Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen (19 page)

Feeding barbecue to three hundred Sunday school children is one thing, but one report of a July 4, 1839, Springfield “old fashioned barbecue” raised another question. During “a gigantic Whig party rally” for the campaign of
William Henry Harrison, barbecue was served to fifteen thousand people. Even though these barbecue meats were not dripping with sauce, I did still wonder how all the people at these various events ate it. After all, there weren't disposable plates or paper napkins. Luckily, I found a detailed newspaper account of a July 4, 1858, barbecue Lincoln attended along with hundreds of Springfield residents who made the trip on a special train. The celebration was held in Jacksonville, just a few miles down the tracks from Springfield. Lincoln was one of the dignitaries on the speaker's platform, although apparently he did not make any remarks.

As reported in the
Daily Illinois State Journal
, after the conclusion of the remarks:

The reporter answered my eating etiquette question within his definition of an “old fashioned barbecue” where plates, dishes, and silverware were not heard of and the meat was eaten out of hand with chunks torn from large loaves of yeast bread that were one part plate, one part napkin, and one part meal.

Back at the 1858 Urbana event, Mr. Cunningham described Lincoln as eating a biscuit with his turkey leg, and he also said that the table was “filled with an abundance of
barbecued food.” I am inclined to take at least this part of his description literally. This, too, was a meal heavy on a variety of meats and some bread. Having equivocated on the meat part of the barbecue preparations, I was eager to dive into the bread half of the menu.

Period yeast breads are not all that much changed from today's. Even though the yeasts themselves and the wheat flour may be slightly different, there isn't a radical alteration in recipe, flavor, or texture for a good, homemade-style loaf.
Biscuits, on the other hand, are a lesson in food history. As leavening methods evolved from yeast to baking soda, biscuits began to rise in popularity. Period cookbooks and magazine articles I looked at all had pretty much the same collection of biscuit recipes. And these biscuits are as different as different can be from the overly fluffed, smacked-from-a-refrigerated-tube type many of us fall back on to get dinner on the table fast.

I was surprised to see the word “biscuit” used to describe a small yeast roll in a couple of my references, but most of the recipes from the 1830s through the 1860s skip the yeast and provide lessons in making breads light either with layers of butter, beating the biscuit dough until it crackles, or by employing the magic combination of baking soda and sour milk.

I thought I would be able to pick a favorite. I couldn't. Each of the recipes I tested had an appeal. As to what these biscuits looked like, if I had been the cook making biscuits for any of these mass events, I would have pinched off pieces of dough, as suggested in one of the recipes, rather than rolling and cutting with a circle-shaped cutter. (I wrote about this delicious soured-milk recipe and method in
Chapter 4
.) We also don't have a clue whether these biscuits were baked in bakeries in town or tossed over a rekindled fire once the meats had been removed. Either is possible and both would be filling and good.

Now that I'd wandered through the pits and gridirons, cookbooks and journals, I'd pretty much made up my mind that the “old fashioned barbecues” were simply cooked, unsauced meats served with bread or biscuits. Still, burgoo was cooked at public gatherings in Lincoln's time.

Today it is cooked in backyards, at church fund-raisers, and at civic celebrations in huge cauldrons, simmering for hours, and stirred constantly, often with a long, two-by-four piece of lumber. Some say the name harkens back to a bulgur wheat dish cooked on sixteenth-century English sailing vessels. Others say the name is from an eighteenth-century American corruption of “bird stew” or “Brunswick stew.” The trusty
Kentucky Housewife
from 1839 has an elegant recipe for “Boulli Soup” calling for chicken, ham, and a variety of vegetables all cooked separately, diced, and combined just before serving. Gallons of
burgoo were supposedly made during the Civil War by a Lexington, Kentucky,
French-born chef for the Confederate Raiders under the command of General John Hunt Morgan.

There are scores of references to burgoo in culinary history books and online. Most all of them repeat the recipe from
322 Old Dixie Recipes
published in 1939 claiming to be from the 1850s. It makes 1,200 gallons and the list of ingredients includes 600 pounds lean game on the bone; 200 pounds fat hens, plucked; 2,000 pounds potatoes, peeled and diced; 200 pounds onion, peeled and diced; 5 bushels cabbage, chopped; 60 pounds tomatoes, pureed; 24 pounds corn, cut from cob; salt and pepper to taste; and Worcestershire sauce by the pint.

Dan Beard, one of the founding leaders of the American Boy Scout movement, wrote a history of burgoo in his
American Boys' Handbook of Camp-lore and Woodcraft
, published in 1920. Beard was born in 1850 and lived much of his life in Kentucky. He interviewed old-timers, gathering information about pioneer life and Native American lore, and wrote and illustrated several classic books for youth sharing that wisdom. His take on burgoo presents it as a “come as you are and bring your meat with you” kind of event: “In Kentucky in the olden times the gentlemen were wont to go out in the morning and to the
hunting while the negroes were keeping the caldrons boiling with the pork and other foundation material in them. After the gentlemen returned and the game was put into the caldron, the guests began to arrive and the stew was served late in the afternoon; each guest was supposed to come supplied with a tin cup and a spoon, the latter made from a fresh water mussel shell with a split stick for a handle. Thus provided they all sat around and partook of as many helpings as their hunger demanded.”

Thanks to the wonder of Web searching, I found another, even earlier, first-person recollection of burgoo. Samuel Corbley grew up on an Indiana farm and witnessed an event where the cook was from Kentucky, lending credibility to the recipe:

Most interesting in this description is that “burgoo” is the name of the event, not just the food served, much the same as “
barbecue.” That is the frosting on the cake, to mix courses. A barbecue served pit- or gridiron-roasted meats with bread, and a burgoo was something very different. Both were and are mighty fine eating.

But wait, there's a second helping. The folks in Springfield decided to have their own
Fourth of July celebration after all. On Monday the 5th, Lincoln, the guest of honor at a dinner held at 2:30 p.m. at the St. Nicholas hotel, “gave a toast to the assembled fire companies ‘May they extinguish all the bad flames, but keep the flame of patriotism ever burning brightly in the hearts of the ladies.' ”

SLOW-COOKED BARBECUE

 

You don't need a prepared barbecue sauce with meats cooked using this method. The
molasses infuses the meat with a wonderful sweetness tempered by the black pepper and a hint of salt. This recipe uses smaller chicken thighs so the slow cooking is accomplished in an hour or two, depending on the size of the thighs, while keeping the flavor of a mid-1800s barbecue
.

5 pounds bone-in chicken thighs

1 teaspoon salt, divided

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

⅓ cup light molasses

1 cup warm water

Wash chicken thighs and pat dry, removing the skin if desired. Mix ½ teaspoon of the salt and the pepper. Sprinkle lightly over the chicken, then brush both sides with a light coating of molasses. Place in a single layer in large baking dish. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to overnight.

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Line a baking sheet with foil for easy cleanup. Place a wire cake rack on the baking sheet. Gently wipe the chicken pieces with a damp cloth to remove most of the molasses. Set the pieces on the rack.

Mix the remaining ½ teaspoon salt with 1 cup warm water. Baste the chicken with this salted water and roast, basting and turning about every 20 minutes until chicken is deliciously browned and the meat is well done. (You may cook these thighs on a grill over a low fire.) Baste, turn, and watch carefully as molasses has a tendency to burn. Overall cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of the pieces of meat. For the bone-in chicken thighs, allow about 1 hour.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

RE-CREATED FROM PERIOD SOURCES.

PEACH-AND-HONEY

 

The “peach-and-honey” served at Thomas and Nancy Lincoln's wedding celebration may well have been an alcoholic beverage similar to this one from
Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery and Household Management
: “A good winter drink is made by mixing together one tablespoonful of honey and a wineglassful of peach-brandy.” This “serving suggestion” follows the recipe for making the brandy from 10 pounds of good peaches and 2 ½ gallons of 95 percent alcohol
.

ADAPTED FROM “PEACH AND HONEY,” JULIET CORSON,
MISS CORSON'S PRACTICAL AMERICAN COOKERY AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT
, 1885.