(people laughing) - We're here in Greenville, Virginia getting ready for a fun-filled 4th of July weekend.

Hi there, I'm John Shields.

And today we're gonna pull out all the stops and enjoy a main street parade, some fantastic patriotic recipes and a little two-step into boot, all this and much more coming up next, right here on Chesapeake Bay Cooking.

(baby gibberish) (bouncy music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is brought to you in part in part by the Maryland Tourism Development Board.

In Maryland, enjoying the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay or sailing its waters are just two of the many fun things to do, which are surprisingly close together.

(playful music) - [John] I've traveled to Reedville to celebrate a good old fashioned 4th of July in this wonderful little town.

Reedville is one of the larger communities in this Northern part of Virginia, but it is by no means an urban center and through its simplicity Reedville manages to evoke a slice of Americana that is rarely seen today.

The only major thoroughfare in Reedville runs through the town center and it has no stoplights.

Main street is lined with mansions that were built at the turn of the century.

When the local industry of catching and processing menhaden fish was in its heyday and numerous residents were wealthy.

Today, many of these grand homes have been converted into Bed and Breakfast, lowering visitors from near and far who seek a relaxing stay in a peaceful Waterside community.

I began exploring Reedville by visiting the fishermen's museum.

This museum was created to preserve Reedville's culture and history.

Lucille Woodard, a volunteer docent, kindly guides me through the fascinating exhibits.

(soft piano music) - The artifacts we dug up out of basements, garages, sheds, and some of them were in terrible condition.

- [John] Lucille also answers what Reedville was like in earlier days.

- [Lucille] Reedville was a thriving town, at one time.

- I understand they had the highest per capita income in the United States in the 20th century.

- It did.

Well, the per capita is the thing, but they were the highest, the greatest number of millionaires per capita of any town in the country, because all of these Victorian mansions along main street were built by the captains and they are all very wealthy.

(soft piano music) - [John] And since Reedville was the center of wealth in the Northern and neck of Virginia, it follows naturally that two Reedville residents brought the first cars to the area.

- George Reed, the grandson of Elijah Reed, bought one of the first one and another man bought an automobile.

So in the whole Northern neck, there were only two, but one day, they were going around fleet and rode, around the curb, you go to fleet and point, and they hit head on.

- Only two, and the hit.

- Only two, and they hit head on.

Only in the Northern neck could that happen.

- With that story fresh in mind, I am thankful my BB is a short walk away on main street.

I returned to make a cake for some Reedville friends I'll see tomorrow on the 4th of July, a berry shortcake seems to fit the bill.

It's festive appearance stems from the use of fresh berries and whipped cream, a delightful summertime dessert.

Around the 4th of July, or actually anytime during the summer, I love to make shortcakes.

And they're great with just about any kind of berry you can find.

Normally around the 4th of July, I make a strawberry shortcake, but today I decided to do something a little different.

We're gonna make a raspberry shortcake.

So as with all short cakes, we start with some flour with a little bit of salt in it.

We're gonna add about three tablespoons of sugar, a tablespoon of baking powder, that so it'll rise up nicely.

And I'm gonna put in a pinch of mace, now be that spice or be that chemical.

Around the Chesapeake we use a lot of mace, it was traditionally used in seafood, stews and all kinds of things like that.

And in case you don't know what mace is, it's the outer covering of the nutmeg, it's a fibrous coating and they just grind it up and it has a wonderful, wonderful scent.

So get all those in there and we're gonna mix that around.

Okay.

Next, we're gonna add the butter, and I've taken about six tablespoons of butter, and I've cut it up just into small little pieces.

Gonna add that to the flour.

Come on butter, get in there.

Now this is the part, this is what makes it a shortcake, as opposed to a regular cake.

What we're doing is we're taking the butter or shortening, whatever, and we're gonna work it in to the flour.

You just take the tips of your fingers and just work that butter right on in, rub it into the flour.

And what we Anna do, is we Anna get kind of a course meal.

Okay, I think we have a real nice mealy consistency here.

You see, it's just looking like a course meal.

Okay, let's get that all in the bowl.

And we'll put together the liquid.

Now what I've taken is about three quarter cup of milk and one egg beaten lightly.

And we're gonna just add those together.

(fork thumping the bowl) Now we're gonna take that and slowly added into this flour mixture.

Again, since this is a shortcake, we're not gonna get a real, loose, kind of batter, it's gonna be thick, it's gonna look more like you're making some biscuits.

Okay, just stir that all up.

You Anna stir it just enough to get the liquids to incorporate with the flour, but you don't Anna stir it too much because when you do that, it'll make a stiff dough and you won't get a real tender shortcake.

Okay, that looks good.

Let me just move this over.

Now, what I've done is I have buttered and floured a nine inch cake pan.

You can do this all kinds of ways, some people will make this in a square pan so that they can cut little square pieces out, other people will take, and you can put it on a floured board, roll it up and you can cut individual circles for your shortcake.

Okay, now we're gonna take the batter and put it right in here.

Okay.

I'm gonna flower my hands a little bit here.

And we're gonna just press this into the pan, form it right in there.

Now I know what you're saying, if you push it in like this, it's not gonna have a smooth top.

We don't want a smooth top, you want a nice coarse texture on the top of the shortcake.

Okay, we have an oven preheated to about 400 degrees.

We're gonna slip it in there for about 20, 25 minutes till it's nice and brown.

Toothpick comes out clean, and then we're ready to decorate.

Okay, we're ready for the assembly now.

And what I've done is I've turned the shortcake out of the pan, and put it on a wire rack.

We let it cool.

And then I took a long knife and cut straight through the center of the shortcake.

Look at this.

Right on thrill.

We have a nice little place there.

We're gonna be able to put a beautiful filling in, but we can't put the filling until we make it.

So let's put the cake over there, can sit for a while.

And for any good filling with a short cake, you need whipped cream.

So we're gonna make a little whipped cream here.

I'm gonna make real whipped cream.

This isn't coming from a can or anything like that.

We're gonna do it the real way.

Now, what I've done is take a good quality whipping cream, some powdered sugar.

Now, powdered sugar makes a great whipped cream for when you're gonna use it as a filling, it won't all, kind of, fall apart on your, it'll holdup very nice.

And just a dash of vanilla extract, when you're putting the sugar in, just taste it as you're putting the sugar in, until you get it just the way you like it, you don't want it to sweet.

Okay.

(whisker thumping the bowl) A good tip, before you make this, take the bowl and the whisk, put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes and then this whipped cream will go much faster.

So actually what we're doing right here is we're beating air into the cream.

If your arm hurts you, or are you not feeling quite up to it, you can do this in a blender and it will work.

But it's not quite the same thing, 'cause when you do this by hand, it beats all that air into it, and you have a light and fluffy whipped cream.

It's great.

(whisker thumping the bowl) Okay, look at this.

Now we have it just about right now.

See, it's holding little peaks there, but it's not too thick.

(whisker thumping the bowl) Now, this is beautiful whipped cream and it's great exercise.

I mean, you can't ask for more.

Okay, I'm gonna put this aside and we're going to make the filling.

(bowl thumps the table) Now, what I've done is I've taken some of the raspberries and I mashed them up, and I've sprinkled them with just a little bit of sugar and we're gonna use this to flavor the cream.

Okay.

Now we're gonna take about half of the cream, put it right in the bowl there.

And we'll add our berries (bowl thumps the table) and just gently fold that altogether.

That's beautiful.

It's looking like a parfait.

Now we're gonna take the top off, take the lid off of our shortcake.

So be real careful at this point is, get it from underneath.

That, there.

And we'll take the bottom of the shortcake and put it on our platter.

All right, now we'll put big old dollops of the whipped cream right down there.

Look at that.

We're gonna take the lid here and just careful with that, pick it up and right on top.

Now to finish this, what we're gonna do is, I'm not gonna put the whipped cream on top of the cake, right now.

We're gonna wait until we serve it, and each piece will garnish individually with a cream, but we'll take some powdered sugar (hand thumping can) and dust the top of the shortcake.

Okay.

Then to finish this, all we need to do is take some whole berries and place them all around the shortcake.

And then what we'll do, is we'll take this and we'll serve it just like a cake, cut it into slices, garnish it with some sweetened whipped cream, little sprig of mint, and you will have one of the nicest raspberry shortcakes you have ever tasted.

(bouncy music) Reedville is full of neighborly folks.

And one of those people is my friend Beverly Biddlecome.

- [Beverly] Great to have you here.

- Thanks for inviting me down for 4th of July.

- We're glad to have you.

- So you've been busy cooking?

- I sure have, I've been cooking up a storm.

- [John] Beverly is locally famous for her fantastic meals and she invited me to visit here, so her family and I could celebrate the 4th of July together.

We start the day visiting Beverly's brother-in-law, Ray Rogers.

Ray is a typical Reedville resident.

He believes in fresh seasonal food and harvest his own crops for his family's use, his home garden is the envy of many, producing beautiful vegetables, such as zucchini, cucumbers, and yellow squash.

His tomatoes look perfect.

And his cabbage looks well in the word: big.

- [Roy] I'll give you one to take home if you like.

- [John] All right, we'll make some coleslaw with that.

- [Beverly] Yeah, we can make a lot of it with that.

- [Roy] You can make a big crapped bowl of coleslaw with this.

- Hm, okay.

Oh my God, that's a surprise (indistinct) cabbage.

(all laugh) Raise harvesting efforts aren't limited to land as demonstrated by his crab floats.

As Reedville is on the water with its creeks and rivers feeding into the Chesapeake bay.

It's no surprise that the locals have a taste for the blue crab.

Crab floats are used during the summer months to store blue crabs when they shed their outer shells.

The underlying shell will eventually harden, but crabs in this newly shed state are called soft shells, and soft shell crabs are delicious, summertime staple of the Chesapeake diet.

- [Ray] This one is what they call a Buster, now a 15 to 20 minutes, so leave their hard part and it become soft.

As a matter of fact, here is, soft in here.

And there's another soft in here.

- [John] The tour of Ray's garden and floats takes up the morning.

And today is the 4th of July, the day of Reedville's annual parade.

Promising to meet Beverly later, I changed into something more comfortable and head out to the parade route, I even put on a special hat in the spirit of the holiday.

And the hat must be attracting attention, because a Reedville woman asked to give me a pin resembling the local mascot, a menhaden fish.

This is great, getting pinned on the 4th of July.

All right, look at this.

Here we are, I've been pinned.

Reedville just doesn't throw a parade, it throws a party.

Along main street where the parade will soon progress, there are booths selling local crafts and area musicians playing handmade instruments.

(string instrument music) I joined the crowd and sit on the street curb, and this often happens in Reedville, I soon make new friends.

- [Parade Announcer] Miss Reedville.

Hi, how are you doing?

- [John] The parade begins and I'm immediately taken back to a time gone by, the floats and people are not necessarily old fashioned, but there is a wholesome heir of innocent fun.

- Woo!

- [John] During the parade I spot Beverly, who is a member of the Reedville line dancing troop.

(country music) I sit back with my new friends on this hot summer day and take it all in.

(playful music) (upbeat music) When the parade ends, I meet Beverly in front of the firehouse where her troop is still dancing.

Only this time I joined in to show them how the electric slide is really done.

(upbeat playful music) * Once your heart beat, to raising bars.

* * Sing when out song- - [John] I also get to hear the Shanthi singers perform, years ago on the old menhaden fishing boats, men sang the same songs, as they worked.

* Her name is Caribus, hey - We would get all then these (indistinct) songs, here you hear him saying it and you hear a lot of chatter going in, but what they were doing, where they would just give a pep talk because sometime the people thought they was pulling as hard as they could, and they want to push a little bit harder and they got to go for it, and that's why you hear this.

* See you when the sky's all down * (fireworks banging) - [John] I end my 4th of July by watching the Reedville fireworks and thinking of tomorrow's Biddlecome family picnic.

For that annual event, Beverley is preparing her popular dish, the Lady Liberty Seafood Salad, filled with whole steam shrimp, lump crab meat, and fresh vegetables.

The side dish often becomes the main dish once people taste it.

So we're gonna make a seafood salad here, huh?

- That's right, we are.

- Well, it sounds good to me.

I mean, we're here we are.

We're on the Chesapeake, we're blessed with some of the best seafood in the world.

So I think we should be able to make like a dynamite seafood salad.

- It's gonna be great.

- Okay, now tell me what the players are in this.

- Okay, we started with steamed shrimp first, that you where so kind to steam for me.

- Now.

I made these for you Baltimore style, they have a little bit more punch, we took on some flat beer, some vinegar, pickling spices, chopped up onion, put that in there and some Chesapeake spices- - That sounds great.

- and brought all that to the boil, put the shrimp in, let him cook for a couple minutes and bam, they're done.

Do you leave these whole?

- I usually leave them whole, unless you have big scrimp and then you can cut them up to bite-size.

- All right, put they shrimp beside here.

- Okay.

- All right.

Now I see that you've made some pasta.

- Right, we use shell macaroni.

We start with some sliced salary.

- All right, so you didn't cut that real fine.

You left- - No.

Yeah, it's sliced.

Bell pepper, that's diced up, and we've got red, and green, and yellow today.

- That's beautiful.

- Yeah.

- Those yellow and green are so sweet.

- They are really nice in salad.

- They are great.

- Green onion, that's diced, and parsley.

- Parsley, you have to have a little parsley.

- Right?

And red onion.

- Well, you have some colors in there for the 4th of July.

Don't you?

It's a pretty salad, it really is.

Now if you would mix it up a little bit for me.

- Okay.

- Now we need to make a dressing for it.

Have a little mayonnaise.

- Okay, it's just regular mayonnaise?

- Any kind of mayonnaise is fine.

And lemon juice.

- Is that fresh?

Did you squeeze that yourself?

- Fresh squeezed lemon juice.

- Okay.

- Um, vinegarette dressing.

- That's nice, is gonna give a nice little bite there.

- A little bite, yeah.

Chesapeake seafood seasoning.

- Okay, you have to have them.

- Right.

Dry Sherry - Oh, so you use a dry Sherry, not the sweet.

- Right.

And just a little bit of pepper.

There we go.

Yeah, we'll mix that all up together.

(spoon thumping the bowl) Okay, I think that's probably mixed enough.

Gonna pour that ride in.

(spoon thumping the bowl) - So get that all over there.

Huh?

- Right.

Okay, now you can mix that up.

- A little bit more mixing here.

- Mhm.

- This is one beautiful salad, all of those colors.

- It's yummy too.

Okay, now.

- Now.

- We'll go with the shrimp, put the shrimp in.

- Put this shrimp back in.

- Good.

- All right.

- Now we have a pound of lump crab meat and we've gone through it pretty well to get the cartilage out, but we might look again or feel again and see if we can, feel anymore.

- Yeah, you don't want any shell in there.

- No.

- It's feeling pretty good.

Op, now Amen.

I found one.

- That's another piece.

Yep, there it is.

- Here's a piece of that cartilage.

You Anna make sure we get those out, you don't Anna get one of those in your salad.

- That's right, it's not very pleasant.

- You get a little calcium, but it doesn't taste great.

- That's right.

- Okay.

Now, we put this in last so we won't break the lumps up too much and we just mix it up real light.

- Okay, we'll just fold this.

- Right, right.

- Yeah, if you know how we do around the Chesapeake bay, we love our lumps of crab meat.

I don't Anna break them up.

- That's right.

Okay.

- All right.

- That looks great.

- It does, it's beautiful.

So what next?

- It's all done.

- It's that easy, huh?

- Yeah, all done.

- That's great.

So do you serve it right away or... - I usually refrigerate it for a couple of hours, or even you can do it the night before.

(tranquil music) - [John] Today, I am joining the Biddlecome family as an extended member of the clan.

We are embarking on what has become an annual event for them, during the 4th of July festivities, the Biddlecome fishing trip and picnic.

Fred Biddlecome is Beverly's husband and the captain of our boat The Dudley.

Normally The Dudley is a chartered fishing boat, taking groups out onto the Chesapeake bay.

But today Fred is exercising his ownership privileges and taking his family of many generations, to a fun-filled day.

As we leave the Biddlecome homestead, Beverly points out the different sites to me, we see the modern menhaden fishing boats in front of the processing plants.

The plants are also the source of an infamous odor that now and then drifts across Reedville.

- You know, you kind of get used to, and it doesn't last for long.

- I heard that you're not supposed to complain about it because that smells is the smell of money.

- It is the smell of money, that's right.

- Soon we were out on the bay and folks begin to prepare for the main event.

The Biddlecomes, tend to fish often, so to make this day more fun, they make it a competition.

- Everybody puts in a quarter.

Then when we start fishing, the person that catches the first fish will get the pod.

(horn honking) - [John] The horn sounds, the lines drop, and the fishing begins.

This is a group activity for all ages.

(bouncy music) (people screaming and cheering) Before anyone has a chance to dream of winning, Beverly is excitedly reeling in her line and wouldn't you know it, the wife of the captain catches the first fish, a flounder.

There are more than a few suspicious minds aboard as Beverly collects the prize money.

We continue fishing for the sport of it.

And even I catch something, sort of.

(people cheering) While I was struggling with my big catch lunch was laid out on the deck, including the seafood salad Beverly and I prepared.

I want the shrimp.

I eagerly dig in and I'm rewarded by the satisfying taste of Beverly's cooking.

- Did you like it?

(tranquil piano music) - It is a fun holiday spent with these wonderful people.

As I wave to a passing boat in the Biddlecome family tradition, I realized that I will not soon forget my Reedville, 4th of July celebration with Beverly and her family.

So don't forget to join me next time for another exciting culinary adventure right here on Chesapeake Bay Cooking.

- [Announcer] Bring the flavors of the Chesapeake into your home with John Shields companion book, Chesapeake Bay Cooking.

To order call 1 800 235 3000 or write to the address on your screen.

This 300 page volume with nearly 100 photos includes all the recipes you've seen in this episode, plus a whole lot more.

The cost is 27 50 plus shipping and handling.

Please have your credit card ready when you call 1 800 235 3000.

Funding for this program is brought to you in part by the Maryland Tourism Development Board.

In Maryland, enjoying the bounty of the Chesapeake bay or sailing its waters are just two of the many fun things to do, which are surprisingly close together.

(bouncy music) (powerful music)