In America, lemon pie adaptations eventually emerged where lemons were sliced like in an apple pie, and sometimes a top crust was added. But the most popular style eventually evolved into a pie of layers. The contrasting texture of a slightly crispy shell covering very sweet pillowy meringue balances the tart, thick, custardy lemon filling perfectly. The flaky pastry crust holds it all together.
How and why did Mrs. Goodfellow think to pair these flavors that are different and complementary at the same time? Cooks have been flavoring custards, puddings, and pies with lemons and other citrus fruits since medieval times. The acidic lemon was valued for both its flavor as well as its preservative effect, which made it a sought-after ingredient for many recipes. An expensive commodity, lemons would be preserved by drying or made into a liquid flavoring or essence like our baking extracts today.2
As many cooks know, adding lemon to a recipe brings out the flavors of the other ingredients and makes everything taste fresher and brighter. Think of how just a squeeze of lemon enhances the mild taste of flaky, white fish or jazzes up fresh-picked vegetables. Like salt, the lemon's balancing quality works in both savory and sweet dishes. Because lemons taste good with almost everything, they can be paired with herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables, meats, and so on, resulting in endless combinations of recipes.3 In baking, lemon's acid content sets it apart from other flavors. Although sour by itself, when paired with butter, sugar, and eggs it results in a product that tastes tangy and pleasantly astringent.4
Mrs. Goodfellow used this knowledge to her advantage, especially in her pastries and cakes. Her lemon pudding recipe says to sprinkle some white sugar over the top after baking. And since her lemon custard recipe calls for the yolks of ten eggs, it is likely that at some point she poured the custard into a piecrust and then cleverly whipped the whites with this sugar to create a meringue for the top, instead of letting them just go to waste. How pretty and tasty it must have been for those lucky enough to have the first taste of this new delicacy.
What is unclear is exactly when Mrs. Goodfellow first introduced lemon meringue pie to the public. The use of whisked egg whites in dishes can be traced to Renaissance cooks, but it wasn't until the seventeenth century that they perfected meringue. Although there are recipes for decorating cakes, tarts, and custards with sweetened and flavored egg whites from that time forward, adding meringue to a pudding (pie) doesn't seem to appear until the nineteenth century.
Using Eliza Leslie's cookbooks as a timeline of what Mrs. Goodfellow was teaching in her classroom, we can see that starting in 1827 with Leslie's earliest cookbook, a recipe for “Fine Custards” which requires topping them with an egg white “icing” after they are baked is included. In addition, the recipes in this book for “Rice Custards” and “Almond Custards” recommend embellishing the final product with a froth of stiff egg white (beaten with a few drops of lemon essence and a tiny bit of powdered loaf sugar). However, unlike the crisp layer that tops lemon meringue as we know it, the egg whites in these dishes were not cooked at all, and probably would have tasted more like foamy whipped cream.6
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Meringue is simply a mixture of stiffly beaten egg whites and sugar. European cooks first discovered in the sixteenth century that whisking egg whites with birch twigs (for the lack of a better utensil), created an appealing frothy mixture. They used this method to make what they called “snow,” a whipped dish combining the beaten egg whites with cream. The term meringue likely came to France from Germany, initially appearing in writing in 1691, although recipes for these combined ingredients had appeared earlier. Not long after, the word spread to England, showing up in print around 1706. It was eventually discovered that when meringue is baked at a low temperature (or even just left out in the air to dry), it hardens. In the seventeenth century this was often called “sugar puff,” which was sometimes flavored with caraway seeds, a tradition that continued to evolve with other flavorings, creating a large number of taste combinations. Today there are three distinct types of meringue: French, Italian, and Swiss, depending on the method used to mix in the sugar. For French (also called “ordinary”) meringue, dry sugar is beaten into whipped egg whites, whereas Italian meringue uses hot sugar syrup. Swiss meringue combines the egg whites and sugar at the beginning and then calls for them to be whipped over low heat.5
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In this same cookbook, Leslie's Queen Cake recipe also calls for a beaten egg white and sugar icing, flavored with rosewater or lemon essence. However in this case, the egg white topping would have been more like a true meringue, as she says to set the cakes in a warm place to dry after they are iced, “but not too near the fire, as that will cause the icing to crack.” She recommends icing them twice, spreading the mixture very thin the first time.7 This technique would be similar to drying them in an oven that has been turned off or set at a very low temperature, as we do today with meringues in order to achieve that familiar light, hardened texture.
Kisses were also featured in Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes and Sweetmeats. In this recipe the whites of four eggs are beaten until they stand alone, then a pound of powdered and sifted loaf sugar is added, one teaspoonful at a time, and finally twelve drops of lemon essence, all beaten together very hard. To form the cookies, the egg white mixture is spooned on top of small mounds of stiff currant jelly which have been spaced an equal distance apart on the bottom of a paper-lined baking tin. They are then set in a cool oven, and considered done when they are a pale yellow color, at which point they are taken out. After cooling briefly, the flat undersides are joined together, laid lightly on a sieve, and dried again in a cool oven, until the two bottoms are firmly stuck, creating a ball or oval shape.8
So even though the concept of meringue must have been part of Goodfellow's curriculum, the actual term doesn't show up in Leslie's cookbooks until the 1840 publication of Directions for Cookery, in Its Various Branches, when she lists a recipe for “A Charlotte Polonaise.” She says, “Have ready the whites of the six eggs whipped to a stiff froth, with which have been gradually mixed six ounces of powdered sugar, and twelve drops of oil of lemon. With a spoon heap this meringue (as the French call it) all over the pile of cake, and then sift powdered sugar over it. Set it in a very slow oven, till the outside becomes a light brown colour.”9
After this point, Leslie uses the word meringue more frequently in her cookbooks (sometimes interchangeably with icing), but lists no specific recipe for lemon meringue pie. The meringue-topped recipes featured in Leslie's cookbooks are initially paired with flavors other than lemon, such as almond, coconut, or apple, as in the recipe for Meringued Apples from The Lady's Receipt-Book: A Useful Companion for Large or Small Families (1847).
Leslie also makes the comment in this book: “Any very nice baked pudding will be improved by covering the surface with a meringue.” So by mid-century it appears that Eliza Leslie (presumably through Goodfellow's influence) was introducing the concept of puddings topped with meringue to the American people, including those with a lemon component in the filling or base.
This idea of baked puddings or crèmes iced with meringue increases through the next few decades. Lemon flavor continues to play an increasing role in the pairing, such as the crème meringue recipes found in the 1852 cookbook The Ladies' New Book of Cookery by Sarah Josepha Hale as well as an 1855 cookbook simply titled Cook Book by Debbie Coleman. (Coleman was possibly a Goodfellow student as her cookbook includes recipes for jumbles and cocoanut pudding attributed to Mrs. Goodfellow.) In place of lemon juice, crème meringue infuses a bit of lemon rind in cream in order to capture a lemon taste.10
Rice is also often added to these “meringued puddings,” most likely a Southern influence. The recipe for meringue rice pudding featured in Mrs. Putnam's Receipt Book (1867) includes “one teacup of rice boiled soft in milk; a pint of milk; a piece of butter the size of an egg; the yolks of five eggs and the rind of two lemons grated.”11
During this final transitional
stage, lemon meringue was sometimes called iced lemon pie, lemon cream pie, or lemon custard pie. In fact, lemon custard pie as made by Nancy Breedlove was a favorite of Abraham Lincoln. Mrs. Breedlove kept a hotel in Illinois in the mid-1800s, and Lincoln stayed there for weeks at a time when involved in court trials. He liked her lemon custard pie so much that he requested that she write out the recipe for him, and he told her years later that it was the favorite White House dessert.12
Lemon pie thrived in the South, where lemons became a favorite ingredient. In addition to the region's numerous port cities that would have received imported lemons (such as Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans), the citrus fruit was also successfully grown in Florida, close enough to transport to the southern states. One version that became a Southern specialty is lemon chess pie, basically a lemon meringue pie without the meringue. The term “chess” is a derivative of the word “cheese,” a reference to the custards and puddings preferred by the English and French in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which were created by heating milk until it curdled or turned into clabber, the first step in making cheese. Eggs were added, along with a flavoring such as orange, lemon, vanilla, brandy, or rosewater. Even when made without milk, the words “cheese” and “curd” referred to thickening eggs by heating them.13 As noted by Southern food expert Bill Neal, “lemon meringue pie has been around a long time in the South and most likely grew out of the vast repertoire of puddings, whose popularity pies eclipsed in the late nineteenth century.”14
By this point, lemon pie was much closer to what we are familiar with: the combination of a pastry undercrust, a lemon custard filling, and the lightly browned meringue “frosting.” But it wasn't really until the last few decades of the nineteenth century that lemon meringue pie as we know it fully entered into American food culture.
Despite these successes and the public's obvious adoration for this tasty treat, the high cost and limited sources for its ingredients kept it from becoming universally available. Mrs. Goodfellow's baked lemon pudding “was at one time a mark of great luxury in the high cookery of Philadelphia and New York, requiring as it did many fresh eggs, sweet-cream butter, and fresh lemons—and thus considerable expense.” In fact, vinegar pie became a substitute for lemon pie at some hotels and boardinghouses throughout the upper Midwest in the second half of the nineteenth century because it was expensive to transport lemons so far from coastal port cities. In this version, which could be called poor man's lemon meringue pie, the “lemon” is just a hint of grated zest, and the juice is actually vinegar. The resulting pie looked like lemon meringue, but did not taste like it.15
Once lemon meringue became more available and mainstream, its acceptance spread rapidly throughout the nation, with the American people developing a passion for the tasty dessert. In addition to Lincoln, President Calvin Coolidge was also known to favor a simple lemon custard pie. It became an American classic served at Boston's Parker House, and is often featured on Thanksgiving tables in California instead of the traditional pumpkin pie, as it better represents the local harvest.16
Recipes evolve and change with the times. Many factors can be involved in this process: ingredient availability, people's tastes, cooking methods, and equipment. This is exactly what happened with Goodfellow's lemon pudding as well as some of her other recipes, techniques, and philosophies, which were made available mostly through Eliza Leslie, but also through some of Goodfellow's other students, who copied and handed them down to future generations who in turn adapted them to suit their needs. These recipes credited to Mrs. Goodfellow can be found in any number of nineteenth-century manuscript cookbooks, by women who were presumably her students, or perhaps even friends or relatives of those who attended her classes.
Published cookbooks also contained recipes attributed to Mrs. Goodfellow by women other than Eliza Leslie, the most well-known being the previously mentioned Cookery as It Should Be, which was first available in 1853, and later reprinted in 1865 as Mrs. Goodfellow's Cookery as it Should Be. As noted earlier, the true author of this cookbook has never been identified. The author does emphasize some of Goodfellow's values, such as using only the best quality ingredients: “there is no economy in employing inferior butter in cooking, as good materials are often spoiled and rendered unpalatable, and in fact unwholesome, by bad butter and stale eggs,” she says in the “Preparations of Puddings” chapter. But her advice on quick rising agents is rather contradictory. In one sentence she describes the use of saleratus as an “injurious habit,” and then in the next she advocates that “a little best quality soda, in judicious hands is not hurtful.” She even has a recipe for a saleratus cake. And several of this book's recipes call for chemical leavens such as baking soda and cream of tartar.17
Although Eliza Leslie points out that Mrs. Goodfellow would never have used unnatural ingredients of this type, quite frankly Leslie herself included some of these “alkalis,” as she referred to them, in some of her recipes, stating that “pearlash, saleratus, soda, and sal-volatile will remove acidity, and increase lightness.” But, she warns, “If too much is used, they will impart a disagreeable taste.”18 Starting with her very first cookbook (Seventy-Five Receipts), a few recipes call for pearl-ash as an ingredient, including Dover cake, common gingerbread, and sugar biscuits. And there are recipes in her later cookbooks that feature baking soda or saleratus, such as Indian cupcakes, sweet potato pone, and New Year's cake.
It is really rather puzzling—did Leslie make these substitutions on her own? And if so, what did Mrs. Goodfellow think of this? Or is it possible Mrs. Goodfellow occasionally tolerated the time-saving assistance these products provided, maybe even privately endorsing their use to Miss Leslie, her star pupil? This seems highly unlikely from what we know of Goodfellow's dislike of these products and their artificial taste.
The most reasonable explanation why Miss Leslie and the author of Cookery as it Should Be both included quick rising agents was probably simply as a way to keep up with the times. They and their publishers may have thought their cookbooks wouldn't sell as well if they didn't include at least some recipes that incorporated these modern innovations, especially since American bakers had been using quick rising agents since the late 1700s when pearl-ash became available. They likely assumed many women would compromise a little natural freshness for the assistance and time savings these newfangled additives provided. Really, what hard-working housekeeper isn't interested in making her job easier? Especially when a simple recipe such as Milk Biscuits says to knead the mixture for 40 minutes!19
When baking powder came on the scene in the late 1850s, quick breads became popular, and sky-high layer cakes could be produced with much less effort. Recipes for baked goods that formerly called for eggs and yeast to make them rise replaced these traditional ingredients with this new time-saving substance. In addition, baking powder manufacturers pushed the idea that it was healthful, inexpensive, and fast-acting, referring to it as “nutritive yeast powder”20 and even publishing pamphlets of recipes featuring the ingredient.
A new era in baking was born, and many of the older recipes were restructured to incorporate the substitute. In addition to the recipes Leslie published, two others attributed to Goodfellow were found to contain chemical rising agents (both soda and cream of tartar). One was for “quick waffles” in the 1907 Colonial Receipt Book cookbook. Contributed by Mrs. Ebenezer Greenough of Sunbury, Pennsylvania, the cookbook states that the recipe was from Mrs. Goodfellow's Cooking School in Philadelphia and that Mrs. Greenough was a pupil.21 It is unknown whether Goodfellow actually ever taught this version, and actually rather improbable since all the other waffle recipes attributed to her are leavened with yeast. The other recipe is for “Goodfellow's Spanish buns” in Mrs. Fred Patterson's manuscript recipe book housed at the Winterthur Library in Delaware. They were called “Spanish” because they were similar to a cake made in Latin America.22 As previously mentioned, Eliza Leslie claimed that “these buns were first introduced by Mrs.
Goodfellow; and in her school were always excellently made,”23 although the recipe has also been attributed to the Pennsylvania Germans.24 A tea-time favorite, the yeasty, rich buns were often iced or glazed after baking, and had a delicate cake-like texture which featured nutmeg,25 cinnamon, and mace, and sometimes rosewater flavoring and raisins or currants. Mrs. Patterson's recipe also calls for cream of tartar and soda.26 Once again, it is not known if this was copied from her classroom or handed down to Mrs. Patterson by a friend or family member. The latter is more likely as the date range for the book is 1870–1879, and just like the waffles, every other recipe for Spanish buns attributed to Goodfellow says to use yeast as the rising agent.
Eliza Leslie was adamant that the best fresh brewer's yeast be used to make them. “If you cannot procure yeast of the very best quality, an attempt to make these buns will most probably prove a failure, as the variety of other ingredients will prevent them from rising unless the yeast is as strong as possible,” she warned.27 The buns could be baked either all in one pan like a cake, or in individual tins. The main factor was the time involved—planning ahead was necessary as it could take up to five hours for the batter to rise high enough and produce the tell-tale airy bubbles on the surface indicating it was ready to bake. “Buns wanted for tea should be made in the forenoon,” advised Miss Leslie.28
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