The Menu Book

MARY ADAMS FRENCH’S INSTRUCTIONS ON ENTERTAINING

By Ellen Spear

“Why ask the family at breakfast? Why bother the guests at regular intervals? Why almost lose your mind? Why go about all day with a terrible question hanging over you? ‘What shall we have for dinner?’ ”

Watch writer Ellen Spear and Chesterwood historian Dana Pilson make French peasant soup.

A Recipe From the French Family French Peasant Soup

Take four large potatoes, cut in small cubes, put in small saucepan of water, with four rather short leaks or two small onions. Let them cook on back of stove until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked. Take out leaks and press the potatoes through a large meshed sieve. Season with salt, pepper, paprika and put in a lump of butter as large as a walnut, and serve. This is a very economical soup.

—From Mary Adams French’s “The Menu Book.”

So begins an unpublished manuscript by Mary Adams French, wife of sculptor Daniel Chester French, entitled, “Housekeeper’s Assistant in Ordering Meals.” Mary, a reserved type, was wrestling with the obligations of being a near-constant host at Chesterwood, the family’s Berkshire summer home and studio in Stockbridge, situated to take full advantage of a sweeping view of Monument Mountain. Mary’s manuscript was intended to make nonstop entertaining—including dinner parties and afternoon teas—a more manageable undertaking.

SUMMER HOME AND STUDIO Family and friends visited the Frenches at the “Hotel Chesterwood” all season long.

Her method was to create a “menu book”—a long list of dishes by type—lunch, desserts, salads, meats for dinner, tea sandwiches, and so on. The instructions then suggest the lady of the house need only to run her finger down the appropriate lists, make selections, write them in a little book, “close the book, and forget about your table until the next morning. In case of unexpected company— even whole cars full—you still have your book.”

The French family’s cook and maids had a bit more to do than close the book. The stress of deciding what to serve to family and friends who stayed for long intervals during the summer, and the job of keeping the afternoon tea every Friday from getting monotonous, was alleviated for Mary by the methodical enumeration of possible dishes. Daniel and Mary’s daughter, Margaret French Cresson, who inherited Chesterwood after her parents died and herself entertained regularly, writes of her mother’s system, “How much easier is Mary’s menu book!”

The French family settled into Berkshire life in 1896 when they bought the Marshall Warner farm from a family who had purchased it from the Mohicans. French eventually acquired several other parcels of land that came together to form the 150- acre estate where the family retreated from Manhattan every May through October. French’s studio, designed by Henry Bacon, was built in 1897 while the Frenches lived in a farmhouse on the property. Bacon then designed the extant house in 1900 because the farmhouse was not well-suited to the volume of entertaining the family undertook. Margaret writes, “There just wasn’t room in the limited quarters of the little old farmhouse to stow the relatives and friends who came and stayed through the summer months.”

The French family spent their winters in New York and migrated to Glendale in early May. At Chesterwood, the sculptor spent long hours in the studio working upon important commissions such as Abraham Lincoln, The Melvin Memorial, and the Spirit of Life. He also found time to take long walks in the woods, clip hedges, and tend to his vegetable gardens and grape vines. Family and friends visited “Hotel Chesterwood” all season long.

Unlike his Berkshire cottage neighbors, Daniel Chester French was making a living at his Stockbridge home from his art commissions and from the farm, which was essential to assure that the enterprise was self-sufficient. Dana Pilson, curatorial researcher at Chesterwood, notes that barrels of apples and potatoes were sent down to his New York home in the autumn, and French’s notebooks recorded corn yields. French listed a range of vegetables grown on the farm, as well as pecan, apple and cherry trees. Concord grapes, raspberries and blackberries also made it from farm to the French table.

While French was following his daily routine, which included a walk, a check of the gardens, work in the studio and a nap, Mary faced the task of feeding the continuous parade of guests. A “Who’s Who” of influentials is listed in the Chesterwood guest books. The chronicles include Edith Wharton, Henry James, Frederick Law Olmsted, Isadora Duncan, ornithologists, socialites, gallerists, writers, artists, relatives, ambassadors, politicians, opera singers, and academics. All enjoyed an afternoon tea on the piazza, a party in the studio’s reception room, or a meal in the main dining room adorned with antiques that Daniel collected, each occasion planned and supervised by Mary.

In the days before Julia Child and James Beard changed the way Americans cooked, Fannie Merritt Farmer was a go-to reference for home cooks. Her Boston Cooking School Cook Book, 1918 edition (revised after Farmer’s death in 1913), is among the references in Mary’s collection. Numerous food stains on its pages, “X” marks next to recipes of interest and marginalia are a testament to its regular use by the French family cook.

At the turn of the 20th century, processed foods were coming into fashion and the Frenches took full advantage of these new culinary marvels. Peanut butter, a luxury food at the time, was a main ingredient in an appetizer recipe from the French family archives that calls for taking “circles of bread, about 2 or 2½ inches, cover rather thickly with peanut butter. Partially fry bacon, cut into little pieces and lay over top and place in oven until bacon browns.”

The Frenches were also part of the trend of Americans eating commercially made foods created out of the necessity of World War I rationing, such as canned soups, fruits, and preserves. Mary’s notebook entries include goods ordered from “Gristede’s Markets—N.Y.” that included “Manhattan Clam Chowder (Heinz), Shurfine Red Raspberries, and Boston Brown Bread (S.S. Pierce).” Other convenience foods ordered and consumed by the French family and their guests included “Fritos Potato Chips” and “French string beans, Blue Lake, S.S. Pierce (from Elm Street Market).”

Although Fanny Farmer seemed to provide much of the culinary instruction to the French family’s cook, there are some recipes “used in our family for many years” that are documented in the family papers. They include “Swedish Spaghetti,” a casserole made with leftover beef or lamb, canned tomatoes, onion and American cheese. Another, “Chicken Loaf Bread,” is a take on chicken pot pie, “to be used where pastry is not available.” It calls for hollowing out a loaf of bread, filling it with creamed chicken, and baking it with a little chicken stock poured over the edges of the bread to brown them.

Then there is the unknowable—a recipe recorded by Mary for “Orange Rind.” It suggests taking the unbroken segments of three or four oranges and cooking them with a little water and sugar slowly so that the oranges pieces keep their shape, until the syrup thickens. “Make a ring of cooked rice which has been allowed to cool, on a glass serving dish. Then arrange conserve on center and pour liquid over ring. Serve cold as dessert.”

Concocting a dinner menu from Mary’s “menu book” could yield a dinner that started with the infamous “Peanut butter, toast, bacon,” progressed to Turtle Soup, (“canned, from Bloomingdale’s”), “Creamed Sole” for the fish course, and “ham rolled around four stalks of asparagus hot cheese over and baked” for the meat course with escalloped tomatoes, mashed potatoes, and caramel custard for dessert.

Daughter Margaret continued her mother’s practice of recording menus of dinners, documenting the following items served at a “Buffet Supper for 30 people” on July 15, 1948:

17 lb. turkey
2 hams–9 lbs. each
2 escalloped potatoes
8 pkgs. frozen peas
Mixed green salad
5 qts. ice cream
5 boxes frozen strawberries
Cocktails—tomato juice
(strawberries and ice cream ran short)
Hors d’oeuvres—too many anchovies
Jumbo shrimps—more sardines
Stuffed eggs—olives, radishes, tuna, sausage, artichokes

If invited to the Friday afternoon tea at the Frenches, which were frequented by drop-in guests from among the Berkshire Cottage crowd, you might be served tea sandwiches that include the following varieties: ripe olive and mayonnaise, water cress and mayonnaise, cream cheese and crystallized ginger, deviled ham, caviar, cucumber and salmon, and, yes, more peanut butter.

Summer entertaining at Chesterwood continued with Mary’s varied “menu book” inspirations providing “Fried smelts,” “Chicken Croquettes,” and “Canned apricots” as possible luncheon choices, a swirl of dinners, studio receptions, and weekly teas. Daniel died in 1931 and Mary in 1939. Daughter Margaret, herself an accomplished artist and sculptor, continued to summer at Chesterwood and carried on the family tradition of entertaining, as documented in her notebooks. August 5, 1955, records “Storm! Hot weather,” and that the 20 people invited to Buffet Dinner left half of the 26 pounds of turkey on the table uneaten.

Historian Dana Pilson writes that Margaret lived at Chesterwood full time beginning in the 1950s, starting her quest to preserve the estate, home, and studio. She eventually gifted the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1968 but retained the right to live at Chesterwood. The home was transferred to the Trust in 1973 after her death.

It is not hard to imagine drinking up the view from the side porches at Chesterwood, taking tea at the Golden Hour, nibbling on anchovy toast or rye bread, cream cheese and chopped olive sandwiches with Daniel, Mary and Margaret French, in conversation with the glitterati of the day. There would be no better way to spend a summer afternoon in the Berkshires.