FLIPPING EGGS WITH MARTHA WASHINGTON (Guest post by Mally Becker)

I stood in the center of the kitchen, balancing a heavy book in one hand and staring at

everything I’d hauled on to the countertop—lemons, apples, plenty of eggs, cream, and more.

My husband cleared his throat. “It’s late for breakfast, isn’t it?”

“Not making breakfast.” I shook my head.

“Then what’s all this?”

“I’m cooking with Martha Washington.” I’m afraid I sounded grim.

“You’ve gone off the deep end.”

“Maybe,” I said through gritted teeth. It had seemed like a great idea at first. Now, I wasn’t so

sure, since I’m not the greatest cook. “I was searching for recipes from the 1700s to give

readers a sense of how food would have looked, smelled, and tasted back then.”

I resisted the urge to lecture about the way writers use the five senses in their work to make a

time, place, and people feel real to readers. I’d talked to reenactors, had heart-to-heart

conversations with museum curators about how annoying it would (or wouldn’t have) felt to

wear stays under a dress every day, and, yes, researched recipes for my Revolutionary War

mysteries.

“So what’s with Martha Washington?” He picked up one of the apples on the counter. “You

want these sliced?”

I nodded and answered his first question.

“I found this.” I showed him the paperback cover of Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery and

lay the book open on the counter next to a few of the green Granny Smith apples. “I think it

goes back a lot further than the 1700s. It has recipes for things like ‘green Apricock chips’ and

‘plague water.’”

“You just like the sound of those words, don’t you?”

It’s nice to be understood. I smiled, then added butter to the pan on the stove and turned up

the heat.

“What’s this going to be, then?” he asked.

“My version of Martha Washington’s apple tansie. It’s a slightly sweet egg pancake. Maybe

halfway between an omelet and a crustless quiche.” I scooped up the sliced apples and added

them to the pan.

“Your version?” He only sounded slightly nervous. Did I mention I’m not a reliably good cook?

“My version cuts the number of eggs from twelve to six. I also used less cream than the original

recipe and substituted vanilla extract for rosewater.” I grinned. “And don’t worry. You don’t

have to eat it.”

By that time, the kitchen was redolent with the scent of butter, cooking apples and cinnamon.

My dear husband ate his share of the tansie and enjoyed it. I hope you do, too, especially if you

savor it while reading an especially good book like The Lace Widow.

Apple Tansie

(serves two)

3 whole eggs

3 egg yolks

3-4 tablespoons heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ½ teaspoons sugar

A pinch of cinnamon

A pinch of nutmeg

A pinch of salt

Powdered sugar

Sauté the sliced apples in butter in a flat pan (or omelet pan). Sprinkle a pinch of sugar

and cinnamon over the apples as they cook. Remove from the pan when softened to your

liking.

Mix the eggs, heavy cream, vanilla, sugar, nutmeg, salt and shredded apples.

Add fresh butter to the same flat pan you used to sauté the apple and pour the egg mix into it, cooking gently. When firm, flip the tansie and cook the second side.

“Serve it up hot,” the cookbook directs, and add the sautéed apples and powdered

sugar, “on ye side you fryde last.”

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Two-time Agatha Award nominee Mally Becker is the author of the Revolutionary War

mysteries, The Turncoat’s Widow and The Counterfeit Wife. The next installment in her series,

The Paris Mistress, will be published on January 2, 2024. You can reach Mally at

www.mallybecker.com.