Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald

"Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald are our best historians of foodways, not only of New England but across the culinary canon. With their cookbook Northern Comfort they have now entered the kitchen to provide a practical analog of the lively insight that characterizes their scholarship. It is most welcome."

~Blake Perkins, Petits Propos Culinaires

 

"A meticulously researched, eloquently crafted and utterly captivating exploration of that most uplifting of the culinary arts. Packed with historical insights and practical tips, modern bakers will be inspired by these traditional recipes that preserve New England's food heritage."

~Sam Bilton, Host and Producer of the award-winning podcast, Comfortably Hungry

 

Some Advance Responses from Goodreads Reviewers

 

". . . an amazing wealth of information, packed with history, culture, and recipes that celebrate a distinct culinary tradition . . ."

                                                                                                                                                               --- Michael

 

"I absolutely love the blend of baking and history. As a born and raised "Northerner" and lifelong baker, this book feels especially close to my heart."

                                                                                                                                                                --- Cora

 

"Deeply informative collection of New England baking traditions. What makes this beautiful collection different is that it doesn't just list ingredients – it treats recipes as windows into the daily lives of everyday people from the past. Adapting recipes to modern kitchens was incredibly helpful. Highly recommend exploring the delicious recipes and rich stories of this book!"

                                                                                                                                                                --- Bo Terrien

 

"As a former teacher of American history, this book was a joy to read. . . . I have many students who were always looking for recipes and the stories behind them for a project, and this book will prove quite useful and engaging."

                                                                                                                                                                --- Sarah Pitcher-Hoffman

 

"The authors write with clarity and care, weaving social history, material culture, and culinary tradition into a narrative that feels both scholarly and accessible."

                                                                                                                                                                --- Nicola Harris

 

"Everything you ever wanted or needed to know about New England Cooking is in this book. Bread, pie crusts, savory and sweet pies, and so many more recipes are found in this one of a kind book."

                                                                                                                                                                 --- Sheila

 

From the Introduction

 

Amelia Simmons's 1796 recipe for gingerbread was like no other we'd ever tasted—a mellow, buttery shortbread with a burst of tangy ginger. Standing in our kitchen sampling it from the pan, we knew we wanted to write a recipe-rich book about this kind of food. The lost legacy of New England baking. A history in recipes, as it were. . . . There is in fact a vast treasury of historic recipes, both printed in cookbooks and magazines and in the form of written recipe collections kept by housewives, that reveals the depth and breadth of the cuisine of early New England, a cuisine that at one time set the standard for American cooking. In our previous work, we utilized that treasury, as well as diaries, novels, and other sources, to tell the story of New England cooking, its famous early cooks, and its cookbooks. Now, as we direct our attention to the New England baking tradition, the historic recipes we've long known and loved are playing a new role. They are still serving as the basis of our narrative, but they are also acting as the inspiration for the fifty-two recipes you'll find in the following pages.

 

From Chapter 1

 

These factors—a softer, lower-protein strain of wheat but one ground and sifted more coarsely and so retaining some of the hardier properties of whole wheat—may seem to contradict each other. Taken together, the American wheat and processing technologies of the early nineteenth century certainly resulted in a flour quite different from what is now generally available to home bakers. So, in order to get a blend with characteristics more like 1820s flour (soft but with some bran and germ), we combined low-protein pastry flour with a small amount of whole wheat flour. Experienced home bread bakers will find this mixture odd: Soft pastry flour and whole wheat are rarely combined in baking. But we believe this unusual combination brings us closer to the flour that was available to Child and her readers and that is showcased in her recipe for flour bread. (Alternatively, you might find approximations of early nineteenth-century flour marketed by specialty growers or millers, or you might try grinding and sifting grain at home—there are a number of excellent stone grain mills for home use on the market now.) . . . In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all the flour. In another large bowl, combine 6 cups of the flour blend with the sponge. Stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture begins to come together. As the dough forms, continue mixing by hand, or transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a flat beater. Gradually add more flour from the remaining blend, about ½ cup at a time, mixing by hand or turning the mixer on low just long enough to incorporate each addition. Continue until the dough forms a shaggy but cohesive ball. Most bakers will use 3–4 cups of the extra flour; up to 6 cups may be added if necessary. (Leftover flour can be saved for another baking project; it can be used to make another loaf of bread, if you have enough leftover sponge.) The dough should be sticky but manageable, pulling away from the sides of the bowl and forming a loose, slack ball.

 

From Chapter 4

 

The first type of pie on Stowe's list is pumpkin pie, and it's as though she were thinking of the American Cookery "pompkin" entry as she composed this passage. The beginning of the quotation—"pies with top crusts, and pies without"—sums up the entry as a whole, for it offers both a pumpkin pie with a top crust and a pumpkin pie without one. The next part—"pies adorned with all sorts of fanciful flutings and architectural strips laid across and around, and otherwise varied"—amounts to an elaboration on, and tribute to, these laconic words in American Cookery's recipe for its pie with a top crust: "with a dough spur, cross and chequer it." If "Amelia Simmons, an American orphan" was indeed the author of American Cookery (and we're strongly inclined to think she was), this uneducated young woman, probably a servant, was tersely exemplifying what Stowe three-quarters of a century later concludes by profusely affirming: the irrepressibility of the feminine—and more broadly human—urge to creative expression. A dough spur, also known as a "jagger wheel," is a toothed disk with a handle for decorating pastry. It is itself a testament to the irrepressible artistic impulse. One way the crew members of whaling ships passed whatever spare time they had was to carve jagger wheels, such delicate implements of domesticity, out of the scrimshaw obtained from the whales killed and captured in the course of the epically "manly" enterprise in which they were involved. The whaling museums of New Bedford and Nantucket, Massachusetts, and the Cape Cod National Seashore's Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham, Massachusetts, all have splendid collections of jagger wheels. . . . Remove the top crust from the refrigerator and roll it out on a lightly floured work surface to a circle about 10 inches (25.4 cm) in diameter. Decorate it with a dough spur or knife in a cross-hatch pattern. Place it gently over the pie, being careful not to let it slip into the liquid pie filling. Pinch the top and bottom crusts together securely with your fingertips or a fork. Transfer to a baking sheet, making sure not to tilt or jostle the pie.