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Epicurean Kentuckian: tasting recipes of old times By Linda Waggener Mary Anne Loy's genealogy program, Historic Kentucky Kitchen, included research, keepsakes, recipe handouts and homemade samples for tasting at the Adair County Public Library, Saturday, February 8, 2020. She received rave reviews. On the menu of foods made from recipes of days gone by were: - Kentucky Burgoo by Mike Watson; - Jam Cake by Sharon Harris and her daughter Kim; - Salt Rising Bread, Sea Breeze jello salad, Shaker Lemon Pie, and a six-layer Apple Stack Cake by Mary Anne. In the introduction, Mary Anne highlighted food ways of the state that grew around important developments. She said southern foods are a fusion of Native Kentuckians (Cherokee, Delaware, Iroquois, and Shawnee tribes), Europeans who came into the state and African Americans who were brought here. "Unless you are a native," she said, "all of us are immigrants." In the early 1800s foods went from having been cooked mostly over outside fires to foods cooked inside kitchens in nice homes, "like Columbia’s Field House as an example." She shared early cookbooks. The first published cookbook in Kentucky, was "The Kentucky Housewife" published in 1839 by author Lettice Bryan from Boyle County. Mary Anne called this, "a very comprehensive how-to cookbook - if you didn’t know how to cook, you could read this book and figure it out. In those days every part of an animal was used. There’s not a part of a chicken, goat, lamb, etc., that wasn’t used for food in some way. She said this book is a fun and interesting read. Shakers were said to be important to Kentucky's early food ways. She noted that while "they didn’t have a very good model for keeping the society going” they were important to food in Kentucky because they saved seeds, traded and sold seeds. She shared their cookbook, entitled "We Make You Kindly Welcome, Recipes From the Trustees' House Daily Fare, Pleasant Hill, Kentucky" which contains Shaker and other early recipes. Shaker Lemon Pie is one of the dishes she baked for the event and brought for tasting. Shaker Lemon Pie is made with the whole lemon, sliced, sugar and eggs. For people who love lemon pie, this is the ultimate, and is really simple to make, according to the chef. Another recommended cookbook was "Mrs. Wiggs of The Cabbage Patch" which came from/or led to "Cabbage Patch Famous Recipes of Kentucky." Even if you don’t want to cook, she said, this is fun book to read about people who found themselves living in Louisville, barely getting by in the old part of Louisville. They all had outdoor gardens and they grew and lived on lots of cabbage - it must be easy to grow. She said a surprising thing in early Kentucky cookbooks is that there are a lot of oyster recipes. "It’s hard to understand since we are so far inland," she said, "however there were steamboats which must have brought oysters into the state. Burnside was a major stopping point and I’m guessing that might be a point they could have come into. "We always got a tin of oysters from a friend of my dad," she said, "I remember him popping that top off the can and my mother making scalloped oysters. I never liked them." Mary Anne held up a delicious looking jam cake, and said, "Another surprising thing has to do with jam cakes - this one is contributed for your tasting today by Sharon Harris, president of the Adair County Homemakers, made from a recipe that goes back many generations. "I’m sure that Kentucky is not the only state known for its jam cakes, however the early cookbooks don’t have recipes for jam cakes, but they do have a recipe for black cake. Ann Curtis Who grew up here shared two recipes from her mother, Effie Sandusky Heskamp, and one was called black cake, and is a very similar recipe to the recipe for jam cake." Mary Anne baked a six layer traditional Apple Stack Cake cake using an early Kentucky recipe. It requires thin layers to be cooked in black iron skillets, with dried apples between the stacked layers. She said she also called it a winter cake since it used dried apples. The recipe includes sorghum which was an early sweetener. Years ago apples were dried so that they would be available in the winter. "Thelma's Treasures - the Secret Recipes of The Best Cook in Harrodsburg" by Susanna Thomas, is one of her much used keepsakes. Mary Anne said Thelma taught herself to cook and became so famous that she was simply a force in Harrodsburg, the only black woman she knows who was President of the Homemakers. She remembers she always wanted to go to Thelma's kitchen at Christmas time just to smell the hams she became famous for. This cookbook was printed as a fundraiser for her church. Mary Anne shared copies of the recipe for Thelma’s famous hams. The presentation included foods that were developed in Kentucky: John Bibb's lettuce, known as Bibb Lettuce; Benedictine spread developed by a caterer in Louisville in the early 1900s named Jenny Carter Benedict; and Johnny Allman’s beer cheese. The story she remembers hearing when she became familiar with beer cheese as a college student was that Johnny wanted to sell more alcoholic beverages in his 1930s restaurant - he needed to come up with something to serve as an appetizer that would make his customers thirsty and beer cheese was the result. His recipe contained stale beer, cheese and spices. She said Kentucky is also known for its bourbon which is has been added to many recipes over the years, although none were provided at the Library. Pictures of Mary Anne's mother, her two grandmothers, and her mother-in-law graced the tables along with her cookbook collection and those from the library, and her apron collection. She said the women in those pictures were her most direct influences on her cooking and food ways. Toasted and buttered Salt Rising Bread samples were given out along with the recipe she'd researched and provided. Mike Watson provided the Burgoo for the event. He said he didn't provide a recipe because he doesn't really use one. It was made with chicken, venison and pork, and then he creates each unique batch from experience. Linens on the tables were from family and friends. The tablecloth with the bright red flowers wass the one she said her mother-in-law Harriet Loy had on the table when she first came to Columbia. Her neighbor and friend Donna Harper gave her the embroidered table cloths and napkins she'd carefully preserved from her Marcum and Harper families. Sharon Harris said she and her daughter make many jam cakes around the holidays. She said she makes the icing and Kim makes the cakes from their perfected Kentucky recipe. Saturday Sessions of the Adair County Genealogical Society and Adair County Public Library are offered several times each year. This story was posted on 2020-02-09 06:55:48
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