. . . one of the Founding cooks: Samuel Fraunces

As July draws to a close, we celebrate another of the Founders:  Founding cook Samuel Fraunces.  Fraunces came of mixed Caribbean ancestry which was a familiar strain among the many immigrant lines in the coastal cities of the Colonies.  Fraunces operated taverns in New York and Philadelphia, playing host to George Washington, the Sons of Liberty, and officers of the Continental Line.  From 1791 to 1794, Fraunces served as chief Steward of the President’s House.

From ample evidence in Mount Vernon cookbooks and other sources, we know the Washingtons were fond of hot breads:  waffles, hoe cakes, Lunns, and spoon breads.  3 p.m. was the dinner hour whether Washington was at Mount Vernon or in New York or Philadelphia.  One diarist reports a 3 p.m.  respast of several meats, a vegetable or two, and hot breads washed down by port and Madeira.  Samuel Faunces’s Spoon Bread was no doubt a favorite of America’s favorite General.

Samuel Fraunces’s Spoon Bread

3 cups buttermilk

2 eggs

¾ to 1 cup coarse-ground white corn meal

salt

Prepare a very hot oven (500 if possible)

Have ready a 12 to 14 inch iron skillet with a scant tablespoon of lard or bacon grease

Whisk buttermilk and eggs with a pinch of salt in the top of a double boiler and stir over boiling water until the mix begins to thicken

Place skillet and grease in searing oven and bring skillet to high heat

Stir corn meal into egg and milk mixture and pour into heated skillet.  (mix may spatter)  Reduce heat to 400 and bake for 30 minutes.

Turn out into pretty serving dish, serve with spoons and plenty of butter.

My family loves it with strawberry jam!

Silver serving dishes for sale:
http://www.ebay.com/usr/mimma30064

. . . Lafayette and Near-About Marsh

This week marks the 190^th anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette’s departure from France on his way to tour the United States for which he had fought so hard during the Revolution.  The adulation he received as he traveled the length of this young nation may never have been repeated for any visiting foreign celebrity.  Legends abound attached to the Marquis’s 14-month tour of the States.

One such legend involves an African-American cook named Near-About Marsh.  She was named thus because she near-about died at birth; the plantation mistress nursed her and adopted her as a close personal servant.  Legend has it that Lafayette, travelling from Raleigh, North Carolina, on the Old Stage Road was served Near-About’s Baked Savory Fruit.  We made it the other night and must say it made a marvelous accompaniment for roast pork.

Near-About’s Baked Savory Fruit

ingredients:

1 pound artisan-cured bacon

6 firm farmers’ market peaches

2 large sweet onions

2 or 3 large heirloom tomatoes

2 or 3 honeycrisp apples

brown sugar

vinegar (apple cider)

Heat oven as high as you can get it  (500)

Line a spring form pan with the bacon, covering bottom entirely and sides as much as possible

Layer the bottom of pan with peach slices

Sprinkle peaches with two table spoons of brown sugar and a table spoon of vinegar

Next, cover the peach layer with a layer of thinly sliced onion, brown sugar (heaping tablespoon), and vinegar (tablespoon sprinkled)

Then, add a layer of thinly sliced tomatoes, brown sugar, and vinegar

The, add a layer of thinly sliced apple, brown sugar, and vinegar

At this point you might add some Cajun spice to taste

Finally, cover completely with a layer of the thin-sliced onions, brown sugar, vinegar, and some more Cajun spice or spice of your choosing

Press down the composition lightly with your hands, set the pan into a roasting pan or large oven pan to catch the drippings

Weigh down and cover the contents of the springform pan with a heavy pyrex pie plate (probably filled with water to increase the weight)

Place in very hot oven for 30 minutes

 Turn oven down to 400 and cook for about one hour

Remove from oven, place springform pan on pretty serving plate, open the springform, and serve

If you decide to put the whole mix in a crust cut several slits in the crust before filling in order to allow the bacon drippings to escape during the cooking

We know stories of Near-About from Susannah Marsh’s diary written in the 1850s during a visit to North Carolina. 

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. . . goes without saying . . . Fourth of July:  I am thinkingabout food, the Founders, and fun with serving and setting.

African-American cook Yorktown Sally who gave us the following recipe deserves her place among the Founders. She and countless anonymous slave cooks founded American cuisine.  “American as Apple Pie” owes its origin to cooks of the 17^th and 18^th centuries who gave us our own national variation on the European tart.  (One Georgia slave cook made her apple pie with a touch of ground black pepper; it explodes the definition of pie just the way the Revolution exploded the definition of freedom.)

Yorktown Sally’s Shrimp

For every pound of fresh, peeled, uncooked shrimp:

Three soft ripe peaches, peeled, cut into slices

1 teaspoon grated ginger root

a touch of coarse-ground salt

Mix the ingredients in a shallow roasting pan and then cook in a very hot oven for 8 to 12 minutes depending on the size of the shrimp.

For this Fourth, my wife took mason jars and arranged the napkins with our 18^th-century flat silver.  She used our Vermont wooden trencher for the bread and placed Yorktown Sally’s Shrimp in our coin silver entrée dishes. She served this with couscous and ratatouille.

Full disclosure:  while the dining room was a triumph, the kitchen took a beating: