FREDERICK, Md. — When asked to create a special Civil War-themed menu, a chef in Frederick, Maryland, sought inspiration from cuisine that most people despise — hospital food.
“A lot of the ingredients they had back then weren’t overproduced foods like we have today — people pumping them full of hormones, getting them mass-produced,” said Jeffrey Beard, chef at The Wine Kitchen on the Creek in Frederick. “The food was a little more true.”
Each year, The Wine Kitchen and the Frederick-based National Civil War Museum of Medicine collaborate on a History Lover’s Dinner, which is set for 6 p.m. Monday at The Wine Kitchen.
This year’s theme is derived from the PBS show “Mercy Street,” a new series set at a Civil War hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. The National Civil War Museum of Medicine provided Beard with the historic recipes and served as a consultant to the show’s production team, according to the museum’s executive director Dave Price.
Making the detestable delectable
Beard said the TV show set the tone for Monday night’s meal. He’s whipping up a four-course meal plus dessert, and is using Civil War-era nutrition manuals for hospitals as his guide.
“Reading these recipes, I was surprised with some of the products they were coming up with — the vegetables and the abilities to produce for large quantities of people. It was quite sophisticated,” Beard said.
For example, the Confederates made use of a starch called sago, “which I thought would be a little exotic for the time,” Beard said. It appears in Beard’s first course as a sago blini — a type of pancake — with smoked apple, sago “caviar” and brown butter.
Sago is extracted from palm pith and would have been accessible to Confederates in Florida. It was a useful alternative to flour, which was in short supply due to blockades.
“They were able to produce some cool pancakes, some cool desserts and puddings, all kinds of cool stuff,” Beard said.
The battle for good nutrition
During the war, there were more than 100,000 men in a 25-mile radius surrounding D.C.
“And there’s no [food] supply for them,” said Jake Wynn, a historian at the National Civil War Museum of Medicine.
When it came to providing adequate food early in the war, both sides struggled with making their supply chains better. “They’re desperately trying to find anything to feed them,” Wynn said.
For active soldiers, the dish of the day likely involved coffee and tasteless crackers known as hardtack. The meals were a little better at camp, where men had access to “desiccated vegetables” and could forage. But after a while, more and more men began dying of scurvy and starvation. Change was needed.
“The Army turned to the wisest people around, which were the grandmothers, the moms back on the farm who treated a lot of illnesses with soups,” Price said.
According to several mid-19th century recipe books, Civil War hospitals served sick soldiers something called beef tea, which was a broth-like beverage nurses lauded for being “protein packed.”
Beard said the beef tea terrine that appears as his second course was inspired by a recipe for “calf’s foot jelly,” a resourceful dish borne of wartime need that is as it sounds — jelly made from a calf’s foot.
“It clicked, Beard said. “I’m going to use some beef feet and beef bones and make stocks, and I’m going to turn that into a jelly that I’m going to be able to set up into a terrine and incorporate some sweet breads, things that were accessible at the time.”
“It will be concentrated with extra protein,” Beard said, “which would be very good for bringing soldiers back to health and giving them energy.”
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If you go …
WHAT: History Lover’s Dinner
WHEN: 6 p.m., Monday, Feb. 8.
WHERE: The Wine Kitchen on the Creek, 50 Carroll Creek Way, No. 160, Frederick, Md.
COST: $95
MORE: To make reservations, call 301-663-6968
