Malted Beverages, Monticello, and Montpelier...

As I said yesterday, sometimes there’s nothing, then there’s too much..

I had a busy day yesterday, and another planned for today. As alert readers will remember I do stuff with Historic St. Mary’s City, and I am now helping with the planning of our new “BeerFest” to be held (save the date) on May 22nd at the City. Yesterday I accompanied another member of the committee on a little trip up the road to attend a meeting of the Brewers Association of Maryland (BAM!) in Hyattsville. We wanted to let them know what we are doing and invite members of the association to participate. It was held in a brew pub called “Franklins” on Baltimore Avenue (US1) a little south of the College Park campus. A rather large, rustic space with an upstairs and down, along with a little country store attached that reminded me of Cracker Barrel’s , however this one had beer and wine for sale. We made a little pitch of about 20 minutes to them and I think they are receptive. Unfortunately no samples of product were provided. They were eager to get to their main meeting and discuss the proposed tax increases going through the legislature.

As a small aside here, those same alert readers will know I am sort of a wine guy and in the past have made some disparaging remarks about the suds. With the explosion of “microbrews” and “brewpubs” I am beginning to change my outlook on this beverage. In my formative years, “exotic” beers were some offerings from AB , but nothing very interesting (and, I suppose there were some I missed). Now there are more than you can comprehend. For instance, a little gourmet store here in the Park has over 400 brands! The range of styles, weight, ingredients is staggering, probably far outstripping what you can do with wine. And beer is very food friendly for a lot of the foods we eat routinely. I still would have a Bordeaux with a rack of lamb, but a creamy dark Stout would work well with Chili, for instance. Another interesting thing is the naming of the breweries. Sort of the same approach as some Aussie winemakers have for coming up with quirky names (Molly Dooker, Mother’s Milk) for their product. Breweries have names like “Flying Dog” “Dog Fish Head”; “Thirsty Dog” (Hey!!!!) and of course our local “Ruddy Duck” Interesting..Anyway fun to investigate. And, the big boys are struggling to play. Do you know you can get a Michelob ULTRA Pomegranate Raspberry now? Yikes!

Let’s eat, Prez!

As a result of surviving our beltway experience in a timely manner, I was able to attend the lecture at St. Mary’s College “Meals Fit for a President”. As I mentioned yesterday there were two historians from Monticello and Montpelier, who spoke on the subject for their respective properties. Both sort of concentrated on the “post presidency” or retired period of Jefferson’s and Madison’s life when they were at home and spent a lot of time entertaining.

As you remember your history, Jefferson spent a great deal of time in France, and so cuisine at Monticello tended to reflect that background. He even sent cooks to be trained in French cooking. He had an interest in agriculture with the result he had vast vegetable gardens (maintained by enslaved Africans of course) and so tended to serve a lot of vegetables along with braised meats. Another trait of Jefferson was that he liked an informal experience with debate and conversation. So his dining room was designed to minimize the amount of “servers” in the room. Therefore he designed devices such as dumb waiters, revolving doors with trays affixed to get food from kitchen to table without many servants, and so forth. There were even little trays by each diner so they could “self clear”. Some would believe this was done to limit guest’s exposure to “slaves”, but there isn’t much solid evidence of this.

Madison, on the other hand had the famous Dolly to preside at their affairs and they were much more of a grander scale at Montpelier. In her notes, she complained about serving 28 people for dinner many days in a row. The Madisons had a more English background and their foods represented that heritage. They purchased enormous amounts of food from not only local but world wide sources (spices, etc.). They consumed a lot of pork, but some beef, game, lobsters, oysters and so forth. The logistics of caring for all the food was tremendous and there was an interesting discussion on preservation. Much of the meat was cured (mostly by salt), however fruits and vegetables were dried or pickled to ensure a yearlong supply of food.

Both talks were illustrated and informative. The Montpelier portion was a bit more food relavent than the Monticello presentation. I asked if the meals were served in courses (i.e., salads, then soups, then meats, etc.) and they said that in general the food was served what we would call “Family Style”, that is everything was set out at once and guests sort of served themselves. The main meal of the day was served around 4, making it the third meal (breakfast, a light “lunch”) and then tea and after dinner drinks, with a “supper” usually brought to guests rooms later in the evening. A lot of food.

And although not directly mentioned, I’ll be Jim and Tom were

DFD

ps the usual suspects from Historic St. Mary's were in attendance including one of the interpreters that has moved on...locals would remember Rod...