Appetite for America

by Stephen Fried

  GUACAMOLE MONTEREY

  Mash one avocado, add one tomato, chopped fine, one-half cup cottage or cream cheese, two tablespoons chopped green onions, one tablespoon lemon juice, one-half tablespoon chopped chives, one-half tablespoon salt, dash of pepper, dash of Worcestershire. Mix thoroughly and chill. Serve on lettuce with peeled, chilled tomato wedge or use as dunk mixture.

  STUFFED ONIONS

  Parboil in salt water for twenty minutes some large white onions; drain and let cool. Take out the inner parts of the onions with a tablespoon or large vegetable scoop. Add to these two handfuls of bread crumbs and two of mushrooms. Chop the whole fine, put it in a saucepan with a ladleful of drawn butter and tomatoes chopped fine, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix well. Stuff the onions, then put them in a flat saucepan and sprinkle with bread crumbs and a little butter. Bake for about half an hour until a light brown color. (This was a favorite recipe of Chef Geyer, who cooked for the Coyote Special.)

  RISOTTO PIEMONTAISE

  Sauté one small onion, chopped fine, in butter to a golden brown. Add one cup uncooked rice and continue heating until rice is browned lightly, about ten minutes, stirring constantly. Add about one-half teaspoon salt, and two-and-a-half cups of boiling chicken broth, cover, reduce heat to low and cook slowly for eighteen to twenty minutes or until rice is tender and excess liquid has evaporated. Serve hot, topped or mixed with grated Parmesan cheese. (This is an Americanized version of the classic Italian dish from chefs at Los Angeles Union Station—and perhaps a precursor of Rice-A-Roni.)

  CHILI SAUCE

  Take ten ounces of dry red chili, free from seeds and veins. Set in the oven for five minutes to make them crisp, being careful not to burn them. Soak in plenty of water for two hours, drain and put them on the stove, with one sliced onion, one clove crushed garlic, two ounces of sugar, a little salt and one quart of water. Let boil fifteen minutes. Dissolve about a tablespoonful of cornstarch in a little water, add it to the boiling chili and strain until every particle of pulp is forced out of the chili. Mix well and season to taste. The foregoing is a Mexican dish, but the average American prefers a somewhat milder sauce, which can be produced by one quart or more of tomatoes instead of water.

  DESSERT

  …

  BAKED APPLE

  If the skin is thin and of a deep red color it is not necessary to pare the apple, but the core at all times should be carefully removed, especially every bit of the lining of the seed cells. The apples should be baked in granite or earthen vessels—never in tin, as tin gives them an unpleasant flavor and dingy color. Fill the core cavities with sugar, heaped or scant according to the tartness of the apples; add also a few grains of salt and sufficient water to half cover the apples. Bake in a quick oven and baste frequently.

  HOT STRAWBERRY SUNDAE

  Marinate one pint of strawberries, cut in half, in four tablespoons Jamaican rum for one hour. Bring three-quarters of a cup of strained honey, four tablespoons of lemon juice and the rind of one orange, cut into strips to boil; remove orange rind and combine flavored honey with strawberries. Serve over vanilla ice cream immediately. (Inspired by a sundae that a Harvey restaurant manager had at the Chicago world’s fair—which combined hot maple syrup and strawberries—this became the favorite dessert at Kansas City Union Station.)

  ECONOMICAL LAYER CAKE

  Put into the mixing bowl one cupful of flour, one cupful of sugar, a pinch of salt, one level teaspoonful of baking powder. Mix well together, dry. Melt in the measuring cup a piece of butter the size of an English walnut; break into this an egg (without beating) and fill the cup with milk. Pour into the mixing bowl and beat all together rapidly for a minute. Flavor to suit taste and bake in a hot oven. With one-quarter the amount of sugar it makes fine muffins or gems, can be used for steam batter pudding, or cottage pudding, and, with the addition of nuts, raisins and spice, makes delicious “hermits.” (This penny-wise recipe came from “an experienced and economical housewife” whose husband was “in the Harvey Service.”)

  PLUM PUDDING WITH BRANDY SAUCE

  Mix one pound of raisins, one pound of currants, one pound of chopped suet, one pound of grated bread, one-half pound of flour, one-half pound of “C” sugar, one ounce of candied citron, one ounce of candied lemon peel, one ounce of blanched almonds, chopped fine, three grated nutmegs, five eggs, a little salt, and the rind and juice of one lemon. Mix with sweet cream until a spoon will stand up in the middle. Boil five or six hours. Add two wine glasses of brandy, if desired, and serve with brandy sauce. (This dish was served on the inaugural run of the Fred Harvey–George Pullman dining car.)

  BUTTERSCOTCH PIE CHANTILLY

  Boil one pound of sugar with a little water until brown and add four ounces sweet butter. In the meantime heat two quarts of milk in double boiler, add caramelized sugar and bind with fifteen egg yolks combined with four ounces corn starch. Whisk with egg whip and make a smooth cream. Fill into baked pie crusts and let cool. Garnish with vanilla flavored, sweetened whipped cream, using pastry bag with star tube.

  NEW ENGLAND PUMPKIN PUDDING

  Mix one pint cream, six ounces melted butter, ten eggs and one-half pound sugar together. Add three pounds pumpkin pulp, one-half teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg. Fill in buttered pudding mold, place in bain-marie and bake in oven for about thirty to forty minutes. Unmold and serve with lemon sauce.

  OATMEAL COOKIES

  Two cupfuls granulated sugar; one and one-third cupfuls butter, four eggs: Stir these until light and creamy. With four cupfuls of sifted pastry flour, mix one and one-third teaspoonfuls soda, two teaspoonfuls cinnamon. Stir into butter, sugar and egg; then add four cupfuls of rolled oats (not cooked), two cupfuls shredded raisins and two cupfuls chopped nuts. Mix well; drop into tins and bake in a slow oven.

  RICH RAISIN CUP CAKES

  Put together and boil for a few minutes—two cupfuls of seeded raisins and two cupfuls of water, one and one-half cups of sugar and two teaspoonfuls of shortening, allow to cool then add one teaspoonful of cinnamon, one-half teaspoonful of nutmeg, one quarter teaspoonful of cloves, one teaspoonful of soda, one-half teaspoonful of baking powder, one cup of chopped nuts and one cupful of flour. Drop the mixture into cup cake pans one tablespoonful to each tin. This makes two dozen cup cakes or one large loaf cake if desired.

  BRANDY FLIP PIE

  In a small bowl, pour one tablespoon unflavored gelatin over cold water and let stand five minutes to soften. In double boiler over slow-boiling water, combine four egg yolks, lightly beaten, one-half cup sugar, and scalded milk. Cook until mixture coats spoon, then remove from heat. Add softened gelatin and stir until dissolved. Chill in refrigerator until mixture is slightly thickened. Meanwhile, beat egg whites stiff with one tablespoon sugar, nutmeg, and brandy. In a large mixing bowl, gently fold egg-white mixture into chilled mixture and pour into cooled, baked pie shell. Return to refrigerator and chill until firm. Before serving, top with one pint whipped cream and garnish with chocolate curls. Shave chocolate curls from one pint slightly warmed bitter or semi-sweet chocolate, using the blade of a potato peeler.

  FRENCH APPLE PIE WITH NUTMEG SAUCE

  Pare and slice eight cups tart apples and place in the saucepan with one-half cup water to cover. Bring to a boil and cook until tender, about five minutes. Add one-half cup sugar, mixing gently to avoid damaging apples. Using slotted spoon, arrange apples in pie tin lined with pastry. In a small bowl, stir to mix one cup graham cracker crumbs, one-half cup flour, and one-half cup sugar. Add one-third cup butter and a few drops vanilla and stir thoroughly with a fork until mixture has a coarse, crumbly texture. Sprinkle the graham cracker topping evenly over apples. Place in oven preheated to four-hundred-fifty degrees for ten minutes, then reduce temperature to three-fifty degrees and bake for thirty minutes, or until pastry turns light brown. Nutmeg sauce: In small saucepan, beat one egg yolk, one-half cup sugar, and one cup milk together well. Heat to just boiling and remove from heat immediately. Add one teaspoon n
utmeg and stir thoroughly. (This classic eating house comfort-food dish was tarted up by the head Fred Harvey baker at Los Angeles Union Station.)

  LA FONDA PUDDING

  Beat three egg yolks until thick and lemon-colored; gradually add one cup sugar, beating constantly. Fold in one cup finely crushed graham crackers, one-half cup chopped nuts, one teaspoon baking powder, one-eighth teaspoon salt, and one-half teaspoon vanilla. Fold in three egg whites, stiffly beaten. Bake in a buttered eight-by-eight-by-two-inch pan in moderate oven (three-hundred-fifty degrees) for forty-five minutes. Cool in pan for ten minutes. Remove from pan. Cut in squares and serve topped with whipped cream and extra chopped walnuts if desired.

  ALMOND SOUFFLÉ PUDDING

  Boil one quart milk and four ounces butter, add four ounces flour and stir on fire until dry. Remove and add ten egg yolks, one by one, beating with wooden spoon and mix in four ounces finely chopped or ground almonds. Whip ten egg whites real stiff, add sugar and combine with rest of ingredients. Fill in buttered pudding molds and bake in bain-marie for about twenty-five to thirty minutes. Serve with Sabayon or vanilla sauce. Vanilla sauce: Melt three-quarters cup butter; blend three tablespoons cornstarch and one and a half cups sugar. Add three cups boiling water, stirring constantly, and cook until thickened. Add three teaspoons vanilla just before serving.

  CHOCOLATE PUFFS

  Boil together one cupful of flour, one cupful of water and half a cupful of butter. Remove from fire and beat in an ounce of melted chocolate and (one at a time) three eggs. Bake in a gem pan, and when done cut off the top and put into each cake a teaspoonful of strawberry preserves. Cover with whipped cream, sweetened and flavored.

  APPENDIX III

  FRED WAS HERE: A MASTER LIST OF FRED HARVEY LOCATIONS

  A WORKING MASTER LIST OF ALL FRED HARVEY OPERATIONS from 1875 to 1948 (based on company records, although there were so many Harvey operations that even the company records don’t agree on where they all were and when they opened and closed). Boldface means building still exists; bold italics means Harvey spaces restored, being restored, or still functioning; L = Lunchroom, D = Dining Room, N = Newsstand, H=Hotel, which just means some kind of lodging was available, anything from modest guest rooms to full hotel service—names and opening dates for more modern and noteworthy hotels are in the Notes; all locations ATSF except: * = St. Louis & San Francisco Railway, # = Kansas Pacific Railroad, @ = Southern Pacific Railroad (? = date in dispute or opening and/or closing year not verifiable with known Fred Harvey or ATSF archival materials).

  Sources: Fred Harvey corporate files, Heard Museum; Fred Harvey year-end P and L volumes, Jere Krakow Collection; James David Henderson, “Meals by Fred Harvey;” Harvey House Cookbook, Michael McMillan; Fred Harvey Yahoo! group.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & OUTSHOUTS

  “Some day a book will be devoted to a detailed description of the Harvey system, its hotel, dining room, and the extraordinary features of a management which allows a traveler to dine on brook trout in the middle of the desert, and on the rarest fruits in vast reaches of the country where nothing is raised but cactus and sage brush. [It is] worthy of the study of the artist, the epicure, the student of Indian life, and of the many men in the United States who lay claim to the title of ‘hotel manager.’”

  —Phoenix Republican, July 1911

  This book has been an adventure in learning a new form of nonfiction writing—an emerging genre I think of as “history buffed,” which dares journalists to bring their investigative and storytelling skills to tales once told only by academics. It has also been an adventure in rediscovering America—my version of a life-changing road trip, across the nation and across time. I thank everyone who got sucked into the vortex of this project over the past five years, and all who assisted with the journey.

  My addiction to all things Southwestern began in 1991, when my wife, Diane, and I visited Santa Fe for the first time—thanks to our friend, trauma psychiatrist Sandy Bloom, who had just bought a perfect little cabin in the mountains outside of Pecos. I was hooked on New Mexico’s big sky the moment we pulled onto the highway outside Albuquerque airport in our very white rented SUV. But I wasn’t exposed to the Fred Harvey story until we got back to Philadelphia—and our friends Kim and Tom Moon insisted that the next time we went west, we see the Grand Canyon from the vantage point of a room at El Tovar. We could only get a room there for one night in the fall of 1993, but those twenty-four hours made a big impact—a rush of Americana and archaeological rapture, topped off when I bought Diane a set of toy six-guns in the lobby gift shop (the pictures I took of her twirling them with delight still hang in my office). By the time we had finished driving the five hundred sun-drenched miles from the canyon to Sandy’s cabin (stopping at the Fred Harvey souvenir shop at Painted Desert), I had decided to start “saving string” (as editors say) on a project concerning Fred Harvey and the West.

  I saved string for ten years, until a life-changing lunch in early 2004 with my longtime editor at Bantam, Ann Harris. She asked me what books I planned to write during my career, besides the one I was then researching. And after hearing me talk about Fred, she dispatched me to write her a proposal for an epic historical biography about all things Harvey. I’ve been researching, writing, and “Frediting” ever since.

  I was very fortunate in the earliest phases of this book to receive the full cooperation of all the branches of the Harvey family—in Boston, Chicago, and Santa Fe—each of which is the keeper of one part of the legacy. I’m especially indebted to Stewart Harvey Jr., who was the family member most immersed in Harvey history and most interested in passing on the whole story—and not just the PR-department legend. Stewart and I have had an epic email correspondence over the past five years.

  Daggett Harvey Jr. and his wife, Ellie, have also been extraordinarily kind, hospitable (they let me work in their Chicago carriage house), and trusting, since they allowed me to borrow most of their priceless Harvey artifacts (and the files of Daggett’s father, the Harvey historian of his generation). Joy Harvey and her late husband, Byron “Ronny” Harvey III—with whom I corresponded often, and who I interviewed once, at length, before his death in 2005—were also very generous with their time and insights. So was Ronny’s sister, Helen Harvey Mills, who shared her extraordinary and lovingly curated collection of family photos. Later in the book, I got to know Kay Harvey (the widow of Stewart’s brother Fred) in Santa Fe; she shared her collection and insights, and then made a generous gift to the new Museum of New Mexico so it could one day house and care for all the disparate collections. And my wife and I spent one evening of fine-wining and revelry in San Diego with Harvey cousin Victoria Vanderbilt after a Harvey Girl reunion, where we learned that the Harveys know how to party.

  I was also helped by David Benjamin’s living relatives in Kansas City, Ann Kander and Judge Howard Sachs, who shared valuable family information, documents, and photos. And at the very end of my journey I tracked down, in England, Elizabeth Drage Pettifer, who shared recollections of the last days of Betty and Freddy Harvey. (Elizabeth still has some clothes from Betty’s last shopping spree, which were delivered to her home after the crash.)

  I owe a huge thanks to Dr. Jere Krakow, the recently retired director of trails for the National Park Service, who in his previous life as a historian had planned to write a corporate history of Fred Harvey, and during his research was able to save many original corporate documents that otherwise would have been thrown out. If he had only saved them, I and other researchers would already owe him a debt of gratitude. But, when I started this project, he also allowed me to come to Santa Fe and borrow not only materials he had saved, but his own actual research files. His generosity and sense of academic camaraderie know no bounds, and I owe him at least another dinner at the Pink Adobe for his help with this project, and his patience with me.

  Like many authors interested in the Harvey saga, I was also given extraordinary assistance by Brenda Thowe, the queen of the Harvey Girls (and,
in her day job, a personnel specialist with the Santa Fe, now the BNSF, railroad). Brenda keeps track of all the nation’s living Harvey Girls, and also has an amazing collection of files from the railroad, which she copied for me and then brought to Philadelphia. Her interest in this book, and the subject, is unflagging.

  My special thanks to those who answered my truly endless queries at the major repositories of all things Harvey and Santa Fe: Karen Underhill, Bee Valvo, Richard David Quartaroli, and the amazing research staff at Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library; Lin Fredericksen, Nancy Sherbert, and so many others at the Kansas State Historical Society; Mario Nick Kliamades and LaRee Bates at the Heard Museum; Michael Quinn and Colleen Hyde of the NPS archive at Grand Canyon; Mary Beveridge at the Kansas City Public Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections; Roger Myers, Veronica Reyes, and Erika Castaño, University of Arizona Special Collections; the staff of the Leavenworth County Historical Society (including curator Joanie Kocab and former director Mark Bureman); the staff of the Old Trails Museum in Winslow, Arizona (especially former director Janice Griffith); Sandie Olson at the Waynoka, Oklahoma, Historical Society; Wanda Landrey, Beaumont, Texas, historian who shared her wonderful collection of old Harvey recipes; Jim Sherer and Dave Webb at the Kansas Heritage Society in Dodge City; Tomas Jaehn and Daniel Kosharek at the Chavez Library in Santa Fe; Roy Zarucchi and Carolyn Page, who shared their research on Montezuma doctor William Page; David Phillips, keeper (and master printer) of all the greatest photographs of Leavenworth and the Old West; the late Russell Crump, an eccentric trainiac who lived with his amazing Santa Fe railroad collection; Dennis Northcott of the Missouri Historical Society; Tammy Dicke, assistant director of the Kearny County Library; Kelli Proehl, Emporia Public Library; Karen Beal in alumni relations at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; Cynthia R. Miller, curator of visual culture, the Henry Ford museum; Matthew Fernandez, news researcher at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Alexandra Shadid, graduate research assistant, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries; Ann Barton, Texas Women’s College Cookbook Collection; Linda Gegick, museum administrator, City of Las Vegas Museum and Rough Rider Memorial Collection; the folks from the Kansas City legal community who helped me piece together the Harvey/Drage lawsuit (Stephanie Murphy and Stephen Mitchell at Lathrop, Gage; Frank Sebree II, Sam Sawyer Jr.); Mary Goodman and her daughter Wendy Waldock; Cambria County Library; Ori Siegel for his help with New York Central Railroad history; staff of the New Mexico State Library; Miranda Lewis, secretary at the vestry of St. Marylebone’s church in London; Maurine McMillan at the Belen Harvey House museum.