Culinary Research at NYPL

I'll be teaching a culinary research class on Friday, April 23rd at 2:15 pm at NYPL's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street and Fifth. The class is free and open to the public, and will take place in the South Court classrooms.

If you're interested in learning more about the New York Public Library's culinary collections and how to access them, I hope to see you there!

W.P.A. Tavern Signs

Now that I've forced you to linger on Duncan Hines' Adventures for longer than is humanly necessary, I'm back! But as you see, I haven't ditched the travel theme entirely. Behold Tavern Signs, a unique and beautiful book filled with the signs of colonial taverns and inns.


Painted by W.P.A. workers, Tavern Signs contains 31 detailed plates, plus notes on the taverns' historical significance, compiled by the Works Projects Administration's Pennsylvania State Wide Museum Extension Project, circa 1943.

The portraits, objects, and symbols featured on tavern signs evolved as a way to identify the taverns for the sizable illiterate population who would frequent the establishments; long before road maps became the norm, tavern signs acted as landmarks on the various post-roads winding through the countryside. According to the introduction in the book, "Not only did the sign of Three Crowns, [...] mean that the traveler was on the correct road to his destination in a distant city or town, but it also cheered him with the anticipated rest, refreshment and jolly companionship after the long rough journey by horse or coach."

Tavern Signs also provides some interesting background on the nomenclature of the various terms used. For example, "tavern" was used mainly in New England and New York State, and usually meant that drinks were available, but not necessarily food or sustenance. "Inn" was used primarily in Pennsylvania, (although many locations avoided it because is was so closely associated with the British) and served both food and drink to its patrons.

Here are some of my favorites from the W.P.A. collection.

General Greene Inn
This inn, which was located in Buckingham, Pennsylvania, became the headquarters for General Greene during the Revolutionary War. Greene is famous in my neck of the woods for having supervised the construction of a fort in Brooklyn, N.Y., built to protect the Continental Army in The Battle of Long Island (which Greene, in fact, missed due to illness). Today that Brooklyn neighborhood is called Fort Greene, and one of its most popular restaurants is called -- you guessed it -- The General Greene.


The Beekman Arms
As a college student in the Hudson Valley, I know The Beekman Arms as the pristine inn and restaurant in Rhinebeck, N.Y. It is one of the places that proud parents go with their graduating offspring for a lovely meal. (My parents took me to Pizzeria Uno for my graduation meal, but I've "gotten over it.") Rhinebeck is one of the oldest settlements in the Hudson Valley, and was populated largely by refugees from the Rhine Valley who were brought to New York by Col. Henry Beekman, whose father held a large land patent. The Beekman Arms is apparently the oldest continuously operated hotel in America, so you can still go to have a cocktail in the cozy bar with all the nearby college students and their parents.


The Spread Eagle

The Spread Eagle was located in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania -- about fourteen miles west of Philadelphia -- and was a favorite stop for mail and accommodations for travelers on the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike. Gradually, more and more houses and businesses were built up around the vicinity of the inn, and the village became known as Sitersville, after the Eagle's landlord John Siter. For more information on the many incarnations of the Spread Eagle, I recommend Julius Sachse's Wayside Inns.

While Tavern Signs is clearly one of the most visually arresting books on tavern signage, it is by no means an exhaustive catalog of every tavern sign in the United States. For that information, I'd start with Helene Smith's Tavern Signs of America: a catalog. Smith catalogs each sign with the name of the tavern, the material and size of the sign, the original location, and the date and the sign painter (if known).

New York is well represented in Smith's catalog, but interestingly Gramercy Tavern is nowhere to be found. Curious.

Mrs. Nesbitt

"I want to be elected to a fourth term, so I can fire Mrs. Nesbitt!"

On a recent trip to Hyde Park, I stopped by Franklin D. Roosevelt's home and presidential library where I noticed the cafe attached to the museum was appropriately named Mrs. Nesbitt's Cafe, after the Roosevelt's famous housekeeper Henrietta Nesbitt. Nesbitt was a neighbor of the Roosevelt's in Hyde Park and was hired to come work for the family in Washington when FDR was elected President. She stayed on for all four terms in the White House.

Mrs. Nesbitt was, according to many accounts, a disastrous cook. "I'm getting to the point where my stomach positively rebels...and this does not help my relations with foreign powers," FDR is quoted as saying. In his book Affectionately, FDR, James Roosevelt does not mince words in his description of Mrs. Nebsitt, "Everybody was against Mrs. Nesbitt - everybody except Mother...." FDR was especially frustrated not only by the "uninspired meals which he disliked so passionately," but also because Nesbitt rationed oranges, coffee, and butter which apparently upset FDR and his loyal staff.

Mrs. Nesbitt herself wrote two books about her time at the White House. In her book, The Presidential Cookbook, Nesbitt featured one of Mrs. Roosevelt's favorite dishes: kedgeree, a British fish and rice dish. But while kedgeree looks at least somewhat appetizing, there are some recipes included in her collection that sound less so. Frozen Pineapple Cheese Salad, perhaps?

Kedgeree
1c. any boiled whitefish, flaked
1c. boiled rice
2 hard-boiled eggs, cut in quarters
2T. butter
1/2t. salt
dash pepper

Mix fish and rice, moisten with cream or fish stock if dry, and saute lightly in melted butter. Must be fluffy. Add salt, pepper, and eggs . Heat thoroughly and serve. All the family liked this dish, especially Mrs. Roosevelt, and we served it over and over.

(In her book, From Hardtack to Home fries, Barbara Haber writes a wonderful chapter about Mrs. Nesbitt and her relationship with the Roosevelt's.)

American Food Writing

In this week's New York Times Book Review, Roy Blount Jr. wrote a glowing review of American Food Writing: an Anthology with Classic Recipes edited by Molly O'Neill. The book includes excerpts from seminal cookbooks and food writers, including Charles Ranhofer and Lydia Marie Child, but also includes writings from those not usually associated with cookery, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Langston Hughes. The book has not yet arrived in the branches, but it is available on the open shelves of the Rose Main Reading Room in the culinary section.

Peach Leather
from Annabella P. Hill's Mrs. Hill's New Cook Book

Peel very ripe, soft peaches; mash them fine, and strain through a colander. If the peaches are not very sweet, add a little sugar. Butter well panes of glass, and spread the paste smoothly upon them. Put in the sun to dry; when dry on one side, turn it, and when perfectly dry, roll and keep in boxes. When not convenient to use the glass, butter strips of cloth, and spread upon well-seasoned boards.

Happy July 4th

Just 20 years after the United States won independence from England, Amelia Simmons published American Cookery, the first cookbook published in the United States and written by an American. In American Cookery, one finds recipes featuring staples of North American food ways: corn, cranberries and turkey, and the first printed recipes featuring cornmeal. The library has a number of editions of the book, including the second edition held in the Rare Books Division and other more recent facsimile printings in our General Research Division. One can also find the book electronically through the Early American Imprint Database or through Michigan State University's wonderful digital archive Feeding America.

Orange Pudding:

Put fifteen yolks with half a pound butter, melted, grate in the rinds of two Seville oranges, beat in half a pound of fine sugar, add two spoons orange water, two of rose-water, one gill of wine, half pint cream, two York biscuit or the crumbs of a fine loaf soaked in cream, mix all together, put into rich puff-paste, which let be double round the edges of the dish; bake like a custard.

Karen Hess, 1918-2007

Culinary historian Karen Hess died yesterday in Manhattan a week after suffering from a stroke. Eric Asimov wrote a nice obituary is today's Times about her life and work.

She is best known for co-authoring with her husband John Hess on The Taste of America.

The Library also has all her other books, plus an interesting review of Taste of America from the Times when the book came out.

She is also known for her work annotating Mary Randolph's Virigina House-wife Cookbook.