She was one of the most famous singers of the Victorian era, "the Swedish Nightingale." Johanna Maria Lind (1820-1887) was an opera singer who was a principal with the Royal Swedish Opera by age 17. At age 20, she was the court singer for the King of Sweden and Norway. Her European tours brought her enormous fame and wealth. Hans Christian Andersen met her on one of these tours in 1843 and fell in love with her (as did many men). Some of his fairy tales were inspired by that love, including "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Nightingale" - the source of her nickname.But did you know that Jenny was also a pudding, a cake and a sportsman's hangout run by my favorite third great uncle?
Jenny Lind, as a Victorian celebrity, had many things named after her - especially in the early 1850s, when she was on her tour of the US, Canada and Cuba (in 1850-52). There were Jenny Lind hats, caps, paper dolls, steamer trunks and many other items that bore her name.
Just like the Beatles before their 1964 American tour, Lind was famous in Europe and virtually unknown elsewhere. Phineas T. Barnum launched a massive advertising campaign about Lind which was so successful that by the time she arrived in New York in September 1850, there was a crush of people at the docks eagerly awaiting her arrival.She gave her first US concerts in New York City on September 11 and 13, 1850 at the Castle Garden Theater - so this is almost in time for the 158th anniversary of that.
Jenny Lind even had a slight Brooklyn connection - she was a resident of Brooklyn for three months in the summer of 1851, renting the house of Robert Sherwell who lived at Columbia Street (near Pierrepont).
As her fame grew in the US, people began naming things in her honor. The Jenny Lind locomotive engine was designed in 1847 in London for the London and Brighton Railroad. There are Jenny Lind Streets in McKeesport, Pennsylvania and in North Easton, Massachusetts, and a Jenny Lind Island in Canada. Jenny Lind was also the name of a gold rush town in California, a strawberry and a kind of bed. There were Jenny Lind hats, caps, paper dolls, steamer trunks and many other items that bore her name.
But did you know that Jenny was also a pudding, a cake and a Brooklyn saloon run by my favorite third great uncle in the early 1850s?
"At the corner of Bedford Ave. stood in the early '50s the old time sporting resort known as the Jenny Lind where the sports congregated," writes Eugene Armbruster in Brooklyn's Eastern District. He notes elsewhere in the book that "Hicks, the photographer, kept near Bedford Avenue, the 'Jenny Lind'" and that "Lemuel L. Hicks, the photographer, was located in the '60's at old No. 160 [Grand Street]."
His middle initial was S for Stephen, not L, but there was only one Lemuel Hicks taking photographs in the 1850s and 1860s in Brooklyn. His wife Lydia Hicks was a photographer too, and you can click on the links at the end of this post to read more about these two.
But first - to fortify you for their adventures, perhaps! - here are some recipes which celebrate Jenny Lind - a pudding, a cake and some pancakes (if you feel like celebrating at breakfast).
The first recipe is from The Improved Housewife by A.L. Webster, which was published in 1851:
The next two recipes are from the 1901 Vest Pocket Pastry Book which was written for commercial use:
I suspect that the patrons of Uncle Lemuel's Jenny Lind saloon in Williamsburgh, Brooklyn celebrated her in a more spirited way than eating cake and pudding...
Picture of Jenny Lind from the NYPL Digital Gallery.
SOURCES
Armbruster, Eugene. Brooklyn's Eastern District (Brooklyn, NY, 1942), pp 177, 186.
"Jenny Lind," Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 17, 1851, p. 17.
Meister, John E. The Vest Pocket Pastry Book (Chicago: The Hotel Monthly 1901), pp 3, 78.
Webster, A.L. The Improved Housewife, or Book of Receipts, By A Married Lady (Hartford, CT, 1851), p. 120 [Google Books link here]
The Adventures of Lemuel and Lydia Hicks:
The Hicks Matrimonial Imbroglio
Lydia, Oh Lydia, Say Have You Met Lydia?
Kate's Picture: An Exciting Scene In An Eastern District Photograph Gallery
The Burglarious Entrance
Tomorrow in the Dime Museum: More on the Bullowa Girls and Ten Indispensible Books (for the Carnival of Genealogy)
5 comments:
I'm not sure I'd want all those things named after me, like say, the locomotive! ;)
Some comments on the dessert recipes:
The Jenny Lind cake recipe shown is basically for a sponge cake (with all the egg whites) - my current Tres Leches recipe still uses the method of dissolving baking soda in milk before adding it to the batter.
At the end of the recipe, the all yolk version is more of a pound cake.
And for you brave souls who want to try either, a medium oven is 350 degrees.
The Jenny Lind pudding is your basic bread pudding recipe - and now that it is fall here in Chicago, I need to pull out my Bananaretto Bread Pudding recipe, come to think of it . . .
I have some old cookbooks. Now I'll have to look through them to see if I have a Jenny Lind recipe!
Our family has been making Jenny Lind pancakes for over 75 years now. We never knew where the name "Jenny Lind" came from....only that we have been enjoying them forever. Our family has no recipe set down on paper anywhere. It is a mix of flour, milk, egg(s). Depending on which one of is is cooking them, we may add a little sugar and/or vanilla. The batter is mixed well until thin and spread in a hot, lightly greased fry pan. When the edges appear brown, the cake is flipped over for a very short time, until it can be shaken loose. We fill those puppies with jelly, roll 'em up and eat them as fast as they come out of the frying pan! Many people say these are just crepes, but our family knows better!!
McKeesport, PA is about 40 minutes from here; it's a suburb of Pittsburgh. I know *exactly* where Jenny Lind street is, and they think it's named after the dessert, not the woman. Now trying to explain that the dessert is *also* named after her doesn't work very well.
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