Clementine Paddleford travels now to Connecticut collecting recipes and stories for her cookbook, How America Eats (1960).

It was my good fortune to spend a day in Medford at “Saltacres,” the home of the late Rosetta Clarkson, known then as the state’s outstanding herbalist.

How America Eats, p. 45

Read the little story about the herbs of the state.

“Serve over rosemary biscuits. (Add 1 teaspoon finely chopped or powdered rosemary to a regular biscuit dough.)”

BEEF A LA MODE III

Yield: 6 portions

1 lb stewing beef, cubed
½ C flour
1½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
3 Tbsp bacon fat
4 carrots, scraped, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
6 potatoes, quartered
3½ C stewed tomatoes, drained, juice reserved
1 Tbsp No. 1 herb mixture*, “if you dislike seeing herb flecks in the liquid it may be tied in a square of cheesecloth”
Water or stock, if necessary

Preheat oven to 325˚. Combine flour, salt and pepper, roll meat cubes in mixture, then brown in bacon fat. Arrange meat in a lightly greased deep baking dish, and add carrots, onion, potatoes, and drained pulp of tomatoes. Stir remaining seasoned flour into fat in pan, and when mixture bubbles gradually add reserved tomato juice, stirring constantly, and cook until sauce is thickened slightly. Add herb mixture, pour liquid over meat and vegetables, adding enough water or stock to come 1 inch from top of casserole, cover, and bake for 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours, “the longer the cooking the better the dish.”

“*No. 1 herb mixture: 1 tablespoon each summer savory, sweet marjoram, chervil, basil.”