Historical Recipes and the Women Who Shared Them

This cookbook was published in 1909 and we’re exploring the recipes and the lives of the women who submitted them. (Want to know more? Read the intro here or the previous entry here.)

Please remember to use 2014 food handling safety practices when attempting to make 1909 recipes!

Page 13

Transcription

CLEAR TOMATO SOUP.
One quart cooked tomatoes, 1 pint water, ½ onion, 2 bay leaves, 4 cloves, 2 teaspoonsful salt, ¼ teaspoonful pepper, 3 tablespoonsful cornstarch, 2 tablespoonsful butter. Add the water to the tomatoes, with the onion, bay leaves and cloves; boil about ten minutes, then put through a sieve. Return to the fire; add the butter, pepper and salt; moisten the cornstarch with a little cold water, put in the soup and cook till transparent. Then it is ready to serve.
–Mrs Laura D. Pickenpaugh.

NOODLES.
Three eggs, beat light; 2 teaspoonsful baking powder, pinch salt, flour enough to make a stiff dough; roll thin. Then make in a small roll, cut very fine. Let stand several hours before cooking. Cook in any kind of broth about twenty minutes.

GUMBO SOUP.
Cut up two chickens, two slices of ham and two onions into dice; flour them and fry the whole to a light brown; then fill the frying pan with boiling water, stir it a few minutes, and turn the whole into a saucepan, stir it a few minutes and turn the whole into a saucepan containing three quarts of boiling water; let it boil forty minutes, removing the skum. In the meantime soak three pods of okra in cold water twenty minutes. Cut them into thin slices and add to the other ingredients; let it boil one hour and a half. Add one quart of canned tomatoes and a cupful of boiled rice half an hour before serving.

Who was she?

Mrs Laura D Pickenpaugh: Laura Dering was born to William M. Dering (1, 2) and Sarah Glisson (1, 2, 3) on May 2, 1831 (4, 5) in Monongalia county, VA (1), now part of West Virginia. She married merchant Daniel C. Pickenpaugh on July 13, 1864 at Morgantown WV (1). Both she and Daniel lost their fathers while they were young adults, he at age 17 (6) and she at 25, well before they married (7). I do wonder if that was a point of connection for them.

Laura’s sister Harriet Dering lived with them in Morgantown WV when the 1870 Federal census was taken (8), but the Pickenpaughs remained childless until their daughter Sarah was born in July of 1871 (9). Sadly, Daniel died of consumption the following year on June 18, 1872 (10). Laura did not remarry. In 1880, Laura and 9-year-old Sarah remained in Morgantown WV (11). Incidentally, 1880 was the only available Federal census in which Laura is found living separately from her sister (2, 5, 8, 11, 12). It makes sense—in 1880, Harriet was a newlywed, having married Frank Woods on July 9, 1879 (13).

I might not have found Laura in 1900 without the help of the Library of Congress Chronicling America project—but on July 4, 1903, she’s warned in the Advertised Letters column of the Washington DC Evening Star that she has mail on its way to the Dead Letter Office (14). I then located Frank and Harriet Woods and Laura Pickenpaugh in Baltimore MD in 1900 (5). The census reports that Laura’s only child is no longer living; Sarah died in 1891 at about age 20 (9).

Laura passed away on March 18, 1904, and she is buried at the Oak Grove Cemetery at Morgantown WV (4).

(Numbered sources are cited and linked in the index.)

Now that’s interesting…

Laura’s death in 1904 poses a question: who submitted her recipe to be included in the West Virginia Wesleyan College Cook Book, which is presumed to have been published around 1909?

I’ll guess that she probably gave the recipe to a friend who later submitted it to the cookbook committee. Did the friend offer Laura’s recipe as a memorial, or as a delicious dish that ought to be shared? As we continue through the pages, I’ll be watching for other contributors with ties to Morgantown WV.

Tweetables

Sound off, #glutenfree experts! Can this 1909 homemade noodle recipe be adapted for GF life?

Laura contributed to this cookbook–5 years after her death. What does THAT mean? #genealogy

Bet I can make this gumbo without dirtying *4* pots & pans! #cooking

Thanks for stopping by and we’ll see you next week

If you are researching one of the ladies credited in this cookbook, please email me. I’d love to hear your story!