The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky Read Free Book Online Page A

beans that have been soaked overnight, cover with hot water, season with salt and pepper, and cook about 2 hours or until the meat is tender.

Rhode Island May Breakfasts
    WALTER HACKETT
    Walter Anthony Hackett was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1909. After leaving the Rhode Island Writers’ Project he became a war correspondent during World War II. He continued writing freelance for newspapers with numerous food articles, including “Okay, Chowder Heads, Hear This” and “Stalking the Perfect Martini.” He also wrote travel articles and children’s books, including The Swans of Ballycastle and The Queen Who Longed for Snow, as well as Radio Plays for Young People, the guidebook France on Your Own, and a 1967 book on the America’s Cup Races. In 1978 he moved to Boston and died there in 1995.
    The tradition of May Breakfast, which is almost entirely forgotten in southern New England today, was popular enough to attract two submissions to America Eats, the other by Rhoda Cameron, a retired actress from Louisiana who wrote for the Connecticut Writers’ Project.
    A lthough not altogether indigenous to the state, nevertheless the May Breakfast had its greatest development in Rhode Island. As an institution it rivals the older clam bake. The credit for the local May Breakfast goes to one woman who believed that in the spring people turn to thoughts of food.
    As nearly as may be ascertained, the first May Breakfast was given on May 1, 1867, by Searle’s Corner Benevolent Society of the Oaklawn Baptist Church. Since then dozens of other societies have imitated the Oaklawn innovators. Mrs. Roby King Wilbur was president of Searle’s Corner Benevolent Society of the Oaklawn Baptist Church. She was also familiar with English May Day customs. With scant reverence for the well-known poetical fantasy, she paraphrased it to fit her revival of the old English customs “In May a person’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of food.”
    The English, incidentally, got the idea from the Romans, who in elaborate fashion paid tribute to Flora, goddess of flowers, in hope of obtaining protection of the blossoms. The English, carrying on the custom, added to it by raising a May Pole and having a picnic that lasted the entire day.
    When Mrs. Wilbur became head of the church society at Oaklawn, one of her immediate tasks was to raise money to either repair or build a new church. Therefore, she hit upon the idea of the May Breakfast. Gathering around her the other girls from the local society, she immediately laid plans for the early morning spread.
    The records of that first early morning spread do not speak of weather. It may be assumed that it was frosty. But the affair itself wasn’t a frost. There was a big crowd. Every one stuffed himself. The society reported that it was a “financial success.”
    Among other things served at that first breakfast was cold boiled ham. One of the charter members had a secret formula for cooking ham. Her secret has been passed along and today the Oaklawn group cooks ham the way it was cooked by Madame X for that first breakfast in ’67. Cold chicken was also a part of that first May Breakfast. When that became expensive, eggs were substituted. Other delicacies included mashed turnips (later the committee, in an economic mood, decided that turnips must go), creamed potatoes, pickles, pie (all known varieties), doughnuts, fruit, and coffee. Then for the hardy gourmet there were clam cakes.
    Through the years other societies took the breakfast idea to their breasts and ran their own May Day food-stuffing contests. In 1898 a society in neighboring Meshanticut Park started serving a May Day repast; this organization gave the Oaklawn group serious competition for that one year. Thereafter its efforts were overshadowed, at least financially, by the innovator. The Meshanticut group evidently couldn’t match Aunt Hannah Babcock’s clam cakes or Roby Wilbur’s hot biscuits or Mary Moon’s hot apple