Snacking State-by-State: Virginia II - More of that Bounty of the Chesapeake

Having been born and raised near the Chesapeake Bay, I tend to think of our crabs, oysters and other local seafood as, well, the best.  Virginia shares that same distinction (and attitude towards its seafood) with Maryland - as I've always said, it's the same bay after all.  The same bay with the same delicious crabs and oysters, y'all.

Official Name: Commonwealth of Virginia
State Nickname: The Old Dominion State
Admission to the US: June 25, 1788 (#10)
Capital: Richmond (4th largest)
Other Important Cities: Virginia Beach (largest), Norfolk (2nd largest), Chesapeake (3rd largest); Newport News (5th largest), Hampton (6th largest), Alexandria (7th largest)
Region: South, Upper South, Mid-Atlantic, Chesapeake; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Chestnut, Crab Cake
Bordered by: West Virginia (northwest), Maryland, District of Columbia and the Potomac River (northeast), Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean (east), North Carolina (south), Tennessee (southwest), Kentucky (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: brook trout (fresh water fish), milk (beverage), Eastern oyster (shell), striped bass (salt water fish)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: ham (especially Smithfield); peanuts; Chesapeake Bay cuisine to the north and east of the state, specifically crabs (fried, steamed, boiled, deviled, Norfolk and she-crab soup) and oysters; typical Southern foods to the south and west of the state (including ham biscuits, beaten biscuits, etc); diverse multicultural foods in Northern Virginia (notably South & Southeast Asian, West African, Ethiopian and Central American); Brunswick stew

Virginia (and Maryland, for that matter) has its share of fairly complicated blue crab recipes.  My Great-Uncle Eddie, who died when I was four, had his recipe for crab imperial that is still part of the family recipe file.  And of course from Virginia we see those fairly rich she-crab soups, popular all along the Southern coast.  Somewhere in between are the Maryland crab cakes and heaping helpings of crab Norfolk - neither terribly complicated, but not as simple as they at first appear.  Some of my favorites, however, are the simplest to make: the steamed crabs and fried soft shells.  

I've been eating these things for years, of course.  One of my most memorable experiences came when I was just out of college, taking a soon-to-be-married friend from upstate New York into Old Town Alexandria with his fellow bachelor partiers, all also from upstate New York.  We went into a non-descript pub whose kitchen was just about to close.  I was hungry, and ordered the soft-shell crab sandwich.  My Northern friend was not interested, but his buddies really were the ones to react: when the plate came out with that big deep fried bug looking thing poking out from inside the bread and a few pieces of lettuce, one of them actually said, "Now I think that I'm going to throw up!"  More for me.

My mother's mother, born and raised in Baltimore, had perhaps the simplest and most delicious method for preparing a soft: just cut off the face, dredge it in flour, fry it up in butter a few minutes each side, and serve it up on white bread with some mayonnaise.  John Shields gathers quite a few soft shell crab recipes in his Chesapeake Bay Cooking, and flipping through my well-worn copy I found more than a few that sparked my interest.  But of course, there was a recipe from Tidewater Virginia that was more or less the same as my Grandmom's.

This was Alva Crockett's "No Bullhocky" Fried Soft-Shells.  Tangier Islander Alva Crockett, so says Shields,

is a down-to-earth guy who doesn't take kindly to fancy soft-shell preparations.  Just thinking about sautéed crabs with this and that on them sends his nerves all to hell...  He figures that if you fry them up like this, you'll never eat them any other way" [Shields 1998: 46]

My Grandmom died when I was four years old, so I don't know whether she would've hated a fancier interpretation of soft shells or been intrigued by them, kind of like my mother.  But Mom, like her mother before her and of course this feller Alva Crockett, are just three of the thousands upon thousands of people serving up soft shells this very way.

The recipe I use is indeed Alva's, page 46 of Shields' cookbook, though the recipe is essentially the same as my grandmother's.  And the same as so many other grandmothers, uncles, mothers and sons from Havre de Grace, Maryland, to Chesapeake, Virginia, and on either shore - like Tangier Island.

The Recipe: Fried Soft-Shell Crab Sandwich

To make this fried soft shell crab sandwich, assemble the following:

* soft shell blue crab (I picked one up, thawed, for $3.50)
* flour (just enough to dredge it)
* salt and pepper (had them)
* cayenne pepper (had it too)
* Old Bay (Alva's recipe doesn't have this, nor does my grandmother's.  I just felt like adding some)
* oil (peanut oil in this case)

Dredge the soft shell in the mixed dry ingredients.

Pour in enough oil to fry the crab, and place the crab in the oil.

Fry about two to three minutes on a side.

I have always eaten these on white bread with mayo, nothing else.

There are so few things as satisfying as this sandwich.  I just can't go into any more detail.. It's just delicious: crispy on the outside, soft inside, with that beautiful crab flavor exploding around your taste buds.

Of course, the Chesapeake is also known for its bounty of urshters.  And like the crabs, people have been eating them here for thousands of years.  Archaeologists have found many a shell midden in the Chesapeake dating not only to colonial times but earlier.  Anderson's Neck Oyster Company [2012] based on the York River have a whole page on the lengthy history of oyster farming and use dating not just to the 1500's but well before that.

So it is no surprise that oysters feature in one of the United States' first official cookbooks.  Mary Randolph wrote her book The Virginia Housewife Or, Methodical Cook [Randolph 1824; Bluestein Longone 1993] well before the Civil War, and features many a recipe that the modern cook can just interpret for his or her kitchen.  This "facsimile of an Authentic Early American Cookbook" (the subtitle of the 1993 reprint) is just the latest in myriad reprints, as Janice Bluestein Longone [1993] notes in the introduction to a much more recent edition:

It was an immediate success and went through at least nineteen editions before the outbreak of the Civil War.  In addition, copies appeared in the late nineteenth century and at least three modern reprints have been published, apart from the one in hand. [Bluestein Longone 1993]

And the editor notes the popular recipes and styles that might surprise modern cooks: everything from "Spanish dishes" {gaspacho and ropa veija) to salads and vegetable dishes, to even a few exotic things like "dough nuts" ("A Yankee Cake").

I was, actually, surprised at the dearth of crab recipes: I found none.  But Mrs. Randolph has more than a few things to do with oysters.  Her recipe for "Scolloped Oysters" was perhaps the easiest to do, once you shuck the oysters - and yes, you must use oysters in the shell, or else have spare shells to put them in.  I do not typically quote whole recipes at length, but with this almost 200 year old recipe I think I can make an exception.  This is on page 68 of the 1993 edition:

TO SCOLLOP OYSTERS.When the oysters are opened, put them in a bowl, and wash them out of their own liquor; put some in the scollop shells, strew over them a few bread crumbs, and lay a slice of butter on them, then more oysters, bread crumbs, and a slice of butter on the top; put them into a Dutch oven to brown, and serve them up in the shells. [Randolph 1824; Bluestein Longone 1993]

I swapped out the Dutch oven for my broiler (just because, alright?), but even without that, this is a ridiculously easy dish to interpret as is.

The Recipe: Scalloped Oysters

You don't need too much for Randolph's Virginia Housewife scalloped oysters.

* oysters (I got Chincoteague oysters, natch, for about $1 each)

* bread crumbs (I had these in the pantry)

* butter (had this too)

First, shuck the oysters.  Make sure they are free of any grit and shell bits.  You won't be saving the liquor in this case.

Make sure to save enough oyster shells to use for holding the oysters.

Place an oyster into each shell.

Top each oyster with bread crumbs.

And then top each with a pat of butter.

Do it again: some more bread crumbs, some more butter.

Place in a Dutch oven - or in this case, under the broiler - for a few minutes until browned.

Apart from the arduous process of oyster shucking, this is a ridiculously simple yet decadent appetizer.  Cook just long enough to get the oysters cooked through and soft.  The crunch of the buttery bread crumbs are a nice addition.  You will have to bite a little into the oyster, but make sure you drink down the butter so don't get it all over yourself.

Sources:

Anderson's Neck Oyster Company.  "History".  Copyright 2012, Anderson's Neck Oyster Company.  All rights reserved.

Brunswick Stewmaster's Association.  "Brunswick Stew History".  Copyright 2010, Brunswick Stewmaster's Association.  All rights reserved.

Carman, Tim.  "The Real Reason Why Squirrel Meat Isn’t Used in Brunswick Stew Anymore".  Young & Hungry column, Washington City Paper, posted May. 6, 2009.

Cowen, Tyler.  Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide.  Copyright 2012, All rights reserved.

Chadwell, Treva.  "Virginia Ham Biscuits".  Provided for the Cooking Channel.  Copyright 2012, Cooking Channel LLC.  All rights reserved.

"Elmer Fudd" (user), "Elmer Fudd's Brunswick Stew".  Posted September 26, 2009.  Copyright 2009 Field & Stream.  All rights reserved.

Good Earth Peanut Company.  "All About Peanuts".  Date unknown.

Graham, Paul, N.G. Marriott and R.F. Kelly.  "Dry Curing Virginia-Style Ham".  Written for the Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension, 2011.

Peanut Shop of Williamsburg.  "Thai Cucumber Salad".  Copyright 2010, The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg.  All rights reserved.

Randolph, Mary.  The Virginia Housewife: Or Methodical Cook: A Facsimile of an Authentic Early American Cookbook.  1824.  Republication of the edition by E.H. Butler & Co., Philadelphia, 1860.  Introduction by Janice Bluestein Longone, Moneola, NY: Dover, 1993.

Shields, John. Chesapeake Bay Cooking. Broadway Books: New York, NY, 1998

Virginia Tourism Corporation. "Home page".  Copyright 2012, Virginia Tourism Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Virginia" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Virginia".

Snacking State-by-State: Virginia I - "You got your Virginia ham in my biscuit!"

For just a few weeks, this State-by-State series comes back home.  Okay, almost back home - not in state but in regional terms.  Though Virginia is across the Potomac, our neighbors to the south share one very important thing with us here in Maryland: the big ol' Chesapeake Bay.  But a quick perusal of any cookbook or recipe collection claiming to be Chesapeake cuisine will show you that the foods we share are not just seafood.

Official Name: Commonwealth of Virginia
State Nickname: The Old Dominion State
Admission to the US: June 25, 1788 (#10)
Capital: Richmond (4th largest)
Other Important Cities: Virginia Beach (largest), Norfolk (2nd largest), Chesapeake (3rd largest); Newport News (5th largest), Hampton (6th largest), Alexandria (7th largest)
Region: South, Upper South, Mid-Atlantic, Chesapeake; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Chestnut, Crab Cake
Bordered by: West Virginia (northwest), Maryland, District of Columbia and the Potomac River (northeast), Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean (east), North Carolina (south), Tennessee (southwest), Kentucky (west)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: brook trout (fresh water fish), milk (beverage), Eastern oyster (shell), striped bass (salt water fish)
Some Famous and Typical Foods: ham (especially Smithfield); peanuts; Chesapeake Bay cuisine to the north and east of the state, specifically crabs (fried, steamed, boiled, deviled, Norfolk and she-crab soup) and oysters; typical Southern foods to the south and west of the state (including ham biscuits, beaten biscuits, etc); diverse multicultural foods in Northern Virginia (notably South & Southeast Asian, West African, Ethiopian and Central American); Brunswick stew

What constitutes Virginia cuisine?  It depends on where in the Commonwealth you are (NB: Virginia is the last of the four "commonwealth states" we are hitting up, after Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Kentucky.  Five if you count Puerto Rico, which isn't a state but is a commonwealth.  Ugh, my head hurts keeping track of all this).  The Virginia travel site (Virginia.org) with its well-known "Virginia is for lovers" tagline, boasts right at the top that "There's a lot more to Virginia Cuisine than Peanuts!" [Virginia Tourism Corporation 2012].  Well I knew that!  And they spell it out for us, region by region:

* Chesapeake oysters, beautiful blue crabs and - yes - flounder abound on Virginia's Eastern Shore, as Wachapreague (not far from Chincoteagoe) bills itself as the flounder capital of the world.  Getting Misty yet?
* South Central Virginia, best known for its Brunswick stew - something that the entire Upper South fights for credit over.  made with chicken or squirrel.  You will see this pop up in a few posts, though I'm not quite sure the recipe I used is the most authentic one.
* Appalachia is home to typical Appalachian foods - like the stack cakes and cornbreads we've seen in earlier posts.
* The Shenandoah Valley, which is apple country (that I just found out while researching this).
* Northern Virginia, like DC and the Maryland suburbs, draws in the cuisines of the world.  A simple glance at Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide, based in NoVA, shows the true diversity of international eating around 495.  This is also wine country, by the way.
* And of course, the classically Southern fare of Richmond, Hampton Roads and the Tidewater, where ham, biscuits and peanuts abound. [Virginia Tourism Corporation 2012; Cowen 2012]

I really need to get to Virginia more often.  It is just next door after all, and I'm in DC a lot more often these days.

Among all the things I know Virginia for, it is crab.  And of course it would be: that's one of the big things Marylanders share with Virginians is the blue crab.  But most Americans probably identify Virginia more with ham.  Virginia is famous for its hams.  Again, you find these in neighboring states, too: Tennessee, Kentucky and even Southern Maryland all boast about their respective takes on ham.  But Virginia has cornered the national market (not to mention Food Network star Paula Deen in one nasty frozen ham assault a few years ago).  Most famous is Smithfield, though remember that many local farms smoke and sell their own hams to the public. Particularly important are their dry-cured hams, not the easiest thing to find in the mega-supermarkets - the Wegmanses and Harris Teeters in the area - but hard to miss in most Giants, where you literally stumble over the Virginia dry-cured hams (go fig).  As noted by Paul Graham, N.G. Marriott and R.F. Kelly for the Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension [Graham et al 2011], the process and trade in Virginia ham is an old and storied one in the Commonwealth

Virginia ham was one of the first agricultural products exported from North America. The Reverend Mr. Andrew Burnaby enthusiastically reported that Virginia pork was superior in flavor to any in the world (Burnaby 1775). Another early clergyman, the Reverend Mr. John Clayton, wrote the Royal Society in England that Virginia ham was as good as any in Westphalia (Force 1844). [Graham et al 2011; their sources included]

They further outline the process of dry-curing your own ham the Virginia way, from start to finish, even warning about the specific bugs that typically bother the ham during the curing process.

For this ham recipe, I would have liked to use dry cured ham.  But the stuff is pricey, and I just don't have the time to properly, or even half-assedly, prepare a dry cured ham for serving.  So instead I shot for the boneless smoked variety of party ham put out by, again, Smithfield.  To best utilize this, I turned to one of the most popular finger sandwiches in the South: the humble ham biscuit.  You can definitely make these with dry-cured ham, but it's just a lot cheaper, easier and less time-consuming with the pre-cooked, vacuum-packed-in-water stuff.

The ham biscuit is as popular with Southern hostesses, tailgaters and buffet-goers as that other Southern classic, pimento cheese.  So much so that the makers of Martha White flour [date unknown] have a few things to say about this cherished snack.

The origin of the yeast biscuit is unknown but seems to have surfaced in Southern cookbooks and in newspaper food sections during the 1950s. Alice Jarman, the founder of the Martha White Kitchen, developed a version for the company that was publicized across the South called "Riz" Biscuits. These biscuits became preferred carriers for country ham because of their light texture and good keeping qualities. [Martha White date unknown]

Martha White points out three variations, a thin, crisper biscuit, a softer, yeasty biscuit and a biscuit that has actual ham pieces in the dough.  The recipe below, which I got from Treva Chadwell whose recipe is posted at the Cooking Channel website, is a softer biscuit using no yeast at all - and swapping White Lily flour for Martha White (Chadwell doesn't specify any specific flour).  Hers also comes with a honey Dijon sauce and - gasp - chives!  What is a humble host like me to do with all this fabulousness!?!?

The Recipe: Virginia Ham Biscuits

For Chadwell's ham biscuit you will need the following:

First, you will need some biscuits.  You could cheat and buy some, but why not make them yourself?  Chadwell's chive biscuits call for:

* flour (had it on hand - White Lily in this case, though you could use Martha White as well.  Oh hell, any flour will do, but the softer the better)

* baking powder (had it)

* baking soda (same)

* salt (had this too)

* buttermilk (picked up a quart for about $1.50)

* lard (I should have gone to Giant and gotten actual lard, since they have it in their meat section.  Neither of the mega-huge supermarket chains that has come to our area - Wegman's and Harris Teeter - has lard.  The closest I found was Goya's lard, which upon reading the ingredients seems like some strange lard-Crisco hybrid at Harris Teeter.  It ran about $4.)

* chives (only $2 a bunch)

This recipe also calls for a honey mustard sauce.  For this you need:

* Dijon mustard (had it in the pantry)

* whole grain mustard (just $3.50 for a bottle)

* honey (had this on hand, too.  My sister brought some of this from Richmond Hill, outside of Savannah.  Best to keep this recipe as Southern as possible)

And finally, you will need:

* ham - otherwise, it wouldn't be a ham biscuit (I bought a vacuum-packed pre-cut boneless Smithfield ham at Harris Teeter for $4 per lb - about $9.50.  I will be eating this ham for a while)

First, whisk together the dry ingredients and the chives.

Next, cut in the lard.  It should be cold.

Whisk until it is of a crumbly but doughy consistency.

Flour the dough and roll it out to about a 1/2 inch consistency.

Punch it a few times...

...and cut it into rounds of about 2 1/2 inches.  I just used a drinking cup.

Bake it in a preheated 400°F oven for about 20 minutes.

While baking, mix the mustards and honey.

When your biscuits are cool enough to handle, make the ham biscuits.  Cut a biscuit in half.

Spread the honey-mustard sauce on at least one side.
\

Place some of your ham on the biscuit.

I liked these biscuits, but for some reason mine always turn out flatter than most.  Still, this is a tasty sandwich.  Though I didn't cook the ham at all, I would warm it up a bit before I made this again.

Sources:

Anderson's Neck Oyster Company.  "History".  Copyright 2012, Anderson's Neck Oyster Company.  All rights reserved.

Brunswick Stewmaster's Association.  "Brunswick Stew History".  Copyright 2010, Brunswick Stewmaster's Association.  All rights reserved.

Carman, Tim.  "The Real Reason Why Squirrel Meat Isn’t Used in Brunswick Stew Anymore".  Young & Hungry column, Washington City Paper, posted May. 6, 2009.

Cowen, Tyler.  Tyler Cowen's Ethnic Dining Guide.  Copyright 2012, All rights reserved.

Chadwell, Treva.  "Virginia Ham Biscuits".  Provided for the Cooking Channel.  Copyright 2012, Cooking Channel LLC.  All rights reserved.

"Elmer Fudd" (user), "Elmer Fudd's Brunswick Stew".  Posted September 26, 2009.  Copyright 2009 Field & Stream.  All rights reserved.

Good Earth Peanut Company.  "All About Peanuts".  Date unknown.

Graham, Paul, N.G. Marriott and R.F. Kelly.  "Dry Curing Virginia-Style Ham".  Written for the Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension, 2011.

Peanut Shop of Williamsburg.  "Thai Cucumber Salad".  Copyright 2010, The Peanut Shop of Williamsburg.  All rights reserved.

Randolph, Mary.  The Virginia Housewife: Or Methodical Cook: A Facsimile of an Authentic Early American Cookbook.  1824.  Republication of the edition by E.H. Butler & Co., Philadelphia, 1860.  Introduction by Janice Bluestein Longone, Moneola, NY: Dover, 1993.

Shields, John. Chesapeake Bay Cooking. Broadway Books: New York, NY, 1998

Virginia Tourism Corporation. "Home page".  Copyright 2012, Virginia Tourism Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Virginia" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Virginia".

NYPL Mega Menu Database

Why am I always the last one to see this stuff?  I was doing research on early Indian restaurants in New York City - yes, this is what I do for fun - and came across a site that led me to this database on the New York Public Library website.  It is an extensive database of restaurant menus dating back to the 19th century!  Individuals can volunteer to transcribe them, or correct things that aren't correct.  And it's not just New York restaurants, either.  One random one that popped up: a 1955 menu from Baltimore's own Chesapeake Restaurant, once open near Penn Station and what is now the Charles Theater.  Loving their entry for "Chicken Chesapeake In Casserole" for only $2.50.  That would easily be ten times the amount today, almost 60 years later.

This is a time waster for a few hours.

(Menu cover from the Chesapeake Restaurant in Baltimore, c. 1955.  Image linked from the New York Public Library Menu Database)

Snacking State-by-State: Maryland IV - Once on Smith Island

Like any other state, Maryland has its own sub-regional specialties, things you will most likely find in one part of the state instead of another.  In Southern Maryland, this is stuffed ham.  In Baltimore, it's the snowball.  And on the smallish Smith Island, the only inhabited island in the Maryland half of the Chesapeake Bay, it is the cake that bears the island's name.

Official Name: State of Maryland
State Nicknames: The Free State; The Old Line State; America in Miniature
Admission to the US: April 28, 1788 (#7)
Capital: Annapolis (24th largest city)
Other Important Cities: Baltimore (largest); Columbia (2nd largest); Germantown (3rd largest); Frederick (8th largest)
Region: Mid-Atlantic, South, Northeast; South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Crabcake; Clambake; Chestnut; Maple Syrup
Bordered by: The Mason-Dixon Line (north and east); Pennsylvania (north); Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean (east), Virginia and the Potomac River (south and southwest); District of Columbia (southwest); West Virginia (west and southwest)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: blue crab (crustacean); rockfish, aka striped bass (fish); Diamondback terrapin (reptile); Smith Island cake (dessert); milk (drink)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: Chesapeake Bay foods, especially based on blue crab, oyster, clam, shrimp & fish; historically, foods of the Upper South (especially fried chicken, stuffed ham, beaten biscuits & Brunswick stew); cuisines that reflect a broad multicultural landscape closer to Baltimore (Italian, Polish, Ukranian, German, etc) and Washington (Latin American, West African, Southeast Asian, Korean, etc)

This is not my first attempt at a Smith Island cake, the official state dessert of Maryland.  I tried it a few years ago, but quickly gave up after destroying the second and third thin layers just by trying to remove them from the cake pans.  For anyone who has never tried to make one, it is a challenge.  In her book Dishing Up Maryland, Lucie Snodgrass discusses the Smith Island cake in a vignette with innkeeper Susan Evans, a thirteenth-generation Smith Islander who has been making Smith Island cakes like women in her family have for perhaps hundreds of years.

Lore has it that the original families baked [the first Smith Island cake], although it only had four layers at the time.  Over the years the height of the cake grew as the women competed against each other to see who could make the most layers.  Today, Smith Island Cakes most commonly vary from eight to eleven layers,, depending on who's making it...  Assembling and icing the cake can be tricky and takes years of practice, Evans says.  She learned to make the cake from her mother, who learned form her mother mother, and so on.  "It's an island thing," Evans says, shrugging.  "They've always been made, and every woman knows how to make one." [Snodgrass 2010: 273]

Instead of using Susan Evans' recipe, I found a very popular printed version of the recipe on the Visit Somerset County website, attributed to Smith Islander Frances Kitching.  This is the version I used.

Recipe: Smith Island Cake

For the Smith Island cake, you will need the following ingredients, plus a lot of patience.

* flour (of course)
* evaporated milk, not the regular kind (don't have enough? just reduce regular milk over a simmer - just below a low boil - stirring constantly, until reduced by about a third)
* baking powder (not pictured - I knew I forgot to include something)
* several eggs
* vanilla
* granulated sugar
* several sticks of butter
* salt
* unsweetened cocoa (squares or powdered)
* water (this is an ingredient in the cake batter, and again i forgot to include it)

You will also need several cake pans.  Don't have ten of them just sitting around?  You will need to reuse the same three or four over and over.  Also, Mrs. Kitching's recipe calls for 9-inch cake pans.  All I had were 8-inch ones, which suited me fine.

First, cream the sugar and butter together.

And add one egg at a time to the mixture.

Sift the other dry ingredients together and add them about a cup at a time to the batter.

Still adding...

Your evaporated milk goes in next.

And then the vanilla and water until you just form a loose batter.

As shown here.

 Now comes the next of several tedious steps: the baking.  Grease the bottoms of as many same-sized cake pans as possible, and fill with a heaping serving spoon of batter.  I'm not sure what Mrs. Kitching meant by that measure, but I took a wild guess and grabbed a large spoon to fill each cake pan.

Plop the batter in the middle of the cake pan...

...and smooth it around the bottom with the spoon.  It is supposed to be this thin.

 

 Bake at 350°F for 8 minutes, and let cool a bit.  I found that trying to remove it once completely cooled actually made it tear more easily, so I tried to get it out of the pan while it was still warm.  You will need a towel for this, of course.  And these things tear easily, so you must be slow and deliberative.  What I did was take my knife and move it around the edges of the layer (yes, it already has pulled away from the side, but this helps), and slowly and carefully start to work it under the layer.  If well greased enough, the layer should eventually, and slowly, fall out.  Keep your hand over it at all times to prevent breakage or folding over, and either pile each layer by itself or (if you lack the room to do so) separate them with parchment or wax paper.  Please do not stack the steaming layers one on top of each other with nothing in between.  You will end up with one big layer of cake.

While baking your many layers of cake, prepare the frosting - a simple, cooked sugar frosting.  Start with more evaporated milk and sugar, stirring and warming them together.

Next add your unsweetened chocolate: either squares or the equivalent amount of cocoa powder and oil/shortening.
 

Add to that one stick of butter, and melt it all together, stirring.

When it coats the back of a spoon (okay, this is the front of the spoon.  Use a little imagination here.), set it aside for 30 minutes.  Impatient that I am, I stuck mine in the fridge to cool down a little faster.

Finally, you have your layers ready to assemble.  I found that I had enough batter for twelve layers - ten plus a few extra in case I messed some of them up.

For example...

To assemble the Smith Island Cake, place a layer on your serving plate, and spread some icing on top of it.  I used a spatula at first but eventually I found that a spoon was easier to use.

News flash: some of your layers will break and tear.  One tore into a few little pieces.  Mrs. Kitching tells us in her recipe not to worry about it - when the cake is assembled, no one will notice.  I did, however, try to sandwich the broken layers in between the ones that didn't manage to come apart.

Worry about icing the layers first.  Don't worry about the sides until everything else is stacked and iced together.  I found that I had just enough icing to cover this cake, so if I undertake this again I will make a little extra.

This new attempt at tackling the legendary Smith Island cake worked for me this time.  Though it wasn't as pretty as I had hoped it would be, the spongy layers sandwiched between ganache and all compacted one on top of the other make for a deceptively filling - and I mean "filling" - cake.  I am not sure how I will be able to finish all this, even with sharing it with others.  But at least now I can finally say I have tangoed with the Smith Island cake and survived.  Even if this Western Shore man can't say he's an expert like generations of Smith Island women, at least I came up with a lovely, sweet and dense cake that actually turned out.

- - - - -

And so my culinary tour of my home state is done, and I am more familiar than ever before with some classic Maryland recipes as well as a few that have been added to the state's increasingly varied multicultural landscape.  Now I head up north, back across the Mason-Dixon and up to New England again, for an exploration of that other bay state, Massachusetts.

Sources:

"Crab Cakes".  Recipe from the author's family.

Fowora, Simbo.  "Jollof Rice".  Featured on the episode "Nigerian Dinner" of the show Sara's Secrets (Sara Moulton, host).  Food Network, 2006.

Gibbon, Ed.  The Congo Cookbook.  1999-2009.  Available as a downloadable book from lulu.com and reprinted on the website http://www.congocookbook.com.

Hafner, Dorinda.  A Taste of Africa.  Ten Speed Press: Berkeley, CA, 1993.

Kitching, Frances.  "Smith Island Ten-Layer Cake-Mrs. Kitching's Original Recipe". Reprinted on the "Fun Stuff" page at the website VisitSomerset.com (website for Somerset County, Maryland).  2007-2010 Somerset County Tourism.

Shields, John. Chesapeake Bay Cooking. Broadway Books: New York, NY, 1998

Shields, John. "Foreward".  In Dishing Up Maryland by Lucie Snodgrass.  Storey Publishing: North Adams, MA, 2010.

Snodgrass, Lucie.  Dishing Up Maryland.  Storey Publishing: North Adams, MA, 2010.

Walter, Eugene.  American Cooking: Southern Style.  From the series Foods of the World.  Time-Life Publications: New York, NY, 1971

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Maryland" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Maryland".