Every so often, I'm asked a question that causes me to scratch my head. Linda Nevaldine, who is working on an event to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Druid Hill Park, wants to know: Just what is Maryland-style food?
This sent me to a box of stuff I've saved for years and kept under my bed. I have menus from the old Rennert Hotel, Marconi's and Miller Brothers, all in downtown Baltimore, all within easy walking distance from each other. What they served would constitute a pretty fair representation of top fare here. These are our legendary restaurants.
My Rennert menu is from the fall of 1939, the last few months the famous dining room was open. The menu is huge. You could get eggs Benedict or a cream cheese-currant jelly sandwich as easily as Lynnhaven oysters and a "Baltimore" portion of diamondback terrapin, the most expensive item on the menu.
Stewed tomatoes, always a Maryland favorite, led the list of vegetables. Potatoes were well represented: diced in cream, hash brown, au gratin, O'Brien, home-fried, french-fried and julienne. There was chicken a la king or chicken polonaise.
The hotel obviously prided itself on its array of oyster dishes. There were fried oysters served with coleslaw and potato chips, grilled oysters Baltimore, baked oysters Rennert, oyster stew, oysters en brochette, panned oysters Maryland, roast oysters in shell with bacon and oysters Chesapeake-style. Do not ask me what the ingredients were to these dishes. Their formulas probably died the day the place closed.
The Rennert closed Dec. 14, 1939. Its final-day menu had some dishes I associate with Maryland taste: fried eggplant, imperial crab and a Smithfield ham sandwich.
The April 7, 1947, Miller Brothers menu leads off with bay rockfish, accompanied by mushroom sauce and whipped-in-cream potatoes. Other entrees were white perch, smoked salmon, fried frog legs, honeycomb tripe, roast leg of veal or braised short ribs of beef. The oysters were bluepoint, Chincoteague, diamondpoint and Tom's Cove.
The Marconi's menu seems to be from about 1931. My eyes immediately caught the creamed sweetbreads and sweetbreads a la king. There is a chicken liver omelet, "emince" of beef with fresh mushrooms and a potatoes Bretonne. All three restaurants list a vegetable plate with egg. Lobster cardinale, an amazing dish, was on the Marconi's menu in 1931 and remained there until the night the Saratoga Street doors closed for good in June 2005.
Marconi's has the most interesting dessert list. Curiously, there is no mention of the famous warm chocolate sauce with the sharp bite that became a trademark dish. I'd have trouble choosing among the meringue glace, bar-le-duc jelly omelet, peach Melba, French jelly pancakes, parfait, coup Marconi, apple fritters and Italian zabaglione.
We cannot forget Maryland beverages, which means rye whiskey. The Miller's bar offered some of the best: K&L, Wight's Sherbrook, Melrose and Mount Vernon, plus a house brand, Miller's Old Time. Rye is not a beverage for anyone who wants a no-taste drink like vodka.
So, what are Maryland foods? With Baltimoreans once devouring their sweetbreads, eggplant, the Smithfield ham, terrapin and tripe, I'd say rich, quirky and tasty.