Mahogany

Eliza Leslie, a comely woman, albeit rotund, struggled with the starched linen apron she adorned. The white apron starched to stiffness fought back as she struggled to tie the bow behind her back. She leaned against the massive wood baker's table to hold the apron in place. Usually, she enjoyed the quiet wee hours of the morning in the kitchen. Today, she would have welcomed the helpful hands of one of her students. To ease her frustration, she mumbled the words of one of her favorite authors, Walt Whitman:

"I exist as I am, that is enough,

If no other in the world be aware I sit content,

And if each and all be aware I sit content."

Eliza chuckled as her bow slipped into place. The kitchen etiquette she gleaned from Mrs. Goodfellow's cooking school set her on her morning tasks: she had ten students to prepare for. The women she taught were young and eager wives who were separated by hundreds of miles from their own mother's, so they sought out the advice of Miss Leslie on everything from cooking to social manners and housekeeping.

Eliza thoroughly enjoyed her solitude; she found a kindred spirit in Henry David Thoreau. After reading his story, 'Walden Pond', she no longer felt ashamed of her desire for solitude. Truer words were never said, "To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will." And now, Eliza was happy and alone in her kitchen...working.

The ovens, still warm from the burning embers, needed only to be stoked. Eliza grabbed small logs cut from the Northern Red Oak and Black Walnut, two popular trees aroud Philadelphia. The Red Oak, so beautiful in the fall, was her favorite. The ovens warmed the whole kitchen, almost unbearably due to the many layers of habiliments bestowed on her and the students yet to arrive. But the ovens had to be hot as breakfast pastries were her lesson of choice for the day. Smells of old cooked pastry began to waft around the room. Eliza took in a deep breath and smiled. It was the simple joys in life she loved the most.

Just as she placed the mixing bowls and measuring cups around the table, her students began to arrive. Measuring tools, the new must for the new American woman; she gleaned this lesson from Mrs. Goodfellow's class, also. The students stood in a rigid line behind the heavy, wood work table awaiting Miss Leslie's morning check of their accouterments: white starched apron, white hair bonnet, clean hands, notebook and pencil plus (and this was crutial) their own set of tools neatly wrapped in a canvas bag.

"Good morning, Miss Leslie." The students chirped in unison.

"Good morning, students. Pray you are fine today."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Perchance, we will all relish making the perfect morning pastries today."

"Yes, ma'am."

Back and forward, Eliza marched in front of her students. She stopped in front of Sally, a vexed expression adorned her face. "Your smock is an affront to our senses. Perchance you have no iron at your disposal? You look like a ragamuffin. A wrinkled smock is a sure lack of respect for yourself and the kitchen."

"Yes, ma'am. My husband required..."

"By the by, Sally. We need not hear your tattle. I can count on a pressed apron on the morrow?"

Eliza smiled at Sally. She had developed a fondness for her but always disliked tales of overbearing husbands. This particular ailment was never going to be hers and her understanding of it was minimal, her tolerance even less.

"Let us to it! We will start with an entry into your notebooks of the receipt of the perfect biscuit."

The kitchen came to life. Skirts scurried across the floor, swooshed like soft brooms as they swept invisible dust and soft flour, as the floors were impeccably cleaned. The students measured flour, added leavening and cut butter in hopes of creating the perfect biscuit, a real treat for their husbands. Soon the kitchen smells delighted the senses as the biscuits baked. Everyone enjoyed the familiarity the kitchen embodied as they cleaned their respective stations.

"Miss Leslie?" Sally swooshed closer to Eliza.

"Yes?"

"May I inquire as to what you are now preparing?"

"I am vexed by the situation of the Mexican war to gain new territories for the United States, so I am preparing a cake in honor of Mexico."

"You do not agree?"

"I am perplexed at the thought of taking away land from a people that have lived there for more years than we, just to gain more. The rightfulness of this concept seems wrong."

"My husband is in agreement with the purchase."

"Of course. However, it is not a purchase, we are not paying for it with monies, just blood."

"So then, what are you making?"

"A chocolate cake."

"A chocolate cake?"

"Yes, a cake made from ingredients found and used in Mexico. You can help by recording the receipt."

"Certainly, I will get my notebook."

"Begin with 3 cups of flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, one whole nutmeg and 1 teaspoon cinnamon." Eliza placed all of the ingredients in one bowl. "Now we will chop finely 2 ounces of chocolate with 1/4 cup of sugar."

"That seems excessive. Do you not always say, simplify, simplify, when creating a receipt?"

"That is true. Since these ingredients are apropos of Mexico, henceforth, they must be in the cake."

"Yes ma'am."

"The remainder of the ingredients will be as usual, 1 1/2 cups butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 Tablespoon vanilla, 8 large eggs and 2 Tablespoons milk. Now we begin."

With expert hands, Eliza beat the butter, added the sugar then the eggs two at a time. At the very last moment, she folded in the finely ground chocolate. By now, all the students were gathered around Eliza full of tattle and misgivings. No one has ever added chocolate into a batter. It was always served on the side. The misgivings, heard as whispers, floated around the room. "It will never bake" "Her ingredients exceed." But the cake turned out beautifully and far from the insipid usual affair.

Eliza packaged the cake carefully to set overnight which would allow the flavors to blend. She had already decided to serve it the next day to a special customer, the U.S. Congressman of the State of Illinois. The news of his arrival was eminent.

"He has arrived! Are you confident in your cake?" Sally nervously asked.

"I am. Did I ever tell you that Ben Franklin was a personal friend of the family?"

"No, pray tell."

"He once told me to either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. This cake is worth writing about and shall be the highlight of my new receipt book. I will serve it to Mr. Lincoln, myself."

Eliza asked Sally to help her remove her apron. She carefully restructured the folds of her skirt, brushed an errant curl from her face and set forth to greet Mr. Lincoln. With great humility, she strode towards his table and stood silently. She waited for Mr. Lincoln to acknowledge her presence.

"Hallo."

"Mr. Lincoln, if you please, I have prepared a cake in honor of your protest against the Mexican War. Would you perchance take a piece?"

"I would be delighted. My stance against the war has given me much ridicule and the nickname 'spotty'. If you have taken the time to create a viand to counter the namesake, I am honored."

Eliza excused herself from his table. She held her breath as long as she could while she made her way back to the kitchen. She took the cake in her hands as if it were a long-lost wish. The cake slice lay on the china plate with a perfect crumb.

"Are you not going to frost it?" Sally bustled around Eliza to make sure all of the china was polished and clean.

"No. This is where I simplify. I will simply dust the piece of cake with a small amount of powdered sugar. Bring the star stencil."

As Eliza walked back to Mr. Lincoln, she held her breath again. She felt the many eyes that peered from the kitchen door. She placed the cake in front of Mr. Lincoln without making a sound.

"Am I the first?" Mr. Lincoln looked up at Eliza.

"You are the first."

"Again, I am honored."

Mr. Lincoln took the first bite of the first chocolate cake ever made. He leaned back in his chair until it creaked.

"Wonderful. Will you set with me?"

"If I may."

"You may. I must inquire as to the creation of this delicacy."

"I fear my tattle may hinder your enjoyment."

"Hogwash. Set. I take it you are in sympathy of the Mexican War?"

"No. I felt as you did. That to take away anything from anybody to justify a personal need for more, is morally wrong."

"Yes, but not popular. My opinions lost me a great many friends and did not stave off the outcome. It is done. We now own the new territories."

"Yes, I know. The flavors you are tasting all came from Mexico."

"So, you follow politics?"

"Yes, to the best of my abilities."

"Then concern yourself with the new battle that I am facing. I am against Polk from turning the new territories into new slave States."

"What is your concern?"

"I am troubled with a concept of how to stop slavery. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all. It belies the constitution. As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

"Is there a solution?"

"Not one that I have been able to find, though I will keep seeking an answer. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles-right and wrong-throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. I believe in the declaration that "all men are created equal". As soon as we begin to make exceptions, we become hypocrites."

"You have something to write about that is worth reading, I simply made a cake."

"A wonderful cake. What will it be named?"

"I am not sure. The Mexican cake?"

"May I suggest a name?"

"I would be honored."

"Mahogany. The color and flecks of chocolate remind me of the wood, and I feel it best represents our countries struggles to come. How to not fear the challenge of trying and accepting something different. Look at the beauty you have found!"

With that small word of praise, Eliza confident, made the entry of Mahogany Cake in her new receipt book titled "The Lady's Receipt Book, 1847."