Kathy Otten is the author of multiple historical romance
novels, novellas, and short stories as well as contemporary romance and
historical fiction. Today she joins us to discuss cooking during the Civil War.
Learn more about Kathy and her books at her website.
While researching my new
Civil War novel, I discovered that gingerbread was a particular favorite of
soldiers during the war. Families sent the treat in care packages to their
loved ones along with socks, which marching soldiers always needed. It was also
considered nutritious and easy to digest, which is why it was considered good
hospital food.
Maybe the nutrition
was in the molasses. I only wonder about this because my mother, when she was a
little girl back in the 30’s, was given sulfur and molasses every spring by her
grandparents.
In my story, the nuns
helped my heroine make gingerbread for the wounded in the hospital. In digging
through old recipes, I thought I’d give it a try. The photos I’d seen from that
time period showed the gingerbread having been baked in a loaf pan and cut into
slices. When I made mine, I poured the batter into a traditional square pan.
And of course the
recipe I followed had been revised like many recipes were in the late 1800’s.
Women such as Fanny M. Farmer and Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln, eliminated such
vague measurements such as “a good size piece,” “middlin,’” and “large cup,”
standardizing measurements and including specific cooking instructions. Until
then, cookbooks were uncommon and recipes were handed down from generation to
generation.
My
great-great-grandfather was a baker, and he had a notebook that was passed down
on my mother’s side of the family. They were his notes and recipes so phrases
like, “add enough milk to bake good,” make recreating his recipes nearly
impossible.
So I dug through the Internet
and one of my go-to books, Food on the
Frontier, Minnesota Cooking from 1850
to 1900, by Marjorie Kreidberg. The recipe I found inside, A “Very Good” Gingerbread was from Anna
Ramsey’s Book of Recipes, 1865.
However, this recipe
called for 2 cups of molasses, and I didn’t have enough, so I found a second
recipe used by Josephine Peffer, a twelve-year-old girl who won a blue ribbon
for her gingerbread at the 1860 Wisconsin State Fair.
Civil War Gingerbread
Ingredients:
1 cup Molasses
1 T. ground ginger
1/4 lb. butter,
softened
1 Teaspoon baking
powder
1/2 cup buttermilk
(which I made by using regular milk and adding 2 tablespoons vinegar and
letting it sit for a few minutes—an old trick my mother taught me)
2 eggs
2 cups flour
Preheat the oven to
350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch square pan and dust lightly with flour. Beat the butter
until smooth and creamy. Add eggs and beat well. Add the buttermilk and
molasses and blend.
In a separate bowl,
mix together the flour, ginger, and baking powder. Add the flour mixture to the
butter mixture and mix well. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 35
minutes. Stick a toothpick into the center of the gingerbread. If it comes out
clean, the gingerbread is done. Cool the pan and cut into 9 pieces.
It is really rather
good and has no sugar added. I’d
recommend trying it, and I understand why that little girl from long ago won
her blue ribbon.
A Place in Your Heart
Gracie McBride isn’t
looking for love; she’s looking for respect. But in this man’s world of Civil
War medicine, Gracie is expected to maintain her place changing beds and
writing letters. Her biggest nemesis is the ward surgeon, Doctor Charles
Ellard, who seems determined to woo her with arrogant kisses and terrible
jokes.
Charles is an
excellent surgeon. He assumed he would be well received by an army at war. He
was not. Friendless and alone, he struggles to hide the panic attacks that
plague him, while the only person who understands him is a feisty Irish nurse
clearly resolved to keep him at a distance.
But, Charles is sent
to the battlefield, and Gracie is left with a wounded soldier, a box of toys,
and a mystery which can only be solved by the one man she wishes could love
her, both as a woman and a nurse.
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