Eliza Leslie (1787-1858): First Author of a Southern Food Cookbook?

Eliza Leslie (November 15, 1787 - January 1, 1858)

Eliza Leslie [frequently referred to as Miss Leslie] was an American author of popular cookbooks during the nineteenth century. 

She was the first American cookbook author to write about Southern cooking and the vital influence of African-Americans in this regional cooking.  In her 1854 book New Receipts for Cooking, she wrote: “A large number [of recipes] have been obtained from the South, and from ladies noted for their skill in housewifery.  Many were dictated by colored cooks of high reputation in the art, for which nature seems to have gifted that race with a particular capability.” Her comment today would be considered racist; however, we have to remember the time in which it was written.  The fact that this lady would write a cookbook celebrating recipes from African- American women and other marginalized groups – even recipes specifically from the Southern states in a time of political uneasiness- is incredible. The book contains a large number of Southern recipes, many taken from African-American women, as well as recipes coming from French and Native American sources.

The recipe below is from Leslie’s New Receipts for Cooking, copied directly from her book:

Filet Gumbo

“Cut up a pair of fine plump fowls into pieces, as when carving. Lay them in a pan of cold water, till all the blood is drawn out. Put into a pot, two large table-spoonfuls of lard, and set it over the fire. When the lard has come to a boil, put in the chickens with an onion finely minced. Dredge them well with flour, and season slightly with salt and pepper; and, if you like it, a little chopped marjoram. Pour on it two quarts of boiling water. Cover it, and let it simmer slowly for three hours. Then stir into it two heaped tea-spoonfuls of sassafras powder. Afterwards, let it stew five or six minutes longer, and then send it to table in a deep dish; having a dish of boiled rice to be eaten with it by those who like rice.

This gumbo will be much improved by stewing with it three or four thin slices of cold boiled ham, in which case omit the salt in the seasoning. Whenever cold ham is an ingredient in any dish, no other salt is required.

A dozen fresh oysters and their liquor, added to the stew about half an hour before it is taken up, will also be an improvement.

If you cannot conveniently obtain sassafras-powder, stir the gumbo frequently with a stick of sassafras root.

This is a genuine southern receipt. Filet gumbo may be made of any sort of poultry, or of veal, lamb, venison, or kid.”

---

The following recipe is from Miss Leslie’s earlier book Directions for Cookery, followed by a modernized version by Ester B. Aresty, who called the recipe as "still outstanding among Southern recipes":

Sweet Potato Pudding (original by Eliza Leslie, 1851)

“Take half a pound of sweet potatoes, wash them, and put them into a pot with a very little water, barely enough to keep them from burning.

Let them simmer slowly for about half an hour; they must be only parboiled, otherwise they will be soft, and will make the pudding heavy. When they are half done, take them out, peel them, and when cold, grate them. Stir together to a cream, half a pound of butter and a quarter of a pound and two ounces of powdered sugar, add a grated nutmeg, a large tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, and half a tea-spoonful of beaten mace. Also the juice and grated peel of a lemon, a wine glass of rose water, a glass of wine, and a glass of brandy. Stir these ingredients well together. Beat seven eggs very light, and stir them into the mixture in turn with the sweet potato, a little at a time of each. Having stirred the whole very hard at the last, put it into a buttered dish and bake it three quarters of an hour.”

Miss Leslie’s Sweet Potato Pudding 

(updated by Esther B. Aresty in her book, The Delectable Past, 1964)

“2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten

¼ teaspoon each: nutmeg and cloves

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup sugar

¼ pound butter, melted

¼ cup wine and brandy mixed

½ cup milk

3 egg whites, beaten stiff but not dry

       First, combine the potatoes with the spices and beaten egg yolks.  Then add all the other ingredients, except the egg whites, and beat well.

       (Mrs. Leslie’s original recipe called for rosewater; I substitute the milk, to which I add ½ teaspoon of rose extract.  Try it.)  Last, fold the stiff (not dry) egg whites lightly into the potato mixture.

       Heap in a buttered 2-quart casserole.  Sprinkle top lightly with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.  Bake at 350-degrees for about an hour.  Serve with chicken, ham or pork.”

Books by Eliza Leslie:

• Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats, 1828.
• American Girl's Book, 1831.
• Domestic French Cookery, 1832.
• Pencil Sketches; or, Outlines of Characters and Manners, 1833.
• Miss Leslie's Behavior Book, 1834.
• Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, 1837.
• The Indian Meal Book, 1847.
• The Lady's Receipt-Book: A Useful Companion for Large or Small Families, 1847.
• Amelia; or, A Young Lady's Vicissitudes, 1848.
• Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt-Book, 1850.
• Miss Leslie's Directions for Cookery, 1851.
• More Receipts, 1852.
• Miss Leslie's New Receipts for Cooking . . ., 1854.
• Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book, 1857.

Click here for more recipes from Eliza Leslie at chestofbooks.com.

Source(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Leslie; New Receipts for Cooking . . ., 1854; Directions for Cookery, 1851; The Delectable Past by Esther B. Aresty, 1964, Simon And Schuster, Inc.; http://chestofbooks.com

"Charles H. Baker, Jr.'s Own Deep South Barbecue Sauce, 1939"

Charles Henry Baker, Jr. (December 25, 1895 – November 11, 1987) 

Charles Henry Baker, Jr. was an American author best known for his culinary and cocktail writings. Baker spent much of his life traveling the world and chronicling food and drink recipes for magazines like Esquire, Town & Country, and Gourmet, for which he wrote a column during the 1940s called "Here's How".  Baker collected many of those recipes in his two-volume set The Gentleman's Companion: Being an Exotic Cookery and Drinking Book, originally published in 1939 by Derrydale Press. John J. Poister in 1983 wrote, "Volume II of The Gentleman's Companion, by Charles H. Baker, Jr., is the best book on exotic drinks I have ever encountered". Condé Nast contributing writer St. John Frizell wrote, "It's his prose, not his recipes, that deserves a place in the canon of culinary literature ... at times humorously grandiloquent, at times intimate and familiar, Baker fills his stories with colorful details about his environment and his drinking companions — Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner among them".

I know there are recipes for white barbeque sauces, but nothing like this.  From the lack of liquid, I assume this sauce is rather thick and heavy --I don't know much roasting juices you'd really get from grilling meat (I figure you could use stock or broth). The following recipe is from Baker’s The Gentleman's Companion: Being an Exotic Cookery Book (1939):

“THE AUTHOR’S OWN DEEP SOUTH BARBECUE SAUCE , for all sorts of Miscellaneous Game such as ‘Coons, ‘Possums, Big Fox or Cat Squirrels, Marsh Rabbits, Wild Shote & God Knows What Else of Dark Flesh, or Gamy Flavour, or Both

       We’ve been hungry plenty of times on camp hunts, and seem to have eaten just about anything that swims, flies or runs, through the Florida flatwoods, the pine islands in swamps and Everglades, or in the vast sawgrass marshes.  We’ve nourished on alligator tail, sand hill crane, limpkin, crow, rattlesnake, ‘possum, ‘coon, wild razorback shote, pelican and –credit it or not! – whippoorwill.  ‘Coon, ‘possum, and big brown marsh rabbits are good eating, but have to be smothered in a sauce hot and potent enough to disguise the gamey meat.  This sauce is fine to add to the braising pot half an hour before meat is tendered, or to work up while game is being grilled, roasted, smothered, or what not.  Make it plenty hot with peppers.

1 lb odd trimmings from the animal

1 big chopped carrot

1 big chopped onion

½ tsp dry hot mustard

½ cup evaporated or fresh cream

4 tbsp butter

2 to 3 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar

1 to 1 ½ tbsp flour for thickening

1 piece yellow lemon peel

Salt and lots of black pepper

1 tsp or more of worchestershire

Soak strong meats as long as possible, overnight is best, in strongly salted water, then use this sauce, made as follows:  brown the chopped game trimmings, onion, and carrot in 3 tbsp of the butter.  Cream mustard with a little gravy, and add to trimmings pan.  Take some roasting juices from the meat from time to time, and add –along with lemon juice and seasonings.  Smother and simmer until rich; strain out bones and sinew, pound vegetables fine, thin out with more of the cooking gravy, reduce 1/3, and finally thicken with 1 tbsp flour and same of butter –worked smooth—adding the cream at the last.”

Cotton Style Show Luncheon, 1949

 “King Cotton-whose lint and seed in the Mississippi Delta alone this past season were valued at over $200,000,000-will receive royal tribute from at least four Delta counties planning extensive observances for National merchants throughout the 18 Delta and part-Delta counties also are expected to join in local promotion of cotton products, according Delta Council. Leflore, Coahoma, Bolivar and Sunflower are the counties planing detailed activities during Cotton Week.” ----The Delta Democrat-Times, May 6, 1953 

Cotton Style Show Luncheon

April 28, 1949

Clarksdale, Mississippi

(From the Souvenir Menu)

----

Planter’s Plantation Punch

Hors d’oeuvres

Spiced Coahoma Ham                    Breast of Turkey

Carrot Curls                    Pickle Sticks

Creole Casserole                    Asparagus Mousse

Hot Rolls

Cranberry Salad Supreme

Cotton Bale Ice Cream Mold          Cotton Blossom Cakes

Coffee

Cotton Square Mints

----

(The recipes from Favorite Menus and Recipes by the Coahoma Woman’s Club, Coahoma, MS

N.B. Recipes are not changed, they are rewritten as they appear in original document.)

Planter’s Plantation Punch

1 can orange juice (46 ounce can)

1 can pineapple juice (46 oz.)

1 qt. ginger ale

1 qt. lemon sherbet

Cool punch bowl and cool juices.  Put sherbet into punch bowl.  Add juices with ginger ale last.

Asparagus Mousse

2 T. butter

4 egg yolks

juice of 1 lemon

1 can asparagus with liquid

1 pt. whipping cream

¼ lb. Almonds (about 1 tea cup)

2 T. flour

2 T. gelatin

1 T. onion juice

Season to taste with salt, pepper, and paprika

Melt butter I double boiler, stir in flour, mix thoroughly, add asparagus juice, stirring constantly ‘til thick.  Pour over eggs which have been beaten lightly, stirring all the time.  Put back into double boiler and cook ‘til eggs are done.  Add dissolved gelatin, seasoning, onion and lemon juices.  Cut up asparagus, and when cool fold in asparagus, nuts and whipped cream.  Have nuts cold.  Pour into mold.  Serve with mayonnaise.

Creole Casserole

1 can English peas, drained

1 cup grated Chedder cheese

½ cup buttered bread crumbs

1 recipe Creole Sauce*

2 cups white sauce

3 T. grated cheese

Season white sauce to taste with mustard, Durkee’s horseradish mayonnaise, salt and pepper.  Add one cup grated Chedder cheese.  Place bread crumbs in the bottom of casserole, then place alternate layers of peas, white sauce, Creole sauce, finishing off with sprinkled 3 T. grated cheese on top.  Brown in oven first before serving.

[* I have no idea of what Creole Sauce is. It might have been a local sauce in the late 1940s, of which everyone knew.  I found a recipe for a Creole Sauce in the Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cook Book and it appears at the end of this article -tfc]

Cranberry Salad Supreme

2 cups raw cranberries

2 ½ cup water

1 cup sugar

2 packages lemon jello

Juice of pineapple

1 can crushed pineapple

1 cup white grapes

1 cup nuts, chopped

Cook berries, sugar, and water until berries are soft.  Add lemon jello, pineapple juice and cool.  Add fruits and nuts.  Pour in large mold or individual molds.  This serves 14.

Additional Recipes

Creole Sauce Recipe a’la Fannie Farmer

Put in a saucepan: 2 Tb. chopped onion, 4 Tb. finely chopped green pepper, 2 Tb. butter.  Cook 5 minutes, then add: 2 tomatoes or ½ cup canned tomatoes, ¼ cup sliced mushrooms, 6 pitted or stuffed olives, cut into pieces.  Cook 2 minutes, then add 1 1/3 cups of Brown Sauce (below) or gravy or water with two bouillon cubes.  Bring to the boiling point.  Season to taste with salt, pepper, and sherry.

Brown Sauce

Melt 2 Tb butter or bacon fat.  Add ½ slice onion (if desired).  Cook slowly until fat is well browned but not black.  Add 2 Tb flour or 2 tsp potato flour, ½ tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, few grains sugar.  Add gradually 1 cup brown stock, consomme’, or water.  Bring to the boiling point.  Boil for 2 minutes.  Strain or remove the bit of onion.  Cook 15 minutes in double boiler or over very low heat.  Makes about one cup.

"Hop-John Party for New Year's"

The following is taken directly from The Fast Gourmet Cookbook by Poppy Cannon, published in 1964 by Fleet Publishing Corporation.  I wanted to do an article on New Year’s Southern food tradition –but Ms. Cannon did it better than I could. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, Ms. Poppy Cannon:

 ---

“It is the day after Christmas and in your mind the thought keeps stirring that you ought in some way to pay off some of your holiday social debts.  So why not an old-fashioned Hop-John party on New Year’s?  For briefing on this interesting project, we sent an appeal to Eloise Barksdale, since Hop-John parties are a tradition in her hometown of Fort Smith, Arkansas.

       Post haste came help.  Eloise went so far as to write us a poem.

             Hopping John in the Southern way

                should be eaten for Health

            On New Year’s Day

                The recipe handed down to me

            Says this fine dish

                Brings prosperity

            Boil a fresh hog jowl

                with some black-eyed peas

            Add rice and red pepper

                and it’s bound to please.

       For those of us who might not have immediate access to the jowl of a hog, nor time to soak and cook the black-eyed peas, we have evolved, with Eloise Barksdale’s assistance, a quick and tasty version using canned black-eyed peas and what she calls instant rice.  The menu is traditional and unalterable.  ‘Turnip greens and turnips too, cole slaw, corn bread, buttermilk and egg custard pie.’

Barksdale Hopping John

Turnip Greens

Diced White Turnips, Eloise

Cole Slaw

Arkansas Corn Bread

Egg Custard Pie

BARKSDALE HOPPING JOHN…dice ¼ pound salt pork and fry out nice and crisp.  Add 1 ½ cups packed pre-cooked rice, 1 large can of black-eyed peas with the liuid and 1 cup water or stock. (There should be about 2 cups of liquid all together.)  Bring to a boil uncovered. Season quite jauntily with red pepper or several drops of Tabasco sauce as well as freshly ground black pepper.  Add salt if it is needed.  Stir with a fork.  Cover and allow to stand in a warm place about ten minutes so that the rice will absorb all the rich flavors.  Four to 6 servings.

TURNIP GREENS…Prepare quick-frozen turnip greens according to directions and add to each package, 2 tablespoons finely-chopped onion which has been browned in a little pork or bacon fat.  For the true Southern taste there should be a sting of hot pepper.

DICED WHITE TURNIP, ELOISE…To serve 6, wash, peel and dice 2 pounds of white turnips.  (These are milder, cook faster than yellow.)  Cook tender (10 to 15 minutes) in salted, peppered, boiling water in a covered pan.  Drain.  Fold in ½ cup heavy cream which has been whipped and seasoned delicately with 1 tablespoon lemon juice or rum.

ARKANSAS CORN BREAD…Mix and sift together 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt.  Add 1 cup milk or buttermilk, 2 eggs, well beaten, 2 tablespoons melted shortening (preferably bacon, ham or sausage drippings).  Bake in a shallow well-greased  (8 by 8-inch) pan in a hot oven (425 degrees)about 20 minutes and serve in squares.

EGG CUSTARD PIE…Follow your grandmother’s rule or buy it quick-frozen or from a bake shop.  Sprinkle with nutmeg and slivered almonds or coconut.”

Christmas Breakfast Menu, 1964

This Christmas breakfast menu appeared in 1964 in The Fast Gourmet Cook Book by Poppy Cannon.  Ms. Cannon was food editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal magazine, as well as Mademoiselle and House Beautiful.  Besides writing cookbooks, she also lectured and appeared on television.  The Fast Gourmet Cook Book is based on her column “The Fast Gourmet”, which appeared three times a week in 120 newspapers.

Christmas Breakfast Menu

Silver-spangled Grapefruit

Broiled Ham Slices

Baked Eggs in English Muffin Shells

More English Muffins, Plain-toasted and Buttered

Cinnamon Candy Jelly

Large Cups of Coffee or Tea

The Recipes

SILVER –SPANGLED GRAPEFRUIT…Cut grapefruits in halves.  Scoop out the fruit in sections.  Sweeten with a little honey and add, for each grapefruit, a tablespoon of sherry (optional).  Paint grapefruit rims with a little honey.  Place each half cut-side-down on a saucer covered with 1/3 cup granulated sugar made verdant with 3 drops green coloring.  Refill the shells adding orange or cubed apple sections if fruit looks skimpy.  Dot the green rim with silver candies and garnish with cranberries cut to look like flowers.

BAKED EGGS IN ENGLISH MUFFIN SHELLS…Tear English muffins in half with a fork.  Scoop out soft centers.  Drop an egg into each one.  Season with salt, pepper and a couple drops of Worchestershire.  Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) 6 to 8 minutes or until set.

YOUR OWN CINNAMON CANDY JELLY…In a large saucepan place a quart of sweet apple cider or apple juice.  Add 2 tablespoons red cinnamon candies and 1 box powdered fruit pectin.  Mix well.  Place over high heat, stir until mixture comes to a hard boil.  Then all at once, dump in 4 ½ cups sugar.  Bring to a full rolling boil.  Boil hard 1 minute stirring constantly.  Remove from heat, skim off foam, pour into 8 jelly glasses.  Cover with 1/8 inch melted paraffin.  For gifts, decorate paraffin with silver dagees and red cinnamon candies.

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

In 1897, eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's now-defunct newspaper, The Sun, concerning Santa Claus' existence. In response, Francis Pharcellus Church published the editorial 'Is There a Santa Claus'.  The editorial became the most reprinted English-language editorial in history.

'

Virginia's great-grandson appeared with the letter on the Antiques Roadshow in 1997, where the letter was valued at $20,000 – $30,000. You can watch a clip in which the letter was valued here

Eight-year-old to President Kennedy: "Save Santa!"

Eight-year-old Michelle holding Kennedy's letter in 1961

In 1961, after hearing her parents discussing possible Soviet nuclear tests at the North Pole, 
8-year-old Michelle Rochon grabbed a pencil and wrote a letter to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, asking him to sop nuclear testing for one special reason. Her letter, and the reply she received from the President, can be read below.






Dear Mr. Kennedy,

Please stop the Russians from bombing the North Pole because they will kill Santa Claus. I am 8 years old. I am in the third grade at Holy Cross School.

Yours truly,

Michelle Rochon

--------------------------

THE WHITE HOUSE

October 28, 1961

Dear Michelle:

I was glad to get your letter about trying to stop the Russians from bombing the North Pole and risking the life of Santa Claus. 

I share your concern about the atmospheric testing of the Soviet Union, not only for the North Pole but for countries throughout the world; not only for Santa Claus but for people throughout the world. 

However, you must not worry about Santa Claus. I talked with him yesterday and he is fine. He will be making his rounds again this Christmas. 

Sincerely, 

(Signed, 'John Kennedy')

Miss Michelle Rochon
Marine City, Michigan




(Source: The Letters of John F. Kennedy, published by Bloomsbury Press on October 29, 2013, via www.lettersofnote.com )