Black-Walnut Cake (1952)

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   When I finish with the New York Herald Tribune, I'd like to compile all of Clementine Paddleford's "How America Eats" columns, all of her Saturday restaurant reviews, and other important columns into a long-overdue Clementine Paddleford biography.
   "Black-walnut cake" is not in Mariani's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK, surprisingly not in DARE, and not in the OED.  The American Memory database has some info, but from West Virginia, not Kansas.  Kansan "Clem" would kill me if I don't enter this, so here goes.
   From "HOW AMERICA EATS" by Clementine Paddleford, THIS WEEK magazine, NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 21 September 1952, pg. 53, col. 1:

_BLACK-WALNUT CAKE_
_It's as dear to the hearts of_
_Kansans as cod to Bostonians._
_Here is Mrs. Ise's recipe..._
   LAWRENCE, KAN.
IMPERISHABLE in the annals of Kansas history are Carry Nation, the Pawnee Rock near the Santa Fe Trail, the cow towns of Abilene and Dodge City, the seven-year curtain-raiser to the Civil War--and forever dear to the memory, black-walnut cake!
   Don't ask me why black-walnut cake stands two shoulders taller than all other cakes in the Kansas cake album.  All I know is that its eating is associated with the seasonal ceremony of "going nutting" down rutted woodland roads, shuffling ankle-deep through withered leaves.  In every nut-sweet crumb is the sound of the hammer clopping against the upturned edge of a flat iron--music that belongs to autumn as does the choaking of apples.
   _Full of Memories_
IT WAS on a recent trip through Kansas, my home state, that I met a black-walnut cake that for me held a cumulative wealth of fragrant reminiscences.  It awoke memories of the old days of the box social, the Sunday-night suppers on Blue Valley Farm.  This was a cake baked by Mrs. John Ise, who learned the art of its making by helping her mother in a parsonage kitchen in the eastern part of the state.  Mrs. Ise calls herself a homebody and that's what she wants to be.  One public character in the family is enough, she told me, referring to her husband John, one of the country's leading economists, a writer of textbooks and author of "Sod and Stubble: The Story of a Kansas Homestead," the much-talked-about book briefing his life history.
   After University of Kansas days, Mrs. Ise taught a stint in high school, married her John and has been keeping house ever since, confecting her specialties among the cake and pie roster for John and two sons.  The daily chore of cooking she has made a talented (Col. 2--ed) hobby.  In University of Kansas circles, the Ise parties are notable for good talk led by John, good cooking by his lady.
   Mrs. Ise shares her husband's interest in collecting antiques.  Their home is filled with beautiful pieces of furniture, silver, china, glass bought at bargain values before the antique craze hit the Midwest.  The Ise dining-room table is of rosewood, picked up as a "junk pile" in two dozen pieces to be repaired and restored.
   The sterling-silver tea set is one Professor Ise ran across in Atlantic CIty during the depression years.  Mrs. Ise usues this when she entertains her Round Table Literary Club at afternoon tea.  And one treat always on deck is her mother's black-walnut cake.
      _Black-Walnut Cake_
   1/2 cup butter or margarine
   1 1/2 cups sugar
   2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
   4 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
   1/2 teaspoon salt
   1 cup milk
   1 cup finely ground black walnuts
   1 teaspoon vanilla extract
   4 egg whites
   1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
   Cream butter or margarine; add sugar gradually, beating with spoon until light and fluffy.  Sift flour with baking powder and salt; add to butter and sugar mixture alternately with milk, mixing well after each addition.  Add ground nuts and flavoring.  Fold in egg whites which have been beaten with cream of tartar until stiff but not dry.  Cover the bottom of a 9-inch tube pan with waxed paper; oil sides.  Pour in batter and bake in moderate oven (325 degrees F.) 15 minutes; then increase heat to 350 degrees F. and bake about 30 to 40 minutes longer, or until top springs back when lightly pressed with finger.  Yield: 12 to 14 portions.