Exploring Maryland Foodways with Old Line Plate’s Kara Mae Harris

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Spear (00:00):
What do you know about stuffed ham? Have you ever

(00:03):
eaten Maryland fried chicken? Doyou have an opinion about crab
cakes, how to cook them? Whatkind of breading to use, if any
at all? Those are all very hottopics. On today's show, I have
Cara Mae Harris, who has beenexploring the culinary history
of Maryland on her blog old lineplates since 2010. If you're
into culinary history,especially that of the Mid
Atlantic this shows for you.
This is Chris spear, and you'relistening to Chefs Without

(00:25):
Restaurants. The show where Ispeak with culinary
entrepreneurs and people workingin the food and beverage
industry outside of atraditional restaurant setting.
I have 31 years working inkitchens but not restaurants and
currently operate a personalchef business throwing dinner
parties in the Washington DCarea. Last year, Kara released a
book titled old line plate, thesame as her blog. It was a

(00:45):
collection of some of herfavorite posts throughout the
years. But it's more of ahistorical document than a
straightforward cookbook. Well,this October Kara is back with a
new cookbook called festiveMaryland recipes. I'm sure many
of you have seen those oldercookbooks that can sometimes be
hard to decipher. In ourdiscussion, Kara talks about a
recipe that calls for five centsworth of chocolate. Would that

(01:06):
get you today, like half anounce if that I don't think you
could get any. But anyway, forthis book care, I worked with a
recipe developer to make surethe recipes were ones that
people today could actuallyreplicate at home. I'm not from
Maryland, but having lived here.
16 years now I've really wantedto learn about the cuisine,
especially since this is where Icook now. When I first started

(01:28):
looking into Maryland foodways adecade ago, Karis website was
the first one I found thatreally had most of the
information I was looking forall in one place. I've been in
contact with her over the years,so I was really glad I could
have her on the show today. Wetalked about those classic
Maryland dishes like stuffedham, oysters, Maryland fried
chicken, and we really get intoit about crabcakes what should

(01:49):
you be using for them jumbo lumpback then? I'm not gonna give it
away here. But I will say thatcarries take on that tends to be
really controversial. And I'mnot sure I agree. But also, do
you put fresh bread in Panko?
saltines? Do you pan fry themboil them. I wanted to see what
her opinions were and also whatshe's seen in her experience
through cookbooks and talking topeople. I've seen Kara's new

(02:10):
book and I think it's great. Ifyou're interested, I'm going to
link it up in the show notes. Asalways, so you can get your own
copy of festive Marylandrecipes. I think that anyone who
loves food history, even ifyou're not from this area will
really enjoy the episode. So I'mgonna get out of the way and let
you get to it. But before I go,if you finish this episode, and
you're thinking, wow, I'd loveto learn more about Chefs

(02:32):
Without Restaurants. What'snext? Besides working your way
through the other 204 episodes,I'd like to direct you to the
chefs without restaurants.orgwebsite. From there, you'll be
able to find my Instagram, whichis at Chefs Without Restaurants,
and sign up for the ChefsWithout Restaurants newsletter
where I share cooking contentand recipes. You'll also be able
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(02:53):
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Hey, Kara, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for
coming on today.

Kara Mae Harris (04:08):
Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited to talk to you about Maryland
foodways. I really you're theperson I need to be speaking to
about this, I think

yeah, likewise, I was really excited. I know I'm
a little different than some alot of the guests that you have
on your show. But I think thatI'm also kind of a outsider to
the culinary establishment anddoing my own thing. So

I'm not from here.
I'm from the Boston areaoriginally but I've been down in
Maryland now. I guess it's 16years I think this summer. You
know so I really wanted to learnabout Maryland food and cooking
because growing up there andthen I lived in Pennsylvania so
Pennsylvania is getting a littlecloser. You know we have like
the scrapple belt and thingslike that. But I didn't really
know a lot about Maryland foodand cooking and for me I felt it

(04:51):
was important both as a chefcooking for people but also on a
personal level because it's sointeresting and you know when I
started digging in a few yearsago, I found your website I
think anyone looking forinformation on Maryland food and
cooking is probably going tostumble on your site. So you
have a blog, old line plate,love the play on words there. I

(05:11):
think that's really funny. Butyou've been collecting Maryland
recipes and putting together adatabase and search for for a
while. How long have you beendoing this now,

Unknown (05:21):
I first started the blog in 2011. But kind of like
many blogs abandoned it. Andthen I worked on the database in
between and have been prettyconsistently logging since 2014.
Now,

now, why is that what brought you into Maryland
food.

Unknown (05:40):
Um, I always have to have an obsession kind of. And I
had these, I have thesecookbooks that would have
Maryland recipes in them that Ihad absolutely never heard of
Maryland, bakes liver, Maryland,white potato pie actually made
the bakes liver one year forThanksgiving. And the oldest
person there, enjoyed it andnobody else but I just wanted to

(06:02):
try these different recipes. AndI think it's my generation, my
kind of cohort is just, youknow, take it to a blog, if
you're going to start doingsomething that was just the
impulse. And it's always been away to share things and connect
with people. So it was kind of anatural, even though I didn't
really know what I was doing. Iwas kind of learning as I went,

(06:22):
I started that blog up and havea you know, that since brought
me so much more information thanI would have if I were just
quietly doing it by myself. So

were you always interested in food and cooking?
Like, did you grow up with aninterest in love of cooking?

Unknown (06:37):
Not really, I mean, I have some stories. I mean, my
grandmother used to go gatherblackberries and make pie. So I
have those little folksystories, we did pickling and
things like that. But Idefinitely wasn't one of those
people who really starts tolearn the, I don't think I
really started to learn thebasics of good cooking until I
started doing this project. Andusing old recipes, you

(07:00):
absolutely have to learn how tocook like a chef, basically,
because they're not realinstructions. So that's kind of
when I really started to get alittle bit more of a, you know,
become more of a all around foodperson, I think,

yeah, we're definitely going to talk about
that. Learning to read oldrecipes and a little bit because
I have that too, whether it'staking your grandmother's
recipes, or something you findin a book, it's not always easy
to follow. But you know, I thinkcooking, I don't wanna say
cooking has fallen out offashion. But I run into people
all the time now who don't knowhow to cook, you know,

(07:35):
especially my grandmother'sgeneration, someone in the
family knew how to cook. But nowI work as a personal chef and
going in people's homes. Peopleare astounded by what I think
are some pretty basic thingsthat I do. And I'm just
surprised at how little cookingnow on the other side, we also
have the extreme now wherepeople are like, he's an
accountant, but he is alsomaking pasta at home. And it's

(07:57):
like better than some of thechefs and restaurants. So I see
it on both sides. But just itseems to be a you know, for a
number of years, people reallyweren't interested in cooking
that much. Yeah, it's not, atleast not at home. Maybe

Unknown (08:09):
we also have an interesting thing now. And I
guess for the last, you know,few decades where recipes have
become such a science thatpeople can cook at home and make
a lot of great food but neverreally learned how to cook.
Because you're just followingthat recipe, which was how I you
know, first got into thisthinking I would follow

(08:30):
everything line by line. Andthat, you know, went downhill
pretty fast. And I had to learnlearn the basics for myself. But
yeah, I think, you know, justthrowing stuff together on a
nightly basis from what you haveis not as common as it used to
be.

Well, you know, you're kind of touching out
there like that intuitivecooking. Right? And also using
up what you have on hand. Ithink previous generations there
was very much a no waste kind ofthing, right? So it's like this
soup is whatever vegetables youhave in the fridge meat scraps
you have I'm sure you've seen alot of that type of cooking in
your encounters with some ofthese older recipes. Am I right

(09:11):
there?

Unknown (09:11):
Yeah. But what's interesting is when it makes it
in a recipe form, I think peoplereally want to put the best
version of it on paper, so itmight call for specific things.
But as I started to think aboutit, I remember I made a chowder
recipe one time from Mrs.
Kitching, Smith Island cookbookand I happen to have a real
awkward mount of corn leftoverand I put it in, you know, and

(09:33):
I'm like, am I ruining this? Oram I actually being more
authentic by just putting it inthere because I have it. But I
don't think that maybe theywould write it in the recipe if
it wasn't something that theythought would be the best
version that they want people tohave. But that's not necessarily
the version you're eating everynight. You know, I make beans
and greens a lot and it could beany bean in any green and I'm

(09:54):
sure there's a supremecombination. You know those
white beans some kale orsomething, but at home, it's
just whatever I have whateversausage goes in there. So I love

it. I have one of those recipes. I was doing
cooking classes here inFrederick and we had a recipe
and that is based I think it waslike cherry so kale and black
IPAs, I actually think it waslike a serious eats Kenji recipe
or something. But I told peoplelike, do not stick to this. Like
if you have cannelini beans, ifyou have chickpeas, if it's
summer, and you've got swisschard or something else use that

(10:27):
if you don't like spice and likeCerrito, Italian sausage, if
you're vegetarian, just leaveout the meat, you know, and, and
just like it's a good base,right? That trio of sausage
greens and beans is somethingthat I always have at least
those base ingredients in mypantry and just kind of like
when I teach people how to cook.
I teach them to be prettyflexible with those recipes.

Unknown (10:47):
Yeah, exactly. So then when you go to write it down,
especially if you were writingin an old timey cookbook, where
you maybe have less space. Andit's a little bit less of a
dialogue than recipes are nowyou're just going to say, you
know, to pound two pounds ofkale or cohort, which is
collards or, you know, this kindof beans, you're just going to

(11:07):
try to reduce it into somethinga little bit simpler.

What was that word for collards

kohlwort

I've never seen that.

Yeah, that's like an older, older term they
used to use for collards.

I'm not sure that that would stick around these
days. Do you think people wouldbe willing to eat it with that
name? It's kind of weird.

Yeah, I'm not I'm not so sure. Do you have

issues reading old cookbooks? Like have you
encountered words like that,that you didn't know what they
meant, and really had to likedig in and figure it out?

Unknown (11:34):
We're so lucky to live in the Google age. And it's not
as good as it used to be. Butwhen I first started out, there
was Google Books. And they had abunch of index books. So I could
look up a word and I would findthe research of someone like
Karen has, or you know, somereal legend and find everything
that they had to say about adish is a little bit harder now.

(11:55):
But there's also a lot of otherloggers and other resources out
there to find that kind ofinformation. So I think the
hardest that comes immediatelyto mind was I had a recipe that
called for like, one square ofchocolate or no cold for
sometimes things will say, byprice, like five cents of
chocolate, you know, so I had todo all this backwards

(12:17):
engineering to try to figure outhow much chocolate they

were like gets you nothing these days. Five cents a
chocolate. Yeah, but

Unknown (12:23):
it's funny to me when they use the prices like they
thought that would just beetched in stone is kind of a
strange logic. But yes, squarechocolate, you know, and I had
to figure out how much square ofchocolate even meant,

I'm gonna start pricing that I'm gonna say you
get $3 of crabcake. And

Unknown (12:40):
oh, yeah, yeah, your recipe will be downhill in a in
a week.

What was the first recipe you shared on your
website?

Unknown (12:51):
Um, I actually don't probably one of the early ones
is that white potato pie. And Imake it and I talk about it a
lot, because it was one of thefirst recipes that jumped out at
me from Southern Heritagecookbook. And I actually baked
every pie in the SouthernHeritage pie and pastry cookbook
and like 2007 How many pies wasthat? So I'm not sure it's not

(13:11):
the biggest book. But you know,it's 100 some pies, and I have

a lot because I think I probably made like three
pies last year. So yeah, it was

Unknown (13:19):
a big year I just made you know, I'd make a couple pies
a week.

What did you do with them? Were you sharing them
with people?

Unknown (13:25):
Yeah, anytime anyone had a dinner party, I would show
up with multiple pies. I think Isold a few gave a lot of way. I
used to go to the thrift storeand just buy pie tins. So that I
could just leave them at partiesand not worry about losing the
pie tin but but yeah, that whitepotato pie. Later research

(13:46):
didn't learn that it came frompudding, similar to pumpkin pie
or sweet potato pie. And I'vedone I've done a lot more
research on it since then.

I've never tried it. I've seen it on your site.
I'm gonna have to make it. Is itworth I mean, I do like it is it
a good pie, like if I were goingto make a pie and I like those
like sweet potato kind of pies.
So are you a fan, I'm guessingof the white potato pie.

Unknown (14:11):
It's a blank slate. And I really like to just blast it
in a food processor so that allthe potato SCART starch gets
kind of like whipped up and itgets almost cheese cake
consistency. I put a ton oflemon zest and lemon in it. So
it really is it really dependson how you flavor it. I think if
you just gently grate somenutmeg into it and call it a

(14:32):
day, it's probably going to be apretty big disappointment. But
if you just fill it full ofsugar, condensed milk and lemon,
you know anything that'sflavored strongly lemons just
going to taste like lemons. So

it's like the chess pie. You know when I discovered
chess pie, you know from thesouth or it's just like oh,
you're basically making likelittle little cornmeal is binder
and then it's just sugar and eggin there. Right and butter. I
think they really were kind ofthrifty with some of those pies
back in Uh,

Unknown (15:00):
yeah, absolutely.
They're just a blank slate. Andit's actually it's wild how
little ingredients you can haveas a filling in a pie, you know,
just a little cornstarch and aton of juice and you'll have a
stable pie. You know, you canmake like vinegar pie and stuff
like that. Yeah, crazy.

A couple of years ago, I found a Grape Nuts pie. I
don't know if you've ever seenthis, but it's Grape Nuts,
cereal. And it's, it's prettymuch just like pecan pie. But
instead of really expensivepecans, it's Grape Nuts. So it's
like a brown corn syrup, meltedbutter. And then you put Grape
Nuts cereal in there, but it'sstill in a traditional pie. And
then they kind of like some ofthem settle to the bottom, but

(15:41):
then some kind of rise up andyou get them on the top like you
would with a pecan pie. And Ithought that was really
interesting. So my wife made itfor me for my birthday. People
were really interested to cometo a birthday party and have a
Grape Nuts pie and not a cake,but I was happy with it.

Unknown (15:53):
I did a version of that with oats and it was called poor
man's pecan pie. And yeah, ifyou can't afford the nuts, you
know, that might have been adepression or a recipe. I'm not
sure when Grape Nuts date backto but I think

they are the first cereal actually have a picture
of a vintage can from a culinaryMuseum. They were like the first
like back, I think in themilitary, because it was
nutritious. And it was likesomething that you could pack.
And I think they gave them toeveryone like in their kits. But
if I'm correct, it was like thefirst commercial dry cereal, I
think.

Unknown (16:23):
So yeah, it makes sense that it would make its way into
a pie because it could besomething you're just used to.
You're buying the cereal, butyou're just used to buying
flour, oats or whatever from thebin and throwing it in there. So
it just makes sense to turnwhatever plus a whole bunch of
sugar brown sugar into a pie.

How many physical cookbooks Do you own?

Unknown (16:45):
Um, I think I'm in the three hundreds 320 or something
like that?

What are some of your favorites? Do you have a
couple favorite books?

Unknown (16:55):
Frederick Phillips, Steve's cookbook is really cool.
Just because it has he coversthe whole state, he has a lot of
Western Maryland. And this was atime when Baltimore and the
Eastern Shore were really whereyou would think you would get
Maryland cooking. A lot of mynewer books, I like books that
represent different groups ofpeople who have been here. And I
feel I'm really lucky to havethose books, I have one from a

(17:17):
Korean church. And it's newer,it's from the 80s. But I'm so
glad that they put together thiscookbook and it has multiple
types of kimchi in it and otherrecipes, where they're using
some substitutions that reallyshows what people did to kind of
get by like taking anchovies andgrinding them up and using them
in ways that you would use maybefish sauce. So I like some of

(17:41):
those books that come fromchurches that you don't think of
is, you know, not necessarilythe elite of Maryland.

What makes you decide to buy a book, like I go
in the bookstore, and there'sall these, you know, community,
church, community cookbooks,church cookbooks, it's
overwhelming. There's like 400of them. So if you're like,
flipping through them, Whatmakes you say, oh, I want to get
this book,

Unknown (18:06):
I have to be really picky now. And the cost of these
books has gotten out of control.
I'm very lucky that peopledonate books to me, people give
me their collections orcollections from family members.
But when I'm looking at a bookand trying to decide whether
it's worth the cost I'm lookingfor a unique recipes are
examples of things that I knowexist, but I don't have in a lot

(18:27):
of books. For instance, there'sthis deal Island devil cream
cake, I wasn't familiar with ituntil I read about it in
Baltimore magazine. But I wouldlove to have that cake in a
cookbook. So if I found it, Imight consider paying a little
bit more for it. Or again, ifit's like a group that I feel is

(18:48):
underrepresented in some way, orregion, you know, Western
Maryland, I don't have as manyfrom there. So I'm just looking
for things that really representa diversity of people in our
state. And also, of course, age,anything that's pre about 1910 I
just get weak in the knees forand that's when I really have

(19:10):
to, I'll go to the live, I'll goto WorldCat the, you know,
central kind of every librarycatalog and see if I can find it
there before I buy it because Iif it's in a library, I don't
need to add it to my collectionnecessarily.

I'm in Frederick and we have Wonderbook here I
don't know if you've ever beenout

Unknown (19:30):
Oh, I No wonder very well, and I'm sure they know me
all too well as well. I buy fromthem frequently.

That's one of those places where I go in and just
get lost in that cookbook aisle.
But it's I mean, there's somecrazy books in there. You find
some gems, you find some weirdones, not not the community ones
as much as the ones put out bylike, you know, Dr. Pepper or
Frito Lay or something like thatin the 60s where it's like
they're trying to get you to useall their stuff. That was some
of those recipes are prettycool. But I do love digging

(19:56):
through the community cookbooksactually My favorite cookbook
that I have is one calledAmerica cooks. That was my mom
got it from her mom, but it wasthe women's Clubs of America.
And I think it originally cameout in the 60s and I think
everything we ate in my housegrowing up came from that book.
And they have funny names likeI've talked about before on the
show, my favorite thing wascalled Greco and it was like,

(20:17):
You cooked up ground beef withpeppers and onions. And then it
had like baby shell macaroni,canned tomato sauce, use canned
mushrooms, and cream corn. Andthen you just like baked in a
casserole dish with cheddarcheese on top. But that was like
our go to casserole dinner, itcould feed like 12 people, I
have no idea why it's calledGreco. But that book, it's like
600 pages or something. Andevery once in a while, I'm like

(20:41):
going through there forinspiration to find something
that seems like a lost gem.

Unknown (20:46):
Yeah, it's so good to have the go to cookbook like
that. I think a lot of us don'thave that anymore. People who
buy cookbooks often have a wholecollection. But I love having
the just the one, the one sourcefor us, we have the Southern
Heritage cookbook library, whichwas 13 books, I think. But all
in all, they're not that huge.
And anything you wanted or anything you want to use, you could

(21:08):
find it in there.

Well, and I love niche cookbooks. And now all
these beautiful, you know,photos, like some chef puts out
a book. But the problem withthat is you have to be in the
mood for that. It's a barbecuebook, it's a taco book, the
photos take up so many pages,whereas like this book I was
talking about is all text. It'sall small. So there's probably
1000 recipes in there. And it'severything from appetizers
through soups and entrees intodessert. So it's kind of the all

(21:32):
purpose cookbook. And I do thinkthose are nice to have.

Unknown (21:35):
Yeah, and there's such a nice time capsule, you really
have to think about all thepeople who contributed those
recipes and what they what theirthought process was and choose
in choosing that casserole, youknow that what wasn't there,
they know it's useful, or theyknow it's really good. And they
want to share that with people.
Sometimes people you know, likein the 90s cookbooks, you start
to see a lot of people puttingcheesecake in cookbooks, people

(21:58):
want to show off theircontemporary thing, their fusion
II stuff. It's reallyinteresting what people were
intending when they contributedall these recipes to these
books.

When you're digging into this, did you encounter
anything around the topic oflike, I don't know, like recipes
being secret, because, you know,obviously, if it's in a
cookbook, they're wanting toshare it. But I've also seen
this thing where a lot ofespecially older generations
didn't want to share recipes.
Like my family had a secretrecipe for like, our New England
baked beans that was likesupposed to stay in the family

(22:31):
and not be shared with anyone.
Have you kind of just readanything about that, like Were
there people who tended to beyou know, like, maybe would
release their recipes, but therewas one that they held close to
them and wouldn't put in a box.
Can you speak on that at all?

Unknown (22:46):
Yeah, actually. Bertha Hunt who lives in St. Mary's
County. She's a woman who I metby the phone because I was
trying to I looked up hermother's phone number who was
involved in compiling the St.
Mary's County cookbook and weended up meeting when I did CBS
and we've kept in touch. But hermother contributed a large

(23:07):
percentage of the recipes in abook called 300 years of black
cooking and St. Mary's County,and her St. Mary's County
stuffed ham is conspicuouslyabsent from this book. She put
together the cookbook to helpraise money for her community.
She put a lot of things inthere, she worked with people to
kind of standardize hermeasurements and techniques

(23:31):
because she was an intuitivecook, but she was not going to
part with that stuffed hamrecipe that is something that's
really special to their familythat Bertha still makes and that
she also will not share therecipe. She does stuffed ham
workshops, but she's not goingto turn over the exact
ingredients that her mother andher mother before her and six

(23:52):
generations at least at thisfamily had been making.

I wanted to talk about stuffed ham because it's
one of those things that comesup as when I was new to the
area. You know, I kind ofGoogled like, classic Maryland
dishes and that's one of thethings that come has come up
obviously, I've never seen itI've never seen it in a
restaurant. I've never been tosomeone's house who's had it
I've never encountered it. Is itworth trying both like Is it

(24:19):
delicious? And I should try toeat it if I can find it and also
is it worth trying to make?

Unknown (24:24):
Absolutely I don't know if it's worth trying to make. It
is a labor of love. I meanpersonally, my new book, festive
Maryland recipes is all aboutgatherings and having people
come together so if you have agroup of friends or family and
you just really want an excuseto get together or it's maybe

(24:46):
you don't usually celebrateEaster but fed day is free. It's
a good time to just get the cornham you probably where you are
have to travel all the way toBaltimore or to Prince George's
County to find this corn ham,you can also do one yourself.
That's even more time consuming.
But give it a try. And you know,make sure to make a lot of sides

(25:07):
in case of failure and have abunch of people over and try
this stuffed ham. I personallylove it. I tried, I again write
about it in the SouthernHeritage cookbooks and took a
lot of trips to St. Mary'sCounty to try all the different
grocery stores and delis thatsell it. But when I had first
those ham that she made herhomemade version, it just

(25:30):
knocked all of those out of thepark. But my favorite is from
Chapter KCO, that you can getpublic leads from chat to co
market, I believe it's called.
And if you're passing throughSt. Mary's County, for whatever
reason, or maybe want a weirdday trip, there's some stuff
some historical sites and thingsdown there, you can go go find
the ham, they also sell hamstuffed ham sandwiches at the

(25:53):
St. Mary's County oysterFestival, which is in October.
So if you're an oyster person,you can have your ham and your
oysters and kill two birds withone stone at that event.

Is it okay to admit I'm not an oyster person?

Unknown (26:05):
I am not either. And it's my secret shame. I will eat
them. And obviously I've had towork with oysters a fair deal
for my recipes, but my love ofthem does not keep pace with
their importance to the historyof Maryland and Maryland food. I
should be the world's number oneoyster fan. If it were anything

(26:26):
proportional to how importantthey are. I mean they out pace
crabs by far up until fairlyrecently, as far as Maryland
cuisine.

It's really hard for me, I did tour and oyster
farm one time and that wasamazing. You know, there were
literally pulling them out rightthere. And I got to try some and
we had some raw and he threwsome on the grill. And those
were good. Last year, I decidedI was going to try fried oysters
again, I had a fried oyster poboy and it was pretty good. I
would still go for like a friedshrimp poboy instead of oyster

(26:59):
one. It's just it's not mything. I grew up near, you know,
the Cape Cod area, we could getsome oysters up in
Massachusetts. My family lovedthem. I was not a fan. It's just
like low on my list. Buteveryone always thinks like
you're a chef. It's one of thosethings chefs love to eat. I'm
not an oyster fan.

Unknown (27:17):
Yeah, it's a, I guess an acquired taste. But also you
have to have a lot ofopportunities to acquire that
taste in this day and age. Sosome texture

to the texture, both cooked and raw. It's kind
of a deal breaker for me. Butwith that ham, I think I'm gonna
have to make a trip out to St.
Mary's County, I travel forfood. So you know, just get in
the car on a day and drive outthat way. And I might have to
you know, go searching for someof that Maryland stuffed ham.

Unknown (27:43):
Yeah, it's really interesting. Nice and salty with
the greens and mustard. I liketo tap Tico as I mentioned,
because they have a lot ofpepper, red pepper in it. So
it's really highly seasoned. Andit's basically if you put it on
a well Manny's sandwich it it'sits own ham salad, kind of it
forms a unique type of justinstant sandwich. You know,

I might have to get off this podcast and like drive
today. I don't know, you know?
No, it sounds it sounds good.
I've been wanting to try it. Soyou've definitely sold me I'm
gonna find that I love ham saladtoo, even though ham salad is
also one of those acquiredthings. That's kind of weird if
you didn't grow up eating it,but I'm a fan of that as well.
Yeah,

Unknown (28:23):
it really depends. Ham salad has a lot of variations.
There's the ones where it'spractically they put the ham
through a meat grinder and turnit into deviled ham and then
there's ham salad where it'schopped in bits and is big.

I've taken to use in country ham lately too. I
like that and just kind of watchwhat I put in for condiments, so
it's not too salty. And that'sreally dependent on the kind of
country him but that's kind ofbeen my version lately. It's not
as wet. Yeah. One of the otherthings I want to find out about
is what's the deal with Marylandfried chicken. You know, I've
heard a lot about it. I don'tknow if you know who Dave Arnold

(28:55):
is, but I had on one of mypodcasts and he loves to nerd
out about food. And he was allexcited. He's like, Well, you're
in Maryland. Like, what aboutMaryland fried chicken? I'm
like, Dave, I am not the guy totalk about this. I don't know
anything about it. So can youtalk a little bit about Maryland
fried chicken?

Unknown (29:10):
Yeah, I've done a lot of research on that as well. And
when people came down toMaryland, I say usually down
because Maryland really playedup. It's kind of a gateway to
the south type thing and a veryproblematic, like you're coming
down here and getting a certaintype of cooking way, you're
going to be served by blackwaiters, and cook a meal that

(29:33):
they make sure to let you knowis made by a black chef. And of
course, you know, these are verycomplicated because there's
these very talented chefs whobuilt up this industry, but
they're put in this weirdsituation, you know, where it's
really fetishized. and Marylandfried chicken was really
associated with that cultureserved in the fancy hotels, sold

(29:54):
by caterers, that quintillionsand things like that. And the
best thing about Maryland FriedChicken is that nobody can agree
what it is. I think the mostgeneral version would be it's
fried chicken with cream gravy.
But there's some recipes whereyou fry the chicken and then put
a lid on the pan to kind ofsteam it some more.

Why would you do that? I want the crispy skin
unless I'm gonna put gravy onit, but

Unknown (30:21):
it's highly controversial. And then when I
went back further into the1800s, I found some indication
that Maryland was kind ofsynonymous with fried chicken
period and by Maryland friedchicken. They just meant like,
you know, fried chicken inMaryland, because it's best or
something. But that'scontroversy also because

(30:42):
Virginia would have a word. Itwas a kind of a rivalry. But

we really just somewhere I don't remember if it
was Tennessee, it wouldn't havebeen Kentucky. We've done a lot
of road trips this summer, butthere was a place and it said
like Maryland fried chicken. Ialmost think like it's a is
their chain like Maryland friedchicken. Yeah, but it wasn't in
Maryland that I saw it. So itwas really peculiar that we had
driven somewhere. And we're inlike, Tennessee, or some of them

(31:07):
like Oh, Maryland fried chicken.
Why would I come down toTennessee and have Maryland
fried chicken?

Unknown (31:11):
I thought that they had stopped existing but I've heard
tell of a few locations ofMaryland fried chicken still
existing and I don't believethey serve it with cream gravy.
It's just a name. It's likegoing to

KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken. Right?

Unknown (31:26):
Yeah, it's I think they're based in Florida or
we're, it's been a while I usedto read the weekend. And I
always wanted to, you know, tryit just to say I had but I
haven't had the Maryland friedchicken. Well, now I

need to find out where that was that I was
driving and maybe go back there.
Will you put out a book was itlast year? That was a collection
of what your blog posts? Is thatwhat your first book was? How
did that go? I mean, it seemedlike the reception was good. I
know you were selling out ofprintings of that. Did you enjoy
the process of putting that booktogether and then promoting it?

Unknown (32:03):
Yeah, very much. So I didn't promote it very much. I
primarily promoted it to myexisting readers. And I put that
together in a pretty short spanof time, it was just like an
obsessive project that I spentevery minute on laying it out.
And the options for print ondemand digital printing are just

(32:24):
incredible. Now, what you thequality that a person like me
can just put together on ourown. And that has sold pretty
well. But I had a it caused meto pick up a project that I had
abandoned, which was originallygoing to be a zine of Christmas
recipes or holiday recipes andturn that into a book because

(32:45):
the whole time people are buyingthis book. People kept calling
it a cookbook. And as we talkedabout vague recipes, I would
tell people well, I don't knowif you want to call this a
cookbook.

I think on your website, it said they may be
unsuitable for everyday use orsomething like yeah, I

Unknown (33:00):
tried to put a warning because I don't want people
coming back to me, because thefudge recipe that has no times
temperatures or quantitiesdoesn't turn out. It's a
historical document. Exactly. SoI did print some of those
recipes in there. But I wouldn'tcall it a cookbook per se. So
that inspired me to finish upthis holiday recipe project I've

(33:22):
been working on. And that's whatI have coming out this fall. And
I worked with a recipe developerto actually make usable recipes
in this book. And I'm actuallygetting it more professionally
printed. So yeah, it was a veryrewarding process that made me
just want to keep making booksfor some reason.

That's great. So it's called festive Maryland
recipes. And it's out October,correct.

Unknown (33:44):
Yes, our launch date is October 14, I will possibly be
shipping some copies to preorders before then but will
hopefully be everywhere. In thefall. I'm I've had a really good
reception from press and stuff.
So I have some interviews comingup. And I'm just trying to get
the word out about this book tomaybe people who don't care
about reading a blog. And youknow, it's a great book to just

(34:06):
skim through and maybe read anessay or maybe just try a recipe
has lots of great images. We dida lot of research finding
historic Maryland imagery to goin it. So I'm hoping it's a
little bit more something thatwill reach outside of my
existing blog readership.

So did you put your own spins on any of these? Or
are they just really solidlytested? classic traditional
recipes?

Unknown (34:35):
Actually, she did. And I kind of led everyone from the
illustrator to the designer, toRachel, the recipe developer, I
told everyone to just have funand do whatever they wanted. But
she did come back to meespecially with the plum
pudding. That was we have a lotof back and forth about that.
I'm like I don't know just, youknow, make something you would

(34:55):
want to eat. And we have thehistoric recipe in there. So if
you want to make 15 pounds ofplum pudding with Sue it and
currents and raisins and boil itand give it to your friends you
can. But she made a self saucingpudding cake out of the plum
pudding concept. So I thinkthat's the one that kind of most

(35:16):
diverges. But it was justsomething if you really want to
try to revive this tradition ina way that your family isn't
gonna be mad that you're notpulling your weight at the
potluck you can show up with andnot be an outcast.

Yeah, 15 pounds.
That's a big commitment.

Unknown (35:32):
Oh, some of these recipes were I don't even
understand what vessel theywould boil them in. The
quantities were so huge for plumpudding, because you would just
give one to absolutely everyoneyou encountered I guess.

Do you have a favorite holiday food not and it
doesn't have to be in the book.
But like when you think aboutlike holiday get togethers and
and the meals around them? Doyou have a favorite either
holiday in general or a holidayfood that you like?

Unknown (35:59):
I like when newer things become watching things
become a tradition. So maybe adecade or so ago, my aunt
started making gravlax everyChristmas and she brings it with
like the the capers and somemustard sauce she makes. And
it's kind of unexpected presentsnow at Christmas. So it's become

(36:21):
one of my favorite things justto see that become something
that we expect to have. I likemaking FOSS knocks or punch ski
on Fat Tuesday or usually theweekend before. Let's be
realistic. I'm not frying thingson a Tuesday. Come on now. Yeah,
but I really like that. Just Ilike some of these things that

(36:45):
aren't necessarily compulsoryholiday that everybody has to
do, but you do it because youchoose to for fun to share with
friends or as kind of more of anexcuse to gather.

My wife's cousin by marriage is from Denmark. And on
I think it's Easter she doessomething that's almost like a
stuffed ham kind of it's calledRola posa. And I don't know if
you've ever heard of it. It's apork belly that stuffed with
tons of herbs. So it's likegreen, but there's a press like
it goes in this like square boxfolded over. And then it has

(37:20):
like cranks and you like crankit progressively over days to
like tighten it. So it like forhim. So it's kind of like a
porchetta kind of like a stuffedham type thing. But She cures
her own pork belly. So I lovegoing there because they have
tons like when we go therehouse, we do potluck, but that's
one of my favorite things. Ithink that's Easter that she
makes that so I love those likebig family holiday gatherings

(37:44):
where there's maybe something alittle interesting I've never
had or just you know, somethingthat you look forward to all
year.

Unknown (37:50):
Yeah, I love that I love either bringing something
over or even digging somethingout from your past or your
heritage and trying to kind ofbring it back. I have not heard
of that. But that sounds reallyinteresting. So I'll have to add
it to my my list of things totry to find out more about.

So looking at deciphering these. A pinch of
this are some vague measurementsand procedures. How much
tinkering do you have to do whenyou see these like, well, you
make a recipe a couple of timestrying different measurements to
see if you can kind of ratchetdown with that measurement is.

Unknown (38:25):
So this is why I enlisted Rachel to be the recipe
developer for the book because Ihave my brain is to melted by
these old recipes. I almost likeI would never call myself a
chef. But I think that everybodyknows and it's an open secret
that chefs don't really writegood recipes. And I'm kind of in

(38:47):
that same boat. So I just Ifollow my instincts when I make
the recipes and it's hard for meto even follow a modern recipe
and like my eyes glaze over ofany variation from what I'm
expecting to do. So I findmyself just doing what I already
know or you know, think I shouldbe doing. So I don't do much

(39:12):
tinkering sometimes I will try arecipe on my site and I'll put a
note in hindsight like a cake Irecently made and I wrote that
you should add a little bit ofoil to this cake because it came
out kind of dry. Or I try mybest to write down what I did or
cross reference other people'srecipes online for how they how

(39:32):
they would make a specific thingthere's so many other cross
reference resources luckily,

well it's so hard because one food is expensive
like raw ingredients and thenthe time involved like nobody
wants to spend a couple hours oror a day making this thing and
spend all this money and habitnot come out. Now some things
it's not as important you knowif you're just talking about
like, going back to my family'sbake bean recipe, I think it
says like a third to Half apound of salt pork, like, either

(40:02):
way, it's going to come outfine. But I did want to ask my
mom, like, how much do you use?
Like I like when you make it andshe's like, Oh, very much. So
it's like a third of a pound. Solike, that's my No, but my
grandmother would be like, Ihave a bunch of salt pork in the
freezer. And I know it lookslike a third of a pound and
chuck it in because that's howshe cooked. So I wanted to make
sure I got it either way, itwould come out fine. But I still
wanted to know like how we werereally doing it in my house.

Unknown (40:25):
Yeah, that's always going to be something that nags
at you and it nags at me when Imake old recipes, especially if
they were written by somebodywho was a renowned cook. You
know, whether the version thatyou're making from a recipe I
just made these chickencroquettes, a recipe purporting
to be from a famous caterer inPhiladelphia. And there's so

(40:50):
many variables that, you know,you wonder if you can do this
person's cooking justice. Imean, they fried up hundreds of
these per day if not 1000s ofthese famous croquettes. So all
the variables in the frying theoil they didn't really lists
many quantities. So a lot ofpeople think that you can just

(41:13):
taste tasted that moment, butlet's be real, you know, his
real recipe died with him.

Yeah, I mean, frying alone. Are you frying and
lard? Is it vegetable oil, corn,or like, you know, it's, it's
crazy, you're probably nevergonna get it to be the way that
it was. But thankfully, there'sprobably not anyone around who's
going to be able to tell youdifferent anyway, even though
you'd you'd probably really liketo try that version, right?

Unknown (41:38):
Yeah, I would just like to, you just read them. And you
read about these times and thelegacy of these different cooks,
whether they're home cooks orchefs and you just kind of want
a taste of that I think peopleare people have always been that
way. That's why these recipescirculated because people who
couldn't make it to Philadelphiacouldn't afford to go to his
restaurant wanted to taste thisfood. So a recipe, either

(42:00):
legitimate or some paleimitation made its way into a
cookbook so that somebody couldsay, oh, I've had Augustine's
croquettes.

bragging point.
Yeah, you're clearly younger.
But is this something that isdying out a little bit? You
know, this traditional cookingthe Maryland cooking? You know,
are people of our generationsdoing this? Or is it something
that still you know,grandmother's your mom? Like?
Are we in danger of losing theserecipes? And this way of

(42:33):
cooking? Because I think today,you know, everyone's interested
in global cuisine. And we'redoing you know, at my house, we
cook Mexican and we cook Thai.
It's like, I'm not doing thiskind of cooking as much. Like,
do you have a feeling on whatthat looks like?

Unknown (42:46):
I guess it's just always happening. There's always
going to be the churn. Imentioned, plum pudding is
something that's in the book,and let's be real, it probably,
for all intents and purposesdied out long before I found
this recipe and put it in mybook. I've heard of few people
whose families made white potatopie, but it's certainly not the

(43:06):
norm. So I think we always areat risk of having these kind of
flame keepers passing away andnot passing the recipe to
someone or people who are toobusy to stuff a ham at
Thanksgiving season because theyhave work and other obligations
and can't drive to get the ham,let alone stand around and stuff
it full of hand chopped greens.
So there's always going to beconflicting priorities. But I

(43:31):
think that food just evolves tomeet our needs. So new things
are also being born every day.

But it's also cyclical because I think if you
look at like take spikeGeraghty, Woodberry Kitchen like
clearly people love that foodand that cooking and you have
guys like Michael Twitty who arestill talking about old
foodways. You know, chefs,especially love that stuff.
People like Sean Brock, whoreally like dig into local and
kind of some of those heritagerecipes. So you do see those

(44:02):
coming back, even inrestaurants, which I think then
creates a little interest forpeople cooking at home.

Unknown (44:08):
Yeah, absolutely. I think that there's an interest
in authenticity. You know, Ihesitate to ever use that word
because what does it even mean?
But there is an interest inthese foods with these
backstories I hope that in someways that some of my writing
will encourage people to takethose things somewhat out of the

(44:28):
restaurant kitchens and bringthem home. I once read an
interesting thing about like, Iforget what type of sandwich
some British sandwich howeverybody had their own version
of the sandwich and then once itstarted to become mass produced
all these variations died out,you know, there's just the one

(44:48):
you'd get at the corner store,which is

the same for like produce, right? Because you see
that a lot of like, there usedto be all these varieties of
watermelon is one of those ones,right? And then they're like,
Oh, this is Like, we're going toship one watermelon, right? It's
going to be this. We've bred itfor flavor and size and
whatever. And then you justdon't have these varieties
anymore.

Unknown (45:07):
That's a great example, though, because we still have
people who are striving to keepall those heirloom things alive.
So I think as long as there'speople, whether they're chefs
who are kind of bringingawareness of dishes by putting
them on menus, or people like mewho are writing about it, or
doing research, as long asthere's someone to kind of keep

(45:28):
the idea, going or keep the seedof literally or figuratively,
alive, hopefully, at least wehave the recipes and techniques
can be passed down to

like the fish pepper, right. That was
something that I know there was,Do you know the fish pepper? Oh,
yes. Yeah. Right. Yeah, ofcourse. But like I'm growing
them in my yard. Now. I've beengrowing them every year now. But
I had, you know, I was like 40,and I had never even heard of
it. And it wasn't anything wehad. And then all of a sudden,
you know, some people aretalking about it, and then you
start to see it more now I cango to like literally my Dutch

(46:01):
plant farm here in Frederick hasthem every year. And you can I
don't even have to start fromseed anymore, I can just buy it,
it's become so popular again,that you can go buy fish, pepper
plants, and plant them in youryard. And it's one of my
favorite ones to grow. But ahandful of years ago, nobody
even knew what it was. I mean,you know, kind of in the
mainstream, they didn't.

Unknown (46:16):
Yeah, it's so great that they made a comeback. And
it's such a good I feel like itmade a lot of people myself
included, I've grown them I'mnot this year, but they gave so
many people a way to keep thisthing going all you have to do
is put it in a pot and grow it.
So it's a really good way tojust keep this heirloom alive.
It's created an industry for itand awareness of it. I think a

(46:39):
lot of people who grow them knowthe story behind it and know a
little bit about the history andthey know that it's regional.
Although I was at a Home Depot,I think last summer and I saw a
fish pepper and it was called acandy cane pepper. And i i about
had a had a fit, but you know,they were trying to repackage it

(47:03):
for a national audience. Butpeople who grew up regionally
know what it really is. Andhopefully as long as there's
enough people growing it andcalling it a fish pepper and
giving them to friends or makingthat one batch pot sauce. That's
gonna keep those peppers, keepthat whole story and that pepper
alive.

I just cook with some yesterday I did some
pickled ones, I did a dish and Iwas doing a photo shoot. And I
was like, you know, I wanted tohave some pickled peppers on
there and I couldn't think of abetter pepper to use.

Unknown (47:31):
So I'm sold them a whole,

I cut them in half, cut the the top off and then cut
them in half with the seeds andthen pickle them like doing a
hot pickle like I'm not doing

Unknown (47:42):
stripes though, that's a really great way. So you can
still grinding them as you canstill see that there's something

really and there's not a huge pepper. So you can
even serve like a good chunk ofit, you know, and just like so
that you can see that they're onthe plate. So I wanted like a
big chunk of it on there. Andthey're not overly spicy. Some
people can't take any spices,although every once in a while.
It's like you have some you'relike, oh, this this one in
particular is really hot.

Unknown (48:07):
Yeah, that's so funny about peppers. I don't know what
the science is behind it. Butyeah, most of the fish peppers
are fairly mild. And they bydoing that you have this visual
impact and this unique storyjust in this one ingredient on
the plate. So that's so, sointeresting to be able to do.

I want to dig into some potentially controversial
things here. Can we talk aboutcrab cakes for a few minutes
because there's so manyvariables here so I want your
opinions religious talking aboutlike, how do you cook them? Are
they cooked in a pan? Are theybroiled? Are they fried? Is that
a combo? Like I'm sure you'veseen it all what do you what are
your thoughts on actuallycooking the crab cake and then
we'll talk maybe about someingredients.

Unknown (48:46):
I personally like to pan fry them but I actually only
have one really hard and fastopinion about crab cakes and
that that they need to be madefrom an entire picked crab. Oh,
I don't mess around with thejumbo I know that breaks my like
that's so much work it is itmakes it really not practical

(49:08):
once a year so someone will giveme some extra crabs from a crab
feast and I'll have some friendsover for crab cakes. But I don't
go for the jumbo lump. They're,they're good when I have you
know, when I do come across oneI wouldn't say no to a free crab
cake but nothing beats thatcombination of all the parts of
the crab and I actually recentlyread maybe we're not supposed to

(49:30):
be eating the tamale. It mighthave heavy metals or some
something in it I forget. Andthat just broke my heart because
I think that having a little ofthe tamale in there is one of
the crucial elements of making areally tasty crabcake.

So if you were using already picked crab you
would say that it's acceptableif not better to do a mix like
because some people want to sayjumbo lump but I've always been
a fan of whether it's puttingsome back fin in or some cloth
Some of that's because of cost,but like, what are your thoughts
on mixing that? Like, if you'renot going to pick the whole
thing, would you go withdifferent parts of the crabs

(50:08):
since they're already usuallyseparated out that way when
they're picked?

Unknown (50:12):
This is ironic since I was just advocating for picking
a whole crab, but that soundslike too much work. And I would
just go from the back fin. Ilove the back then and then
would be it. Okay. Hadleys I getthe back fin crabcake. It's a
better deal. It's a better crab.
Yeah.

Because, you know, I worked in a place where we
were making a lot if I'm athome, like one pound, maybe two
pounds is enough. But I workedat places where we were, you
know, using hundreds of poundsof crab meat. So we had like our
ratio of what we put in and somepeople would be like, Oh, you're
cheap. It's not all, you know,jumbo lump crab. It's like,
well, I like flavor wise, I likeI don't think you always have to

(50:47):
see these gigantic chunks ofcrab. It still tastes like crab.
But that's one of those hotlydebated topics.

Unknown (50:53):
Yeah, it's really gilding the lily to me to just
be all jumbo lump. And, youknow, the Columbian has a whole
different taste and texture. Soit definitely adds something.
But it's too dry to us, justclaw me. But also, if you're
picking crabs, your hands get sodirty, and you get old bay and
seasonings all over the meatwhile you're picking it in that

(51:14):
flavors because I don't seasoncrab cakes with a whole bunch of
old bay or anything, just kindof what gets in there. Maybe a
little bit of extra. So thatgets in there just from the act
of picking it and when you getcrab meat, the storage is clean.
So it's really just about thedirtiness of it and it's kind of
like the chicken croquettes Ijust made. You know, if you make

(51:36):
it people advertise all whitemeat, chicken, but when you're
cutting it up and

lumping it together, meat chicken, chicken.

Unknown (51:45):
Yeah, you want that dark meat or at least a mix. So
it's just about gettingsomething in there that's like a
little bit more. I for lack of abetter word dirty or you know,

you do it all in a frying pan. Because I'm an oven
broil like mine, like go on asheet tray in the oven. They
don't go in a pan at all. So youdo yours like on the stove and a
frying pan.

Unknown (52:05):
Yeah, brutal. They're really good, though. I have
nothing against that either. Ijust put them in a skillet
because I'm I'm not sure I don'teven have a uniform way that I
make them because sometimes Ifollow. It's not like I get that
much crab meat in my life. Yeah,it's expensive luxury at this
point, right. So I often makerecipes. I think the last time I

(52:25):
made crab cakes, I followed arecipe from a cookbook from a
woman on the eastern shore. AndI just knew that as long as I
had my hard and fast rule of mywhole crab that her recipe would
turn out just fine. So I thinkshe may be fried in oil, found
them in butter. If the recipesaid to boil it, I would do that

(52:46):
too. But some of them soak breadand milk and use that to buy it.

What's What are your thoughts on binders? You
know, fresh bread bread crumbsis Panko. Okay? Some people use
saltines or crackers. That'sanother one of those things. Do
you have a preference? I'm sureyou've seen it all?

Unknown (53:05):
Yeah, I don't really have a strong preference on
that. I think whatever. Whateveryou have on hand is the most
authentic thing. Right. So

yeah, I think when I first started making them, I
was using the recipe on the OldBay can and they had like a call
for white bread. So you're likecutting the crap, like you cut
the cross off of white bread.
And then you cut it into smallpieces. That just I don't know,
it seemed like more trouble thanit was worth for me. And I soon
moved on to like, actually likepanko I just these days just use
panko because it's what I haveat home all the time ready to

(53:35):
roll

Unknown (53:37):
bread is a real minefield, because it means so
many things, and so muchcommercially available, like
white bread is really sweet. Soif you get anything in there
that's got the taste ofsweetness, like a potato roll or
something to me that just ruinsthe crab cake. You know, and
then you on the other end of thespectrum, you have stuff that's
to wheat bread, or sourdough andthat also would ruin a crab

(54:00):
cake. So it's probably better togo with grid bread crumbs than
to deal with the whole minefieldthat is commercially available
bread options. And I

find it funny when people say like no filler, I
don't want like that the idea ofhaving a little bread in there
is like filler, because that'sone of those things that I'm
always like, well, like if youmake it without any of that it's
a little too runny. I mean,maybe I could adjust and put
less, you know, the liquid, theegg and stuff in there. But I
don't I don't think it'sterrible to have a little bread

(54:30):
in there just to hold thattogether. Like I am not a fan of
putting, say like red peppers inthere or something. But that's
another one of the sellingpoints where people like, Oh,
what do you put in it? Oh, Idon't want any of that bread
crumb in there. I'm like,there's not really that much
bread crumb.

Unknown (54:42):
I tried to do research into when people became so
suspicious of their crabcakesthis way and I couldn't really
pinpoint it. But the whole thingabout filler. At some point
people just decided that theyyou know, in this one instance
we would accept nothing lessthan the best jumbo lump No
filler. And as a result, youknow, you can only a crab cake

(55:04):
once a year. So to me, I'll takea couple, I'll give it a little
leeway so that I can eat morecrab cakes.

Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's one of the things that I
have on my menu for my customersthese days for a while, it was
definitely the number oneseller, I'm so glad that I don't
have to make as many crab cakesand I wouldn't be able to. I'm
sorry, I just can't pick them.
Crab cakes. I'll try it from myhouse, though. We're big fans.
Again, I didn't grow up here.

(55:31):
But my wife's from Virginia andher dad is from DC and my wife
grew up in Prince George'sCounty. So they're big crab
picking fans. So that'ssomething we do every year, at
least once in the backyard isjust have family over and spend
a couple hours picking thecrabs. Well, if you

Unknown (55:46):
finish before, this is unlikely, but save or have had
enough crab and everybody elseis still sitting around or like
me, you don't drink as much andyou need something to do then
you can just sit there and pickthe crab and put it in a bowl
and still socialize and makecrab cakes tomorrow. But I like
to lay out most definitely donethat. Yeah, yeah, I'd like to
lay out some paper and justwatch TV or listen to a podcast

(56:07):
or something. And I do themassembly line style. I pull off
all the legs of all of them anddo each part kind of in a row to
each crab. And it seems to go alittle bit faster that way,

going to a crab picking house when I went to on
that tour of the oyster farm. Weactually also went out to a crab
house and watching the peoplewho professionally pick the
crabs is insane. They're all inthere with their hoodies with
their headphones on just headdown and they're just picking
crab it was one of the mostamazing things I've ever seen.

Unknown (56:37):
Yeah, I saw a video of that it's Smith Island, and I
thought I'd be able to I needed.
I needed the slow motionversion. I wanted to figure out
some secret to what I'm doingwrong that I can't pick a crab
that quickly. And it was toofast. You just took this knife
and like you know, pulled outthese three big lumps in a
matter of seconds. And it wasjust crazy to see.

So do you ever just like eat pizza at home? Or is it
always traditional Marylandcooking,

Unknown (57:07):
I mostly eat pizza while we we eat a lot of pizza.
I don't do that much. I do maybeone recipe for the blog a week
or so. Or sometimes I go throughphases where I don't but I'm
mostly at home. This is reallyfunny for somebody who has 300
some cookbooks but I'm notreally a recipe person. I just

(57:29):
made a pot of beans this morningfor this weekend. I just take we
have a CSA. So I just makewhatever we have and cook it
with a few different variations.
We eat a lot of salads, like agigantic salad for dinner with,
you know, maybe some salmon orsomething in it.

I mean, now's the time for that, isn't it? You
know, just everything available.
My fridge is just loaded withstuff that are ready to go into
a salad.

Unknown (57:59):
Yeah, I love a good salad. But yeah, so I don't do
the historic cooking. That muchit feels like a pretty
occasional thing is a lot ofwork to. And I'm not even that
professional of a food bloggeror anything but just laying the
stuff out and trying to take afew process photos. It's a lot
of work.

Well I appreciate it again, like I found you years
ago, I think probably from thestart. I don't know if I found
your website but definitely onTwitter, you know, but as I
wanted to dive into whatMaryland cooking was, I don't
know many people out there whohave as thorough a collection of
recipes and information toshare. So I'm appreciative of it

(58:38):
and I know other people are aswell.

Unknown (58:40):
Well you've been in Fred in the Frederick area for
such an interesting time forthis to I think there's been a
resurgence not only in thepopulation of that area, it's a
lot of people who commute to DCbut also local pride I think for
people who have always livedthere and local pride ties in a
little bit with the food cultureof the area and the dairies and

(59:02):
the other things that come fromthat region. So I think that
Frederick is really has a reallystrong underlying it's not
prominent, it's not in your facewhen you go down there but it's
definitely a part of the culturethere that's made a resurgence.

Yeah, you know, and when we came to check it out to
see if we want to live here wecame down 15 So we came in
through kind of like farmcountry stuff. And then it said,
you know, your exits in twomiles, I said to my wife is this
place in the country, like I'mnot really a country person. And
I'm like, like, this is thesecond biggest city in Maryland,
like are we moving to thecountry and then all of a sudden
it like opens up and you'relike, Oh wow, you know, so we

(59:42):
have such a split here betweenit being as modern as it is and
you know, if you're on theseventh year to 70 Corridors you
feel like you're in a huge, youknow, suburb almost metropolitan
area but we have so much of aconnection still to like all
these great farms and greatproducts and a lot of people who
are you know sixth generationFrederick, people who don't

(01:00:03):
always love that people havemoved here from especially out
of state, but I think they'vegotten used to it at this point.
But I hear a lot of like, Idon't want Frederick to become
montgomery county.

Unknown (01:00:12):
Yeah. Well, that's a whole other thing, but it was
definitely so much there. Youcan go pick, pick Paul. Paul is
just within, you know,

Chris Spear (01:00:22):
my spa, I have a very secret sort of secret pop
hot spot. So I'm looking forwardto going and doing that.

Unknown (01:00:29):
Nice. I don't Well, actually, if I did have a spot,
I would say it's somewhere outof that way. I don't have a
regional to Baltimore spot. ButI really liked the PharmD. Paul,
Paul's. I, I have a strong Iguess I'm strong, bitter
receptor. And when you get thiswild Paul Paul, sometimes they
have that bitter taste, and itjust kills it. For me. It just
was

also like, the challenge that were the ones I
get are the trees are huge, likethey'd been there forever. And
they fall from such a heightthat when they fall, most of
them break open. And becauseyou're not going to find like I
have no idea how long they'vebeen on the ground, like finding
a good one that doesn't haveholes in it and have insects in
it. So you're like picking themup and blowing the ants out of
them. And you don't know whatkinda I do know someone locally

(01:01:11):
who has a tree in their yard andactually does not love them. So
sometimes I get an invite, like,hey, there's pop pods all over
the ground, and it's drawingbees, do you want to come pick
them up, and I'll come with acouple of boxes and take home
like five pounds a pop? Ah, so Iactually prefer those as well,
because they bought them from anursery or whatever. I've tried
them in my yard and I can't getthem to take I don't really have

(01:01:32):
the good, you know, I guess theythey need like kind of like they
grow under tall trees prettywell. And I'm not near water at
all. So it hasn't worked on myproperty. So are you doing, like
local promotion with the newbook? Are you going to be doing
talks and stuff locally?

Unknown (01:01:47):
Yeah, I have a few lined up I don't think I can't
remember if I lined up anythingfor your area yet. Maybe brunch,
the Brunswick Heritage Museum,but we're doing a launch at the
Pratt library on October 14. Iwill be at the St. Mary's County
oyster festival the weekendafter. So hopefully they didn't

(01:02:09):
hear me say that I don't loveoysters. I don't hate them
either. But I'm gonna do a talkin Ocean City. It's the buzzword
bookstore. I'm really lookingforward to seeing some of these
bookstores around the state too.
There's so many cool places now.
So I have a few nothing forNovember, December. But
hopefully maybe I'll do a fewmore because I really almost

(01:02:32):
want to do a little tour ofMaryland's you know, and kind of
visit a couple of the placesthat are represented in the book
because we've got stuff from farwestern Maryland and then
different parts of the state.

Well, I will try to get this episode out right
before that happens. So ifyou're listening to this
episode, the book should eitherbe out or out very shortly.

Unknown (01:02:53):
Thank you so much. This has been really fun. Well, thank
you. I'm

so glad I finally had you on the show.

Unknown (01:02:59):
Yeah, well, yeah. We've talked about this for a little
while now. Yeah, I mean, yeah,timing finally worked out. And
hopefully I get to meet you inperson at some point. Also, I'll
try to come up to one of theseevents. That would be awesome.
Well, to all of our listeners.
Thanks so much. This has beenChris with the Chefs Without
Restaurants podcast, have agreat week. You're still here,
the podcast is over. If you areindeed still here. Thanks for
taking the time to listen to theshow. I'd love to direct you to

(01:03:21):
one place and that's chefswithout restaurants.org. From
there, you'll be able to joinour email newsletter. Get
connected in our free Facebookgroup, and join our personal
chef catering and food truckdatabase so I can help get you
more job leads. And you'll alsofind a link to our sponsor page
where you'll find products andservices I love. You pay nothing
additional to use these links,but I may get a small commission

(01:03:43):
which helps keep the ChefsWithout Restaurants podcast and
organization running. You mighteven get a discount for using
some of these links. As always,you can reach out to me on
Instagram at Chefs WithoutRestaurants or send me an email
at chefs withoutrestaurants@gmail.com Thanks so
much.

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