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Hermits (T cinnamon t allspice t cloves)
1 C Crisco. 1 1/2 C sugar. 3 eggs. 1/2 t soda. 2 t water. 1 t cinnamon 1 t allspice 1 t cloves 1 t nutmeg 3 C flour 1½ t salt 1 C raisins 1/2 C nutmeats Cream Crisco and sugar together. Add beaten eggs and mix well. Dissolve soda in water and add. Mix and sift flour, salt and spices and add to first mixture. Add raisins and nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls on Mrs. A. W. Waldo. on Mrs. A. W. Waldo. greased pans. 2 C brown sugar
A standard drop-cookie formula of the shortening-and-brown-sugar type, heavily spiced and studded with fruit and nuts. Several quantities are missing from the list as printed, so treat it as a framework rather than a set of instructions to follow line by line.
- AbbreviationsT is tablespoon, t teaspoon, C cup. Here the spices are all teaspoons and the flour, sugar, raisins and nuts are cups.
- Missing quantitiesThe method calls for creaming Crisco with sugar, adding beaten eggs, and dissolving soda in water, but no amount is given for the shortening, the eggs, the soda or the water. For a batch built on 2 cups brown sugar and 3 cups flour, comparable period hermit recipes use roughly 1 cup shortening, 2 to 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon soda in a few tablespoons of hot water or coffee reanything you supply is a reconstruction rather than the cook's own.
- CriscoHydrogenated vegetable shortening, sold from 1911 and heavily promoted in church cookbooks of this era. Modern shortening behaves the same way; unsalted butter gives more flavour and a slightly flatter, crisper cookie.
- NutmeatsSimply shelled nuts, chopped. Walnuts or hickory nuts are the likeliest candidates; pecans work equally well.
- OvenThe original gives none. Drop cookies of this size bake at 375F for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are set and the centres still look slightly soft.
- SpicingFour teaspoons of spice against 3 cups of flour is assertive by current standards but correct for hermits. Grate the nutmeg fresh if possible; pre-ground loses most of its character within a few months.
- YieldDropped by teaspoonfuls, a batch this size gives about five dozen small cookies. They keep well in a tin and, like most molasses- and brown-sugar-based cookies, improve on the second day.
Hermits are a New England cookie, recorded in American cookbooks from the later nineteenth century onward, and their name is usually explained -- without much documentary support -- by their dark, plain, unglamorous appearance or by their keeping quality, which suited them to sea chests and lunch pails. Whatever the origin of the word, the keeping quality is real: brown sugar, spice and dried fruit make a cookie that stays soft for a week and travels without crumbling, which is exactly why recipes like this one crowd the cookie sections of church and ladies' aid compilations. A congregation collecting recipes from its members would have wanted precisely this sort of thing -- cheap, made with shelf-stable pantry goods and a can of Crisco, and sturdy enough to carry to a church supper.