In Search of Orange Gold: Part Two - What Came Before

There is a history behind Old Bay, the iconic spice used in the preparation of steamed crabs. It began long before the iconic little tin can began to appear on store shelves or in kitchens. Some have spent time recounting that history. They have delved into cookbooks and other materials that date back as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century. Their efforts certainly provide a good starting point for discussing the history of the spice mixes that came before Old Bay. However, I think we need to go a little further back than any cookbook.

The reason lies with one simple and undeniable fact: the further back into the history of the United States generally -- or the Chesapeake region in particular -- the more likely it is that the cookbooks were written by people of European ancestry. The history of the region can be told from a far wider range of voices.  For example, the consumption of crabs, oysters, clams and other foods from the Chesapeake Bay began centuries before John Smith ever laid eyes on the region. Likewise, after Europeans colonized the bay region, they brought African slaves who performed the manual labor on plantations, including the preparation of meals. If one is truly going to discuss the history of anything, anywhere, in North America, that history needs to be more inclusive. 

The Algonquin peoples -- including the Choptank, Delaware, Matapeake, Nanticoke and Piscataway --lived along the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River for centuries before the Europeans' arrival.  These native peoples gathered fish, eels, shrimp, clams, oysters and even blue crabs. Researchers have found fragments of blue crab shells in ninety-three (93) different Native American sites, suggesting that the Native Americans relied upon the crustaceans for food.  Some of the fragments have been found at sites that date back to 1,200 B.C., which is more than three thousand (3,000) years ago. This evidence supports the conclusion that the Algonquin peoples relied on blue crabs as part of their diet. Moreover, given the fact that blue crabs were not found in Europe until relatively recently (and, as an aside are now considered an invasive species in Spanish and French waters), it is most likely that the indigenous people introduced the crustaceans to the European settlers and colonizers.

Source: Redbook

Not only would the indigenous peoples introduced the crab, but they probably passed along cooking techniques. I had a very difficult time finding information about now Native Americans prepared and ate blue crabs. At most, I found anecdotes. According to one person who descended from the Nanticoke tribe, her grandmother used to pour scalding water on the crabs (which most likely stunned them) before placing them in a pot to cook (most likely by steam). The person did not provide any further detail as to how her grandmother prepared crabs in the "Nanticoke style." 

Unable to find specific examples of how Native Americans prepared crabs, I turned to more general information.  For example, many of the herbs and spices that could be found in a modern day kitchen were brought to the new world by European settlers and traders. Native American cooks would not have had access to them when preparing crabs, prior to colonialization. Nevertheless, they had access to a range of indigenous ingredients, such as the seeds of peppergrass or Shepherd's Prune (which have a taste similar to white pepper) and dried berries from spicebushes (a substitute for allspice). Still, I was unable to find anything, such as the spices used, by Native American cooks when preparing crabs. 

As they had for centuries, Europeans brought a range of herbs and spices with them. This fact is evident from the early cookbooks, which include recipes for steamed crabs. One of the earliest written recipes for blue crabs read as follows: 

Take the meat out of the great claws being first boiled, flour and fry them and take the meat out of the body strain half if it for sauce, and the other half to fry, and mix it with grated bread, almond paste, nutmeg, salt and yolks of eggs, fry in clarified butter, begin first dipped in batter, put in a spoonful at a time; then make sauce with wine-vinegar, butter or juyce of orange, and grated nutmeg, beat up the butter thick, and put some of the meat that was strained into the sauce, warm it and put it in a clean dish, lay the meat on the sauce, slices of orange all over and run it over with beaten butter, fryed parasley, round the dish bring and the little legs round the meat.

This recipe comes from Robert May's The Accomplist Cook, which was published in 1685. There is a reference to the use of nutmeg when preparing the crabs.

One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, William Paca, had his own way to prepare crab meat:

Take out the meat and clean it from the Skin. Put it into a Stew-pan with half a pint of white wine, a little nutmeg, pepper and salt, over a slow fire, - throw in a few crumbs of bread, beat up one yolk of an egg, with a spoonful of vinegar, then shake the sauce round for a minute and serve it upon a plate.

This recipe comes from a cooking manuscript started by Miss Ann Chase in 1811. Once again, there is the use of nutmeg, pepper and salt.

Jane Howard wrote a cookbook in 1873 entitled Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen.  The cookbook included two recipes for crab stews: one with a cream sauce with mace, cayenne, salt and pepper; and, a second with mustard, cayenne pepper, cloves, allspice and wine. These recipes are the first that I could find in which a variety of spices -- mace, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, mustard, cloves and allspice -- used in connection with the preparation of crabs.  It is interesting that nutmeg was not included in those recipes. 

Howard also included a recipe for "stewing" hard crabs.  This recipe reads as follows: 

Pick the crabs carefully. Season with powdered mustard, cayenne pepper, two or three cloves, a very little allspice, the yolks of two eggs and a small quantity of white flour rubbed with two large table-spoonfuls of butter; to which, if you like, add two glasses of white wine.  Mix together, and stew for quarter of an hour.

There is some overlap with other recipes, such as the use of mustard, cayenne pepper, cloves and allspice. 

Other cookbooks from the late nineteenth century - such as Mary Tyson's Queen of the Kitchen (1870) and Mrs. Charles Gibson's Maryland and Virginia Cookbook (1894) contained similar recipes for crabs. For instance, Ms. Tyson recounted a recipe for "stewing" hard crabs that, although following the similar cooking process as Jane Howard's recipe, included "two blades of mace pounded," cayenne pepper, salt, and "a little black pepper." 

All of these recipes provide the foundation for what was to come.  They show a tradition of using certain ingredients -- such as allspice, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cloves, mace, mustard and nutmeg  -- in connection with crabs and crab meat.  All that was missing was someone to unite these ingredients into a spice mix.  The only question is who that person would be. Until next time ...

ENJOY!