I walked the path into Historic St. Mary’s City (HSMC) and journeyed back to 1661, becoming a member of the Godiah Spray family on their tidewater tobacco plantation.
Sugar and other seasonings were rare commodities in early colonial settlements. Anything that couldn’t be grown in the immediate area had to be imported. To sweeten the corn cakes, Mistress Rebecca used some of the cider we had so laboriously squeezed. Even with the rich apple flavor, the cakes were dense and a challenge to chew.
The apple coffin—a sort of deep dish pie—was tastier and easier on the palate. A Dutch oven would have been ideal for baking the pie, but those relatively sophisticated cooking implements were not available in that place at that time.
Working in that dimly lit, sparsely furnished kitchen gave me a real feeling of the life that awaited Maryland’s first English settlers. They didn’t see themselves as harbingers of change or agents of transition; they were too consumed with simply surviving the day and bringing in a crop of sweet Orinoco tobacco.
Today’s time travelers can experience hands-on activities at sites throughout HSMC. Special events scheduled on weekends from March through December offer unique opportunities to work alongside professional archaeologists, churn butter, watch a militia drill, or shoot a bow and arrow.
The newest major exhibit, the St. John’s Site Museum, uses a range of displays to help visitors understand how scholars use archaeology, historical documents, and oral traditions to decipher the past. Exhibits dramatize the events that shaped Maryland and our nation’s first freedoms, and audio and video installations introduce individuals and colonial lifeways. The preserved foundation of the original structure and original artwork illustrate the evolution of the house and the tobacco plantation that surrounded it. Some of the remarkable artifacts found at the site present a unique perspective on life in another time.
Corn cakes
3 cups corn flour
1/2 cup cider
2 pinches of salt
1/2 cup of lard
Water
Combine corn flour, cider, salt and lard together into a large bowl. Add water until you form a doughy (like play dough) consistency. Roll a hand full of dough into a ball. The ball should be the size of a golf ball. Place the ball into the palm of your hand. Position your other hand above the ball. Flatten the ball into a disk shaped cake. Fry the cake. Brown the cake on both sides.
For more information about HSMC, visit www.stmaryscity.org, or call 240-895-4960.
Reed Hellmanis a freelance writer living in Alberton, Maryland. For more of his signature culinary escapades, read his other articles in The Examiner.com and in Recreation News, in print or online. Visit his Recipe for Adventure Website at http://www.reedhellmanwordsmith.com/. You can find more recipes in The Recipe Box on his Website.
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