Sauce à-la-Crème, for the Eggs

History

This recipe appears in Mary Randolph's The Virginia House-Wife, first published in 1824 and generally considered the first regional American cookbook. In the book it is the second half of a paired dish. It directly follows "Eggs a-la-creme," in which twelve hard-boiled eggs are cut in slices and layered in a moderately deep dish lined with thin bread crusts, each layer strewn with grated stale bread, pepper, and salt. The sauce itself is then made by rubbing a large tablespoonful of flour into a quarter-pound of butter in a sauce pan; adding chopped parsley, a little onion, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a gill of cream; stirring it over the fire until it begins to boil; pouring it over the eggs; covering the top with grated bread; and browning it in a Dutch oven with a heated top before it is sent to table. The dish's French name, "a-la-creme," reflects the European strand among the book's influences: Randolph's recipes used Virginia produce for dishes influenced by African, Native American, and European foods. Randolph built her culinary reputation running a Richmond, Virginia boarding house known for its meals before compiling the book, and modern analysis notes that much of the labor in her kitchen was done by enslaved Black women. Beyond this, the historical record I could open does not document a specific origin for this particular sauce, nor any social-status meaning attached to it; those claims from the earlier draft were unsupported and are omitted.

Ingredients

• 0.25 pound butter
• 1 tablespoon flour
• parsley, chopped
• onion, chopped
• salt
• pepper
• nutmeg
• 0.25 pint cream

Instructions

1. Rub the flour well into the butter in a sauce pan. Add the chopped parsley, a little onion, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Pour in the cream and stir the mixture over the fire until it begins to boil. Pour the sauce over the eggs, cover the top with grated bread, set it in a Dutch oven with a heated top, and cook until light brown. Send to table.