vegetables Archives - Page 3 of 4

“Cymlings”

October 7, 2015January 13, 2019

According to culinary historian Michael Twitty, cymlings “have a special place in early African American history as they were one of the few squash commonly grown and consumed by the enslaved community.” And certainly this recipe hails from a plantation where that fact is relevant.

“The Plains” (also known as Ophan’s Gift, demolished in 1958) in St. Mary’s County had an interesting story. As you may know, Maryland was (legally) a slave state for nearly a year longer than the southern states that seceded from the Union. Nonetheless, the Union Army allowed for the recruitment of enslaved people as soldiers, and Lt. Eben White visited The Plains in 1863 to do just that.

Lt. Eben White

What actually transpired is unclear but an altercation took place and plantation owner Mr. (Colonel) John Henry Sothoron shot and killed Lt. White. The estate was then seized by the United States under the Confiscation Act, which allowed for the confiscation of property and the freeing of people enslaved by anyone who assisted the rebellion or who were “disloyal citizens.”

“Elizabeth (Somervell) Sothoron, the wife of Col. John Sothoron, and their children were placed under house arrest. On November 22, President Lincoln wrote a letter to Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War stating, in part, “It is represented that the family [Sothoron] are substantially imprisoned in their house by our soldiers and are on starvation. I submit that perhaps some attention better be given to the case”.” – Linda Reno, Leonardtown

Mrs. Sothoron and children left the plantation to live off of the charity of others for several years until the estate was returned to her posession. The family was finally able to return to the estate in spring of 1866. Col. Sothoron, who had fled to Canada after Lincoln was assassinated, was found not-guilty in the fall. The impartiality of this trial remains dubious.

The Plains, Southwest View (Maryland Historical Trust)

I admit to being put off of this recipe at first due to the fact that it seems like a waste.

I love cutting cymlings (aka pattypans) horizontally and grilling or roasting them. They have such a beautiful shape.

However
I had some that were slightly past their peak crispness and so I gave
this treatment a try. (This was in defiance of the recipe which called
for tender young cymlings.)

The cymling dish made a nice dinner
side. I used shallot, and the dish doesn’t cook long, so the onion
flavor was very strong. Straining the squash through a colander proved
to be one of those rare tasks that was more annoying than cleaning out
the food mill, so I ended up tossing it all in there instead.

Recipe:

tender young cymling (pattypan) squash
salt
1 Tablespoon butter, melted
1 Teaspoon chopped onion
salt
pepper, black
1 Tablespoon flour
.5 Cup milk
breadcrumbs
butter

Cut up cymlings and boil in salted water until soft enough to mash through a sieve. Add tablespoon of butter, teaspoon of chopped onion, salt and pepper to taste plus one tablespoon of flour mixed into a half cup milk. Put in baking dish. Cover with bread crumbs, dot with butter and bake until golden brown.

Recipe adapted from Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland, contributed by Mrs. John H Sothoron, The Plains

findagrave.com

Tomato Catsup

September 23, 2015January 13, 2019

What does one do if they have too many tomatoes and no plans for an afternoon? Must be time to make a condiment.

Catsup, Ketchup… most people think tomatoes when they think of ketchup. In truth, the Tomato is a newcomer to the ketchup game, with previous recipes involving anything from walnuts to mushrooms to cucumbers.

I had hoped to make one of those sooner or later but the tomatoes became a pressing need before I got the chance.

With the assistance of a preserving-experienced friend, we worked from various recipes – primarily Mrs. B.C. Howard’s. Since I’ve already written all about her, we’ll have to focus on the ketchup for a bit.

The original aforementioned catsups derive from Chinese fish sauce variants dating to the early 1700s. Mushroom catsup in particular is called for in many of my old recipes as part of meat flavoring or as a component in sauces. Apparently tomato catsup hit the scene about a century after those sauces.

By the time of the 1881 publication of this recipe, tomato catsup had even been available in bottled form for over forty years. However, it seemed to experience a surge in popularity in the early 1900s – so much so that public health concerns were raised.

Books about ketchup report a number of companies bottling the condiment in Maryland. One brand, Fort Cumberland Catsup bottled in Cumberland, Maryland raised the ire of the FDA in 1914 for peddling “a filthy, putrid, and decomposed vegetable substance to wit decomposed catsup.” The catsup was destroyed by the US Marshall.

Over time the ketchup market has come to be dominated by consistency, ushered along by fears of benzoate and the new era of food purity.

A 2004 article for the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell explores the aftermath of this consistency. Even today as “artisinal” versions of foods from Triscuits to mustard have become ubiquitous in our kitchens, ketchup remains on the fringe of the zeitgeist.

Our ketchup-making neither affirmed nor refuted the supremacy of the thick, sweet ketchup made by Heinz and their imitators. What we made was a 19th century seasoned, somewhat thinner product with a LOT of vinegar-y zip. I think I would have preferred cider vinegar instead of white, but the vinegar bite is not a weakness. This ketchup will combine nicely with some fruit for a bar-b-que sauce, and makes a good alternative for hot dog lovers who are not too fond of ketchup. After letting it mellow for a week or two we tested it on hot dogs and it was described as a “mustard-like ketchup.”

Mrs. Howard calls for tomato ‘catsup’ in “Bouilli,” “Beef-Steak with Tomato Catsup,” “Brown Sauce” and “Liver” so this may not be the last you see of this ketchup.

Recipe:

1 peck tomatoes
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons salt
1 pint vinegar
½ tablespoon cloves
½ tablespoon allspice
2 cinnamon sticks
1 bunch thyme & parsley
2 garlic cloves

Take
a peck of tomatoes and squeeze through a thin piece of muslin so that no
seeds get through. Add a dessert spoonful of cayenne pepper, two
table spoonfuls of salt, one pint of vinegar, half a tablespoonful of
cloves and allspice mixed, two sticks of cinnamon about three inches in
length a bundle of thyme and parsley tied together and two cloves of
garlic chopped as fine as possible. Simmer for four hours, steadily and slowly.
After filling the bottles with catsup, put two inches deep of sweet oil
in each bottle. Rosin the bottles the more effectually to exclude the
air. [Modern cooks follow canning procedures]

Recipe from Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen By Mrs. B. C. Howard

Blanching tomatoes for easy peeling

I love canning outside and enjoying the weather

An Eastern Shore Tomato Tasting

August 24, 2015April 30, 2019

When I think of an emblamatic Maryland food – something that represents the abundance that Marylanders have enjoyed, the unique terroir, a key component of past economy – I think of Eastern Shore Tomatoes. My passion for Eastern Shore tomatoes (and watermelons) cannot be over-stated.

Three standard meals fed us during the summers at my grandparents’ Chincoteague trailer. Scrapple folded into a piece of white bread was a typical breakfast. A feast of the days’ haul of flounder was often fried up dinner. And lunch and/or an afternoon snack: sliced, salted tomatoes – sometimes between two slices of white bread.

I’m forever chasing the flavor of those tomatoes. Even with our CSA in full swing, I can’t pass through the Eastern Shore in August without coming home with some tomatoes. This week I took that to extremes.

The tomato corridor along route 50 can be daunting. Stand after stand of tantalizing produce.

interactive map!

We stopped at the first ten stands on the westbound side of 50, starting at Rt 13. A few more stands exist after that but this is Tomato Alley, mostly located in Hebron, MD.

This is far from a thorough survey and we may not be experts. I used a wine-tasting guide as an outline.

Tomatoes can vary in flavor from year to year, plant to plant, and even fruit to fruit. One example of the questions raised by this sampling is the difference in rating between The Farmer’s Wife and S&H Farms. As it turned out, these stands are operated by the same people. Yet we found the Farmers Wife tomatoes to be most attractive in appearance but not up to the flavor of the S&H tomato.

We generally agreed that the tomatoes from Oakley’s Farm Market and S&H were the best, at least on this day. It’s fascinating trying them all side by side and seeing how different they really are. Some have little to no aroma, some smell like tomato vines, some are perfumey and floral. All were superior to a grocery store tomato.

Fried Green Tomatoes

August 12, 2015January 13, 2019

Fried Green Tomatoes are far from a Maryland-specific food but they fit nicely among Maryland fare for a few reasons. The Southern-ness of Fried Green Tomatoes, mistakenly taken for granted since the 1992 film, is now being exposed as questionable. Maryland, though perhaps not Marylanders, can relate to this questioned Southern identity.

Recipes for fried green (and red) tomatoes, often served with cream gravy, appear throughout my Maryland cookbooks and newspapers from the 20th century onward.

Frying green tomatoes makes a lot of sense in Maryland, where we have a slightly shorter growing season than locations farther south. It is a handy technique come October, when the last of the crops refuse to ripen in time and you want to savor that final vestige of summer.

In this case I went the opposite route, using some of the beautiful early tomatoes that show up at the Waverly Farmers Market.

The simple recipe I used came from a community cookbook, “The Country School Cookbook II” printed in 1980. Although I cannot determine much about Amy Horne, the recipe’s contributor, this elementary school was founded in Easton in 1934 and is still operating today.

Country School founder Dorothy Starrt and original location from the Country School website.

The cookbook is most notable to me for its exceptional illustrations. They reflect the bounty of the Eastern Shore, of which this author considers the tomato to be the crown jewel.

Recipe:

2 Green tomatoes
1 egg
1tb water
salt & pepper or seasoned salt
oil or bacon grease (or both)
breadcrumbs (smaller than the ones I made! smash them small!)

Slice green tomatoes very thin (they are best when slightly tinged with pink). Dip in egg, which has been slightly beaten with seasonings, thinned with a little water. Fry in a thin amount of oil or bacon fat until brown and crisp, just under 2 minutes each side.

Recipe adapted from “The Country School Cookbook II”, 1980

“Green Corn” in Imitation of Fried Oysters

July 23, 2015April 8, 2019

As a wise person once said:

“Green corn, we believe, is essentially a Maryland herb, for here only is it found in full perfection. Go south but a hundred leagues, and the best hotels will serve you corn that leaves a lingering feeling of imitation and inauthenticity. It is, as it were, a bit lousy. Go north, the same distance and you will find the green corn flabby and watery. Go west and it will disgust you utterly. In Maryland alone does it reach the flawless heights.” – Baltimore Sun, 1909 (via The Spokesman-Review)*

Green corn in this case probably means young corn. I wasn’t completely able to work that one out. However, there are many references to and recipes for “green corn” in old newspapers and cookbooks.
Most of them are positive but there is also this: During the “Maryland Campaign,” Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North, many of his soldiers, after eating “green corn,” allegedly became ill with diarrhea en route to the bloody Battle of Antietam.
So like, green corn won the Civil War?

I came across this fritter recipe in a few places – first was “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” as “Green Corn in Imitation of Fried Oysters” c/o Miss Rebecca Hollingsworth French of Washington County. They appear in “Maryland’s Way” as “Artificial Oysters” from “Aunt Ery.” I also came across them in a strange Baltimore Sun page in 1837:

Baltimore Sun Archives, September 23, 1837

I don’t know if the nubile young corn we got from One Straw Farm could qualify as this mystical “green corn” but I went for it anyway.
So the question now is.. did the result taste like oysters? Frankly, I didn’t get that. But they did make nice little sandwiches and snacks. You could really go any way with these.. part of a vegetarian meal, or in my case, make a sandwich, adding a little anchovy sauce to the bread for some umami of the sea. Still cheaper than real oysters, after all.
I guess the other question is.. did we feel any, uh…. less ready to face our foes in the battlefield? Thankfully, no. We survived with innards un-afflicted.