Joe Froggers, Marblehead Sea Biscuits
Large, flat, soft, dark biscuits flavored with rum, molasses, and spices. Without eggs or milk, they kept for a long time: the perfect snack for long voyages.
Large, flat, soft, dark biscuits flavored with rum, molasses, and spices. Without eggs or milk, they kept for a long time: the perfect snack for long voyages.
Your sailors think themselves bold on their nutshells… One of them once set foot on my city and left his sanity there. Let them take these dark cakes, black as the ocean floor: molasses and rum keep them good to the end of the voyage, and allspice warms the night watches. Knead them wide as a palm, let the dough rest a whole night as one waits for a tide. Eat, little man — you will need strength for the day I wake.
- •Black molasses — a good splash (sweetness and color)
- •Rum — a glass (flavor and preservation)
- •Lard — a portion (fat)
- •Flour — to consistency (structure)
- •Ginger, clove, nutmeg, allspice — generously (warm spices)
- •Seawater — a little (traditional salting)
Joe Froggers, Marblehead Sea Biscuits
Large, flat, soft, dark biscuits flavored with rum, molasses, and spices. Without eggs or milk, they kept for a long time: the perfect snack for long voyages.
Why this dish? In 'The Call of Cthulhu', it is a crew of sailors on the schooner Emma and then the Alert who accidentally land on the risen island of R'lyeh. Joe Froggers, large molasses and rum biscuits born in the port of Marblehead (Massachusetts), were renowned for keeping for weeks at sea — the ideal provision for the sailor who encounters the unspeakable.
Your sailors think themselves bold on their nutshells… One of them once set foot on my city and left his sanity there. Let them take these dark cakes, black as the ocean floor: molasses and rum keep them good to the end of the voyage, and allspice warms the night watches. Knead them wide as a palm, let the dough rest a whole night as one waits for a tide. Eat, little man — you will need strength for the day I wake.
Ingredients (period version)
- Black molasses — a good splash (sweetness and color)
- Rum — a glass (flavor and preservation)
- Lard — a portion (fat)
- Flour — to consistency (structure)
- Ginger, clove, nutmeg, allspice — generously (warm spices)
- Seawater — a little (traditional salting)
Ingredients
- Blackstrap molasses — 240 ml (sweet binder and color)
- Dark rum — 60 ml (aroma and preservation)
- Butter or lard — 115 g (fat)
- Sugar — 150 g (sweetness)
- Flour — 500 g (structure)
- Baking soda — 1.5 tsp (leavening)
- Ground ginger — 2 tsp (signature spice)
- Clove + nutmeg + allspice — ½ tsp each (warm spices)
- Salt — 1 tsp (seasoning (replaces seawater))
Method
- Cream butter with sugar. Add molasses and rum (batter will seem liquid, that's normal).
- Mix flour, baking soda, salt, and all spices separately.
- Add dry ingredients to wet until a soft, sticky dough forms.
- Cover and chill overnight: this rest gives the softness and easy rolling.
- Roll out to about 1 cm thick, cut into large rounds (8-10 cm) with a cutter.
- Bake at 180°C for 10-12 minutes: they should remain soft. Cool; they keep 1-2 weeks in an airtight container.
How it was made : Legend attributes these biscuits to 'Old Black Joe' (Joseph Brown), a freedman from Marblehead, and his pond ('frog pond') in the early 19th century. The absence of eggs and milk, plus rum and molasses, gave them a precious longevity for fishermen who spent weeks on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.
The contemporary twist : Stack three biscuits and dust with powdered sugar as 'mist': a dark pile emerging from white fog, like a reef rising from the sea.
Sources : H.P. Lovecraft, 'The Call of Cthulhu', 1928 · Imogene Wolcott, The Yankee Cook Book, 1939 · Culinary tradition of Marblehead, Massachusetts
Cthulhu · Charactorium
