Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue!

Star-spangled Strawberry Shortcake

Last month’s Cook & Tell featured Shopper Bob, the “R.W.B.” in the story below, who became my stepfather not quite a year after this column was originally published. He passed away on July 2, 2005—two days before his 85^th birthday.

From Karyl’s Cook & Tell Column (July 8, 1976)

Admit it. You had a cookout on the Fourth.

You had hamburgers on fluffy white buns. Potato salad, maybe chips, pickles from a jar. Cokes and root beer, ice cream for dessert, toasted marshmallows when it grew dark. You never gave salmon and peas a thought. Shame on you.

The Fourth has come and gone and now it’s the uncapitalized eighth. But telling is half of this enterprise, the larger and more riveting half, and it’s my opinion that nothing is over until it’s been told about. I am encouraged by the mandate that is the title of this column to tell all about the dinner I pulled off on the holiday.

New England food tradition holds that salmon and peas are synonymous with the Fourth of July. So let’s get my confession out of the way: This is the first time I’ve ever done the salmon-and-peas thing in my life. I can’t even recall ever having sat down to salmon and peas on the Fourth all through my growing-up years. I’ve done it now, and it’s time to embellish the tale.

You don’t have to wait until the Fourth of July rolls around again to enjoy the grand combination. Salmon is always available, and peas ever popular. The only ingredient I daresay you’ll never be able to locate is a dinner guest who was born on the Fourth of July and has the initials to prove it – R. W. B. He claims they stand for Red, White, and Blue, and how can you argue they don’t?

a patriotic self-portrait, sketched by my mom, Karyl

You could poach the whole pink-fleshed fish and dress it up with the traditional hard-boiled egg sauce. You could shell fresh peas, cook them briefly, and serve them buttered with a toss of snipped mint. Or you could do what we did for our holiday repast, a simple rendering that covered all the bases.

My dinner guest was the best kind you could have, the kind who brings the raw materials. R. W. B. brought the salmon steaks. We dipped them in butter and rolled them in a fifty-fifty mixture of crushed potato chips and saltines. Then we laid them on a well-greased broiler pan and broiled them about six inches from the element for five minutes on one side and six or eight minutes on the other. A wedge of lemon is the essential garnish; a blob of tartar sauce on the side would not be out of line. I had made potato salad that I dressed simply with a little mayonnaise and lots of chives and parsley from my herb garden and followed the cooking directions on a package of frozen peas. In a few minutes, dinner was ready.

The ultimate Independence Day dessert is Strawberry Shortcake. Again, you don’t need an excuse like a national holiday to produce this all-American confection. All you need is strawberry season and a recipe. But if it’s the Fourth, and R. W. B. offers to bring the precious fruit, you naturally accept and bake him a shortcake birthday cake. When he arrives, you fill it with most of the berries and crown it with a pillow of cream and more ruby red gems of juicy lusciousness.

Karyl’s Headnotes

This time we will not be content with individual biscuits, and little sponge cakes have no right to be called the launch pad for strawberry shortcake. For R.W.B., you make one big, rich, slightly sweet, two-layer biscuit creation. Here’s the recipe I used, and because I’m big on atmosphere, I recommend serving this old-fashioned favorite in white ironstone soup plates and offering soup spoons.

Strawberry Shortcake

Makes 6 servings

• 1 qt or more fresh strawberries

• A little sugar

• 4 c flour

• 4 t baking powder

• 1 t baking soda

• 1 1/2 t salt

• ¼ c sugar

• 2/3 c shortening

• 1 egg, beaten until foamy

• 1 c sour cream

• ¾ c milk

• 1 T butter

• ½ pt (8 oz.) heavy cream, whipped

Preheat the oven to 425. Grease a cookie sheet. Hull the berries, reserve a few whole ones for a garnish, and gently mash the rest in a bowl with a little sugar.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, blend the egg, sour cream, and milk. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and stir with a fork until a soft dough forms. Knead about 20 turns on a well-floured board. Divide the dough in half. Pat each one lightly into a 9-inch circle.

Place one circle on the cookie sheet, dot with butter, and lay the second circle on top. Bake for about 35 minutes. While still warm, gently split the layers apart and put the bottom layer on a shallow rimmed platter that will keep the berries from spilling over. Spread the bottom biscuit layer with half the mashed berries, lay the other biscuit round over them, and top with the remaining berries. Spoon whipped cream over the entire construction and nestle the reserved whole strawberries in the cloud of cream.

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You’d think after sharing his country’s birthday all his life, a guy would be able to take fireworks and the accompanying horn blowing in stride. But there sat R. W. B., grinning like a kid, anything but blasé, as we watched the sky over the harbor light up with the rockets’ red glare. Amie has been my daughter too long to be able to pass up an opportunity to deliver a good punch line. With the mock disdain that only a twelve-year-old can get away with, she leaned across me and muttered to our guest, “What do you think this is, your birthday?”

He never stopped grinning. When you’ve got initials like his and a natal day that’s a national institution, and you’ve just polished off a dinner of salmon and peas and strawberry shortcake, a certain gleeful smugness is excusable.

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Amie’s Endnotes

Strawberry season in Maine lasts from early June through early July and having just arrived on the island for the summer, I’m devouring as many of these tiny, flavorful jewels as possible. In a couple of weeks, blueberry season will arrive, and I’ll carry on our summer tradition—an invitation to pop over for a slice of blueberry cake and a glass of sun tea with fresh mint from the backyard herb garden. See you soon!