SMITH ISLAND LAYER CAKE

Let’s Eat—only in Maryland
Smith Island Layer Cake
By Elaine Eff, Maryland Historical Trust
Photos: Map


Marylanders love to eat. Who doesn’t? We have a rich assortment of unique meals and dishes that we believe may be unique to our state or within our family. By highlighting individual recipes in their home contexts, we can begin to see patterns of consumption and transmission, from mother to daughter, from kitchen to bakery. Food is a remarkable indicator and a gratifying teacher, particularly if we take the time to examine origins, process and meaning—savoring the taste and the experience, along the way.

Layer cake means just one thing on Smith Island, Maryland’s only inhabited off-shore island. Imagine eight to ten pencil-thin layers of cake lathered with frosting in between each. Some call it frosting with cake. It has been the dessert of choice on this remote Chesapeake Bay island as far back as living memory persists. You can expect to be served this delicacy at the end of almost any meal. No special occasion required.

An empty cakestand is a rarity here. Island wives bake at least one cake a week. Smith Island watermen have carried he-man sized slices packed in their lunch pails for as long as anyone can remember. It may or may not make it to lunchtime. Birthdays, holidays, special events, church suppers, watermen’s dinners, meetings, Ladies Aid Society get-togethers, grandparents’ day at the local school, inevitably end with a groaning board laden with slices to suit every palette—the basic chocolate frosting on yellow cake, coconut, banana, fig, and more recently strawberry cake. No matter the ingredients, it is unmistakably NOT your everyday cake—except on Smith Island, Somerset County, Eastern Shore, population 300.

The origins are buried in the past. No one seems to remember layer cake not being a part of the local repertoire. “It’s always been here,” insist sixth generation chefs. Frances Kitching, the late doyenne of island hospitality, considered it so undistinguished that it was not even included in original editions of her famous cookbook. (Frances Kitching and Susan Stiles Dowell, Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Cookbook, Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1981.)

According to award-winning cook Janice Marshall, “We never even thought about it until Elaine came asking.” Islanders, and watermen in particular, have always been known for their love of sweets. Former skipjack captain Daniel Harrison’s wife only made him four-layer cakes, an island anomaly. When questioned, the good captain noted that he “didn’t like frosting, but prefer[ed] to eat cake.”

 

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