Mrs. Aldrich's Lemon Pie

On March 24, we were incredibly lucky to host a talk and book signing by Mr. Alexander Aldrich.  As many of you may know, Mr. Aldrich's father, Winthrop W. Aldrich, donated the family's home at 110 Benevolent Street to the Rhode Island Historical Society.  What you may not know is that Mr. Aldrich, or Sam, as he prefers to be called, has led a pretty thrilling life, from dancing with the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II to marching on Selma with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stewart Martin Photography 2012

Since we knew that several members of the Aldrich would be attending the event, I wanted to whip up an Aldrich family recipe from the RIHS collections. A quick search in NETOP for any materials relating to Winthrop and Harriet Aldrich yielded a collection with some exciting potential: an entire folder of "Menus, Recipes, and Diets"! I headed over to 121 Hope Street to check it out.

According to the historical note that introduces the "Winthrop W. and Harriet A. Aldrich Papers," both  Winthrop and Harriet were quite "socially active," belonging to many social and charitable organizations.  Winthrop Aldrich was president and then chairman of the board of directors of Chase National Bank, and, in the 1950s, was appointed Ambassador to the Court of St. James. For her part, Harriet "participated in the leadership of the USO" during WWII and also served as chairman of the Civil Defense Volunteer Organization. As you might imagine, these were folks who entertained a fair bit.

For my own part, I was hoping to find a recipe appropriate for springtime, something light and fresh.   And then I saw it: a recipe for lemon pie.  It sounded delicious, and its origins were pretty exciting, too:

In 1954, the Aldriches were the guests of Eliahu and Zehava Elath in Washington, D.C.  Eliahu was the first Israeli ambassador to the U.S., and his wife, Zehava apparently served a pretty phenomenal lemon pie.  The lemon pie was so good that Winthrop begged Zehava for the recipe.  A few weeks after the dinner, Harriet received a note from Zehava with the recipe attached:

As fantastic as the recipe sounded, I knew that the raw eggs would prevent me from serving it to the public. And, as much as I would have been content to eat an entire pie by myself, I decided it was best to choose another recipe.  As luck would have it, Harriet Aldrich happened to have another recipe for lemon pie (apparently it was something of a family favorite!), which had nary a raw egg in sight.

This second recipe, handwritten in a small notebook filled with other tasty morsels that seem to have been served at luncheons, read as follows:

This pie was truly a cinch to throw together, though I was amazed to find that even as late as 1950, not a word was mentioned about of oven temperature.  Well, okay, there was one word: "moderate."  350 degrees sounded moderate to me, and it took about 35 minutes for the filling to set.  Although the original recipe doesn't specify the type of lemons to use, I went with Meyer lemons, which are sweeter than regular lemons, and, let's face it, more photogenic.

Because I'd be using sweeter lemons, I decided to halve the amount of sugar, too, so if you're using regular lemons, I'd suggest that you stick with the whole cup.  And, though I don't have empirical evidence to support this, I do believe that this pie tastes better while wearing your best spring frock.  VIP guests are optional.

Mr. Aldrich enjoying his mother's lemon pie.

Stewart Martin Photography 2012

New Year's Cake

The year is 1832, the place, Providence, RI. It is New Year's morning, very early -- let's say 7 o'clock. You hear a knock at the door, but you're not in the least surprised. It's a child from your neighborhood, come to collect his New Year's Cake. Lucky for him, you have a basket at the ready, full of small biscuits, some imprinted with the stamp of an animal, others with a flower.

For a presentation on holidays foods in Rhode Island, I prepared what is called New Year's Cake, though, what came out of the oven was really more of a biscuit, dense and barely sweet. I was intrigued by the tradition of going door-to-door to receive a cake, and found a the recipe (from the published cookbook of one "Miss Leslie, of Philadelphia") in the RIHS collections.

Miss Leslie instructs as follows:

Three pounds of flour, sifted.
A pound and a half of powdered white sugar.
A pound of fresh butter.
A pint of milk with a small teaspoonful of pearl-ash melted in it.

Having sifted the flour, spread the sugar on the paste-board, a little at a time, and crush it to powder by rolling it with the rolling-pin. Then mix it with the flour. Cut up in the flour the butter and mix it well by rubbing it in with your bands. Add by degrees the milk. Then knead the dough very hard, till it no longer sticks to your hands. Cover it, set it away for an hour or two, and then knead it again in the same manner. You may repeat the kneading several times. Then cut it into pieces, roll out each piece into a sheet half an inch thick. Cut it into large flat cakes with a tin cutter. You may stamp each cake with a wooden print, by way of ornamenting the surface.

Sprinkle with flour some large flat tin or iron pans, lay the cakes in them and bake them of a pale brown, in an oven of equal heat throughout. These cakes require more and harder kneading than any others, therefore it is best to have them kneaded by a man, or a very strong woman. They are greatly improved by the addition of some carraway seeds worked into the dough.

from Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats by Miss Leslie of Philadelphia. Boston. 1832.


After my first read-through, I had two questions for Miss Leslie. First: What in the world is "pearl-ash"? (And are you sure it's edible?) And second (okay, third): could the dough really be that hard to knead?

Question 1: So, what's pearl-ash?

Answer: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "pearl ash" is potassium carbonate.  In 1701, the lexicographer Abel Boyer defined it as "an Act for levying further Duties upon Sweets."  In other words, pearl ash is the rising agent.  Since I didn't happen to have any pearl ash in the pantry, I opted for baking soda.  For a fascinating discussion of the history of baking soda, baking powder, pearl ash and saleratus, check out The Food Timeline.

Question 2: How hard is it exactly to knead dough that should only be attempted by "a man, or a very strong woman"?

Answer: Very hard. I am clearly neither a man nor a very strong woman. Exhibit A:

This dough is thick.

After two minutes of kneading:

After four minutes of kneading.

This recipe nearly got the best of me.  After several minutes of kneading, I managed to wrangle it into a pan, and stamped the dough with a snowflake pattern.

The Results:

Much like the jumbles that I made in June, these New Year's Cake had a very subtle taste.  The recipe recommends using caraway seeds, but I was concerned that some people would prefer them without.  Next time, I'll read between the lines; when a recipe says that a recipe will be "greatly improved" by the inclusion of a certain ingredient, I had better use that ingredient.  Who knew how important flavor could be in one's appreciation of a dessert?  Ahem.

snacks at a séance

Using an archive is a lot like eating at a fancy restaurant.  You enter the establishment, find your way to a table, and order whatever you'd like.  After a few minutes, a librarian comes over and serves you a thin, yellowing booklet, nestling it carefully in the folds of the velour-lined cushion on the table in front of you.  The answer to your burning question may very well lie within the pages of this delicate text. You lick your lips, and turn one page, savoring each word.

I was at the Rhode Island Historical Society Library, and I had a mission: to discover what might have been served at a 19th-century séance. The RIHS Library is where it's at, especially on a suffocatingly hot day. Though the Reading Room temperature hovers between a nippy 65 - 69°F, it's a hotbed for manuscripts concerning Rhode Island's history. I "ordered" a few tracts on Spiritualism, as well as cookbooks ranging from the 1840s to the 1890s, roughly the time period when the Spiritualist movement would have held strongest sway in Providence.

I found several descriptions of actual seances held in Rhode Island, filled with spirit rappings and manifestations of all kinds, as well as a few defenses of Spiritualism itself.  Writes Clovis Keach: "Do not the errors some Spiritualists hold warrant us in rejecting it? Ans.: Do the spots on the sun warrant us in refusing its light?"[1] Keach also assures the reader that the followers of the Free Love movement have nothing whatsoever to do with true Spiritualists, who keep all of their clothes on, thank you very much. I quickly got the sense that although it was definitely cool to be a Spiritualist (Mary Todd Lincoln and Arthur Conan Doyle numbered among the believers), you had to face your share of skeptics. Haters are going to hate, even in the 19th century.

But with all of this communing with spirits, didn't people ever get hungry? Perhaps, although I couldn't find evidence of any specific snacks being served, before or after the séance.  Undeterred, I checked out the various cookbooks I'd ordered, searching for some delicate morsel that would lend itself to a small group of acquaintances, gathered together after supper to communicate with the dead. So, you know, a typical Sunday night.

In 100 Receipts for Cakes, Pastry, and Preserves (1841), A Lady of Providence offers a "Diet" bread: "one pound of flour, one of sugar, nine eggs, leaving out three whites, a little mace and rose water." [2] Yeah, it's definitely those three extra egg whites that were the problem, not the pound of sugar.

I skimmed chapters on puddings, cakes, and pies and finally stopped at something called "jumbles." Also spelled "jumbals," these cookies were being made in England in the early 17th century and probably earlier.  As a baking novice, I figured that something called a "jumble" sounded easy enough. [clears throat]

The Recipe: Jumbles
Sift four cups of flour; cream two cups of nice brown sugar, and half a pound - a small tea-cup -- of butter is near enough; beat two eggs very light, grate a little nutmeg, add one-half a teaspoonful of soda in half a cup of sweet milk; add flour enough to roll into cakes: handle as little as possible: bake in a long tin pan, in a quick oven.[3]

21st-century cookbooks sure do a lot of hand-holding, don't they? What kind of cook needs to know an oven temperature? Or something as silly as a specific amount of nutmeg?

The Results:
I am not an experienced baker. This fact became painfully clear as I realized, post-baking, that I'd used baking powder instead of baking soda and that I'd apparently ignored the instruction to "roll into cakes." I had made bars, not cookies. Despite my culinary shortcomings, the jumbles tasted pretty good, the nutmeg suggesting something of an eggnog flavor.  Jumbles definitely lend themselves to variations, too; you could add toasted nuts to awesome effect, I'd imagine. I'd probably make these again if I were having a friend over for tea. I hope A Lady of Providence would approve.

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[1] Keach, Clovis. Documents explaining and defending belief in spiritualism. Read before the Freewill Baptist Church, Burrillville, RI.  RIHS Library Manuscript Collection.

[2] A Lady of Providence. 100 Receipts for Cakes, Pastries, and Preserves. RIHS Library Manuscript Collection.

[3] Croly, Jane Cunningham. Jennie June's American Cookery Book. New York: 1866. 204.