Good Eats

Good Eats from Helen, Danielle, & Brenda of the SHMM Education Department

Saturday, December 1^st, was a wonderful day on the grounds of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum and a great start of the holiday season.  We hope those of you who visited Eliza’s kitchen at the Woodland Home had as much fun sampling our holiday goodies as Danielle, Brenda, and I had making and serving them.  Several people have requested the recipes for the gingerbread which is an old traditional dessert.  According to several sources, gingerbread was served to General Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, a French military hero who fought with and significantly aided the American Army during the American Revolutionary War.

Two recipes were served in the kitchen the first is Best Ever Gingerbread submitted by Charlene Peck from a local cookbook and the other, The General’s Gingerbread by Doris C. Schulte.  

Best Ever Gingerbread

¾ cup molasses

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ cup melted butter

2 eggs

2½ cups flour

2 teaspoons soda

¾ teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon cloves and nutmeg

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup boiling water

Mix sugar, butter and molasses; add beaten eggs.  Sift dry ingredients together and add to mixture.  Add boiling water.  Bake at 350° in 9 x 13-inch pan for 25-30 minutes.  Take out of oven, split and butter.

The General’s Gingerbread by Doris C. Schulte

“In central and western Tennessee, sorghum is an important field crop used for silage (green fodder stored in a silo) and for making sorghum molasses.  Sorghum was grown at the Hermitage, which consisted of 1,050 acres at the time of Andrew Jackson’s death in 1845.  Sorghum molasses was and still is used as a sweetener on cereal and pancakes, in beverages, and in cooking.

Our gingerbread recipe, or ‘receipt’ as it was called then, is one hundred sixty years old and thus was used while Jackson was still alive.  It calls for sorghum molasses and is a very dark, spicy cake.  We call it the General’s Gingerbread in honor of our seventh president.”

¼ cup shortening

½ cup sugar

½ cup sorghum or other type of molasses

1 egg

1½ cup flour

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

½ cup buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350° F.  In large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar.  Add the molasses and egg.  Beat thoroughly.  Sift the flour and add the baking soda and spices and sift again.  Gradually add the flour to the first mixture, alternating it with the buttermilk.  Beat well until the batter is thoroughly blended. Grease and flour the baking pan (8 by 8 by 2-inch), then pour the batter into the pan.  Bake the cake for 30 minutes.  Cut it into squares and serve it either warm or cold.

Both gingerbreads were wonderful but Danielle and I agreed The General’s Gingerbread had a more traditional old fashioned flavor and our favorite.

A good lemon sauce or a rum sauce is fantastic served with a dollop of whipped cream on a square of warm gingerbread. Yum!

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We have served the same wassail in the kitchen the last two years and really like it.

Mrs. Fantroy's Hot Wassail

3 oranges

3 lemons

1 ounce cinnamon sticks

1 tablespoon allspice

1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 gallon sweet apple cider

Squeeze the juice from the oranges and lemons, and reserve. Place rinds and spices in a saucepan. Add the water, cover, and simmer 2 1/2 hours.  Strain the liquid and pour over the sugar.  Add the fruit juices and apple cider.  Heat almost to boiling, but do not boil.  Serve very hot. 

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The Education Staff of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum wishes everyone a wonderful holiday season and good eating!

Houston Holiday Entertaining by Helen Belcher

November 25, 2012

Helen Belcher

Historical Interpreter

As we recover from our Thanksgiving holiday meal and get ready for our Christmas feasts, we at the Museum have taken time to do a little research on what Margaret Houston would have had on her table.  Margaret Houston had the reputation as being a gracious and easy hostess.  Much of the credit for her fame as a hostess goes to the indispensable Eliza Revel, a slave who came to Texas with Margaret in 1840. Eliza, who, as a child of four, was sold into slavery to Temple Lea, Margaret’s father.

According to William Seale’s book, Sam Houston’s Wife, “Eliza operated the kitchen and cooked the cakes that brought compliments to Margaret.  Houston’s friends never hesitated to stop by for a meal, according to the custom of a day when there were insufficient means of preserving food and quantities of it had to be cooked and eaten or thrown to the hogs….At mealtime, Houston and his guests walked to the house, where in the summertime they were served at the cherry banquet table Margaret placed in the loggia. She set her table with monogrammed silver and surrounded it with homely mule-ear chairs whose cowhide seats, the general liked to note, retained their animal hair.”

The kitchen was the most important place on the Woodland Home farm with Eliza directing kitchen duties.  The Houston household, including the servants, comprised nineteen people, but at times there were as many as twenty-two people to be served at a mealtime.  At times traveling ministers, political friends, and people with letters of introduction from all parts of the United States sat down for a meal with the Houston’s.

When there wasn’t enough silver and cutlery, Nancy Lea, mother of Margaret and a frequent guest, supplemented what was lacking.  Blue and white china tureens and platters, purchases from the Gibb’s store, were placed on tablecloths Margaret had brought from Alabama.  There was said to have been a monogrammed punch bowl, which was a gift sent by the Sultan of Morocco to the President of the Republic of Texas.

Most all of the food prepared was raised or grown on the farm.  Pork, chicken, corn bread, and potatoes were staples of their diet. On occasion a beef was strung on saplings to be cured for cooking. Other vegetables were added to the Houston garden.  In Margaret’s letter dated December 23, 1853 to Houston, she requested seeds for the following: long scarlet radish seed; cabbages( three varieties, the early York, drum head and flat Dutch cabbage); the beet; salsify (a parsnip type root); lettuce; artichoke; squash; long green cucumber; and eggplant. The herbs from the kitchen garden were used to enhance the food, with rosemary being a favorite of Margaret’s.

Holiday entertaining for the Houston’s would probably have happened in mid-December before Houston left for Washington, D.C.  According to letters from The Personal Correspondence of Sam Houston edited by Madge Thornall Roberts, Senator Houston would be traveling in order to be at the opening of the Senate session the first of January.  Margaret, the children, extended family, and friends would celebrate Christmas dinner in a quieter fashion than when General Houston was in residence.

On the Sam Houston Memorial Museum’s website we have a variety of recipes from the Houston Family.  Check out the listing under “Fun Stuff – Aunt Eliza’s Recipes”.  Sections include Margaret’s White Cake Recipe from the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center in Liberty, Texas.  Another favorite of the Museum’s staff is the Tea Cakes; a very simple but tasty cookie. The recipe is as follows:

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 ½ cups flour

pinch salt

2 tsp. baking powder

vanilla or lemon extract to taste

1 egg

Cream butter and sugar and then add the well beaten egg. Fold the flour into this mixture with the addition of a few tablespoons of milk or buttermilk and the vanilla. Add extra flour as needed, in order to roll out the dough. Roll out to approximately ¼ to ½ inches thick and cut out cakes with a small cookie cutter. These little cakes will spread in the oven, so avoid making them too large. Bake at 350° until lightly brown.

Please join us on the grounds of the Woodland Home on Saturday, December 1^st for Houston Family Christmas to start the holiday season with period goodies from Eliza’s kitchen as the Houston family would have done while living here over a 150 years ago.  The historic Woodland Home will be open to the public and historical demonstrations will be taking place around the grounds.  Santa Claus will also be in attendance.  For more information on this free event contact the Museum at (936)-294-1832 or visit our website.