|

The Southern Heritage Cookbook Library + “Sweet Potato Pound Cake”

ByKara

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.

Similar Posts

  • |

    Braised Duckling Bigarrade, Fort Cumberland Hotel

    ByKara

    This is another recipe from the glamorous hotel era – this time from Cumberland, Maryland. At the time of the publication of “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland” in the 1930s, Cumberland was a booming town connecting the rest of Maryland to the west, particularly mineral-rich western Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Trains, the…

  • Cindy Knopp’s white sweet potato coconut pie

    ByKara

    For 36 years, columnist and photographer Brice Stump wrote about life on the Eastern Shore. In his columns, he explored its history – including the Civil War, and pondered the petty tribulations of modern life.

    On one topic in particular, Stump was passionate: White Hayman Sweet Potatoes. Having been raised on a farm, Stump admitted they aren’t easy to grow. But of their flavor, he sang the praises.

    “Unlike the familiar orange-fleshed sweet potatoes that required marshmallows, brown sugar and lots of butter to enhance their nutty flavor, the Hayman tickles the palate with a natural, delicately sweet taste and heavenly texture,” Stump wrote in the Salisbury Daily Times in 1999. In that article, he interviewed Rev. Sally Bowen, a descendent of Daniel Hayman, the ship captain purported to have brought the potatoes from North Carolina to Maryland in the 1850s.

    Although stories trace White Haymans to North Carolina, nary a trace of them can be found there now. White Haymans are a specialty of the Eastern Shore, “raised only for Shore consumers,” wrote Stump.

    Eight years later he bemoaned the proliferation of O’Henrys appearing on the market, ironically “coming out of the Carolinas, apparently.” These pretenders were giving Haymans a bad name. An authenticity test was recommended: “If you put pressure down on your thumb and draw it over the face of a Hayman, it will ‘skin’ easily, whereas the O’Henry wont.”

    If the difference is so stark, that casts a lot of doubt on my last attempt at a white sweet potato pie. This time around, my mom acquired some Haymans from Whiteraven’s Nest in Chincoteague, Virginia – along with several other varieties of sweet potato. So I used a blend. She was warned to cure them several weeks, in a warm and dry place, or else risk defeating the point of even tasting them.