A Visit with Frances Kitching:

A Grand Lady of Smith Island

Mrs. Frances Kitching, a native Smith Islander, author of Mrs. Kitching's Smith Island Cookbook and wife of waterman Captain Ernest Kitching, has been a leader on the Board of Directors of the Alliance since its beginnings. It was her suggestion to Governor William Donald Schaefer that a visitors' facility was needed on the Island that led to The Smith Island Center.

One of Mrs. Kitching's favorite recipes, a very old one, is Apple Cake 5 large, unpeeled apples cinnamon & sugar (2 t. cinnamon to 1 T. sugar) 4 eggs 2¼ C. sugar 1 cup vegetable oil 3 C. flour 3 t. baking powder ½ t. salt ½ C. orange juice 1¼ t. vanilla Core and slice apples. Put in a bowl and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Beat eggs and gradually add sugar. Add vegetable oil. Sift together dry ingredients and mix into batter. Add orange juice and vanilla. Grease a tube pan, then dust with flour. Pour a third of the batter into pan. Layer with a third of the apples. Repeat for 2 more layers. Bake at 350 degrees for 1½ hours.

During a delightful visit in her home on the Island recently, we had the opportunity to talk with her about her life on the Island and about her cooking.

Born on the Island nearly 75 years ago, just two houses away from her current home, she has raised her family through some hard times. "It's nothing I've not done" she declared proudly, including crab-potting with her 5-year old son when her husband was ill. "I'd go in the guts" she said "because I don't know how to swim." On credit for groceries at the stores, she asserted "I paid them all that I owed them but it was hard."

We asked how she got started cooking for others, outside her family. She told us that, in the 50's, when electricity came to the Island, there was no place for the linemen to board while they were putting the lines in. Well, her upstairs at that time was all one big room and they were willing to sleep all upstairs, so she created a dormitory for the men and she cooked for them. She said "I had to tote water we had no running water no bathroom facilities, just outside johns and I toted water from Mom's pump, two houses in back here."

And then one day, a man rapped at her door saying he'd been told he might get something to eat there. He came in a boat "I don't know whether to call it a skipjack or what. It had a sail. I said 'I can give you what I give the workers for lunch' . . . and he said 'That's fine.' I thought it was a crime to give workers sandwiches. I just felt I should give them a boiled meal. So I had ham and cabbage and mashed potatoes and I made a bread pudding and probably a salad. So he sat down . . . and I couldn't let him sit there all by himself . . . so I sat up there too." And they talked at some length as he ate. It was several months later that she learned, with considerable surprise, that he was the author of a book on Chesapeake cruising and that she had been quoted extensively in it.

People simply showed up at her house and asked if they could get a meal. Then she began to serve meals to the tourists who came in Alan Tyler's boat until "he got too big and I got too tired. I did it for 30-some years, and everywhere I go well, people say "Hi, Mrs. Kitching" it makes you feel good! I made a good name for myself and that's why I didn't hire nobody to come in and cook. My name means more to me than anything."

We asked if people grew vegetables on the Island. "Just a little bit" she responded, "enough for our own use tomatoes, onions, cucumbers we had a good supply of red-skin potatoes this year." But mostly, groceries come from Crisfield on the mainland. The Islander makes a list, signs a check and gives both to one of the boat captains. The captain takes them to the Crisfield store where the order is filled and the amount is written in on the signed check. The boatmen then bring the groceries to the Island, charging two dollars per box "delivered right in the kitchen."

Many of Mrs. Kitching's recipes evolved from what she had on hand. "I had to make things up . . . and Ernest was a very good taster." When fresh peaches are available she likes to peel them, cut them up and put a cup of sugar over them; then melt half a stick of margarine in a frying pan, put in some Ballard biscuits (come 10 to a can) and brown them on one side "not real dark -just a pretty color"; then turn them over, turn the heat way down and pour the peaches over them. Put a lid on and cook it slow for about 10 minutes. "And applesauce is good that way too" she says. "Just sweeten it and add a little cinnamon . . . then spoon the biscuits out and put on your whipped cream or milk or whatever you want it's good."

When we asked about the origin of the famous, multi-layered Smith Island Cakes, she responded, "Well, I don't know who made the first one . . . I could've very well been I don't know . . . but my kids loved the icing as well as they did the cake . . ." So, it seems that those fabulous thin-layered cakes may well have evolved to satisfy the craving of children (and maybe a few grownups too!?) for more of that sweet tasty icing.

"Are there other special things you cook?" we inquired, "for special occasions . . . Christmas, Easter, Camp Meeting?" "Well," she thought a minute, "Depends . . . Nothing special . . . for a big crowd, like Camp Meeting, you usually have everything! . . . turkey, roast beef, crab cakes, soft crabs, manycrab loaf, different salads, soups and vegetables and pie you name it, you have it!" "How long does it take you" we asked. "Oh, you just do it" she replied, "You get up early!"

This remarkable Island lady also runs a motel across the road from her home! "It was a video-game place and we had sandwiches and things like that." But six or seven years ago, she decided "I can't have my house open forever, so why don't we make this into a motel?!" So, with son Harry, she drew it out on paper "A hall straight down it 6-7 bedrooms only two baths men's and women's all we could get a release for and another room for a continental breakfast . . . " and it was built! "We're not taking any money out but once it gets paid for, then we'll see something we're doing!"

In June, Mrs. Kitching will be baking a multi-layered, many-tiered wedding cake for her granddaughter. She says "I've baked some good ones I hope this will be a good one." We're sure it will be.

And then, too soon, it was time to go. As with most things on the Island, time is governed by when the boats come and go. We said our reluctant good-byes to a gallant lady who has lived a remarkable life and dreams of a place where many people can learn about, and vicariously share, the unique history and social life of her Island home.