Peach Cordial 1845

Elizabeth Ellicott Lea's Cordial recipe was included in her slim first edition of 1845 and the enlarged 1846 and 1851 editions (reprinted for 40 years). Her Peach Cordial required peaches, sugar, brandy, mace and blanched peach kernels. Born in 1793 in Ellicott City, Maryland, Lea included many peach recipes, which have been great, as have her other recipes. I have not made a cake flavored with her Peach Cordial, yet.

German Sweet Pickled Peaches

It's August, so yet another peach recipe from Maryland. Tyson's 1870 recipe called for equal amounts of vinegar and brown sugar, with cinnamon. Marylanders Howard's Peach Chutnee is equal, but Lea's Spiced Peaches used 4:1 sugar to vinegar. As for the German in the title...

Maryland crabs ... before Old Bay

In 1939, Gustav Brunn fled Germany and then developed the Old Bay crab seasoning - celery salt, peppers, paprika and secret spices - in Baltimore. Some spices used in 1800s Maryland recipes were nutmeg, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, mace, cloves, and allspice. Photo of 1906 crab pickers.

Queen of the Kitchen: a collection of old Maryland receipts by Miss Tyson

In 1870, a charity cookbook was compiled by "Miss Tyson" to fund a new church building for the Protestant Episcopal Church in Oakland (western Maryland).  The first edition was so successful that the church building was built.  Enlarged and no longer for charity, the cookbook went through three more editions by a publisher in Philadelphia.  So, who was "M. L. Tyson"?