Makes 10 to 12 servings
ADAPTED FROM “FILET OF BEEF à LA NAPOLITAINE,” CHARLES ELMé FRANCATELLI, THE COOK’S GUIDE, AND HOUSEKEEPER’S & BUTLER’S ASSISTANT, 1857.
PEAS À LA FRANÇAISE
This easy French-inspired dish is the essence of spring. Of course, the original recipe used fresh peas and new green onions pulled from the garden. You could use them as well; the initial cooking time will be longer and you may need to add a bit of water along with the butter so that they don’t stick to the pan.
2 ½ pounds fresh peas, shelled, or 14 ounces frozen peas
2 tablespoons butter
1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced including about half of the green stem
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
½ cup water
1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature, plus more to thicken sauce
1 tablespoon flour
For fresh peas, cook in boiling salted water until just tender, about 2 to 10 minutes; drain. For frozen peas, thaw slightly. Over medium heat, melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the peas, onions, and parsley. Stir from time to time, until the peas are warmed through and the onions begin to look soft. Add the water and stir to blend. While the water is coming up to a boil, mash the butter into the flour. Then drop bits of it into the simmering liquid. You may only need about half of this flour mixture. Stir until the mixture thickens slightly into a thin sauce.
Makes 4 to 6 servings
ADAPTED FROM “PEAS à LA FRANÇAISE,” CHARLES ELMé FRANCATELLI, THE COOK’S GUIDE, AND HOUSEKEEPER’S & BUTLER’S ASSISTANT, 1857.
CRANBERRY PIE
This is a wonderful pie. Refreshing, tangy, and rich, a small slice is all you need.
2 cups fresh cranberries
2 cups sugar
¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon water
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Double-Crust Pie Dough
Whipped cream or ice cream, to serve
Chop the cranberries in a food processor until about ¼-inch dice. Put into a saucepan and add the sugar and flour. Stir well, then add 1 tablespoon water. Begin cooking over low heat, stirring constantly until the sugar and flour are dissolved into the released cranberry juices. Continue cooking until the mixture is very thick, about 15 minutes. Cool and stir in the vanilla.
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Roll out one circle of pie dough and line an 8-inch pie plate. Roll the second circle of dough and cut into ¾-inch strips to weave into a lattice. Pour cooled cranberry filling into the lined pie plate. Top with the second lattice crust. Bake for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 350°F and continue baking until the juices bubble up and the crust is light brown, about another 30 minutes. Cut into thin pieces and serve with whipped cream or ice cream.
Makes one 8-inch pie, to serve 12
ADAPTED FROM PERIOD SOURCES.
CHRISTMAS SHORTBREAD COOKIES
Thanks to the melted butter in the ingredient list, this is one of the easiest shortbread cookies to make. The brandy lends a sophisticated flavor. You’ll find yourself making these cookies frequently to enjoy and give as gifts.
BRANDY-SOAKED SHORTBREAD CRUMBS: If you end up with extra shortbreads, try soaking them in a bit more brandy. Give them a twirl in the food processor to create brandy-soaked shortbread crumbs, perfect for making a quick apple crisp or sprinkling on top of ice cream.
¼ teaspoon each ground cinnamon, nutmeg, mace
1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (up to ½ cup more may be needed)
½ cup sugar
4 tablespoons (½ stick) salted butter, melted
¼ cup brandy
⅓ cup dried Zante currants, chopped
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet. Make a mixed spice blend with the cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace and set aside. In a mixing bowl combine the flour and sugar. Measure out ¼ teaspoon of the mixed spice and add to the flour and sugar. (Reserve the remaining spice blend for the next time you make the shortbread.) With a fork, stir in the melted butter and brandy. Add the currants. Knead with your hands until you have a smooth, non-sticky ball, adding more flour if needed. Divide the ball into four equal pieces. Pat each piece out into a circle about 5 inches in diameter and about ¼ inch thick. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Score into the traditional 6 pie-shaped wedges by pressing a sharp knife through the circle of dough. Bake until the shortbreads are just starting to turn golden and are firm to the touch, about 25 to 35 minutes.
Makes 2 dozen shortbread wedges
ADAPTED FROM “SCOTCH SHORTBREAD,” GODEY’S LADY’S BOOK, DECEMBER 1861.
SUMMER COTTAGE, SOLDIER’S BREAD
Washington was at its steamy, miasmal best as I sat in the back seat of the taxi taking me three miles from the Mall and toward the city’s northern boundary to the “Lincoln Cottage.” I was headed to President Lincoln’s summer retreat on the grounds of what was known during his time as the Soldiers’ Home, a hospital and residence for about 150 retired soldiers who didn’t have the means to care for themselves. Many were veterans of the War of 1812. In addition to the dormitory building, there were three three-story homes on the grounds that provided housing for the senior administrators and chief physician. Abraham Lincoln’s immediate predecessor, James Buchanan, was the first president to spend time in one of those houses and doubtless recommended it to the Lincolns. The Lincoln family spent the summers of 1862, ’63, and ’64 at the Soldiers’ Home, arriving sometime in early to mid-June and leaving in late October or November each year.
In the summer of 1862, the Lincoln family, especially Mary Lincoln, needed “quiet” and a measure of privacy. In February the seeming war normalcy was shattered. On February 5 the couple hosted an extraordinary reception. Mary Lincoln decided to break with tradition and have a very large, formal, and invitation-only event with a midnight supper instead of the usual season-long series of open-door levees and small state dinners. This event would have the best of both, and it also enabled her to celebrate the just-completed restoration and redecoration of the White House public rooms. The event began at nine o’clock in the evening. The Marine Band played as the Washington elite gathered wearing their finest attire, and the Lincolns received their guests in the East Room. The doors to the dining room opened at midnight and five hundred guests feasted upon “mounds of turkey, duck, ham, terrapin and pheasant” served with excellent champagne and other wines until three o’clock in the morning.
The reception was a huge success, but it was overshadowed by the illness of the Lincolns’ middle son, Willie. When he had become sick a week or so earlier, doctors thought he would recover. But his illness worsened. All during the party the Lincolns slipped upstairs to check on their fevered boy. Only days later Tad was also seriously ill with what scholars think was most probably typhoid fever. Willie died on February 20. Tad remained ill for weeks but slowly recovered.
The family moved out to the cottage in June. Mary wrote, “In the loss of our idolized boy, we naturally have suffered such intense grief, that a removal from the scene of our misery was found to be very necessary.” She took comfort in the place. “We are truly delighted with this retreat, the drives & walks around here are delightful, & each day brings its visitors.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has carefully restored the cottage where the Lincolns stayed. It opened as a historic site for the first time in 2008.
Holding my 1861 edition of Bohn’s Hand-Book of Washington securely in my hand, I carefully opened the back cover, gently unfolded the attached map, and traced the taxi’s journey up Georgia Avenue toward Rock Creek Church Road in Northwest Washington, D.C. In 1862 this was the Seventh Street Turnpike, the route Lincoln took morning and evening to and from the White House. Written before the war, Bohn describes “the drives leading to this retreat” as “among the most agreeable in the District.”
The heat-trapping sprawl of Washington accompanied me on my ride. It wasn’t
until we turned off onto Upshur Street that I could sense the peaceful possibilities. Seven short blocks later, we passed through the Eagle Gate and quickly into another world. After spending four hours on these quiet grounds, I considered that this place might, in fact, be the best spot to experience the Washington of the 1860s. The Soldiers’ Home continues to provide service to today’s veterans, although it is now known as the Armed Forces Retirement Home, but the open spaces, cooling breezes, and sweeping views of Lincoln’s time are still there. As with the Lincoln Boyhood Home in Indiana, the cottage and surroundings are just enough removed from traffic to allow visitors to travel back in time. Sitting on the steps, or under one of the mature trees, I could almost completely shut out the modern world and reflect on the images and stories of Lincoln that soldiers and others wrote for us to consider.
Even at its tourist-swamped worst, the Washington, D.C., we visit is refreshing compared to the summer city during the Civil War years. The Washington Monument stood unfinished like a broken, ancient Roman ruin. The old and small Capitol dome was being replaced with the larger, soaring dome. The great Mall between the two was an empty lawn, save for the newly constructed redbrick Smithsonian Institution, which housed “the various curiosities and collections brought home by the Exploring Expeditions.” Soldiers were camped everywhere.
Twenty hospitals were scattered about the city for the battle wounded, and reporter Noah Brooks likened the atmosphere throughout Washington to an “insidious enemy.” “This ill-drained, badly governed, ill-kept, and dirty city built upon a marsh and bordered by a stinking canal which is but an open sewer, will certainly be the scene of a deadly pestilence during the coming summer … [reeking] with garbage, offal and filth, heaps of which accumulate in back streets, lanes, door yards, and vacant lots.” He described the canal as filled to the top with debris and “offal from the sewers.” I thought about all the horses kicking up fetid, manure-contaminated dust with every stride and my eyes began to water.
The cottage was a good place for the president to escape the heat and disease-riddled air and to gain perspective among a small group of friends and callers. Yes, there were visitors—military, political, and social (both invited and surprise guests)—but Lincoln could sit out on the porch and play a game of checkers with Tad and then ask a soldier if “he would like a game.”
It was the perfect place to be during the summer. The staff loaded up cartloads of household goods and moved out of the city in the middle of June 1862 for the first season. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton’s family also occasionally occupied a cottage on the grounds. Lincoln and Stanton, who had replaced Secretary Cameron, sometimes breakfasted together before traveling down to town.
It is unclear how many White House or other household staff worked at the Soldiers’ Home cottage. There would have been some household help, including a valet of some kind. Lincoln mentioned Thomas Stackpole, a watchman, and Mary Ann Cuthbert, the housekeeper, in letters he wrote. We do know the staff included a cook. An African American cook, “Aunt” Mary Williams, as the soldiers called her, worked for the Lincolns the first summer. Soldiers guarding Lincoln at the cottage wrote home about her. Sergeant Charles Derickson described how she once gave him leftovers from Lincoln’s breakfast, calling him into the cottage and feeding him “off the very plate & fork & knife the President of the U.S. eats off!”
Another soldier’s letter suggests Mary Williams cooked for the Lincolns in the White House. In June 1863 Private Willard Cutter wrote, “Aunt left in March, and there is a white cook in her place. She is a nice good looking woman.” Cutter’s unit guarded President Lincoln both at the cottage and the White House, so he was in a position to know when she left service.
Lincoln kept up his work schedule at the cottage, rising early for a light breakfast and riding either on his horse or by carriage down to the White House, returning in late afternoon. On his thirty-minute commute, Lincoln passed marching troops, caravans of wounded soldiers, hospitals, and the “contraband camps,” where 4,200 runaway slaves lived under military protection. They were no longer slaves, as Emancipation was enacted in Washington, D.C., in April 1862, eight and a half months before Lincoln’s nationwide Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. They were, however, refugees with few resources. Lincoln may even have stopped on more than one occasion at one of the camps. In a postwar interview, one of the residents, Mary Dines, related that President and Mrs. Lincoln visited to hear a special musical performance of Negro spirituals. She also described how Lincoln stopped to “visit and talk” with the former slaves.
Nearly every morning and afternoon in the summer of 1863, Lincoln passed the home of poet Walt Whitman on the corner of Vermont and L Streets. The two took to nodding at each other as Lincoln passed. Whitman described Lincoln’s appearance on June 30, 1863, the day before the Battle of Gettysburg began. “He looks even more careworn than usual, his face with deep cut lines, seams, and his complexion gray through very dark skin—a curious looking man, very sad.”
On his daily journey, once Lincoln crossed Boundary Street (today Florida Avenue), which separated the City of Washington from unincorporated Washington County, he was in agricultural land, home to the farmers who trucked their goods into the city markets. Bohn describes the Center Market of Washington before the war as overflowing with goods from the farms of both Maryland and Virginia: beef and mutton, along with a variety of fruits and vegetables. Foodstuffs from the waterways and forest made their way to market, too—oysters, shad, rockfish, and other varieties from the Potomac; and wild venison, turkey, and other fowl. Without a blockade, food continued to flow into the nation’s capital. Markets and stores were well stocked, and a variety of foodstuffs filled tables from the White House to soldiers’ bivouacs.
During the first months that the Lincolns were in residence, the Soldiers’ Home grounds were unguarded, but by the end of the summer, General McClellan ordered Company K and Company D of the 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers to guard the president. They arrived on September 6, 1862. Mrs. Lincoln had also insisted upon a cavalry escort for the president to and from the White House.
On occasion Lincoln dismissed his escort, and instead of riding on horseback, used a driver for his carriage. Once he ordered the driver to take him, along with his secretary John Hay, to visit the Naval Observatory to look at the stars and moon through the newly installed telescope.
Noah Brooks reported on the president’s summer routine. Writing in July 1863, he noted that “Mr. Lincoln comes in early in the morning and returns about sunset, unless he has a press of business—which is often—when he sleeps at the White House and his ‘prog’ [meals] sent up from Willard’s [Hotel].”
For the rest of the year, we are fortunate to have two small descriptions that paint a clear picture of Lincoln’s White House routine during the winter. Brooks offered a view of the end of a typical day in the White House during the year: “The President dines at six o’clock and often invites an intimate friend to take potluck with him but he and his estimable wife are averse to dinner-giving or party-making, only deviating from their own wishes in such matters for the purpose of gratifying people who expect it of them.”
William Crook, one of Lincoln’s guards assigned by the District police, related what happened next in a typical evening. After dinner, Lincoln would leave the second-floor library, wrap himself up in a gray wool shawl, put on his top hat, and head to the War Department next door to the White House to get the latest telegraphed news from the war front. Lincoln and his guard slipped out of the basement and walked across the garden, into the building, and up to Secretary Stanton’s office on the second floor. After the telegraphs were read and the president and secretary of war met, Lincoln then walked back to the White House, and went to bed.
But in the summer there was the possibility of a brief escape from the war as Brooks and others reported on casual evening entertainments at the cottage. Here, Lincoln would be a gracious host at the dinner table and then
stand before the fireplace, reciting poetry or telling stories. On other occasions he treated drop-in visitors to readings from Shakespeare’s plays. Lincoln’s head-of-table generosity was the center of one woman’s recollection of a White House meal in 1864. Anna Byers-Jennings described Lincoln’s home-style manner: “Of all the informal affairs I have ever attended, it certainly took the lead.” She describes how she was seated at table at the right of the president. Mrs. Lincoln, Robert, and Tad were there along with two generals. When a dish was brought out to the table, President Lincoln “reached for it, handled the spoon like an ordinary farmer, saying to all in his reach: ‘Will you have some of this?’ dishing it into our plates liberally.”
Lincoln was in residence at the Soldiers’ Home cottage during the most critical months of his reelection campaign in the summer of 1864. The outcome was not certain. Not since Andrew Jackson in 1832 had a president been elected for a second term. The Democrats nominated General George McClellan on a “peace” ticket, reflecting popular dissatisfaction with the course of the war. At the cottage, Lincoln could meet with trusted advisors and the allies who would act as political surrogates influencing key constituencies.
Here, laughter could ring out from the cottage parlors. Hugh McCulloch, later to be Lincoln’s treasury secretary, described an October 1864 evening when Lincoln and a few friends gathered at the cottage following General Philip Sheridan’s victory in Winchester, Virginia, that effectively stopped the Confederate forces’ invasion of the north. Lincoln and Assistant Postmaster General Alexander Randall entertained a gathering of close friends with a two-hour contest “as to which could tell the best story and provoke the heartiest laughter.… The verdict of the listeners was that, while the stories were equally good, Mr. Lincoln had displayed the most humor and skill.”
Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen Page 25