It was supposed to be a calf’s head, but judging from the mass it may have been closer to that of a teenage cattle. So Lori Trolan and her cooks grabbed the biggest pot they could find, tossed in the head and held out hope that this would be a pie worth waiting for.
Trolan is culinary historian; a hearth cook who used antiquated recipes to create dishes that may have landed on George Washington’s dinner table.
Like, for example, calf’s head pie.
"Try and get a calf’s head around here," said Trolan with a laugh, as she recalled preparing the dish several years ago. She and her cooks found one in a slaughterhouse in Springfield, only to find it larger than expected. The ended up jamming it into a pot, though it fit poorly — the nose stuck out of the water.
As the pot came to a boil, the head began to cook. Suddenly, to the delight of the cooking staff, steam began shooting out its nostrils, like an animated bull on a billboard. "It was hysterical," recalled Trolan.
The recipe called for a pie crust, layers of meat from the tongue and cheeks of the calf, wine, mushrooms, among other ingredients. It also called for half of the brain to be combined with breadcrumbs and boiled, and the other half fried — all of it placed on top of the pie. "The kicker was that they wanted you to garnish it with the eyeballs," Trolan said.
The cooks carefully cut around the sockets of the calf head. But since the oversized noggin didn’t fit the pot, it hadn’t been properly submerged. "We were expecting something like a hardboiled egg. But as we were cutting around the hole, they eye squirted. And we were just screaming," she said.
TROLAN WILL HELP prepare traditional 18th century cuisine at "A Plantation Christmas," which will be held at Gunston Hall Plantation, 10709 Gunston Road in Mason Neck, on Friday, Dec. 8 and Saturday, Dec. 9 from 6:30 – 9:30 p.m. This annual event is the largest holiday celebration for the historic site, and features everything from interaction with re-enactors to a buffet featuring Yule-time fare. Visit www.gunstonhall.org for more information.
Susan Blankenship, development and public relations coordinator for Gunston Hall, said that hearth cooks like Trolan have been a part of that event for the last 20 years. "The hearth cooks are preparing a meal, and there will be free samples for all," she said.
Trolan, who lives in Herndon, has enjoyed preparing food at Gunston Hall plantation, not only for its archive of historic cookbooks but for its facilities. She began cooking at the Sully Historic Site on Chantilly, where there were limited foodways programs for school children. "I got sick of making biscuits," said Trolan. "Gunston had a much a bigger program, so I glommed on to them. We’re able to do a lot more than biscuits."
She was also happy with the change in scenery, as the historic Lee building in Sully was never renovated. "For me, playing with fire in an original building kind of makes me nervous. Gunston’s little kitchen is rebuilt in the footprint of the old kitchen, and it’s a modern building that dates to the [1970s]. That doesn’t scare me as much."
Trolan is an advocate for hearth cooking, even in her own home. Over last weekend, she prepared a turkey in over her own fireplace, using a reflector oven. "The skin comes out so crackly and brown, and the inside is so moist…if you were to taste side by side a baked chicken and a roasted chicken from Gunston, the roasted chicken wins hands down."
THIS YEAR, Trolan and about 20 other cooks will be preparing several items for tasting during "A Plantation Christmas." There will be a cocktail made from heavy duty cream, lemon juice, brandy and sherry. "It’s only about 1,000 calories per swallow," said Trolan.
There will be a white fruit cake dish — one that was passed down through Martha Washington’s family — which involves 40 eggs.
There will also be what’s become a tradition for the hearth cooks, which Trolan calls "the ‘Fear Factor’ stuff."
Stuff like calf’s head pie, or swan pie. Or the eel dish the cooks made one year, in which they stripped the carcass of meat, blended it with breadcrumbs, herbs and spices, placed it back on the "skeleton" and baked it. "You’ve got this ugly head looking at you, and the rest you eat," said Trolan.
This year? Turtle soup, a spicy little recipe that involves turtle meat and a whole lot of cayenne pepper.
It’s an old recipe — and sometimes reading those can offer a hearth cook’s greatest challenge. "They have a lot of instructions, and some of the instructions aren’t very helpful," Trolan said. "‘Cook it ‘till it comes home.’ Well, what the heck does that mean?"