From my childhood, I readily
recall the cast-iron, wood-burning stoves my mother and grandmothers coaxed
into producing such delicate fare as angel food cakes, crème puffs and apple
pies. I remember also how thrilled we were when technology improved, and we
used an oil burner in a fire box instead, and then, with great excitement, onto
cooking with electricity, natural gas, and the invention of the broiler.
I came from that long ago time when
you could watch your butter churned and fetch fresh eggs from warm nests of
boastful, clucking hens. Big gardens, berry picking and gathering wild fiddlehead
greens made up for the fact that grocery stores were unknown in my section of
rural Maine and lacked sophistication even in its larger cities.
As challenging as meal
preparation may have been for us, imagine colonial America with its complicated
meal preparation minus shopping and stoves of any sort! Those were things that I
never considered until I delved into The
Martha Washington Cookbook by Marie Kimball, as authorized by the Historical
Society of Pennsylvania which owns the original. Yea gads!
Granted, Martha was one of wealthiest
widows in Virginia when she wed the gentleman farmer who would become father of
our county, and Martha traveled first class. Her dower included 150 slaves and
the couple had 14 house servants, so the first First Lady probably didn’t peel
many potatoes. She was apparently one heck of a manager, though, delegating the
dirty work but keeping a stern eye on even the smallest details.
The Washingtons owned five farms
which operated as semi-independent units.
George managed those operating expenses, making the rounds daily via
horseback, while Martha oversaw the housekeeping, oversaw the kitchens, doled
out the meals, and purchased the staples for humans.
Actually purchasing staples makes it sound too easy, because her job was
also to supervise the making of wines and cordials, planting supply gardens,
having grains milled into flour, canning, pickling, the preparation of hams and
sausage, figuring the butchering schedules, the spinning and weaving of
fabrics, directing the dressmaking and tailoring, the creation of fashionable
hats, and shoe cobbling—all things we can do today with one trip to Walmart!
Most amazing, though, is the
kitchen Martha had at her disposal. It
was, of course, first class for its era, but would have defeated all but the
cleverest of us today. It was in a
separate building from the dining room, where all the stewing, boiling,
roasting and baking was done in a big, open fireplace, with hangers and hooks
for various pots and kettles, a roasting jack, plus Dutch and brick ovens.
To make them perform properly required
an arsonist: someone who knew how to kindle fires of slow burning wood with
properly flavored smoke, and how to handle incendiary blazes for quick searing
and frying. All, of course, without a
temperature gauge.
With such quaint home appliances,
one might assume Martha kept the menu simple, but nothing could be farther from
the truth. Hers was the rich plantation
era where entertaining required three grand courses for dinner. As proof, author Kimball offers a menu
suitable for an evening in the month of February in 1792. The first course included small chicken
patties, soup puree with salmon, pork cutlets with sauce, stewed red cabbage,
boiled chickens, shoulder of mutton, mashed potatoes, shrimp sauce, greens,
Scotch collops, ham, beef temblongue (pudding), boiled turkey, fricasseed
French beans, celery sauce, oyster loaves, soup with stewed carp, and butter.
Those who survived were expected
to eat their way through a second offering of two ducks, a wine sauce, prawns,
asparagus, lamb’s tails, plovers, two teal, fruit in jelly, custards, roasted
hare, crayfish, three partridges, sweetbreads and fricasseed carardoons, a
plant similar to the artichoke.
Kimball goes on to explain that
after the second course, the table cloth was removed, wine, fruit and nuts were
set out, and the ladies retired so the men could discuss business. However she also notes that, “As a rule,
dinner parties were confined almost exclusively to men; occasionally the wife
of the host was present, and sometimes other women, but this was rather unusual.”
Considering cooking duties, I’d
guess the hostess couldn’t leave the
kitchen for fear the partridges, sweetbreads or roasted hare might be underdone,
or the prawns overcooked with the plovers. Yet later, as the president’s lady
in the nation’s capital, Martha’s appearance at the dining table was noted by
William Maclay, a senator from Pennsylvania who claimed the meal she prepared
to be “the best of the kind I ever was at.”
According to Maclay’s account, soup, roasted and boiled fish, meats
salmon, fowls, etc., were on the menu, and dessert included apple pies,
puddings, iced creams, jellies, watermelons, musk-melons, apples, peaches and
nuts.
Although the President was known
as a cold and formal politician, Martha developed a fine reputation as a hostess,
even though her husband was slow to budget for a housekeeper to help her keep
up with the wide political swath they cut.
However, please note that, although Martha was a year younger than her
husband, she died just two years after he breathed his last.
Their marriage appeared to be a
love match, and perhaps she died of grief.
She had traveled hundreds of miles to be with George at his winter
military encampments including Valley Forge, which had to have been rough
sledding. However, it is my humble guess
that despite the many Revolutionary battles George weathered and the time Martha
spent with him on the warfront, she fought her own Valley Forge in the primitive
kitchens of Mt. Vernon and Washington, which definitely took their toll on her
health.
Between 1768 and 1775, it’s
estimated the Washingtons entertained 2,000 guests at their dining table. And George didn’t do the cooking!
