Type | Cookie |
---|---|
Place of origin | Marblehead, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Created by | Lucretia Brown |
Main ingredients | Molasses, rum, spices |
The Joe Frogger is a type of cookie that has been popular in New England since the late 18th century. It is flavored with molasses, rum, and spices (ginger, allspice, nutmeg, cloves) and has a soft, chewy center. Because the cookies kept well they could be taken on long sea voyages, and so became popular with fishermen and sailors. The original cookies were the size of pancakes and were cooked in an iron skillet; [1] those made today are typically smaller, and baked in an oven. [2]
Joe Froggers are named for Joseph Brown (1750-1834), the keeper of Black Joe's Tavern in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The cookies were invented by Brown's wife, Lucretia Thomas Brown (1772-1857), who worked at the tavern. [3]
Joseph Brown was a freed former slave, born to an African-American mother and a Wampanoag father. He may have been freed as a reward for his military service in the American Revolutionary War; he was a member of Francis Felton's company, [3] Glover's Regiment. [1] Lucretia Brown, nicknamed "Aunt 'Crese," was the daughter of two former slaves of Captain Samuel Tucker. [3] In 1795, Joseph and Lucretia Brown went in with another couple on the purchase of a saltbox house at the top of Gingerbread Hill in Marblehead, next to a mill pond. Eventually they bought out the other couple. The house was both their residence and the site of their tavern. Black Joe's Tavern was known as a racially integrated gathering place for hard-drinking fishermen. [3]
There are many different stories about how the cookies came to be called Froggers. According to some sources, they were named for the froglike shape the batter would form when it hit the hot iron skillet. [1] According to others, they were named for the frogs in the nearby mill pond. [4] The name may be a misspelling or a play on "Joe Floggers," which were a kind of pancake, also used as a ship's provision. [3]
The town of Marblehead erected a memorial to Joseph Brown on Old Burial Hill in 1976 to mark the American Bicentennial. [3] Black Joe's Pond in Marblehead is named for him, and a nearby wooded area was named the Joseph Brown Conservation Area in 1973. [5] The tavern, built in 1691, is still standing; it is currently in use as a private residence. [3]
There are many different recipes for Joe Froggers available online and in cookbooks. Lucretia Thomas Brown's original recipe has been lost. A recipe for "Tavern Cookies" published by Mary Randolph in 1824 may be a more expensive version of Brown's creation; it calls for sugar instead of molasses, and wine or brandy instead of rum. [3]
As a tribute to their unique history, Joe Froggers are sold in the cafeteria of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. They are also sold in the Old Sturbridge Village bakeshop. [3]
A cookie or biscuit is a baked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat, and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, or nuts.
Molasses is a viscous substance, principally obtained from the refining of sugarcane or sugar beet juice into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, the method of extraction and the age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is usually used to sweeten and flavour foods. Molasses is a major constituent of fine commercial brown sugar. It is also one of the main ingredients used to distill rum.
Marblehead is a coastal New England town in Essex County, Massachusetts, along the North Shore. Its population was 20,441 at the 2020 census. The town lies on a small peninsula that extends into the northern part of Massachusetts Bay. Attached to the town is a near island, known as Marblehead Neck, connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. Marblehead Harbor, protected by shallow shoals and rocks from the open sea, lies between the mainland and the Neck. Beside the Marblehead town center, two other villages lie within the town: the Old Town, which was the original town center, and Clifton, which lies along the border with the neighboring town of Swampscott.
A biscuit, in most English speaking countries, is a flour-based baked and shaped food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, biscotti, and speculaas.
A spiced bun is a sweet bun to which spices were added during the baking process. Common examples are the hot cross bun and the Jamaican spiced bun.
Aunt Jemima was an American breakfast brand for pancake mix, table syrup, and other breakfast food products. The original version of the pancake mix was developed in 1888–1889 by the Pearl Milling Company and was advertised as the first "ready-mix" cooking product.
Gingerbread refers to a broad category of baked goods, typically flavored with ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon and sweetened with honey, sugar, or molasses. Gingerbread foods vary, ranging from a moist loaf cake to forms nearly as crisp as a ginger snap.
Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine is the typical and traditional fare of the Pennsylvania Dutch. According to one writer, "If you had to make a short list of regions in the United States where regional food is actually consumed on a daily basis, the land of the Pennsylvania Dutch—in and around Lancaster County, Pennsylvania—would be at or near the top of that list," mainly because the area is a cultural enclave of Pennsylvania Dutch culture.
Switchel, switzel, swizzle, switchy, ginger-water or haymaker's punch is a drink made of water mixed with vinegar, and often seasoned with ginger. It is usually sweetened with molasses, though honey, sugar, brown sugar, or maple syrup are sometimes used instead. In the U.S. state of Vermont, oatmeal and lemon juice were sometimes added to the beverage.
Christmas cookies or Christmas biscuits are traditionally sugar cookies or biscuits cut into various shapes related to Christmas.
Stack cake, also called apple stack cake, is a stack of cakes layered with filling. Traditionally the cakes are made in a cast iron skillet, but they can be baked as well. The cake batter itself is made with molasses, and makes a crisp cake, similar to shortbread or biscuit. The apple filling for the cake can be made with applesauce, apple butter, apple jelly, re-hydrated preserved apple rings, or other types of filling can be used such as apricot, date and raspberry. The cake is a specialty of Appalachian cuisine.
A gingersnap, ginger snap, ginger nut, or ginger biscuit is a biscuit flavored with ginger. Ginger snaps are flavored with powdered ginger and a variety of other spices, most commonly cinnamon, molasses and clove. There are many recipes. The brittle ginger nut style is a commercial version of the traditional fairings once made for market fairs now represented only by the Cornish fairing.
Pfeffernüsse are small spice cookies, popular as a holiday treat with Germans and ethnic Mennonites in North America. Similar cookies are made in Denmark, and The Netherlands, as well. They are called Pfeffernüsse in German, pepernoten in Dutch, päpanät in Plautdietsch, pfeffernusse or peppernuts in English, and pebernødder in Danish.
Boston baked beans are a variety of baked beans, sweetened with molasses, and flavored with salt pork or bacon.
Old Burial Hill is a historic cemetery in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is located on the high ground between Marblehead's colonial-era residential and retail district, called "Downtown" by longtime residents and "Old Town" by others, and the Barnegat neighborhood that stretches from Little Harbor to Doliber's Cove, and is accessible via a walkway at Redd's Pond and a stairway at the intersection of Orne and Pond streets. It was the location of Marblehead's First Meeting House built around 1638. Old Burial Hill features scenic vistas of Marblehead Harbor and Salem Sound.
The cuisine of the antebellum United States characterizes American eating and cooking habits from about 1776 to 1861. During this period different regions of the United States adapted to their surroundings and cultural backgrounds to create specific regional cuisines, modernization of technology led to changes in food consumption, and evolution of taverns into hotels led to the beginnings of an American temperance movement. By the beginning of the Civil War, the United States cuisine and food culture could define itself separately from that of the rest of the world.
Marblehead Harbor is a harbor located in Marblehead, Massachusetts, 17 miles northeast of Boston. It is considered the birthplace of the Continental Navy, forerunner of the United States Navy, and of United States Marine Corps Aviation.
Cumberland rum nicky is a sweet shortcrust pastry tart or pie, commonly filled with dates and stem ginger, flavoured with rum, and sweetened with brown sugar. Rum nickies are associated with the historic county of Cumberland in northwest England, and the ingredients used in their manufacture reflect the county's former significance as a major import and trading centre for products of the UK's Caribbean colonies. As with many traditional foodstuffs, the precise list of ingredients can vary between different cooks and recipes, with currants and cinnamon being common additions or substitutions.