As my readers know, last week I wrote wondering on the mysterious origins of a recipe for Nichewaug potatoes, a recipe I had found in Mary Parloa’s cookbook, “Miss Parloa’s Young Housekeeper,” published in 1900. I am glad to report that thanks to information from the Petersham Historical Society and a little further research, this particular mystery has been solved.
The story begins with disparate strands of history that run from Boston to Petersham and include three pioneers of the domestic science movement. One of these pioneers indeed has a link to Petersham, and all three, a link to a famous cooking school.
The first pioneer, of course, is Parloa herself. As I mentioned last time, Parloa was a pioneer in the home economics field, having worked as a cook for many years in private homes and inns in New England. Along with being an author and a cook, she also became an educator who in October 1877 opened Miss Parloa’s School of Cooking in Boston, not to be confused with the Boston Cooking School. Though when the Boston Cooking School opened in 1879, Maria Parloa also gave cooking lectures there.
Among her students at the Boston Cooking School was Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln, another woman who would become important in the domestic sciences movement, particularly with her emphasis on the nutritional and scientific aspects of cooking. Lincoln originally took cooking lessons from teacher Joanna Sweeney and attended public lectures by Maria Parloa. Following this, she was engaged as a teacher at the school until 1885. Among Lincoln’s students was Fannie Farmer, the future famous cookbook author. Therein lies the Petersham connection.
Farmer’s great grandmother was Mary Watson (Gore) Merritt, the younger sister of Sarah Harris (Gore) Flint, who had married John Flint Jr., according to Christine Mandel of the Petersham Historical Society. The Flint family had a long history in Petersham beginning in the late 18th century and the Merritt family is also known to have visited the town. The historical society has a Merritt family calling card. The daughter of Mary Watson Merritt married John Franklin Farmer; Fannie Merritt Farmer was their eldest child. She had a stroke at the age of 16 that paralyzed her from the waist down, but despite her disability, she went on to have a successful life and career. Farmer recovered from her stroke but it left her with a lifelong limp.
Farmer had enrolled in the Boston Cooking School in 1887, later becoming its principal. It was under her direction that the famous Boston Cooking School Cookbook was first published in 1896. The Nichewaug Potato recipe was not included, but later editions included a recipe for Petersham Chow Chow, a pickled relish, Mandel stated.
The Nichewaug Potato recipe can be attributed to Farmer with the recipe for Nichewaug Potatoes first appearing in Boston Daily Globe newspaper on March 15, 1888 in its Boston Cooking School column, Mandel continued.
As for the name of the potatoes, Nancy Allen, president of the Petersham Historical Society, added that she believes the name Nichewaug Potatoes were named after the Nichewaug Inn that stood before an 1897 fire.
So in the end the potatoes as well as the recipe for Petersham Chow Chow do have a delicious link to Petersham, the inn that once existed there, and Fanny Farmer and her family as well. The mystery has indeed been solved and once again history’s varied connections lead back to the North Quabbin area.