Rae Eighmey

Music Credit: Excerpt from Nicotine Blues composed and performed by Kurt Vile recorded Live at WFMU, used courtesy of the artist. <music up> Jo Reed: Welcome to Art Works, the weekly podcast from the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed. This week, we’re doing something a little different. We’re looking at the creative power of food—more specifically the way food can help us better appreciate our history and deepen our understanding of historical figures. That’s the goal of author Rae Eighmey, who’s written some seven books looking at specific eras in America by exploring its food. With her last two books, she began writing what could be called culinary biographies. The first was Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen which was so successful, she followed that with Stirring the Pot with Benjamin Franklin—which is set to be published in the fall. Rae Eighmey’s culinary detective work not only opens doors into the worlds of these men, she also converts the food they enjoyed into modern recipes so that it’s possible for cooks at home, like you or me to recreate these authentic dishes. Think of it as delicious experiential learning—from someone who knows her history and her food. It’s worth noting Rae Eighmey has won blue ribbons at both the Iowa and Minnesota state fairs for her cooking. And so no one misses out, throughout the podcast, we’ll hear recipes from Rae Eighmey’s Lincoln and Franklin books. Food and history is a wonderful marriage, but it is an unusual one. I was curious how Rae Eighmey began doing it. Rae Eighmey: It was really happenstance. I was working in public relations and interpreting an historic antebellum house in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and happened along the household notebook of the woman who had lived at the house. And I cooked since I was ten so I know how important food is. So I started tinkering with these recipes that I really didn’t understand and had led me into this entire world of 18th century foods and 19th century foods. And it was just one delicious taste after another. And then seeing how they integrated with being able to tell the story of the people’s lives. Jo Reed: Well, in the cases of Lincoln and Franklin, do you think you got to know them better by exploring the ways they ate? Rae Eighmey: Absolutely, without question. Both men knew the storytelling power of food. Franklin, in particular, used food as a hint, as an entrée into his autobiography 14 times in the first two chapters. Lincoln was not quite as expressive as far as food goes, but at a critical moment in the Lincoln-Douglas debates he brought up this gingerbread anecdote and, in fact, described how his mother made them. But then as I began to look at the food that they ate, you get insights into their lives into what the possibilities are. And without a doubt I felt that I was transported more immediately into their world to be able to, in fact, sit at their table with them. Jo Reed: Well, Franklin was born in 1706 and Lincoln in 1809. How much had food choices, varieties, habits, cooking techniques changed in those 100 years? Rae Eighmey: That’s a very interesting question and an interesting perspective because you have—in some respects it’s not as linear as one would think because you have Franklin living in Boston, Philadelphia and then in England and France. So he’s immediately in an urban context. Whereas, 100 years later, Abraham Lincoln is with his family pioneering in Kentucky and Indiana. So his childhood experience with his mother cooking on an open hearth is really close to Franklin’s mother’s experience cooking on an open hearth in Boston. Jo Reed: This might be an unfair question, but in Boston—urban centers in other words—during Lincoln’s time, had cooking techniques or habits shifted by then? Rae Eighmey: Yes. Yes. There’s very much a dichotomy between the pioneering experience on what was the fringes of the nation for Lincoln and the sophistication of the east coast. And what’s fascinating to see is how as transportation improves, those sophisticated techniques, those unusual to the Midwest ingredients make their way to the Midwest. For example, in 1732 Lincoln is eating oysters that come from New York or Baltimore. The come around the Atlantic coast and up the Mississippi and end up in Vandalia, Illinois of all places. <recipe> Jo Reed: Stirring the Pot with Ben Franklin is your most current book, so let’s focus on him for a moment. I’m curious how meals were structured when he was growing up. Was breakfast a hearty meal for the Franklins given how much physical work had to be done? Rae Eighmey: Franklin was really kind of a minimalist eater. He had this breakfast dish that he ate pretty much most of his life as far as I was able to tell. And I think it stemmed from his childhood experience of getting up and getting to work pretty quickly in the candle manufacturing part of their home. So it had this lovely name of hot water gruel but it really is kind of the hot cereal that any of us would eat. But he fortified it with bread cubes that were tossed in butter and some pepper to spice it up. Jo Reed: And how would they make cereal? Would it over the hearth? Rae Eighmey: Yes. Yeah, in a big kettle hanging over the open hearth, exactly. Jo Reed: And the main meal was in the middle of the day, correct? Rae Eighmey: Typically, in most of the households the main meal in colonial era New England and for much for the colonies was the dinner but it was served at midday sometime between, it appears, two or three o'clock. And then you would have supper later than that. But my thesis in the book is that Franklin’s family maybe didn’t eat dinner that early because they were busy making candles. And that once you start dipping the candles and pulling out the wicks from the liquid tallow, you really can’t stop because the tallow would harden up. So the picture I paint is that they had their dinner later. Jo Reed: Well, one picture you paint is of ox cheek stew as a meal that could be slowly prepared and didn’t have to be looked after. Could you explain that recipe to us? Rae Eighmey: Sure. Exactly. The tallow, of course, is beef fat. So Franklin’s father would be bringing home the tallow and ox cheeks are literally the cheeks of the ox. And it’s a cut that’s kind of hard to find. But it’s chewy. It’s strongly flavored. It’s really a wonderful cut of beef but it has to cook low and slow for a really long time. So it would have been a simple matter for Franklin’s mother, Abiah, to cook the vegetables for the stew in the large pot and as the original recipes say, you cook them until all of the good is cooked out of them. And while those are cooking you put the beef in and you put the water in and just let it simmer all day. Jo Reed: In Franklin’s time, were there commercially prepared foods that people, I mean regular people, not rich people, but regular people could buy? Or was everything pretty much homemade? Rae Eighmey: There were bakeries, of course. And there were taverns where one could go and get a meal. But yeah, it’s pretty much home prepared. Jo Reed: Now, when you say bakeries, of course. Why of course? Rae Eighmey: When you read about the society and you read about the stores that people frequented, bakeries and taverns are frequently listed in the descriptions of town centers. My sense of it is that if you’re baking a typical bread, it’s much easier to bake that in a commercial oven. Because the ovens in colonial kitchens were smaller beehive ovens built into the side of the hearth. So while you could put some bread goods in there, it really made sense to have someone do that commercially for you in an urban center. Jo Reed: And what about if you were going to fry fish, for example, or eggs, what would you do? Rae Eighmey: Well, they had frying pans on legs. Jo Reed: And you’d stick it over the hearth? Rae Eighmey: Yes. Mm-Hm. That’s the wonderful thing about open hearths, they are incredibly versatile depending on you arrange your coals or your wood. You can get a small bunch of coals that would be hot enough and just put them immediately under that one frying pan to bring that up to a quick temperature and then fry in it. Jo Reed: How did you find out about all of this? Rae Eighmey: A lot of reading. And some experimenting. Jo Reed: You’ve taken recipes from that time and you’ve walked this fine line of trying to make them accessible to those of us today who would like to try them out. But at the same time, remain true to the original recipe. How did you maneuver that? Rae Eighmey: That’s a really good question. And, again, it’s a lot of practice and thinking things through carefully. How true can you be to the integrity of the original ingredient? How would they have cooked it? Where are the opportunities to use the kinds of techniques we use now and make them applicable to what they did back then? Jo Reed: When you first tried these recipes out, did you try to cook them in your fireplace? Or in an open fire pit? Or did you stick to the stove? Rae Eighmey: I stick to the stove. With a few exceptions. But the goal is to recreate these dishes in modern kitchens using modern equipment. You know, we don't need to be tinkering around in our fireplaces. Some people enjoy doing that. I’d much rather use my pots and pans. Jo Reed: But do you try to use, for example, cast iron or copper or stainless steel? Rae Eighmey: No. Actually, for some things I do use my cast iron but basically it’s sort of the basic stainless steel pots and pans that I use every day because the goal is to make this easy because the flavors are what's important; the flavors and the textures. Jo Reed: But you do say feel free to use the food processor but it’s really kind of better if you don’t. Rae Eighmey: Yeah. I do kind of get, now that you mention it, kind of persnickety about cutting things and mixing things. I do think processors can over process. I think there’s—like I’d never use a processor to knead dough. I need to do that by hand. You get good results. I think you get them almost as efficiently. And I think that is part of the sense of getting into the experience. Jo Reed: I was really struck by how innovative some of their cooking processes were. For example, using wood ash as a leavening agent. Rae Eighmey: Yeah, wood ash is the beginning point of chemical leavening. By the time we have the first American totally written cookbook in 1794, it’s called potash. Then as you get into the 19th century it becomes saleratus. And then it becomes baking soda. So it’s this continuum. Jo Reed: I still can’t figure out who figured out you could make a leavening agent from the ash of wood? Rae Eighmey: I have no idea. Jo Reed: I really would like to be there at that creative moment. Rae Eighmey: I would too. Jo Reed: The one thing that really has changed is back then nothing was wasted, apparently. Rae Eighmey: Very little. Jo Reed: Which is now, of course, the waste—it’s actually criminal the amount of food that gets wasted. Rae Eighmey: Yes, exactly. And you find back then they had pigs and chickens that they could feed that waste to. So, you know, the waste is handled in a different way. Jo Reed: Everything’s used. I mean clearly if you’re using the ash of wood to make yeast, everything is used. It was very interesting how versatile these recipes can be given such simple ingredients, and I’m thinking for example, of the recipe where it’s the same ingredients, the same proportions, and depending on the preparation, you make noodles or you make bread. Rae Eighmey: Oh yes, that’s one of my favorite recipes in this whole collection and I make these noodles all of the time now. That’s part of the joy of doing this work is finding recipes that have slipped between the cracks and you just go, “Oh my gosh, this is fabulous!” So this was during the French and Indian War, the early days of it when Franklin commanded a company of troops that were out in the frontier at the time, which is really eastern Pennsylvania which is near Bethlehem, and at the time it was way out there. But he was commanding these troops and at the same time, he’s putting to press that year’s Poor Richard’s Almanack. He had very few recipes that he put in Poor Richard’s but in this one he put in foods that would feed a great number of people at very little expense. And I think in the back of his mind is he’s thinking of soldiers. <recipe> Jo Reed: How interested was Benjamin Franklin in food? Rae Eighmey: Franklin was passionate about a great many things and food was one of them. He used it as a narrative device in his autobiography. He talked about his vegetarian experiences. He talked about the biscuit he wanted to find from Boston when he ran away to Philadelphia—couldn’t find it and ended up having to buy three puffy rolls of bread. As he was in Europe, in England, he traveled to Ireland. He observed the conditions of the Irish and understood immediately the effect of food on their life choices. He also sent back plants to John Bartram who was America’s premiere botanist. He threw wonderful parties and the menus from them are just luscious. He had favorite foods and most of them were healthy foods. He loved peas. He loved asparagus. Jo Reed: Tell me about his vegetarianism. When was he a vegetarian and why? Rae Eighmey: He was working for his brother as an apprentice to learn the printing business. He had picked up some books. He was a voracious reader. He picked up some books on vegetarianism and kind of made a moral choice that he really didn’t want to eat animals. So the brother wasn’t married at that point. And so they had a cook who would prepare the meals for his brother James, Benjamin and the other apprentices. And so James said to Ben, “Well, it’s just asking too much for the cook to make special meals for you. How about if I give you half the money I would pay her for your meals and you can take care of yourself.” Well, Ben immediately saw this as a win, win, win. He not only could get the food he wanted but he only spent half the money that James gave him so he had money to buy books. He stayed a vegetarian for a few years. He kind of skipped in and out of it throughout his life. Jo Reed: Franklin lived abroad for years as we mentioned, I mean 15 years in England, nine years in France. Were there local foods, local American foods that Franklin missed that he mentioned in his letters? Rae Eighmey: Absolutely. And there were things that his wife Deborah sent him when he lived in England. Primary among them were apples. And among the apples it was the Newtown Pippin which is his absolute favorite apple. He loved that apple so much that he arranged for cuttings and rooted graphs to be sent both to England and to France so that his friends could grow these trees because he loved this apple so much. It’s a really good keeper. It’s beginning to come back into fashion in some heritage orchards now. And I was able to find some and yeah, it’s a great apple. Deborah also sent him smoked meats: ham and venison. She sent cranberries which were a great surprise to the English house where Franklin roomed for those 15 years. They had never seen them and staff didn’t know quite know what to do with this really tart fruit. Jo Reed: And what about corn? Rae Eighmey: Corn of all kinds. Not American sweet corn the way we know now but corn flour of various varieties was particularly important to Franklin too. And he saw corn as an important American story. It was the key grain of the new world. And so there were four or five different kinds of corn meals that Deborah sent to him, some of them just regular cornmeal like we know, some of them made from parched cornmeal which was called no-cake. And he really thrived on having this essential American grain. Jo Reed: You say in your book that he saw food as key to the developing culture of the United States. Rae Eighmey: Exactly. It was part of the American story to recognize the power of American agriculture and American bounty, because Franklin recognized that there’s this enormous land here that can be settled. Where England is full and France is full—there’s no place for the people to go. In America, without knowing how far west it went, he knew that it was a vast land that could be settled and people could achieve their dreams. Jo Reed: And so Lincoln would be a beneficiary of this being a pioneer in Kentucky and Indiana. Rae Eighmey: Right. Right. Well said. Jo Reed: And like Franklin, Lincoln loved his apples. Rae Eighmey: Yes, he did. And he ate them from the top down straight through the core. Jo Reed: How much do you think our food tastes have changed? Or have they very much? Rae Eighmey: Yeah, I think they have. Especially for cooked composed dishes, things like stews and that sort of thing. You see I have a chicken recipe in the Franklin book that has this mixture that you stuff under the skin and it’s got cloves and mace and nutmeg and lemon zest and bacon and butter to hold the whole thing together. We don’t often think of cloves, and mace and nutmeg in chicken. You find things seasonings like cardamom used and an awful lot of anise seed. And there’s very little chocolate. Chocolate was not common except as a beverage, and it was unsweetened. There’s very little vanilla, only in the wealthiest homes. You see an awful lot of molasses, just tons and tons of it. Yeah, in Lincoln’s era you see molasses and sorghum. So those are kind of the baseline differences. Jo Reed: However, with Lincoln you do see barbecue. Rae Eighmey: Yes, you do, but it is not a tomato-y barbecue like we have now. And this is another one of those recipes that I make all of the time. You just coat your meat with molasses and let it sit around for a couple of hours and then you kind of wipe the molasses off and cook it over a slow fire and it’s amazing. Jo Reed: Just molasses? Rae Eighmey: Just molasses, yes, ma’am. Jo Reed: Wow. Mary Todd’s almond courting cake looked very good to me. Rae Eighmey: It’s another fabulous cake. And it was one that I looked at long and hard as I was doing the research on the Lincoln book. And that’s one where the story of leavening comes in because part of it is not only telling the story of their lives and telling the story of the societal forces, but also looking exactly how close can we get to the food. I began looking at recipes from the 1840s and found one that I think fits the story. And it’s essentially an angel food cake. It’s leavened with egg whites. And finely chopped, with a knife, almonds. The original recipe said it takes two days to make this cake. But I can chop a little faster, although I do sometimes cheat and use the food processor on the almonds. <recipe> Jo Reed: I wonder if there’s a food that we’re familiar with, but it would have been made very differently in Lincoln’s time—tasted very differently. Rae Eighmey: Yes, the gingerbread man that he alludes to in the Lincoln-Douglas debate where he kind of gives us a recipe and I was able to find one that fit his description, is so completely different from the gingerbread that we’re used to. It’s different texture. It’s more of a crispy biscuit-y kind of thing. The only flavoring in it is sorghum and ginger, none of the other spices that we associate with gingerbread cookies. And it’s really not super sweet. But this was the essential treat of this childhood. This is something that is not sweet but richly flavored that has a bit of a sweetness to it but not overly so. And when you look at what that meant to him and you compare it to what we’re used to eating—that, again, is one of those points where the flavors are dramatically different. <excerpt> Jo Reed: Food really does speak volumes about a culture in a particular time and in a particular place. And the creativity that people use to do something as essential as feeding themselves. Rae Eighmey: That’s very true. And you see it both with Lincoln and with Franklin. You see them making the best of the ingredients that drop into your lap from the tree in your backyard, maybe making a rich marmalade. The creativity to make ice cream. Mary Lincoln made strawberry ice cream. If you look in the grocery journal from their years in Springfield and the strawberry ice cream of the period is half strawberry and half cream. So you get this kind of cross between a gelato and an ice cream and it’s really, really good. Jo Reed: Well, Rae both books are fascinating. Thank you so much. And thank you for giving me your time. I really, really appreciate it. Rae Eighmey: Thank you so much, Jo. I really enjoyed it. And I hope you enjoy the food as much as I do. Jo Reed: Yeah, I’m sure I will. Thank you. That is Rae Eighmey. She’s the author of Lincoln in the Kitchen and the forthcoming Stirring the pot with Benjamin Franklin—both published by Smithsonian Books. My thanks to Victoria Hutter who read the recipes and Cliff Murphy who read Lincoln’s gingerbread story. You’ve been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening. <music up>