by Lael Morgan
Eating! What a rewarding way to explore our history! Consider joining us in expanding this
concept, both with stories about and recipes for comfort foods. We even invite you to send in
your strangest recipes and tales of the past which may just be entertaining and not provide a lick
of comfort or the next idea for dinner.
My grandmother’s neighbors, at the turn of the next-to-last century in Cabot, Vermont, believed that tomatoes were poison. Why, I wonder? Are oysters nature’s Viagra, as many suppose? Or will powdered reindeer horn mixed with herbs in a tasty beverage do the trick as many from Asian cultures believe?
Why can some people down poison mushrooms without bad results, when others get deathly sick on peanut butter? How does my Dad’s prohibition recipe for bathtub gin compare today with those of the trendy boutique breweries that specialize in my favorite beverage?
Professor Stephen Hardin, who wrote the foreword for Kitchen Stories and is our consultant, actually encourages his students to better understand his Colonial history classes by inviting them to concoct and dine on traditional meals of that era. Six-time Emmy winning Chef Walter Staib has done much to popularize the trend of researching our past with our teeth.
For example, it wasn’t Julia Child who first introduced French cooking to America but Thomas Jefferson who, following a stint as Minister to France, brought home treasured recipes which he gave to his niece to pass on. Have you seen the City Tavern Cookbook which details recipes that our founding fathers were fond of? Have you ever dined at Durgin-Park, a Boston landmark since 1827, where the recipes, menu and even the chef in charge have been very slow to make any changes to the original fare?
Of course, passing cooking delights onto the next generation is not a new idea. Martha Washington’s one-of-a-kind personal cookbook was 50 years in the making. Handed down through the family until l892, it was presented to The Historical Society of Pennsylvania and eventually saw print with mixed reviews.
My
husband’s family has long had its own private cookbook. Early on, niece
Nancy (Morgan) James borrowed 3” x 5” recipe cards from her mother,
grandmother, and great-grandmother, (who ran an inn and restaurant on
Cape Cod) to incorporate in a family cookbook and, decades later with the help of a local printer,
produced a delightful expanded edition. Family history and anecdotes
were included, as well as the family genealogical chart for reference.
Some in our modern-day family don’t cook, but we all eat! And we find sharing memories of the amazing meals enjoyed from the tables of Mother Dodge, Mother James and the Morgan clan, entertaining.
Need some help in creating your own family cookbook? Wonder which recipe of 5,227 is best for Mac and Cheese? Want to share an odd old recipe and the history behind it? Want to share a spectacular cooking failure like that of my friend who didn’t realize how much dried peas expanded when watered and had to transfer her first batch of pea soup to her bathtub before cooking it in 27 batches?
Write us and watch this column for our stories and your best submissions!
