Excellent corn bread, goose grease and cordial

A few months back, I wrote about the process of recipe keeping and my own family’s generational traditions. Here is a sequel—or more accurately a prequel—to that story.

If you are triggered by talk of clutter, piles, and moldering papers, then this post might not be for you. But if you’re intrigued—as I am—by family mysteries, heirlooms, and very old recipes, then read on.

On a recent Sunday, I stopped in to see my aunt Katie & uncle Andy in Maryland, and as Katie often does she had an armload of mystery treasures for me, along with some homemade pesto and iris rhizomes for me to plant in our Brooklyn garden.

The pile, which had belonged to my grandmother “Mimi” (who was a food writer), filled up an empty wine case. The contents included travel souvenirs, a bunch of well-worn and annotated cookbooks Mimi had used in the mid-20th century, and my grandfather’s 1924 Fresno High yearbook, which was plastered with multiple newspaper clippings announcing his expulsion from school—these seemed kind of proudly displayed, if you ask me (he eventually went on to graduate and become a mostly upstanding citizen).

one person’s trash…

As we were going through the books, Katie pointed out a tobacco-colored notebook that was in particularly rough shape and commented “this one looks really old but I have no idea what it is.” She gingerly turned the handwritten pages inside, many of which were loose and deeply yellowed. There were clippings and shreds of paper hanging on by rusted pins and in some cases sewed onto the notebook’s paper with thread. We speculated on whether it had been mice or time that had nibbled away at the edges of the papers, rendering them lacy and delicate. I was immediately smitten.

It was clear to me that this homespun book was from before my grandmother’s time, but when? Whose? After I got it home, it took a couple of hours of toggling between the notebook’s pages and my ancestry.com tree to connect the dots. Later, through the wondrous ways of the internet, I was connected with Don, the owner of Rabelais Inc. in Maine (a culinary bookshop I now can’t wait to visit), who as it turned out was the perfect person to help me contextualize this collection and suggest ways to preserve it.

Evidence points to the fact that the notebook was mainly used by Bettie Wheat Anderson, my great-great grandmother, who lived from 1832-1905 in Richmond, Virginia. Notebooks of this type would have been a family’s primary catalog of recipes, whether the person doing the cooking was the woman of the house or a domestic servant (or both). Since folks back then were generally less wasteful with their paper, many of the recipes are scribbled on the flip side of letter drafts, doodles, old bits of accounting; these “B sides” are fascinating in their own right. Some bear dates, which helped me deduce that most of the activity in the notebook took place between the 1870’s and the 1890’s. Adding another layer, the many different penmanship styles and ink qualities found in the book indicate different time periods and multiple authors. Clearly, there was a lot of passing along of recipes, swapping, and mailing them. A few are attributed to “M.D. Anderson”, who I’m pretty sure was my great-great-great-grandmother Maria (1803-1879)—the mother-in-law of Bettie—passing along her wisdom to the next generation.

Damsons are a small, sour variety of plum that were commonly grown and preserved in England and early U.S./colonies, but they’re harder to find now.

Most of the “receipts” in the book are for preserved foods, like pickles and salt-cured meat, or baked items such as cakes. Don at Rabelais explained to me that such content was typical in these home cookbook compilations, as baking and preserving required more precision, whereas cooked vegetables and roasted meats were more intuitive. Lest you think cooking was bland back then, many of these foods were highly spiced; ginger, allspice, cloves, and peppers all appeared frequently. You can find similar flavor profiles in Mary Randolph’s 1824 iconic cookbook The Virginia House-Wife.

Among the desserts in my family’s notebook is something called a Democrat Cake (“election cakes” were popular in the 19th century), and some cornmeal-based recipes—corn being a staple ingredient in Virginia since well before the arrival of European settlers. In the recipe below for “Excellent corn bread", note the use of the “long s” where double ss appeared, so “thickness” looks sort of like “thicknefs”. This appears in some of the papers but not all, as the long s faded from fashion some time during the 19th century, depending on factors like region and the age of the writer (Bettie Anderson did not seem to use the long s—this was someone else’s handwriting). Notice, also, that the cooking instruction for the cornbread says, simply, “bake quickly”—since electric ovens had not come into use, and baking was an imprecise endeavor. My own go-to cornbread recipe by Edna Lewis calls for 450°, which I’d say amounts to a pretty quick bake. A “slow oven,” used for things like delicate cakes, might translate to 350°.

There are plenty of newspaper clippings fastened into the pages or floating loose: A notice of the auctioning of an Anderson family property and its mill. A poem entitled “His Grandmother’s Mince Pie.” A rundown of “New York Fashion Notes” from January 9, 1876, which informs the reader that “Grecian coils are going out of style and the long braided loop is returning to favor. Long curls at the back of the neck are now the style for evening dress.”

Victorian chic

Numerous home remedies and homespun medical advice pinned into the book hint at ailments that constantly plagued families of that era, but which we rarely give a thought nowadays. The clipped and saved remedies for Smallpox, Scarlet Fever and consumption sound a little dodgy now (goose grease and rancid bacon, anyone?)…but considering some of the remedies that have been attempted during our current pandemic, it’s nice to know that some things never change.

Don’t try this at home

So what do all these clippings and handwritten articles add up to? They’re just a heap of crumbling papers from the past, yes, but the fact that they have survived down through at least five generations of my family feels nothing short of miraculous. Many hands wrote those recipes, and the little pieces tucked in among the pages reveal multitudes about the dailiness of my ancestors’ lives. My grandmother had this notebook in her possession for a stretch, and some of the recipes bear her own initials and her familiar scrawl that says “copied” (I’ve found the copies in her recipe tins). She had a fascination for culinary history, which I inherited along with the material things she saw fit to save. As I look through all of these pages and make sense of them I imagine her doing the same, and time seems to compress in a way that is both dizzying and comforting. Could the creators of these notes have imagined their writings would be read by their descendant 150 years later, into an age when foods from every corner of the globe reach people via metal flying machines, and recipes are searched and saved on pocket-sized electronic devices that seem glued to everyone’s palms?

An object like this is both common and rare. Common, because every family probably had one—yours likely did, too, even if they lived in a different country. Rare, because how many families are crazy—or lucky—enough to hold onto something like this? I know I’m damaging the pages a little bit each time I flip through and tiny flakes slough off like dandruff, but I’ll preserve this precious thing the best I can, look through it from time to time, and encourage my children to do the same. A notebook like this was, after all, meant to be used.

A blackberry cordial receipt and a child’s doodle

The Hamover

The star of my childhood Christmases was a ham I refused to eat. I’m not talking about the honey-baked variety or the pineapple-and-maraschino studded roasts that beckon from soft-focus holiday ads. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, they’re just not real hams. They’re not Virginia hams—a regional specialty that people who have lived in certain parts of the state know well.

The ham I speak of is a country ham that has undergone a months-long curing and smoking process and, if done properly, is a smoky, nutty, salty delicacy that gets sliced paper thin and practically melts on the tongue. In my opinion—and my opinion is not unique—the best way to enjoy it is to bake heaps of small buttermilk biscuits, cut them in half crossways, spread each side thick with butter, then lay either a thin slice or minced shards of ham in between the biscuit halves, and make yourself a delightful little sandwich. Or two. Or five dozen.

This type of ham is a form of charcuterie dating back to 17th century Virginia, when English newcomers found that hogs thrived in the pine and poplar forests where they could shelter from the summer sun and fatten themselves on acorns in the fall. Later, Virginia pigs enjoyed a diet of peanuts long before they became a popular American snack (tangent: peanuts are native to South America but zigzagged across the globe and reached North America via slave ships from Africa—as did many of the finest “Southern” ingredients). In the Virginia Tidewater, country ham quickly became a staple not only because of its deliciousness, but because pigs were plentiful, and curing and smoking the well-padded hind legs was a way to preserve the meat year-round. Similarly iconic hams from Parma, Italy and Serrano, Spain are close cousins, though they bear the distinctive marks of regional terroir and technique.

When I was growing up, Virginia country hams were commonly referred to as Smithfield hams, after the town near the Chesapeake Bay that was long the epicenter of ham production in Virginia. Unfortunately, the megacorporation that now bears that name was purchased by overseas investors and became infamous for environmental and safety issues. The best hams now come from family producers that have stayed small and adhered to traditional techniques. Edwards makes a very fine ham, as does Nancy “The Ham Lady” Newsom in Kentucky (yes, neighboring states make wonderful country hams, as well).

My father worshiped at the altar of the Virginia ham and mail-ordered one every year, several months in advance of Christmas. It would arrive at our home in Alexandria in a handsome cloth sack, artisanally mummified, its skin stretched taut and maroonish. But because Dad always had to take things a step further, he would embark on an additional ripening period himself. In our basement.

A quick side tour of this basement, which even now, years after my father’s passing, remains a strange, chaotic shrine to him. The house is old, and its sublevel was always meant to be an unfinished space that is home to the furnace and washing machine and other mechanics. The concrete floor becomes a riverbed every time it rains, and there’s no stopping it, so you just go with it and step over the waters. The ceiling was once crisscrossed with a network of asbestos-lined pipes, but when in the 80’s the city of Alexandria mandated expensive remediation, Dad donned an N95 mask and ripped out the friable asbestos casings with his own hands (no he was not a professional contractor—he was an ad man).

Apart from the nuts and bolts of the basement, it has a back room that was and still is a cabinet of curiosities of all things Dad: gym, art studio, wine cellar, time capsule. The first thing you see is a weight machine and a treadmill, on which he used to take leisurely strolls while watching 60 Minutes and sipping a glass of wine, a pair of beat-up leather topsiders on his feet. Staring out from behind the workout equipment is a ginormous, 80’s era photograph of himself that was presented upon his retirement; it still makes me jump every time I walk in there. Opposite the workout equipment is an analog TV propped up on a long, paint splattered workbench strewn with crusty brushes and tubes of paint, canvases and colonial-era nails and leaking cans of mineral spirits.

But of all the rare and imperfect gems that basement holds, its crown jewel is the wine cellar: a space of barely 50 square feet that contains multitudes. Wine was one of Dad’s many hobbies, and soon after we moved into the house he enclosed the back quadrant with drywall to create a hermetically sealed, climate controlled chamber lined with wooden racks, laid with threadbare oriental rugs, and lit with a brass chandelier. A deep and mysterious recess in the rear brick wall—one of those quirks of old houses—was put into service as “The Port Hole” and stored bottles of vintage port for friends. At one point, while browsing in a French flea market, Dad stumbled upon what just might have been the original lock to the Bastille—a baronial oak and iron contraption with a key the size of fireplace poker. He bought it for nothing, lugged the hefty rig home in his suitcase, and mounted it onto the cellar’s aluminum Home Depot entry door, which he painted a high-gloss crimson. He built the room 100% by himself, and it was his man cave extraordinaire. Over the years he collected wine and oenological paraphernalia: antique corkscrews and silver wine tasters, decanters and framed posters from his friend Mark’s wine bar, Willi’s, in Paris. Wooden wine crates piled up outside the door like cubist snowdrifts and no doubt made a cozy nesting spot for several generations of mice. For additional ambience he wired speakers down there that usually blasted classical music but which in August of 1997, while I happened to be visiting, delivered the unforgettable news that Princess Diana had been killed.

From the ceiling near the Port Hole hung an ancient iron “S” with a wicked sharp point; this was the ham hook. The wine cellar apparently provided the ideal environment for a ham to age, and so it did, each year for several months. As it mellowed, it lazily dripped an oily, iridescent fluid onto the floor, adding to the general patina of the room. And whatever mass the ham lost in moisture it more than replaced in mold. A marbled moldscape of fuzzy white, blue, and green grew on the exterior, cloaking the ham thickly. Sometimes, while hosting playdates, I would lead an unsuspecting friend down for a tour of the musty and mood-lit basement: through clanking pipes, past retired Halloween props and the realistic rubber rat that Mom placed among wine racks for kicks, and ending with a flourish at the ghoulish ham swaying on its hook. No one ever believed me that it was destined to be consumed.

But consumed it was, every December, after an intense soaking and scrubbing in the slop sink of our laundry room. I can’t vouch that any part of the process, or in fact anything about the basement, would pass health inspection, but after a day or two the ham would ascend spotless into the kitchen above after going a few rounds with a wire brush.

The ham cleaned up pretty nicely, and after more soaking, boiling, and a final baking, it was ready for showtime at our Christmas day open house, sliced with a surgically sharp carving knife on a silver platter with a host of flaky biscuits waiting to envelope it. I never could bring myself to eat any, as its sordid basement past was burned in my mind’s eye. I hung back slyly as the grownups clustered around the sideboard, cramming ham slices into biscuits, loading up plates of seconds, washing it all down with wine as they chatted and laughed excitedly. I thought to myself as I watched them: “Oh, you have noooo idea.”  

But it was I who had no idea. No idea that some of the best things are touched and shaped by time and mold and rot. That while the grownups really were digging the ham, they were mostly in it for the company. I got it years later, when removed from Virginia and—maybe sentimental, maybe curious—began incorporating ham biscuits into my own family’s Christmas tradition. At first, I bought it sliced to order from the excellent and sorely missed Stinky cheese shop, where you could get different kinds of ham carved by the pound. Later, I started mail-ordering entire hams that were larger than any of my babies at birth (which is saying something). We had to have a few people over to help eat the ham, and those few people became more, and the vibe really got quite merry because the thing about eating salty ham is that it makes you thirsty, and then you drink whatever is in your hand to slake the thirst, then eat more ham, refill the glass, and so on. Our friend Tim coined the term for what happens the next day: a Hamover.

A few years ago, I think it was the year Dad died, we reluctantly let this tradition slide because, honestly, it just felt too overwhelming; quiet and order were the balm that was needed in the holiday leadup. We stopped ordering a whole ham because there would be no one to help us eat it, and our home was empty of the familiar briny, primal scent of the ham soaking and simmering on the stove: a smell, it took me many years to realize, I had always connected with the holidays. This year, in our small merry pod, we will probably make a batch of sausage rolls: a tradition from my husband, Ben’s English family. They’re a delicious substitute, but they’re not quite the same.

It’s common to talk about 2020 in terms of things we’ve lost, and it’s true we’ve lost so much—some of it irreplaceable. But I also like to remind myself of what we have gained, and for me it’s a deepened appreciation for those things that were so easy to take for granted before: hugging our parents, laughing around a close table, seeing each other’s smiles, having enough people over to make nice work of a Virginia ham until all that remains is the hock and the promise of a big batch of smoky split pea soup on new year’s day. May 2021 be the year we can enjoy those things once again with renewed gratitude. May 2021 bring the Hamover back.

The Cooks Who Came Before Us

Today would have been my Dad’s 78th birthday. I miss him all the time, especially when there’s something funny or exciting I really want to tell him about, and I have that split second impulse to shoot him an email or pick up the phone…and then I realize with a pit in my stomach that I can’t. If he were still alive I would tell him about an article that I just had published, which happens to be about his own mother—my Mimi—who was a food writer from 1946-1976. It’s also about all the women who came before, who helped build food writing back when it was seen as “just women’s work.” Please have a read. I’m thrilled to be featured in Comestible Journal and am a fierce advocate for small, independent publications.

Also: Dad was a huge influence on my love for food, cooking, and writing about it. He was always a great supporter and teacher. In honor of his birthday I’m including a version of a piece that I wrote in 2017 for The Virginia Sportsman magazine.

°°°

Hunter, Fisherman, and Chef

Fall 2017

This May marked the passing of my father, Andy Williams, who was a longtime reader of this magazine; he also served as an inspiration and a tremendous resource for the recipes and stories I’ve put down here. Many who knew him would agree that he was not only passionate about hunting and fishing—as he was about his many chosen pursuits—but he was also an accomplished cook of wild-caught foods. He was generous with his talents and over the years came to be known as the chef-in-residence during the many hunting and fishing expeditions he enjoyed with friends. In many respects, these occasions became happenings around food, as well as celebrations of the bounty that nature had provided.

Back when I was a young child, I cringed at the bundles of bird carcasses he hauled home along with muddy boots and bloodied hunting gear, and I’m sure I pleaded with him tearfully to stop killing the creatures I saw as friends. I hadn’t yet made the connection between the hamburgers and chicken nuggets I enjoyed and the animals they had previously been, nor did I think about the quality of those animals’ lives. What I eventually learned, by watching his rituals, was a natural completeness and circularity of tracking and taking wild animals, preparing them, using every possible part of them, and crafting a beautiful meal that could be shared among friends. This knowledge was a gift—so many children now are disconnected from the origins of their food, and I got to understand and appreciate this ancient cycle from an early age.

I also got to learn a trick or two, as Dad was constantly refining his repertoire of recipes and adding new ones to it—whether taking courses at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, or experimenting with a new-to-him ingredient such as harissa or quatres épices, or tinkering with a recipe he had somehow cajoled a famous restaurant chef into sharing with him.

One constant was his stock-making routine, which took place every year once the air became crisp, and he’d amassed enough game bird frames and cast-off bits to fill the basement freezer. Then, he lugged down his tallest stockpot, which took its place on the rear right quadrant of the stove, beside the small wooden barrel into which he poured leftover wine to make his own vinegar. The first day, the pot sat tranquilly as delicate currents circulated around the jumble of bones, vegetables, and bundled herbs inside. Once the liquid went to gold and had drunk all the essence of the solids, he ran the whole mess through a fine, cone-shaped strainer into a smaller pot, where the clear stock concentrated further, overnight and into the next day, darkening from wheat-colored to ochre, and finally deepening to a rich umber emulsion through which bubbles rose thickly. You could chart the progress of the stock’s reduction by the strata of skin deposited around the inside of the pot, ruffling in the rising steam.

My love of cooking was born and grew in that kitchen, as I assisted or sometimes just watched, listened, and smelled. Even during the vegetarian years of my teens, I was attuned to what was going on at the stove and had a solid respect (if not appetite) for hunting and the reverence and resourcefulness that can and should go along with it. Later, with genuine interest, I spent many afternoons beside him at the counter, learning the components of classic cuisine, as well as how to clean and prepare wild birds and fish. By the time I was enrolled in cooking school in my 20’s, I was already conversant in the vocabulary of the kitchen and comfortable with the more visceral aspects of working with food.

Dad and I cooked many meals together over the years and enjoyed even more that we didn’t prepare; food was one thing we could always agree on and look forward to during visits. I will miss those times with him in the kitchen or at the table, and I treasure the recipes he so enthusiastically shared with me, usually in the form of rambling emails with meandering asides and silly puns. Below are two of his beloved fall classics, in time for dove season—one of his favorite times of year.

Andy’s Grilled Dove in Red Wine Marinade

Serves four as an appetizer, or as part of a dinner buffet

Ingredients:

• 1 cup red wine

• 1 shot of gin

• 1/2 cup olive oil

• 3 TBS. soy sauce

• 3 TBS. balsamic vinegar

• 1 dried bay leaf

• 2 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1 TBS dried thyme)

• 1 tsp. ground black pepper

• 1 tsp. salt

• 8 whole dove breasts, split, on the bone (16 halves)

Directions:

1. Whisk together all ingredients except dove breasts. Lay breasts in a casserole dish or in a zip-lok bag, and pour marinade over them. Marinate for approximately two hours, making sure the meat is uniformly covered with the marinade.

2. Preheat grill to medium-high flame. When the grill is hot, lightly oil grates and grill dove 3-4 minutes each side, or until medium rare. Do not overcook. Dove breasts can be eaten straight off the grill or served with collard greens, or with sautéed cabbage and caraway seeds.

Dove Breasts with Jalapeños and Bacon

Serves 4 as an appetizer

Ingredients:

• 8 whole dove breasts, split, on the bone (16 halves)

• 8 small jalapeño peppers, halved and seeded or 16 rounds of jarred jalapeño slices

• 8 slices bacon, cut in half

• toothpicks or small bamboo skewers

Instructions:

1. Preheat grill to medium-high. Lightly oil grates. Lay dove breasts bone side up on a flat surface, and place a piece of jalapeño in the center of each piece. Wrap a piece of bacon snugly around each breast, crossing ends on top of jalapeño, and secure with a toothpick or skewer.

2. Grill breasts 4-5 minutes on each side, or until dove meat is medium rare and bacon is crisp. Enjoy!

Make Letter Writing Great Again

This morning my 7-year-old observed that “In the olden days people couldn’t text, so writing cards was like texting.”

His comment was timely, because some days it seems all I do is read letters from the olden days, as my thesis project has me poking around back in an era when that’s how you made contact with another person. We forget this now, when it’s so easy to reach out via text or email (and does anyone really call anymore?).

At the risk of sounding very old, I’ll mention that a college friend recently reminded me I was her first friend with internet, back when connectivity was never a sure thing: no cell phones, very slow and shaky dial-up, etc. Anyone who experienced the internet of the 90’s will recall that screechy, staticky sound the computer made as the dial-up modem tried to contact the server, then the moment of suspense when you weren’t sure whether it was going to successfully connect or leave you hanging. After I graduated college and went overseas, I kept in touch with friends and family back home with long, rambling letters. The alternative was to pop into an internet café—remember those?—and hope it wasn’t full of all-day lingerers or out of commission entirely.

But I’ve been going back further than the 1990’s for my thesis project, which focuses mainly on the 1950’s and 1960’s when people wrote really long letters to each other.

Last week I was in the Cecily Brownstone files at NYU’s Special Collections archives. Brownstone (yes that was her real name, and yes she lived in a brownstone) was the Associated Press food editor for nearly 40 years, as well as writing and editing a few cookbooks. She saved everything. She was very close with Irma Rombauer of Joy of Cooking fame, and Rombauer’s daughter, Marion. There are hundreds of letters back and forth between these women, and they are warm and unabashedly effusive. They also report on mundane dailiness; everything from what was blooming in the garden to family drama to the minutiae of health complaints. Lots and lots of health talk.

Although the conversation was not always scintillating it was intimate, and there is an intimacy we have lost in our cursory texts to one another. I’m as guilty as anyone of preferring a ping to picking up the phone…and a letter, what’s that? But our texts, while immediate and sometimes humorous, are oddly emotionless, and it’s so easy to misunderstand the mood or tone in these whittled-down communications—or worry that one’s own text has lost something in the translation. Even messages that are meant to be affectionate can be misunderstood as cold or curt because they are so brief. And let’s not even get into auto-correct mishaps.

Back in analog days, just how did busy, successful people manage the time to write a ten-page letter to a far away pal? My guess is they had a lot more time because they weren’t scrolling social media.

Since my family can’t seem to throw anything out (a blessing sometimes), we also have a few letters going back to antediluvian times, including some young and flirtatious courtship between my great-grandparents when they were sweethearts, not yet married. Those are from the 1800’s and my aunt Katie seemed surprised when we happened upon them, sepia colored and turning to dust among her memorabilia, as we sat digging through the past one lovely day last month.

Then there are the travel letters home from my grandmother to the family (she and my grandfather logged a lot of miles for work as well as for pleasure). In a four-page typewritten missive to her young adult children in 1965, she reported on their travels through Mexico and described, in thrilling detail, a new thing she tried called a Marguerita: “There is salt around the edge of the glass and you sip through this, very fine indeed.”

I wonder if one day we’ll save e-mail threads the way we used to save letters. I already find myself going back through old message chains from when the kids were tiny, and silly back and forths with my Dad when he was still alive. I wonder how we’ll preserve these exchanges for future generations. E-mail doesn’t quite have the tactile satisfaction of unfolding an old, crispy letter. Emails don’t smell the same as old letters do.