Lost Restaurants of Baltimore

Apparently I'm not back to blogging full-time these days...but I still might pop in occasionally. Like now, to share the project that's been taking up lots of my time recently: Lost Restaurants of Baltimore.

Lost Restaurants, which came out at the end of last month and is published by Arcadia Publishing, is a collaboration between Suzanne Loudermilk and me. We loved writing it. It's a collection of stories about 35 beloved - but now closed - Baltimore restaurants.

It was a total joy to research and write and, now that the book is out, people are sharing even more of their memories of meals at bygone restaurants. I love hearing every story.

Old Line Plate Is My New Favorite

Fastnachts - a Pennsylvania Dutch doughnut also called kinklings in
Western Maryland. They're traditionally eaten before Lent...but to me
they look like they'd be great anytime. Photo courtesy of Old Line Plate.

Every once in a while, I'll come across an article or a book or a blog that makes me angry...because I didn't write it myself.

That's how I've been feeling these days about Old Line Plate, a food blog focused on Maryland's culinary history, written by Baltimorean Kara Mae Harris. Isn't the name alone so great?

On Old Line Plate, Harris dives into old Maryland cookbooks, preparing recipes from bygone eras - one each week - and explaining how they fit into the world during their heyday. It's the kind of delicious cultural history study that is my catnip.

Harris is quick to point out that she is not an historian - in that she didn't spend a million years getting a PhD. in history. But as far as I'm concerned, she's doing the work of one, bringing to light recipes that are interesting and important pieces of the cultural history that has made Maryland what it is today.

Harris first made a name for herself in the early part of the 21st century, when she started writing about the history of burlesque. Her interest in food sparked about a decade ago and she started the blog in 2010, though she didn't really pick up speed posting until about a year ago.

The first historic cookbooks she explored were her mother's volumes from the Southern Heritage Cookbook Library, a series of cookbooks of traditional southern recipes (including Maryland!) published in the early 1980's. "I thought it would be neat to try out all these different, old-timey, weird foods," Harris says.

Some of those foods are weirder than others. Paw paw cream pie might not make it onto many tables anymore, but cranberry muffins still feel pretty current.

Harris doesn't simply find a recipe, make it, and post a couple photos. She delves into the history behind the recipe and its ingredients, providing context for the food. She heads down rabbit holes that are both interesting and important - a recent post about the people involved in the creation of the 1975 book 300 Years of Black Cooking in St. Mary's County is a great example of how illuminating that can be.

That post alone suggests Harris might be Maryland's Michael Twitty - though she's far too modest to make that kind of comparison herself (she calls herself "lucky to have his website" as a reference).

Harris's collection of cookbooks featuring vintage Maryland recipes now hovers around 30 or 40 books, including everything from series like the Southern Heritage collection to local one-offs. "They're not all the most significant things," she says. "Some were published as recently as the '90s. Some are church or hospital or fundraiser cookbooks."

She's built the collection organically, starting with her mom's books, combing the bibliography section and hunting down sources mentioned there. She finds other books here and there, and uses Google books to explore the content of books that are online.

Most recently, she's become especially interested in the international roots of Maryland food. One particular author - Mrs. Benjamin Chew Howard, who wrote Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen - was exploring international flavors back in the mid-19th century.

"It seems like she's really interested in Indian food, with curries and something that's like a spicy pork vindaloo," says Harris. She notes that Howard was a wealthy and well-connected woman who would have had access to imported spices.

If those flavors were apparent in the middle 1800's, why did they fade from Maryland tables later, Harris wonders. "By the time we were growing up in the '80s, they seemed novel," she says.

That's the type of question that can only be answered by studying lots of texts, over time, to look for patterns and subtle clues. Fortunately for those of us interested in Maryland's culinary history, Harris is on the case - and clearly up to the challenge.

Mixology Engineering

This cocktail guide, published by the US Forest Service in 1974, is absolutely the best. Cool vintage drawings, way more precision than necessary, detailed keys.

According to Esquire, it's the work of Red Ketchum, a Forest Service engineer who passed away in 2005. Apparently, he drew them as sort of a joke but they ended up in the for-real archives anyway. Possibly by mistake...but what a glorious mistake that is.

At any rate, I love every part of it. The pictures are cute...and full of solid information. I like a little precision in my cocktails.

When someone else is making them, that is. I certainly don't have the kind of patience required to measure that carefully. But I'm glad that some people do.

History, Wine and Intrigue

I love Rioja. We go through wine phases around here, jumping from country to country, varietal to varietal. For over ten years now, we've been serial wine monogamists, settling on a "house wine" and buying case after case, until we find a new love.

For the past six or so months, that wine has been a Rioja called Montebuena. Everyone who drinks it likes it - and it is seriously inexpensive. Plus, it's a screw top which means that, yes, some of the pomp and circumstance around opening the bottle is missing. But it's a whole lot easier to deal with mid-party.

I love history, too - especially when it involves tales of wine counterfeiting and general intrigue. Unsurprisingly, this short lesson about the origins of the gold wire on bottles of Rioja, from Vine Pair, had me fascinated.

Montebuena doesn't mess with the wires but more than a few fancier Riojas have rotated through our wine cellar at one point or another. I always assumed the wires were a holdover from the olden days - but I hadn't thought about why. Short answer: to prevent counterfeiters from gaining access to the bottle.

And isn't it just like 18th century Europeans to create an anti-counterfeiting measure that sparkles?

I Make Grocery Lists

Lots of them. But my lists don't look like this:

Because I am not Michelangelo.

Ancient & Alcoholic

How cool is this: scientists present findings from a massive northern Israel wine cellar that dates back to 1700 BC.

One of the interesting things, as the NPR article points out, is that the many jugs found held wine of the exact same recipe, suggesting at least some level of standardization.

I'd love to read more about what this says about that local area and their social patterns. Were the owners of the wine throwing parties? Charging guests? Producing to sell? I'm so curious about how people in the past socialized - and this seems full of clues.

Everything Old Is New Again

I'm finally getting around to reading Boozehound, Jason Wilson's 3-year old book about (surprise!) booze.

I'm not even halfway through, but finding the book very bloggable so far. Case in point: for years, Wilson and his brother have played a game called "liquor store archaeology." They go to older liquor stores - the kind that used to be busier, but today don't turn their stock over super quickly - and look for old, out of production bottles.

This is my wheelhouse. I've currently got a bottle of Tia Maria, a bottle of brandy, and a half-drunk bottle of pre-mixed vodka sour sitting on the counter in my kitchen. Cail pulled them from my grandmother's bar over Thanksgiving and I brought them home with me - not so much to drink as to ogle.

Wilson observes that he never quite finds what he's looking for, but often finds something he couldn't have imagined in the first place.

But these days, he doesn't always have to look as hard for the obscure, since many of those old timey bottles, the smaller brands, are being resurrected and marketed to hipsterish bartenders (I say that with love).

One of those so-old-it's-new liqueurs is crème de violette, a floral mid-century staple that fell out of fashion - and production - by the late 1960's.

Crème de violette got its first mention here on M+G about a year ago, when I was searching for purple cocktails during the Ravens playoff run (this year I went the kir royale route...and it worked, obviously).

I'm considering buying a bottle for the Super Bowl, but that is actually beside the point. What I find so interesting is our generation's obsession with anything and everything from our grandparents' generation. Mad Men, mid-century furniture and design, cocktailing, even baby names.

The lesson here, I guess, is this: if it's two generations old, it feels fresh again.

But let's just hope this doesn't carry over to the food. I've seen my grandmother's cookbooks. I'm pretty sure I don't want to start stealing from them.

Boston's Menus of Yesteryear

Ocean Spray Brad just sent me a fascinating article from Boston.com. In an effort to uncover whether Boston's current status as foodie central is a) a miracle, since the city used to subsist on "beans and cod" or b) part of a long-standing history of culinary glory, Yale history professor Paul Freedman dove into an archive of Boston's old menus.

This article hits all my trigger points. I love the lists of exotic and elaborate-sounding dishes, the variety of dishes offered, and the references to small details that help us put things in perspective - like the price point for a very special bottle of wine ($10). It's this paragraph that really gets me, though:

In looking carefully at Boston’s restaurant menus, we can see a portrait not only of a cuisine, but of a country — an era with more wildlife, better natural habitats, and fewer people. We can also see that advances in transportation technology and increased urban prosperity had begun to transform how Americans lived and what they expected by way of dining. The best terrapin and canvasback ducks were brought up by rail to Boston from the Chesapeake Bay. South Carolina was renowned for its wildfowl such as reed birds. Early spring vegetables came by special trains from Georgia until the late New England growing season came around.

Food helps paint a larger picture of life several hundred years ago? Of course it does! This is only the tip of the iceberg, of course. Studying what and how people ate certainly helps us understand macro factors, like transportation and economics on a broad scale, but it can also give us so much insight into less tangible elements of day-to-day life: what was valued and how people interacted.

Food - is there anything it can't do?

Jane Jetson's Kitchen

You know what? I'm actually glad I don't live in "the future" as it was seen through the eyes of 1955.

Don't get me wrong: flying cars would be cool. But it seems that everybody in the '50s was so obsessed with time-saving and efficiency that they didn't realize that maybe, we'd actually want to spend time on certain activities. Like cooking.

I've written here before about the evolution of cooking from chore to hobby - which had something to do with time-saving techniques that allowed women to get out of the kitchen at least some of the time. Based on this Popular Science slideshow of "kitchens of the future," the real attitudinal shift - when people started thinking of cooking as fun - didn't happen until well after the mid-20th century.

The kitchen above was designed in the mid-50's and it takes efficiency to a whole new level. The idea was that with the push of just one button, an entire meal - seasoned and all - will be prepared. No need for Wifey to toil away over the stove. Now she's got more time for vacuuming and hospital corners (or martinis).

Do I want it? No. Does it represent a time and a place I'm glad I don't live in? Yes. But am I so, so glad that scanners were invented so that we can preserve it? Absolutely. It's a pretty great reminder that when my grandmother was making dinner, it was a much bigger pain than it is for me today.

Plus, even if the actual technology behind the kitchen misses a few late 20th century trends, I'll tell you what I do like: that mid-century aesthetic. Look at those cabinets and all that stainless steel. Why, it looks like...my kitchen.

Are We Ready for a Fern Bar Revival?

This morning on Facebook, I spied a Shoes & Cocktails link to a WaPo article about the possible resurgence of "fern bars" and the uber-70s bars' connection to uber-90s establishments like TGIFridays.

The FB link promised a story about bars, history, and formerly trendy cocktails - how could I resist clicking through?

I wasn't disappointed, either. The article, by Jason Wilson, asks if it's time for a revival of the "fern bar," those brightly lit, greenery-bedecked lounges so popular during the heady days of the sexual revolution. The article posits that the fern bar might be next in line, following the successful revivals of speakeasies and tiki bars. But the verdict? Well, according to Martin Cate, owner of a San Francisco tiki bar and moderator of a talk on fern bars at the Tales of the Cocktail spirit industry conference, the answer is "no." Nobody's ready for fern bars (yet, at least).

The article also touches on the cocktails imbibed by fern bar regulars. Through the lens of a few decades, both the patrons and the drinks look like punch lines - all Jack Tripper and mudslides. But at the time, they were sophisticated all around. The article doesn't mention it, but at least one of the era's signature drinks - the comically-monikered Harvey Wallbanger - enjoyed a mini-resurgence a couple of years ago. Enough of a resurgence that the drink got some play in Food & Wine (and right on this here blog).

It's an interesting article and worth a read, especially for anyone who's spent time peering over the sneezeguard at the Ruby Tuesday salad bar, or scanning the TGIF margarita menu in search of that "perfect" accompaniment for spin dip and jalapeno poppers.

Old Menus Are Cool

A while back (almost two years ago), DC Jason sent me a link to a New York Public library website that included a bunch of digitized images of menus, like the one above. The menu at the top is from the American House, on Hanover Street in Boston, and was written around 1856. It's a little hard to read, but you know what surprises me most? Look at all that wine! I think of wine as a largely European (or Thomas Jeffersony) concern until the mid-20th century, but I'm obviously mistaken.

It's gone now, but this is what the American House looked like during the 1850's, when the menu was written.
The menu is part of a collection that was donated by Miss Frank E. Buttolph, who began collecting menus in 1851. It's an impressive piece of American history and well worth a browse.

Looking Back: 1939 World's Fair

Considering that I was born in 1975, and no where near Queens, I've spent kind of a lot o time thinking about the 1939 World's Fair. I find it fascinating aesthetically (all those mid-century future shapes) and historically (especially since the Fair brought many French chefs, who would go on to shape the New York culinary scene over the following few decades).

In Popular Mechanics, writer Elliot Kanan, who is even younger than I am I think, looks back at the World's Fair. He explores what it said about us at the time and how it's shaken out today, in part through the eyes of his grandmother, who visited the far as a nine year old. Kanan remembers that the fair coincided with Hitler's mess in Europe, and it doesn't glamorize that part of the time, but even with that, it's hard not to romanticize the past.

It's worth a read, definitely - especially if you, like me, can't resist trying to imagine yourself as part of an earlier era. Well, that earlier era anyway.

Mmm...Ketchup (and other stuff)

From Lileks.

For some reason, I always thought that the Heinz "57" referred to herbs and spices or the number of ingredients in the ketchup. I can't find a current list of products because they vary so much from region to region, but I bet there are more than 57 these days. Just not in every state.

Which, I think, suggests something good about the state of the food industry - that they customize and regionalize so local flavors and preferences are preserved. Then again, the differences might mostly be in marketing and they might be economically-driven, not forced by taste preferences. But who knows, besides the Heinz marketing team?

Artsy: The Futurists' Failure

Is it possible to write about Italy without writing about food?

Just out of college, fresh from my art history classes, I might have said yes. After all, it's not like every Italian work of art is food-centric. But after reading this Slate series by Kate Bolick, I'm not so sure.

The series starts traditionally enough, with a trip to Italy. Bolick and a small crew of intellectual/academic friends headed to Rome and Milan this past February to explore the world of the Futurists, 100 years after the publication of their not-actually-that-famous Manifesto.

But let me skip to the end. Several months after the trip, back in New York. Bolick and one of her co-travelers, artist Karen Azoulay threw a Futurist-inspired dinner party. The dinner sounds kind of insane, but totally cool in that way that theory-based dinners are cool. It's a natural product of studying the Futurists, anyway, since they're one of the few artistic movements (that I'm aware of) that published a cookbook.

The Futurists were really proto-Wylie Dufresnes, seeking to bring science into the kitchen and to change the way people think about food in general. They understood the powerful role food plays in our lives - Cookbook author and Futurist leader F.T. Marinetti wrote:

"A given taste of something can sum up an entire area of life, the history of an amorous passion or an entire voyage to the Far East."

Totally. Of course, Marinetti sought to destroy the food that would remind Italians of their heritage, just as he wanted to destroy museums and libraries and other institutions that house the past. He felt that escaping the past and forgetting it was the only way to embrace the future.

And maybe he was right, for Italy anyway. Not entirely, of course - technology hasn't completely avoided Italy. It's not like Italian teenagers aren't texting all over Rome, just like the kids in America and Sweden and Australia and everyplace else. But Italy's brand, for lack of a better term, is still rooted firmly in the past. The way, way, way past. And the food is a part of that.

In the article, it's not the dinner party scene that makes this painfully obvious - that's expected, and still feels pretty avant-garde, actually. No, it's the trip. The friends amble through Italy, dizzying themselves with technology-obsessed art and discussing the less appealing aspects of Italian Futurism (the fascism and misogyny).

And eating. They look longingly at spinach and ricotta tarts, even as they munch on pizza bianca and seek out pasta carbonara in the shadow of the Coliseum. The food they eat has been a part of Italian culture for centuries and it looks likely to stick around for centuries more.

The author is conscious of it, too, and one of her guests admits that if he was a teenager growing up among the classical ruins and Renaissance worship of Italy at the dawn of the 20th century, when the rest of the world was moving full steam ahead into the future, destroying the past might have seemed like the only way out.

To answer my initial question, no. I don't think it's possible to write about Italy without mentioning the food. Not to write well, anyway.

On the last page of the magazine, Bon Appetit runs a column called "Feedback," in which celebrities answer a handful of questions about their food preferences. They're always asked "of all the places you've traveled, where did you have the best food?" Invariably, they answer, "Italy."

It's a blessing to have that kind of reputation - to the outsider, anyway. But to a frustrated teenager yearning for something new, I can see why all that pasta, and everything it means, might feel more than a little stifling.

[Images: Graphic art by F.T. Marinetti; Cover of the Futurist Cookbook; Dynamism of a Soccer Player by Umberto Boccioni]

Trendy Monday: History

Back from vacation and back to regular blogging. Promise.

Maybe it was the years spent in historic Annapolis and Colonial Williamsburg, but I'm kind of a history geek, especially when it comes to food and drink. Much to Cooper's chagrin, the walls of our basement are covered with the dorkiest kind of timeline. It details major events in political, cultural and food history from the beginning of time until about 1940 (the more recent years don't include the food part). It makes people think I'm cool. Just kidding.

Anyway, like most geeks, I get very excited when I hear about others like me. Today's Daily Candy DC email put me in an especially good mood. There's a mixologist in DC named Derek Brown who's giving seminars on "better drinking," including on the cocktails of specific eras ("How to Drink like Mad Men" sounds amazing, right?). He's inspired by history and the cultural aspects of cocktails. Me too!

On top of this, one of F&W's Best New Chefs for 2009, Natalie Pomeroy, gave historical cooking a little love in her profile, when she mentioned her love of food history and old cookbooks, and that she hosts dinners with the Oregon Historical Society.

Based on my reading, I'm not sure I'd be interested in a perfectly reconstructed historic meal - I like modern refrigeration too much for that. But the inspiration is undeniably cool, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Artsy Wednesday: Family Photos

I was at my parents' house over the weekend, digging through old photos (mostly in search of prom photos for Deep Glamour, but that's another story). I only looked through two albums, but I found plenty of evidence that I'm not the first one in my family to enjoy a nice party. I knew that, of course, but it's always entertaining to see the evidence.

These photos are all from 1967, the year my mom graduated from high school:

That's my grandmother at the head of the table and my uncle to her left. I'm sure my grandfather took the picture. My mom immediately knew everybody in the photo - Army friends of my grandparents. I, of course, just can't get over the cigarette at the table. Not exactly something you'd see today.

This is my grandfather, making a cocktail. I actually have his old cocktail set - it's what we use to make drinks. He and my grandmother both always drank simple drinks - scotch and water for him, bourbon and water for her. Now she drinks either white wine or MGD, but it's been a long time since I've seen her drink an actual cocktail. I'm continually surprised by their generation's ability to drink liquor - even with meals - for years and years.

This photo, which my mom insists is a joke, is two of my mother's cousins (the one on the right made my wedding cake, actually). They're at a baby shower for another cousin. I grabbed it mostly because I love the dresses and the matching headband. But also, the one smoking is maybe 15. Probably younger. Again, my mom insists that this was taken as a joke. But even then, it was my mom's cigarette. She was 17. And they're inside. At a baby shower. Times certainly have changed quickly.

Artsy Wednesday: Life Magazine Photos

Kirk Douglas and Sophia Loren, eatin' some spaghetti in NYC (1958)

Life magazine, in its most recognizable form, was published from 1936 until 2000, with a six year hiatus between 1972 to 1978. First it was a weekly then, after 1978, a monthly, and it always had an emphasis on photojournalism. The actual title goes back to 1883, but it was originally more of a general interest and humor mag.

Many of the magazine's classic photos - along with new images - are now available for viewing (and purchase) on life.com.

Of course, there are zillions of photos available someplace or other online. But this archive is actually special, mostly thanks to its depth. Today's editor's picks, for example, include slideshows from JFK's first hundred days and from the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.

But of course, it's the food and the entertaining shots that I love the most - like the one above, which shows Kirk Douglas dining with Sophia Loren and another lady (unnamed) in 1958. It's part of a slideshow all about spaghetti. Totally cool - this shot especially. I love the little details - the little details - Loren's necklace, the padded banquette, the pepper grinder, the white (!) wine - that point to the era. The rest of the slideshow is just as riveting.

A warning, though: don't visit the site unless you've got some time to kill. I could get lost there for hours.

Artsy Wednesday: Maps are So Cool

Yesterday, Design*Sponge's Grace Bonney posted something so cool I felt compelled to immediately email my brother and sister. A woman named Jodie Silby, a recent grad of University of Portsmouth, created this map of Portsmouth that illustrates not only the city layout, but also the language of the place. The lines on the map are made of the words and phrases that create the local dialect, and its organized to show how that dialect shifts in terms of neighborhood.

This hits so many of my "this is cool" markers that I'm not sure where to start. Maps? Check. Art? Check. Language? Check. Cultural history and evolution? Check. Innovative and creative display of data? Check. I'm in love with it.

And as soon as I saw it, I started thinking about ways to steal this data presentation idea and make it my own. A food or recipe-related map of Maryland, maybe? A map of food language? Something that shows evolution over time?

The possibilities seem endless.

(Image from Design*Sponge)

Artsy Wednesday: The Holy Grail

I've read The DaVinci Code, of course (is there anyone left who hasn't? I think even my brother finally broke down and read it.) And seen Indiana Jones and the oft-quoted Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.

But as it turns out, I didn't know a whole lot about the actual legend attached to the grail, even after that whole Dan Brown-inspired fury of debunking specials that appeared a few years ago.

It seems that I'm not alone in my ignorance. Encouraged by a new exhibit of Byzantine relics at the Royal Academy in London, Jerome Taylor writes an article in the Independent summarizing some of the more salient points of the grail's history, mystique and reality.

It's an interesting, and quick, read, whether you're a true believer, a medieval myth fiend, a conspiracy theorist or just somebody who's interested in art, religion and (of course) food.

Oh, and the cup in the picture? That's the Antioch Chalice, on loan to the Royal Academy from the Metropolitan Museum of Art - and the current leading contender for the honor and infamy that goes with being "the real grail." The ornate silver exterior has been dated to the sixth century, but it covers a humble wood interior chalice that can't be dated (so it could be the right age). Of course experts still disagree on exactly what form the grail has (it could be anything from a plate or cup to an intangible expression of God's grace) to whether or not such a thing really exists.

It's an interesting article - and what could be more food-related, at the very, very core?

Artsy Wednesday: The Company of the Cauldron

File this under "dinner parties I'd like to recreate." In Smart Set, Tony Perrottet mines Giorgio Vasari's book Lives of the Artists for details about crazy art-themed (and artist-attended) dinner parties hosted by The Company of the Cauldron.

The Company was an exclusive little artsy/intellectual club in Florence at the start of the 16th century, and their dinner parties were legendary both for their famous attendees (da Vinci and Michelangelo, at the least, but possibly not ever on the same night) and their elaborate costs of entry. Each guest had to bring some sort of edible art.

So cool, right? Can you even begin to imagine what Leonardo would create for something like this? Unfortunately, given the lack of cameras, imagine is all we can do.