Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen (11 page)

Conversations in the streets were a Babel of all those native tongues: French, Spanish,
Portuguese,
German, English. Complexions were even more varied than the languages. All shades of people walked the streets, and it is here that Lincoln must have had an immediate and stunning immersion into a slave society. Several sets of statistics during the period represent the population of just under thirty thousand as roughly one-half white, one-quarter free persons of color, and one-quarter slave. It would have been hard for Lincoln to miss slave auctions. James Stuart visited New Orleans in March and April of 1830, the year before Lincoln's trip. He reported the sales of nearly one thousand African American men, women, and children forced to exchange one experience of slavery for another.

Slave labor, from street sweepers to household helpers, would have been a constant presence, too. Ever-observant Lincoln would have had the opportunity to see all manners of relationships between slaves and their owners. Slave hands prepared much of the city's food.

What was the flavor of Lincoln's time in New Orleans? Did he stay on the flatboat eating catfish and corn dodgers, or did he decide to spend some of his earnings (Offutt had paid him more than twelve dollars) to take a room in a boardinghouse on the American side of the canal, west of the French Quarter? I can't help but think that he got off the river as soon as he could and began wandering wherever his long legs would take him.

Certainly Lincoln would have explored the public markets. The city vegetable-market building was finished just a year before he arrived. Open on the sides, the building fronted on Old Levee, St. Philip, and Ursuline Streets and the river. Handsome plastered brick columns
supported its tiled roof. Inside, vendors sold all manner of vegetables and fruits from local farms—peas, strawberries, cabbages, sweet potatoes, onions, rice, carrots, lettuce—as well as tropical fruits from the West Indies. The open-air meat market had been completed in 1813. Its “rusticated Doric order” columns supported a slate-covered roof on the levee between St. Ann and Main Streets. In addition to the usual beef, mutton, lamb, chickens, turkeys, wild game, and pork of all varieties,
Lincoln may have discovered another local ingredient: “The barred owl is very often exposed for sale in the
New Orleans market. The Creoles make a gumbo of it and pronounce the flesh palatable.”

Those were some of the raw ingredients. Seafood would have been abundant, too. Maybe Lincoln had his first taste of oysters in New Orleans. He ate them later in Illinois. Discarded oyster shells were found in buried trash areas around his Springfield home. They were famously served to celebrate the success of the
Sangamon Long Nine—a group of very tall
state legislators, including Lincoln, from Sangamon County—upon their success in passing legislation to move the state capital from
Vandalia to Springfield in September 1837. At a party hosted by the Long Nine at Capp's Tavern, other members of the legislature were treated to oysters, almonds, raisins, cigars, and eighty-one bottles of champagne.

Today's classic New Orleans cuisine is a mix of Cajun and Creole. You can't go to a New Orleans restaurant without having a delicious choice of gumbo and jambalaya. Rich coffee and beignets, too. Recipes for gumbo and okra begin to appear in published cookbooks in the 1830s. Midwestern agricultural writer Solon Robinson shared a recipe for “Hopping Johnny or Jambalaya” in the May 1845
American Agriculturist
.

The foods and dishes Lincoln sampled would have been as varied as the cultural opportunities before him. Aromas from the cuisines of the
French, Spanish,
Germans,
Portuguese, and other nationalities who made New Orleans their home would have perfumed the streets. We know that in his Indiana youth Abraham had tasted ginger and probably cinnamon and
nutmeg. Sage and red peppers were commonly grown and used to season meat dishes even on pioneer farms. But what about oregano, basil, tomatoes, okra, turmeric, cumin, coriander? Oranges, lemons, and
pineapples were as common in New Orleans as wild plums were in Illinois. Would fruit-loving Lincoln have tasted his first piece of citrus?

Rich cultural opportunities and the latest in technological advances were there for Lincoln's eyes and mind to feast upon, too. The first railway west of the Allegheny Mountains had recently started its run between
New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. It used a horse-drawn locomotive to make the four-mile trip, but there was a demonstration model of a steam engine very near the levee. Certainly Lincoln, with his abiding interest in “discoveries, inventions, and improvements,” would have spent time looking at that. The American Theater was performing. Would he have seen his first real play? He had enjoyed a magician's show in Sangamo Town during the time he and his crewmates were building the boat. New Orleans was filled with news. It had several local newspapers and a free public reading room with newspapers from around the country and overseas, as well as books. Surely knowledge-hungry Abraham could have visited. Restaurants, bars, taverns, bakeries, and other shops lined the streets. Lincoln must have taken it all in.

The dish I've pulled from the countless possibilities may surprise you. I've not picked one of the Creole traditions, but rather a curry. This is a meat-stretching dish a boardinghouse cook seeking to please English and American guests might serve. Poured over a base of Louisiana rice, curry would be cheap and filling. And it represents to me the amalgam of Lincoln's experience here. Exotic seasonings and tropical fruits combine with homegrown chicken and rice to make a wonderful dish.

After a couple of weeks, sometime in June, the men decided to return to Illinois. Lincoln,
Johnston, and
Offutt boarded a steamboat to make the journey home at a speedy eight miles per hour. John
Hanks had left the flatboat earlier when they stopped in
St. Louis to scout for new Lincoln/Hanks farm locations in southern Illinois. Lincoln and Johnston certainly traveled as deck passengers, riding along on the sheltered top deck of the boat instead of in staterooms. “Deck passengers” paid the cheapest fare. They were “bound to give assistance carrying wood aboard” and cooked on a “small stove” up on the top deck, using provisions they brought or bought. Lincoln probably cooked again, at least his own food if not for Johnston and maybe even Offutt.

Whatever the uncertain vision of the future had been when the crew set out back in early April, there was a specific plan in place on the trip home in June. Offutt decided that Lincoln would be the ideal person to
operate a general
store and that
New Salem, Illinois would be a good place to set up shop. Offutt stopped in
St. Louis to purchase stock for the store and arrange shipment of the goods to New Salem. On July 8 in Springfield, Offutt paid a five-dollar licensing fee indicating the stock in the store would be worth one thousand dollars. Lincoln had had enough of farming. He was ready to settle in a dynamic community and see what he could make of his life.

The flatboat crew had made quite an impression in New Salem on the way downriver, and the community had good cause to remember the tall, gangly young man for his quick-minded
innovations. Even though the water in the Sangamon had been unusually high all spring, by the time the flatboat was ready at the end of April or early May, the river had started to drop. Somewhat dramatically, the Lincoln flatboat got stuck on the New Salem milldam. That mishap could have meant the end of the journey and Offutt's investment, save for Lincoln's quick thinking.

As the boat teetered on the dam, crew and community began removing the cargo barrels. As the load shifted, the stern gradually started to tilt backward under the weight of the splashed-on water. Lincoln realized that this water could be the engine of their progress off the dam. He quickly stopped the unloading process and shifted several barrels to the front of the boat. He cut a branch into a wooden peg. Then, borrowing an auger from the town's cooper, he bored a hole in the front of the boat and quickly shifted the remaining barrels to the front. The water flowed from the stern and out of the hole in the bow. Just before the boat was ready to slide off the dam, Lincoln hammered the peg home, stopping up the hole, and they continued on their way. From the sound of it, this adventure was the talk of New Salem residents for years.

In 1830 New Salem was still a very new community. Millwrights
John Cameron from Georgia and his uncle
James Rutledge from North Carolina arrived in 1828. They planned to anchor the new village with combination
grist-and-saw mill. In their vision New Salem would be a commercial village serving the needs of the rapidly expanding farm community. Here, farmers from Wolf, Sugar Grove, Concord, Sandridge, Little Grove, Athens, Irish Grove, Indian Point, Rock Creek, and Clary's Grove could barter farm produce or purchase manufactured goods, sugar, spices, molasses, and even brandy or
whiskey.

To engage the power for the mill, Cameron and Rutledge enlisted the help of these neighbors to dam the
Sangamon River. They built pens out of logs and lowered them into the river. They began filling the pens with rocks. A year and a thousand wagonloads of rocks later, the mill stood on log and rock pillars out into the river, fully enclosed and ready to grind corn or wheat and saw lumber. Rutledge also operated a tavern and inn for the comfort of travelers along the beaten path to Springfield, Peoria, and other communities. Others in town took in boarders.

More merchants and tradesmen moved to the area and set up shop along the L-shaped Main Street ready to do business serving the extended community of settlers and farmers. In 1829 Samuel Hill and James McNamar opened the first store selling groceries such as tea, coffee, sugar,
salt—essential for preserving meats—and
whiskey. They also stocked dry goods such as blue calico, brown muslin, men's straw hats and ladies hats, too, homemade jeans and gloves, and other items of “ornamental feminine apparel.”

Cooper Henry Onstot moved from Sugar Grove and built a residence and shop to make barrels, essential for storing and shipping farm produce. Philamon Morris set up a tannery. Shoemakers Alexander Ferguson and Peter Lukins and hatmaker Martin Waddel, who worked with wool, rabbit, and other animal furs, filled some of the clothing needs of the community. Robert Johnston, wheelwright and cabinetmaker, built the means for area residents to make their own clothes, spinning wheels and looms, as well as furniture. Samuel Hill installed a mechanical wool-carding mill, turning sheep shearings into wool.
Dr. John Allen, graduate of Dartmouth College Medical School, came west to seek a better climate for his health and set up practice from his home on Main Street.

Other merchants opened groceries, a nineteenth-century designation for stores selling liquor by the drink and bottle, and general stores. At one time between 1831 and 1833, there were four such stores. Lincoln was involved in two of them before they “winked out” in the competition and lack of ready money among the customers.

James McNamar summed up life in New Salem: “An abundance of the necessities of life, its luxuries unknown or uncared for. Lavish hospitality and brotherly love abounded and everywhere the latch string was hung out for all comers.”

Just as steamboats bridged utility between the practical flatboat and the soaring tall sailing ship, market and resource towns like
New Salem filled the middle ground of progress between farms and sophisticated cities. This was the spot where things happened; it was the hub of the wheel of commerce. It was the perfect place for an engaging young man to interact with people and information. Abraham was off the farm and in his own place of higher learning and vital experiences.

Today we pass right by towns on our highway journeys, hardly noting their existence beyond a quick stop for refueling. In 1830s Illinois, travelers became part of the community for a few hours or a night at a friendly break in the prairie and forest. Those from the east came to town on the ferry across the Sangamon, while those from communities to the south, west, and north rode horses, stages, or wagons or even walked.

New Salem stores were designed as gathering spots to talk politics or engage in a game of checkers or cards. Covered front porches provided shelter from the sun. The long main street was the perfect spot for horse racing. Old-timers remembered the
barbecue pit behind Hill's store and the cock-fighting pit located on the hillside outside of town.

Modern archaeology has revealed a site that suggests the footprint of a
whiskey-making still. Another area where community, and possibly even commercial, hog
butchering took place showed its footprint, too. One old-time New Salem resident remembered a large hog-stationing pen near the area. Three distinctive sections of the uncovered site reveal this complex fall activity, and the importance of “using everything but the squeal.” After the hog—often weighing more than two hundred pounds—was dispatched, its carcass was plunged into a trough of scalding water to loosen the bristles from its hide. After the bristles, useful for making into brushes, were scraped off by hand, the carcass was hung up by its hind feet. Then, men cut it into pieces sorted for packing into barrels for salted “pickled
pork” or rubbing with dry seasonings to be hung up in the smokehouse. This was such a profitable enterprise that
Dr. Allen asked his farmer patients to pay him in butchered hogs, which he would “cure into hams and bacon, pack in hogsheads, and ship via Beardstown to the St. Louis market.”

Those modern excavations have uncovered other important tangible shards of evidence from the community's past. Although the homes and
stores were log cabins, they had whitewashed, plastered interior walls. Families ate off of shell-edged Queensware plates and drank from glassware as well as tin cups.
Storekeepers' families grew their own vegetables and had fruit trees. They raised chickens and stabled cows and horses.

Abraham quickly became a valued member of the community. He slept in the store and took his meals boarding with a number of different families, but there are few details of what he ate. N. W. Branson reported to William Herndon that
Lincoln “was a fast eater, though not a hearty one,” and that he liked “bread and honey.” Another old
New Salem neighbor agreed. “He was not very particular in what he Eaten [
sic
] he was fond of Pop Corn I remember.”