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.
[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.
