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| Most recipes are faded and some are illegible. |
Who doesn’t remember making a salt and flour map when theywere in school? I remember both ofmine very well. One was a map ofIceland and the other was of Italy.The great thing about a salt and flour map is that they look sorealistic. You can sculpt thecoastline and form mountains and river valleys that look just like the real thing. Forget the fact that your map isn’taccurate. Most weren’t, but theypassed. Let’s face it, when you’remaking the map; a glob here and a plop there; it all looks good, so why moveit?
And how about durable?Almost all salt and flour maps survived the school bus trips to and fromthe schoolhouse…because they were as hard as rocks. They were rocks! Some can still be found in attics,years after their creation. It wasthe high concentration of table salt that preserved them, from mold as well asfrom rodents. What mouse in hisright mind would bite into anything that is two parts flour to one part salt?
When I made my salt and flour maps in fifth and seventhgrades, little did I know that my great-grandfather was responsible forinnovating the use of German Salt Dough for topographic or relief map constructionfor school projects.
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| The cover is encrusted with flour and many pages have shortening stains. |
It started about seven months ago when I found mygreat-grandfather’s recipe book.Hosea E. Latshaw was born about the time of the Civil War and hadstarted Latshaw’s Bakery in Spring City, Pennsylvania by 1882. By the time he was born, at least fourgenerations of Latshaws had resided in the United States. It’s unclear where Hosea’s recipes camefrom, but many include German references.
One such recipe is “Salzteig.” When I first read the ingredients, (2 qt. flour, 1 qt. salt,2 jiggers weinstein, 1 qt. water), I wondered, “Who in their right mind wouldwant to eat that? And what in theworld is ‘weinstein?’”
I then did a little research. “Good old” Alta Vista Babelfish translated “Salzteig” as“salt dough.” More Internetresearch revealed that salt dough was originally used to make decorativesculptures, as far back as Ancient Egypt.The high salt content really served as a preservative. Germans used the mixture to makeChristmas ornaments and other holiday decorations.
But what is “weinstein?” After more Internet research I learned that weinstein is thewhite residue that forms on the inside of casks of wine when it ages. It’s actually potassium tartrate and it’sleft to dry, scraped off, and used in cooking. You might know it as cream of tartar.
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| Someone made a LOT of salt dough ornaments! |
All of this would explain the old photo I found of what Isurmise are salt dough Christmas decorations. The larger items in the foreground are wall hangings of somekind, but the garland creating the booth is dripping with Christmasornaments. Most are wreaths. If you look closely, you’ll recognizedthe Holy Family is the subject of the picture hanging in the center.
Someone in the Latshaw family obviously made a ton of saltdough Christmas ornaments. That isinteresting, but here is the unique part.At the bottom of the page with the Salzteig ingredients in Hosea’s recipebook, is this notation: Russell -China map for school.
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| Russell Latshaw with one of the horses used to pull the bakery delivery wagon. |
Russell Latshaw was Hosea’s oldest child, born in 1895. He did not graduate from high school,as he was needed in the bakery and to work on the family farm on Wall Street,also in Spring City. However hedid finish the sixth grade. Couldit be that Russell made a map of China from the Salzteig? I suddenly became interested in thehistory of salt and flour maps.
After many hours on the Internet, as well as chasing downmany false leads and bad information, I received a reply email from Amy Nibbetof the Smithsonian Institution.Amy is a conservationist with the Smithsonian’s Donald Rockwell ResearchCenter for the History of American Education. Amy told me that the first mention of salt dough maps is in1911 in a school annual, the forerunner of the yearbook. The location was even moreimportant: Phoenixville,Pennsylvania. After 1911, therecipe for salt dough map making appears in educational periodicals andteaching books.
Here’s the best part:Amy told me that an “H. Latschar” had registered the recipe’s use formap-making and that royalties had been paid whenever it was published fortwenty years, the term of the registration. Due to the spelling error, the money was never paid toHosea, and a law firm in New York City has held the royalties since 1913…withinterest. The original amount wasonly slightly over $7,000, but with interest averaging 4.5% the total is nowalmost $612,000! Since I am theholder of the original recipe, which must still be tested for authenticity, Iwill be able to claim the entire amount.And if you believe that, don’t forget it’s April Fool’s Day!
