OLD LINE PLATE - COOKING / MARYLAND / HISTORY

Russian Easter Ham, Paul Czerkovich

May 3, 2024May 4, 2024

“You don’t cry when someone dies,” Elsie Czerkovich told the Baltimore Sun in April 1974. “You rejoice because he is going to heaven to live with the Lord.”

It was the day after Easter, and Czerkovich was gathering with other worshipers from the congregation of the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church for a picnic. Women sold raffle tickets. Children played baseball. Families waited for the priest to bless the dead.

Czerkovich sat at the picnic with her 80-year-old father, Sedor Romanuk. She explained to the journalist, J.S. Bainbridge, Jr., that her father had come to Baltimore intending to make money to bring back to Russia. Instead, he had stayed.

Elsie Romanuk married Paul Czerkovich sometime between 1947 and 1950. Paul’s own parents’ countries of origin on censuses alternate between Russia, Ukraine, and Austria, demonstrating how meaningless borders can be.

Paul Czerkovich identified firmly as Russian, as evidenced by his heavy involvement in the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church, as well as his appearances in local newspapers commenting on matters of Russian culture – particularly food. In a 2000 article about the Russian Festival at Holy Trinity church, Paul said that his father had been an officer in the Russian Imperial Army, and that Paul and Elsie had both attended Holy Trinity since they were children.

Zucchini Hors D’oeuvres, Nellie Travers

April 20, 2024April 21, 2024

a slice of zucchini hors d'oruvres on a plate

William Earl Travers was just one on a list of names printed in the Evening Sun on June 20, 1945. Two killed; 18 wounded; 2 missing.

21-year-old Travers was one of the two missing. Just two years earlier, the Wilmington Delaware News-Journal had reported on his engagement to Naomi Louise Roe. “The couple will live in Denton,” read the announcement.

“I felt I was fortunate to lose only one” son, Nellie Travers told the Eastern Star-Democrat in 1995. The lifelong farmer had sent four sons to World War II. While she was glad to have three of them return, the loss of William stayed with her through the years. And so, fifty years later, at age 93, Nellie Travers told the Star-Democrat she still felt the pain of William’s death. She also felt pride that her sons had served.

Eastern Sho’ Bar-B-Q Chicken a.k.a. Delmarva Barbecued Chicken

April 10, 2024April 19, 2024

There is only one thing that excites me more than finding an old cookbook that I didn’t know about, and that’s finding a local dish that I didn’t know was local.

When Matthew Korfhage wrote to me last summer to ask about Delmarva Barbecued Chicken I was confused. We have a barbecue tradition in Maryland other than pit beef? Don’t organizations everywhere raise funds by selling chicken by the side of the road?

Maybe they do, but on the Eastern Shore, the chicken in question is a little bit different.

With a sauce made from vinegar, oil, poultry seasoning, and the strange addition of an egg, this “barbecue sauce” is nothing like the dozens of ketchup-based personal barbecue sauce recipes found in my database.

Korfhage’s email inspired me to take a closer look at those recipes. It wasn’t long until I found exactly what I was looking for.

In none other than Maryland First Lady Helen Avalynne Tawes’ 1964 cookbook, “My Favorite Maryland Recipes” is a recipe for “Eastern Sho’ Bar-B-Q Chicken.” Later local cookbooks like “What Is Cooking On Party Line” and cookbooks from local fire departments had similar recipes. The style of chicken is particularly associated with volunteer fire departments, for which the roadside sales are a big money-maker.

Ham-Lettuce Mixture, Dodie Rupprecht

March 31, 2024April 6, 2024

“Ham-Lettuce Mixture”: the awkward title caught my eye. The recipe opened with this: “A hearty country dinner, fit for guests or family. A good conversation menu!” I thought the recipe was so odd, I had to make it immediately. I invited friends over for dinner. I told them what I was making. My friends politely declined.

In practice, “Ham-Lettuce Mixture” is basically a warm salad, packed with hearty eggs and potatoes and topped in a sweet-and-tangy cooked dressing. It was just fine! Tasty even.

The recipe appears in the 1969 “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread,” a hefty 350-page cookbook compiled by St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hagerstown.

The recipe’s author, Dodie Rupprecht, included lots of commentary in her recipe. “To serve, let each one help himself,” to helpings of ham, eggs, lettuce, onion, potatoes, and gravy. “Heap it on a dinner plate, and cut it all up finely (this is the true country spirit),” she wrote. “If you have enough small platters for each guest, this is an ideal way to eat lettuce mixture.”

I ignored this last bit and cut the items up in advance. Sorry, Dodie.

I believe “Dodie” Rupprecht to be Dorothy Eleanor Rupprecht, born in Baltimore in 1909.

Slippery Pot Pie, Shirley Fout Miller

March 22, 2024March 23, 2024

“Shirley Fout Miller was a walking medical miracle.”

So opens her 2012 obituary in the Hagerstown Herald-Mail. “She contracted tuberculosis at age 12 from her mother… Shirley was not expected to live more than a few months.”

As an adult, she twice survived breast cancer and tuberculosis resurgence. Her daughter Holly Miller said, “She’s been cheating death for 75 years.”

Shirley spent many years being ill. Unable to participate in a lot of typical childhood and teenage activities, she turned to another outlet: art.

Shirley Fout Miller may not be a household name, but she left an admirable body of artwork celebrating regional and historic sites, including a calendar of sketches of Colonial Williamsburg, and prints of local sights in her hometown of Hagerstown.

*Shirley Fout Miller artwork of the Governor’s Palace in Colonial Williamsburg*

Miller’s obituary portrays a colorful and vivacious character. “She wanted to live in the kind of society of Edith Wharton and Jane Eyre,” Miller’s partner said.

“My mother was the queen of entertaining,” Shirley’s daughter Holly recalled. The obituary declared Miller’s life to have been filled with “style, entertaining and Chardonnay,” and invitations for guests to dine at a “beautiful table set with china, silver, flowers, and hand-painted place-cards.”

Shirley’s oldest son Barrick Miller said “She had such a zest for life. It came from the sanatorium, being a bystander in life for more than a decade. She had to figure out how to use this life that she didn’t expect to have.”

I had to figure out how to use some beef stock I didn’t expect to have, and I thought it a good opportunity to make a Pennsylvania-Dutch-influenced favorite, Slippery Pot Pie.

Many churches in the Hagerstown area make the dish as a fundraiser. A friend of mine who grew up there remembers it being served in the school cafeteria.

Despite the name, Slippery Pot Pie is not served in a crust. It is instead a variation on Slippery Dumplings, Chicken n’ Dumplings, or “Slick” Dumplings. Dumplings rolled out and cooked in a stew broth help to spread the ingredients further, creating a perfect hearty meal for a chilly evening.

Slippery Pot Pie is comfort food. I did not grow up eating this and yet I was somehow comforted by the feeling of biting into a dumpling, the rich gravy flavor, and the tender meat and veggies.

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