. Stir in vanilla, coconut, and pecans.
Spoon batter into a well-greased 10-inch tube pan. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until take tests done. Cool in pan 15 minutes, remove to rack and cool completely.
May be glazed with lemon or orange glaze if desired.
Recipe adapted from Southern Heritage “Cakes” cookbook
Recipe notes: This is not a Maryland recipe as far as I know but it was very tasty; “a keeper” as they say. I’ll probably make this in the fall with black walnuts.
“The root cellar, when properly made, will always be found one of the best paying out-buildings upon the farm.” – The Baltimore Sun, 1861
It was unpleasantly cold this past week. The warmth of family members crammed into small spaces cooking and eating comforting meals is a quickly fading memory. It’s been replaced by drafts, piles of blankets, and cold lunches at work.
Luckily I had some White Haymans down in the fridge. I bought them around Thanksgiving and never got around to using them. They’ve been patiently standing by as a rotating cast of collards, lettuce and beans have come and gone from the crisper. Sweet potatoes, even haphazardly stored as mine were, will hold up a pretty long time. As discussed here before, that makes them pretty important.
If you need something a little more long-term, you can join the ranks of people who use a root-cellar. According to the New York Times, at least as of 2008, this 40,000-year-old storage method is/was making a comeback.
Most 19th century cook-books make at least some mention of cellar use. “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” and “Queen of the Kitchen” do not offer explicit cellar guidelines, but do make many references to storing various preserved items, and wines, in the root cellar.
Unsurprisingly, the thrifty and practical Elizabeth Ellicott Lea has the most to offer on this front.
“Beets, parsnips, carrots and salsify should be dug up before the frost
is severe; those wanted for use in the winter should be put in barrels,
and covered with sand; what you do not want till spring should be buried
in the garden, with sods on the top. Celery may be dug in November, and
set in a large box covered with sand, in the cellar, with the roots
down; it will keep till the frost is out of the ground. Or it may be
left in the ground all winter, and dug as you want it for use.” – Domestic Cookery, Elizabeth Ellicott Lea
She also offers up advice for storing eggs in grease or lime water. During the summer she recommends using the root cellar for meat and other items that might spoil in the heat.
Roulette Farm, Root Cellar, Sharpsburg, Washington County. loc.gov
There is some science to the storage. According to the New York times, apples can’t be stored near carrots because the gas they give off will make the carrots bitter.
Lea laid out a lot of rules for the spring cleaning of cellars – emptying out unused vegetables, sprinkling lime over the floors, washing and draining storage barrels.
She also offers cautionary tales of people being killed by rat poison that was used too close to stored food.
“The eastern halves of America and Canada contain thousands of old root cellars, and the small Newfoundland town of Elliston actually claims the title of “Root Cellar Capital of the World,” and boasts of over 135 root cellars, some dating back 200 years.” – Rick Gush, Hobby Farms
Although the Maryland Historical Trust documents on Lea’s former homes do not mention surviving root cellars, there are many historic sites with a root cellar, and at least one historic site that IS a root cellar. The Spring Grove Hospital root cellar in Baltimore County was built in 1930 as a part of the hospital’s farm program. Like many old cellars, it has been repurposed for storage.
This candied sweet potato recipe was contributed to “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” by a Mrs. E.W. Humphreys of Wicomico County. Born Mary Josephine Tarr, she married Eugene Humphreys, a doctor from a prominent Salisbury family, in 1869. The family resided in downtown Salisbury in a Greek revival home with Eugene’s medical practice operating out of the front of the house.
Towards the rear was a “large cooking fireplace,” and Mrs. Humphrey’s own root cellar was no doubt in one of the two outbuildings adjacent to the kitchen.
Family documents including correspondence, photographs and recipes are kept at Salisbury University.
This recipe might not be the best use for White Haymans. They turned out rather ugly. Even so, with a cup of cocoa they brought a little warmth into a bitter January day when my whole house felt like a dang root cellar.
Recipe:
6 sweet potatoes
salt
.5 Cup water
1 Cup brown sugar
piece of butter the size of an egg
Peel six sweet potatoes and peel cook until nearly done in boiling salted water. Drain, cut in pieces, and put in an oven dish. Combine one-half cup water, one cup brown sugar and lump of butter to make a syrup. Cook until sugar is dissolved. Cover potatoes with the syrup, put back in oven and bake at 350° until done, basting occasionally if necessary.
Recipe adapted from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”
As of this post, the Old Line Plate database has 14 different “pone” recipes in it. These fall into three basic categories: straight-up corn pone, old-fashioned pone containing molasses (usually also containing cornmeal or just ‘meal’), and sweet potato pone.
According to the “Post & Courier” of Charleston, SC, sweet potato pone evokes a special sentimentality in the South.
“Pone nostalgia isn’t a modern phenomenon. The dish is so associated with the region that Rebel Yell bourbon in the 1960s burnished its Southern credentials by offering buyers a free recipe booklet featuring sweet potato pone. It also was the object of sentimentalism in sweet potato-flush Charleston as far back as 1918.” – Hanna Raskin, Post & Courier, 2015
A 1911 recipe in a Frederick newspaper refers to Sweet Potato Pone as “a Virginia dish” which will be an “acceptable change,” but recipes for Sweet Potato Pone appeared in Maryland as early as 1873 with “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen.”
Mrs. B.C. Howard’s Sweet Potato Pone, “50 Years in a Maryland Kitchen”
The recipe that I used comes from “Maryland’s Way” via Mrs. Y. Kirkpatrick-Howat. Maiden name Lauraine Speich, Mrs. Kirkpatrick-Howat was married to Yvone Kirkpatrick-Howat.
“Mr. Kirkpatrick-Howat – whose first name is Scottish for Ivan – was born in Baltimore and raised downtown on St. Paul Street and in Mexico, where his father supervised construction of a portion of the Pan-American Highway…
In 1947, Mr. Kirkpatrick-Howat moved to Contee Farms, which his mother had purchased in 1917. Part of the farm had been owned by John Contee, a naval hero of the War of 1812.” – Baltimore Sun Obituary, 2003
Mrs. Kirkpatrick-Howat passed away in 2009. She had been a 2nd Lieutenant nurse in World War II and “traveled throughout the world with a particular interest in the cultures of Central America.”
The Kirkpatrick-Howats are remembered most for their involvement in the restoration of London Town and Gardens, a reconstructed colonial seaport with a museum and archaeology lab.
This passable Sweet Potato Pone recipe took little effort when the peeled sweet potato was grated in the food processor. It did not require boiling, and cooked up plenty tender. I have an excess of cinnamon sugar left over from doughnuts, so things like this are a good way to unload some of it.
This will not be my last sweet potato pone. Aside from the fact that sweet potato is one of my favorite foods, the dish has had a special significance in African American Maryland cooking. In the next few weeks I’ll explore at least one of the two recipes from “300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary’s County” or one of the recipes printed in the Baltimore Afro-American over the years.
Who knows, maybe I’ll just bake my way through all 14 pone recipes. Can anyone think of a good pone pun to rename the blog?
Recipe:
.25 Cup butter, softened (please do a better job of this than I did)
.5 Cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 Cup grated sweet potato
grated rind of 1 orange or lemon
.5 Teaspoon ginger
.5 Teaspoon mace
1 dash cinnamon
.5 Cup milk
Cream butter and sugar. Add beaten eggs and sweet potato. Beat well. Add citrus zest, spices, and milk, beating all together. Pour into a buttered odish and bake at 350° for 1 hour. “Good with roast duck or roast pork.”
I know that we made much ado about tomatoes a few weeks back, but I actually did take a moment between tomato sandwiches to look forward to fall vegetables. They may not have the same glamour and prestige, but fall crops are comforting, dependable, and versatile.
The rainbow of cauliflowers are irresistible.
I never seem to tire of velvety, garlicky collards.
I can’t find a succinct sentence for the wide array of squashes and their uses.
My favorite fall food is another one that I can recall feeling passionate about from an early age: the sweet potato.
As of this writing, the Old Line Plate database contains 63 recipes where sweet potato is the main ingredient.
It is a shame then that only in the last few years did I become aware that sweet potatoes themselves come in a wide array of varieties and colors. Purple seems pretty exciting but I was most intrigued by a variety of sweet potatoes most commonly cultivated right here in Maryland.
1937 advertisement from Star-Democrat, Easton
I have seen them spelled as “White Hamon” and “White Hayman,” and there are claims that those are two different types altogether. I ordered some slips from Southern Exposure labeled “White Hamon (White Haymon),” sold as a “traditional heirloom of the Eastern Shore.”
They are described by one seller as “more starchy and less sugary than the orange varieties,” but an article about farmer Bill Jardine, of Quail Cove Farms in Machipongo, VA, claims the “Haymans” that he grows are “reputed to be the sweetest of all varieties.”
“The legendary Hayman is a 100-year-old white sweet potato that was once widely grown on the Eastern Shore. It’s a difficult crop with a low yield, so it’s not easy to find. Haymans, smaller than the other varieties tested, are tan and oddly shaped with bumps and raised areas of skin that look like raised veins on the back of someone’s hand. Inside, they are white like a russet potato. The flesh is denser than the others when baked and somewhat fibrous with a distinctly sweeter taste.” – Lorraine Eaton, The Virginian-Pilot, 2009
According to a 1999 article in the Baltimore Sun, just about everyone on the Eastern Shore loves White Hayman sweet potatoes. “It’s a mark of Thanksgiving,” said John Hickman, a native of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. “The Hayman was kept alive by people who liked the way it tasted.”
Hickman researched the potatoes, tracing them back as far as 1880, but didn’t pin down their exact origin or the source of the name.
A few years ago a Washington Post article asserted:
“In 1856, Capt. Daniel Hayman coaxed his ship, the Harriet Ryan, into the docks at Elizabeth City, N.C. He had sailed from the West Indies, and stowed in his holds were semitropical white sweet potatoes.
A Methodist minister hurried aboard and bought the lot of them, said David S. Shields, professor of Southern letters at the University of South Carolina, who researched the potato’s pedigree. The minister’s name has been lost, but the potatoes, dubbed Haymans, spread through the network of Methodist preachers. With Methodists dominant on the Eastern Shore, Haymans took hold.”
1877 blurb from North Carolina paper The Farmer and Mechanic
All of the articles about the potatoes mention their popularity and increasing distribution throughout the state.
Despite their increased popularity, it is possible that some of the white sweet potatoes being peddled in markets in Maryland are not in fact White Haymans.
I got mine at the Waverly Farmers Market, where they are still unknown enough that the seller made sure to inform me that I was buying a SWEET potato. The Virginian-Pilot article leads me to believe that the potato I bought may be an “O’Henry,” “another variety of white sweet potato that is easier and more economically feasible for farmers to grow.”
Regardless, I welcome the opportunity to taste all of the varieties of sweet potatoes available to me.
News stories about peculiarly-shaped sweet potatoes were once surprisingly common
I got this recipe from Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Cookbook. I’d asked a friend what kind of pie I should bring to his birthday and he said “white potato or sweet potato” so I thought I’d do some kind of clever switcheroo.
Ultimately this pie didn’t taste dramatically different from a white potato pie, so there wasn’t really any “gotcha” reveal but the pie was enjoyed by all.
Recipe:
2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes
.5 Cup sugar
.25 Cup butter
1 pinch salt
3 eggs, separated
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 Cup evaporated milk
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
.5 Cup milk
pie crust (graham cracker or vanilla wafer works nicely)
Boil sweet potatoes with their skins on, to “seal in” the sweetness. When cooled slightly, remove skins and mash until smooth. Cream together butter and sugar. Add sweet potatoes, salt, egg yolks, and cornstarch. Slowly add evaporated milk and vanilla. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff and fold into sweet potato mixture. Stir in whole milk. Pour into pie crust. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350° and bake for 25 minutes.
Makes two small 9″ pies or one large deep 9” pie. Extra filling can be baked as pudding.
Recipe adapted from “Mrs. Kitchings Smith Island Cookbook”
