Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen Read online

  We don’t know much about the appetites of Swett and Davis, but evidently Weed was a man who enjoyed good food. Weed also recounted an anecdote of Lincoln’s about food that dramatized the balancing act inherent in their goal of selecting a cabinet that would come to include Lincoln’s rivals for the office, men from all regions of the country, and even some, if not from the restlessly dissatisfied South, at least from the border states. Conscious of the risks inherent from hurt feelings and jealous responses, Lincoln recounted a story powerfully demonstrating the possible irreparable harm to reputation caused by insult or from ill feelings.

  According to Weed:

  While at breakfast, Judge Davis, noticing that, after having been bountifully served with sausage, Oliver Twist like, I wanted some more, said, “You seem fond of our Illinois sausages.” To which I responded affirmatively, adding that I thought the article might be relied on where pork was cheaper than dogs. “That,” said Mr. Lincoln, “reminds me of what occurred down at Joliet, where a popular grocer supplied all of the villagers with sausages. One Saturday evening when his grocery was filled with customers, for whom he and his boys were busily engaged in weighing sausages, a neighbor with whom he had had a violent quarrel that day, came into the grocery, made his way up to the counter, holding two enormous dead cats by the tail, which he deliberately threw on to the counter, saying, ‘This makes seven to-day. I’ll call around Monday, and get my money for them.’ ”

  Others did take note of and publish more of Lincoln’s stories. The two that follow, like Thurlow Weed’s recollection, also center on foods. In the first story Lincoln used the anecdote of an Illinois prairie-chicken hunter’s unusual methods to demonstrate the idea that every man has his own particular ways of doing things. And even if these ways seem strange, the idea is to do whatever you can to accomplish your goals. Lincoln recounted this story:

  That reminds me of a fellow out in Illinois who had better luck than any one in the neighborhood. He had a rusty old gun no other man dared handle; he never seemed to exert himself, being listless and indifferent when out after game, but he always brought home all the chickens he could carry, while some of the others, with their finely trained dogs and latest improved fowling-pieces came home alone.

  “How is it, Jake?” inquired one sportsman, who, although a good shot, and knew something about hunting, was often unfortunate, “that you never come home without a lot of birds?”

  Jake grinned, half closed his eyes, and replied; “Oh, I don’t know that there’s anything queer about it. I jes’ go and git ’em.”

  “Yes, I know you do; but how do you do it?”

  “You’ll tell.”

  “Honest, Jake, I won’t say a word. Hope to drop dead this minute.”

  “Never say nothing, if I tell you?”

  “Cross my heart three times.”

  This reassured Jake, who put his mouth close to the ear of his eager questioner, and said, in a whisper:

  “All you got to do is jes’ to hide in a fence corner an’ make a noise like a turnip. That’ll bring the chickens every time.”

  In the second tale, an apple, one food for which Lincoln expressed a particular fondness, played a key role in his story told to a petitioner at the height of the Civil War.

  During a public reception, a farmer from one of the border counties in Virginia told the president that the Union soldiers, in passing his farm, had helped themselves not only to hay, but to his horse, and he hoped the president would urge the proper officer to consider his claim immediately. Putting the man’s request into the larger war perspective, Lincoln said:

  This reminds me of an old acquaintance. “Jack” Chase a lumberman on the Illinois [River], a steady sober man, and the best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick to take the logs on the rapids; but he was skillful with a raft and always kept her straight in the channel. Finally a steamboat was put on and “Jack” was made captain of her. He always used to take the wheel, going through the rapids. One day when the boat was plunging and wallowing along the boiling current, and “Jack’s” utmost vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed him with:

  “Say, Mister Captain! I wish you would just stop your boat a minute—I’ve lost my apple overboard!”

  STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM

  It’s hard to find a more refreshing treat than period fruit ice creams. Made from half fruit and juice and half milk and cream, the dessert is like a beautiful blending of Italian ice and rich ice cream. The icy fruit melts quickly on your tongue while the creamy half lingers flavorfully. But don’t analyze it too much. Just spoon out a dish and enjoy.

  4 cups sliced strawberries

  ½ cup sugar, or more to taste

  2 cups cream

  1 cup milk

  Mix the berries and sugar and let stand, stirring from time to time, until the sugar dissolves. Then mash the berries and measure. You should have 3 cups. Stir in the cream and milk. Freeze according to the directions on your ice-cream maker. If you don’t have an ice-cream freezer, pour the mixture into a shallow metal bowl and put it in your freezer. Beat occasionally with an electric mixer once the ice cream begins to freeze.

  Makes about 1 ½ quarts

  ADAPTED FROM PERIOD SOURCES.

  CHICKEN SALAD

  Up until the 1950s, unless you lived on a farm, chicken was reserved for special occasions. In Springfield a century earlier, much of the fowl enjoyed by the Lincolns and their neighbors was wild game, brought in by local hunters and sold in the stores or served in restaurants. Chicken salad would have been a rare treat. The usual homemade dressing can be considered a culinary cousin to the not-yet-widely-available mayonnaise. The sharply flavored mixture uses a hard-boiled egg yolk and mustard as the binders. Equal amounts of chicken and lettuce or celery make a particularly light, yet satisfying dish.

  1 hard-boiled egg yolk (dice the white for garnish)

  1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

  1 tablespoon olive oil

  ¼ cup white vinegar

  2 cups diced cooked chicken

  1 cup finely diced celery

  ½ teaspoon salt, more or less to taste

  ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, more or less to taste

  1 cup shredded firm lettuce, such as romaine

  Make the dressing by mashing together egg yolk, mustard, and olive oil until smooth in a small bowl. Gradually stir in vinegar with a fork or whisk until the dressing is smoothly blended. Then toss the dressing with chicken and celery. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired. Chill salad. Toss with the shredded lettuce right before serving. Garnish with diced egg white.

  Makes 4 cups of chicken salad, for eight ½-cup servings

  ADAPTED FROM PERIOD SOURCES.

  NUTMEG DOUGHNUTS

  Occasionally called “Yankee nuts,” nineteenth-century doughnuts were frequently small and diamond shaped. Cream of tartar gives these easy-to-make treats a lightness, while the hint of nutmeg brings just enough spice. It is the kind of treat Tad and Willie Lincoln could have enjoyed by the handful.

  2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling

  ½ cup sugar

  1 teaspoon cream of tartar

  ½ teaspoon baking soda

  ¼ teaspoon freshly grated or ground nutmeg

  2 tablespoons cold butter

  ½ cup milk

  Shortening, vegetable oil, or lard for frying

  Combine the flour, sugar, cream of tartar, baking soda, and nutmeg. Cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients until it disappears. Quickly stir in milk and mix with fork. Once the dough begins to form, knead it with your hands into a smooth dough. You may need up to a tablespoon additional milk, added 1 teaspoon at a time.

  Roll out the dough to ½-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut into rectangles or diamonds, about 1 × 2 inches, with a jagging iron or sharp knife. A jagging iron is a rotary cutting tool with a zigzag cutting edge.

  TO
FRY: If you have a deep-fat fryer follow its directions. Or carefully heat about 2 inches of fat in a deep frying pan with sides at least 3 inches tall. Heat the fat to 365°F. Carefully place a few doughnuts at a time in the hot fat. Fry until golden, turning them over as they rise to the top and the bottoms brown. Drain on paper towels.

  Makes about 3 dozen small doughnuts

  ADAPTED FROM “EXTEMPORE DOUGHNUTS,” ELIZABETH NICHOLSON, WHAT I KNOW, OR, HINTS ON THE DAILY DUTIES OF A HOUSEKEEPER, 1855.

  MUTTON HARICO

  This recipe appears in several mid-nineteenth-century cookbooks. Left to simmer on the back of a wood-burning stove, it was a meal that practically cooked itself. In today’s kitchens, the slow cooker can fill in once the meat is browned. It is also a dish that improves when the flavors have a chance to mellow, so make enough for two meals.

  1 teaspoon dried marjoram

  1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves

  ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

  ¼ teaspoon ground mace

  ½ teaspoon salt, more or less to taste

  ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  4 lamb steaks, about 1 ½ pounds total (you can substitute pork chops or beef)

  2 tablespoons butter or olive oil

  Boiling water to cover the meat, about 1 to 2 cups

  1 cup carrots (cut into ½-inch dice)

  1 cup turnips (cut into ½-inch dice)

  1 medium onion, sliced

  1 cup thinly sliced celery

  Mix herbs, spices, salt, and pepper together and rub into the meat. Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter or oil in a large, heavy frying pan with a lid. Brown the lamb on both sides and cover with boiling water. Cover, lower the heat, and simmer for about a half hour. Add carrots, turnips, onion, and celery, then cover again and continue simmering until tender, about another half hour. Harico can stay barely simmering on the stove, flavors melding, for as long as an hour. Serve the meat surrounded by the vegetables. Mashed potatoes would be a good side dish or, for a particularly hectic dinnertime, just have bread and butter.

  Makes 4 servings

  ADAPTED FROM “MUTTON HARICO,” MISS ELIZA LESLIE, DIRECTIONS FOR COOKERY IN ITS VARIOUS BRANCHES, 1845.

  BEEF CAKES

  A variation on the classic shepherd’s pie, the potato-topped beef cakes can be made quickly from leftovers. You could just take the meat and place it between slices of bread, top with pickles and onions, and that would be fine. But with just a little more effort with the knife and frying pan, you have a tasty, fulsome meal, ready in less than 15 minutes. Although it may seem like a lot to mix equal portions of bread and meat, once cooked, a hungry eater really couldn’t tell the patty is not entirely beef.

  1 cup minced roast beef

  1 cup fresh breadcrumbs, grated from stale homemade-style bread

  1 tablespoon grated onion

  1 tablespoon minced parsley

  1 tablespoon pickle relish or pickle juice, optional

  2 tablespoons minced raw bacon, optional

  ¼ teaspoon salt, more or less to taste

  ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, more or less to taste

  2 to 4 tablespoons melted beef drippings or butter

  2 tablespoons butter, for frying cakes

  1 cup leftover mashed potatoes, at room temperature

  In a mixing bowl, blend together beef, breadcrumbs, onion, parsley, pickle relish, bacon, salt, and pepper. Add enough melted beef drippings or butter to moisten and hold the mixture together. Form into 4 cakes. Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a medium frying pan over medium heat and brown the cakes on one side. Carefully turn and top with mashed potatoes. Lower heat, cover the pan, and cook until browned on other side and the potatoes are warmed through, about 5 to 10 minutes.

  Makes 4 meat cakes, to serve 4

  ADAPTED FROM “BEEF CAKES,” MISS ELIZA LESLIE, MISS LESLIE’S DIRECTIONS FOR COOKERY IN ITS VARIOUS BRANCHES, 1845.

  DECEMBER SAUSAGES

  Late fall and early winter were typically the time when farmers’ hogs that had been roaming free in the woods, or city dwellers’ animals that had had the run of the town streets, were herded to the butchery. Some of the meat was smoked, some was pickled in barrels with salt brine, and a bit of it was eaten fresh. This uncured “December sausage” is highly spiced with just black pepper and dry sage. Cook the patties slowly and enjoy the delicious aroma. Prepare them within a day of making the meat, or freeze. The original recipe called for a 50:50 ratio of fat to lean ground pork. It also called for 2 tablespoons of salt. The adapted quantities provide much of the flavor of the original but are a bit healthier.

  3 tablespoons ground sage

  1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

  1 tablespoon salt

  2 ½ pounds ground pork (75 percent lean/25 percent fat)

  Combine the seasonings and mix thoroughly into the pork. Form into small patties and cook slowly in a skillet, or on a barbecue grill, until browned on both sides and cooked to an internal temperature of 160°F, as measured by an instant-read meat thermometer. As they cook, the sausages will release a lot of fat, so if you are cooking on a grill, take care that the dripping fat does not catch fire. You could also stuff this mixture into casings and make link sausage if you prefer.

  TIP FOR SUCCESS: One easy way to mix the spices into the meat is to cover your work surface with foil or plastic wrap. Pat the ground pork out into a rectangle about ½ inch thick. Sprinkle the mixed seasonings evenly over the pork. Slice off 1-inch strips and mix with your hands until the spices are evenly distributed. When all the sections have been mixed, combine them into a single large mixture.

  Makes about 2 dozen small patties, to serve 6 to 8

  ADAPTED FROM “SAUSAGE,” PRAIRIE FARMER, DECEMBER 1859.

  CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE

  Corning was primarily a meat-preservation technique. Leading Lincoln-era cookbook authors Sarah Rutledge, Mary Randolph, Eliza Leslie, and others present directions for keeping beef by rubbing it well with salt and putting it in a cool place. Some of the recipes call for the addition of saltpeter or molasses. When it was time to cook the meat, the goal was to remove as much of the saltiness as possible by slowly simmering it in a lot of water.

  1 3- to 4-pound corned beef round or brisket

  1 medium head green cabbage

  Remove the beef from the package and rinse well. Do not use the seasoning packet if one is enclosed. Put the beef in a large, heavy stewpot and cover with at least 6 inches of cold water. Cook over medium heat until the liquid just comes to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, skimming off any foam that rises to the top. Cook until the meat is fork tender, about 30 to 45 minutes per pound. About a half hour before the beef is finished, cut the cabbage into 8 wedges. Arrange the wedges around the top of the simmering beef, cover with a lid, and continue simmering until the cabbage is tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. To serve, let the beef stand in a platter, covered to keep warm, for about 10 minutes. Then slice across the grain into very thin pieces.

  Makes 3 to 4 servings per pound of meat

  RE-CREATED FROM PERIOD SOURCES.

  WHITE FRICASSEE OF CHICKEN

  Period cookbooks offered recipes for two kinds of chicken fricassee. For the “brown” fricassee version, the cook fries the chicken first and then adds the cream sauce. I think this “white” version, where the chicken is seasoned and simmered in cream or milk, is more like the comforting home cooking Mary knew would tempt Abraham’s appetite. Some recipes call for adding a strip of lemon peel or mushrooms to the simmering sauce. This delicious recipe, adapted from the cookbook Mary Lincoln owned, is simply chicken, cream, and a few seasonings.

  1 whole chicken, 3–4 pounds

  ⅛ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

  ¼ teaspoon ground mace

  2 teaspoons fresh marjoram or ½ teaspoon dry leaves

  1 ½ cups cream, half-and-half, or milkr />
  3 tablespoons butter

  3 tablespoons flour

  ¼ cup thinly sliced ham, optional

  Remove the skin from the chicken and discard. Cut the chicken into 8 pieces roughly the same size. Cut each leg joint to separate into thigh and drumstick pieces. Working with the knife close to the ribcage on the first side, cut breast and wing in 1 piece from the ribcage. Slice the breast into 2 pieces, leaving some breast meat attached to the wing end so the portions are of roughly equal size. Repeat with the other side.

  Combine the seasonings and sprinkle on the meat. This is a flavorful mix; you may want to use only half, reserving the rest for another time, or to incorporate into the sauce. Place the chicken pieces in a large frying pan with a lid. Pour the cream, milk, or mixture of both over the chicken, lifting the pieces to make sure it flows under the chicken as well.

  Cook over medium heat until the liquid begins to bubble, then lower the heat and cover. Simmer until the chicken is fork tender, about 30 minutes. Remove the chicken to a platter and keep warm. Mash the butter and flour together with a fork and add, bit by bit, to the pan liquids. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until this sauce thickens. Return the chicken to the sauce. Place thinly sliced ham around the edges of the platter, if desired.

  Serve with biscuits. The biscuits here are particularly delicious.

  TIP FOR SUCCESS: I find using all cream makes for an overly rich sauce. I usually mix a cup of cream with skim milk, but any combination will work.