MADDIE DAY here, delighted to bring you historian and author Elizabeth DeWolfe. Her new tale of a nineteenth-century female sky is all true but reads like a novel! The recipe she presents is significant to the story, and she's generously giving away a copy of Alias Agnes to one commenter.
Take it away, Beth!
Elizabeth (Beth) DeWolfe here, sharing a culinary
mystery that puzzled me while writing my just published book, Alias Agnes:
The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy. “Agnes” was the alias of
stenographer Jane A. Tucker who, in 1894, accepted a most unusual job for a
Victorian woman: undercover detective, or, “girl spy.” Her mission: locate and
befriend Madeleine Pollard, the former mistress of a US congressman. He had
promised (and promised) to marry her but when he chose someone else, Madeleine
sued him for “breach of promise.” The resulting trial was THE scandal of 1894 –
and Jane Tucker, alias Agnes Parker, was sneaking around behind the scenes,
having heart-to-heart conversations with Madeleine, and then sharing her
secrets with the congressman and his legal team. Her best spy tool? A whisk.
And here’s the plot twist: this is a true story!
Jane Tucker was remarkably clever and quickly learned that
offering a gift of food to Madeleine was the key to getting her to talk. Jane’s
go-to dish was Tomato Salad with French Dressing which she would whisk up
bedside each night when Madeleine returned exhausted from court. At first
glance, it’s an unremarkable snack choice – or was it? There’s the mystery: why
this meal night after night?
At the end of the century, fresh vegetable salads were a
food of the well-to-do, a symbol of the refined palate of the elite. And to the
upper class, anything French was au courant, or as we might say today,
on point. Madeleine was desperate to prove herself a legitimate member of high
society. When Jane presented her salad with French Dressing, she was paying
Madeleine a culinary compliment. She was saying “I see you. I believe you. You
can trust me.” And Madeleine ate up the compliment. “As she ate my salad, she
opened her heart to me,” Jane wrote, and then passed along Madeleine’s secrets,
stolen with a tomato and a whisk.
Now if your palate is refined, you might try this Gilded Age version of Jane’s Tomato Salad and French Dressing and if you’d like to follow Jane Tucker on her “girl spy” adventure, leave your email in the comments and one lucky winner will receive a copy of Alias Agnes.
Jane Tucker’s Gilded Age Tomato Salad with French Dressing
Ingredients
Tomatoes
Oil
Vinegar
Salt and pepper
Tomato Salad
Good Housekeeping, June 1895, offered a recipe for
Fresh Tomato Salad, “One of the prettiest and most palatable dishes for a
summer lunch,” that featured peeled tomatoes sitting atop cups of lettuce,
topped with a mayonnaise salad dressing, arranged on a round or oval dish. Another
Gilded Age recipe called for placing strained tomatoes in gelatin in round
molds, letting them set, and serving atop lettuce leaves with mayonnaise. Fixing
food bedside, Jane likely used a simpler recipe, such as this one from an 1884
cooking manual:
Slice perfectly ripe tomatoes. Arranged tastefully on a
dish. Place on ice or in a cold place. Serve with a cream, French, or mayonnaise
dressing.
French Dressing
This recipe is from “No. 8: Salad and Salad Making” by Mrs.
Emma P. Ewing (1884). Jane would have used one of the newer whisks, made of
metal.
To four teaspoonfuls of vinegar add half a teaspoon of salt
and one eighth teaspoonful of pepper; mix, and pour over salad, then add olive
oil to taste. A variation begins with half a teaspoon of mustard to which one
adds the olive oil slowly until creamy, then continues with oil alternating
with the addition of vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste.
In my twenty-first century version of Jane’s vinaigrette, I
used far less salt but otherwise enjoyed the perfect simplicity of lightly
dressed fresh tomatoes.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this culinary mystery with you.
Readers: how has food communicated secret messages in your writing,
reading, or life?
Elizabeth DeWolfe is professor of history at the University
of New England (Biddeford, Maine) where she teaches courses in women’s history.
She is the award-winning author of works of historical non-fiction including The
Murder of Mary Bean and Shaking the Faith. In April, she published Alias
Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy. Elizabeth makes her home in
southern Maine with her husband, a rare books dealer, and Floyd, a stray cat
turned couch potato. Her covid project was to master making macarons: it took 23
batches.
Read more about her work at elizabethdewolfe.com
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DeWolfe, Author https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethDeWolfeAuthor
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Alias Agnes: In 1894, stenographer Jane Tucker spied for a US congressman. Her
target: Madeleine Pollard, the congressman’s former mistress who had sued him
for breach of promise when he failed to marry her. The trial captivated the
nation, and Jane, alias Agnes Parker, worked stealthily behind the scenes,
befriending Pollard, and stealing her secrets. Written all the intrigue and
suspense of a detective tale, Alias Agnes reveals Tucker’s
previously unknown adventure and Pollard’s forgotten quest for justice,
together reflecting Gilded Age lives--the opportunities that beckoned women and
the challenges that thwarted their dreams.
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