Chapter 4 - WASHINGTON, DC: Buchanan’s Bog
Stewing in its Own Up-And-Coming Juices
They say politics is dirty. But maybe it’s just dirty because in nineteenth-century Washington, the streets really were made of dirt.
In the 1850s, virtually all of capital’s streets were dirt. Precipitation turned the dirt to a thick, viscous soup. Sometime in December, 1858, President James Buchanan’s carriage became stuck in the mud along South Carolina Ave., S.E. But, where exactly? A period diary I obtained tantalizingly indicates that this incident occurred, “in the south-east quadrant of the capital city, in plain sight of the Houses of Congress, and not a great distance from a well known house for activities best conducted under cover of night.”
"Cover of night" could mean a brothel. Nearby Madame O’Bannion’s Euphonia Inn, (now a lobbying firm), was a noted prostitution house “proffering vendors of both genders” according to period accounts. The President’s diary nowhere records his destination that evening.
According to fifth-hand accounts of the time, the President alighted to help the driver extricate the horse-drawn contraption from the Mid-Atlantic muck. Rocking it clear of the mud, urging the horses to help, Buchanan found himself now sucked into a powerful Piedmont mud-puddle of his own: he, in his boots, was now stuck, too. The coachman solved this, by lifting the Pennsylvanian out of his boots, and into the carriage, unshod and unharmed.
The boots were left there, and some say they remained a part of Madame O’Bannion’s private collection of curiosities for the next three decades, leading to rumors Buchanan had been heading to her infamous house. The Library of Congress steadfastly denies that the boots are in its voluminous collection—I checked. Some say it didn’t happen at this particular location at all, and that the choice in the popular imagination of a South Carolina Ave. incident was an apocryphal post-Civil War cautionary tale referencing the first shots of that war, fired at Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, or an attempt to impugn the conciliatory Buchanan’s reputation.
In any case, much of the area where Buchanan got stuck was torn down for a 1960s freeway project, but a few small blocks exist south of the National Mall, and this area took its name, Buchanan’s Bog, from the President’s detour. Soon stews were named after the incident, including a Depression-era version of ‘the Bog’ that included an actually piece of shoe-leather in a muddy brown broth.
The legend of Buchanan’s Bog grew, and if you can find it, you will be richly rewarded with the restaurants, such as H.P. Taliaferro’s, that remain favorites for the backroom dealings of congressman, and a few small shops. Today, Buchanan’s Bog is officially considered part of Capitol Hill, but for the few people who live here—its primary focus being institutional—they pay lower rents, because of its proximity to freeway noise, a railroad tunnel and a population of feral cats. Feral cats—often written about in connection with Paris and Rome, haven’t been a popular part of the creation myths of gentrifying American‘hoods recently, so conveniently, they are a part of this one. Happy now?
While I pondered where to get my first iconic ‘Bog’ meal, I considered the instructions given to most travel writers undertaking a dissection of the national American capital, once again falling back on New York Times tips: mentions should be made of “cows once pastured on the mall,” “Dolly Madison fleeing from the British with various items,” "Theodore Roosevelt’s antics on the White House lawn with his children,” and “built on a swamp." Props for working in rotund President William Howard Taft’s specially built bathtub.
I decided to do what hungry Capitol Hill aides and congresspersons have been doing for over 150 years; head to H.P. Taliaferro’s (234 One-Quarter St., S.E.), for the kind of rib-sticking comfort food that, once eaten, obviates the need for food the rest of the day, or possibly the week. Menu items are increased in price by a particular percentage calculated by Taliaferro descendants, who still own the restaurant; prices, therefore, are rather idiosyncratic: their famous “Chicken Chain Bridge” with pork sausage and hash-browns costing $8.42, for example. I personally took a liking to the “Hallelujah Hodge-Podge,” a mixture of okra, bread stuffing, and collards topped with a fried egg. You will never get the stuffing recipe out of the owners, so don’t even try.
But the real reason the powers eat there is attributed to superstitions around its mysterious “Election Stew." It's reportedly an ancient, and unrecorded recipe. I had heard every congressman eats a little of it, in order to ensure successful completion of his term. The legend has it that not doing such could lead to an abbreviated tenure in Congress. Like the scent of a mailman hitting canine olfactory bulbs, that tickled my travel nose and I headed to Taliaferro's.
Usually referred to as ‘HP’s’– the menu hasn’t changed much since 1866, the year it opened. Born on a plantation in Georgia in the 1840s, H.P. Taliaferro was a freedman who came to Washington after the civil war, along with General William Tecumseh Sherman’s army. He’d worked in the army mess along the way, after fleeing his south-central Georgia plantation, and Union officers became so fond of Taliaferro’s cooking, they encouraged him to start his tavern with a range of donations.
Arriving in Washington in 1865, Taliaferro helpfully possessed $23 in gold coin, a spyglass, two saddles, a padlock, 17 coat-buttons, a cocker spaniel, a union suit, four pairs of men’s stockings, several pairs of boots, a set of spurs, a shaving mirror and mug, a complete military atlas of the Carolinas, a Tamworth hog, a set of playing cards with pornographic daguerreotypes on the back sides, two Bowie knives, sewing kits, a bottle of witch-hazel, some bandages, a French garter belt, a door-knocker, a dinner-bell, cast-iron cookware, three tins of snuff, a bust of Herodotus, the battle standard of Indiana’s 19th Independent Battery Light Artillery, and a church pew.
After selling off some of these items, and keeping what worked for a tavern, Taliaferro set about finding a building in which to house his tavern. A seamstress, who had taken ill during the war, recently had vacated a house on One-Quarter St., between B and C Streets, and Fauntleroy set about creating a public house there “for filling the belly with vittles.”
Upon arriving at Taliaferro’s, I met relatives who still run the restaurant. These included Taliferro’s great-great-great-grandniece, Eloise Taliaferro Pelham, who oversees restaurant operations. She offers kitchen tours monthly—I, of course, caught one. Eloise began by taking us through the dining room, and then into the kitchen itself. So far, the family had fended off extensive media coverage, and had firmly rejected bottling, canning or freezing their stew for retail sales. I asked her about the famous Election Stew and its enticing recipe. Pelham proudly told me the stew was virtually as old as the restaurant.
“You mean the recipe is 140 years old?” I clarified.
“No, I mean the stew in this pot is a 140 years old; it’s been bubbling on a stove in the restaurant for 140 years, since November of 1866. We never let the fire go out. Of course, we’re continually adding fresh vegetables and meats to it, naturally, but that stew-pot has never been empty, and never will be, not since H.P. lit the fire and threw in his special ingredients. H.P. declared the stew would be kept alive into eternity, just as he hoped the union that set him free would last forever.”
A silence that was equal parts patriotic tribute and food safety-standards anxiety met Eloise’s description, and this conflicted worry filled the kitchen like a quickly rising soufflé of concern. Eloise took note of my twitches.
“Oh, don’t get your manhood in a sieve. We deglaze the sides a little every week or so, to reduce the contents from sticking to the sides. But, basically this stew is the same stew, freshened up every few days, since Reconstruction. We can’t completely empty the pot or the Congressman that come in here to order it, so they can fulfill the election prophecy, well, they’d go ballistic.”
And they say America doesn’t preserve its history. I beg to disagree. Right here was an edible edifice that had withstood the press of time. As well, I must
take a moment to recount the exact story of ‘the election prophecy,’ as related by Taliaferro’s descendants and others.
It seems that seven congressmen gathered for a mid-day meal, in October of 1866 just prior to the elections of that year, at Taliaferro’s newly opened eatery—not yet the favorite it would become. Four ordered the stew, three did not. They then adjourned for electioneering in their districts. Guess what? No, don’t bother. It was with great surprise that the four who ordered and ingested Taliaferro’s stew, found themselves returned to Congress.
The dining companions were astounded by what had occurred, according to a little book I just happened to pick up a day earlier, while browsing a charming table of moldering volumes, at the nearby Eastern Market bazaar, hard by the edge of Capitol Hill. Believe me; these coincidences regularly collide with seasoned travel writers. Entitled Tales of Politicks and Its Practitioners, Recounted for General Divertissement by a Horace Ploughman, the book purported to be a complete account of the subsequent discussion:
“Is it not a striking factum,” sagely observed Missouri congressman Girard Bonifant, to the group of elected eaters dining with him in January of 1867, as told by Ploughman, “that we gentlemen partook of Taliaferro’s stew September last, and withal the great noise made against our persons in the late contest, still we are again in vicinity, one and t’other."
Eye-brows raised around the table. And, Bonifant, as Ploughman tells it, leaned in, continuing, “and, yet, good sirs, note well this circumstance is in contraposition to our autumnal supper companions. For never did stew touch their lips, and presently, they are seen no more in the capital!”
Striking, indeed. And, presently our merry tour group, huddled in Taliaferro’s kitchen well over a century later, standing in proximate vicinity to this savory antique porridge; a poached, burbling relic of the republic’s resilience and the supernatural power of well-crafted compotes. Even aged as it was, this stew cooking away through wars and weather in a large iron pot, certainly smelled appetizing.
“Cabbage and a little hare, that’s all I can tell you,” offered Eloise, deflecting questions about ingredients. “The rest is a family secret and it goes to the grave. H.P. himself used to say, ‘don’t ask, 'cause I can’t tell.’ No ifs, ands, or buts on that score. It’s too precious, you know? That pot has seen it all: Ulysses Grant, the Wright brothers, War to End All Wars, WW Two, Dr. King and Civil Rights, Watergate, Operation Desert Storm. You name it, the stew’s been cooking the whole while.”
Then, Eloise ladled out some of that precious electoral elixir, witness to the march of western democracy, into small bowls held out by the gastronomic prayer circle we had formed around her. In concert, we quietly brought the mid-Victorian ragout to our lips, blowing on our spoons and taking small tastes of it; notes of gunsmoke, very old lipstick, fennel, leeks, tears on flower-scented paper, heritage turkey, and a lot of sweet onion popped on our tongues like Fourth of July sparklers. Was there a taste of wet cobblestone? Or was it gum-tree mixed with macadam and cumin? I volunteered “chintz from a very old sleeping compartment on the Baltimore & Ohio’s express to Philadelphia, circa 1885” and got very nasty looks from fellow tour-goers. Taliaferro’s stew was a stereopticon of flavors.
We, of course, wanted to know, whether a certain VIP, fond of local dining, had stopped in. But, we could not get a confirmation that President Obama and the First Lady had dined at H.P.’s, and there seemed little chance that we would obtain the First Couple’s menu, even if they had popped in for a bite. Moving toward the door, I heard a rustling in the corner of the kitchen, and several of our party gasped. There, an ancient woman seated at small café table pored over a newspaper with a magnifying glass. We hadn’t noticed her.
“Oh, that’s Cousin Mae; she’s a grand-niece. 97 years old and counting; doesn’t really talk anymore. She just watches over the pot, even at night. Mae sleeps in a little room we’ve got off to the side. Eloise motioned in the direction of the back door of the kitchen. “I mean, come on! We’re not going to leave a pot of stew on the stove for a century and a half without keeping watch, for heaven’s sake.”
“You know what they say,” continued Eloise, as we gathered our things to leave. “Two things always bear watching: the making of H.P.’s stew and the making of legislation.”
I cocked my head a little, and asked. “Are you sure? I thought the two things you did not want to watch were the making of legislation and the making of hotdogs.”
“Well," snapped Eloise, "the person who said that didn’t eat our stew, and they probably didn’t get reelected, neither.” And she hurried us out the door.
The U.S. Court of Exceptional Claims (301 Guam Ave., S.E.), which handles any cases that the rest of the federal judiciary refuses to touch, can be toured pretty quickly. Judges are appointed to the three-judge panel by the Vice-President from a pool of applicants who apply to the Society of the Cincinnatus—a revolutionary war heritage group—for life “plus five years,” meaning that when they die, the court must appoint whomever the dead justice has designated in their will to serve a further five years. After Judge Amulet Parterre Wilkes appointed his Chesapeake Bay Retriever back in 1879, Congress passed legislation requiring that only “persons of a human character and corpus” be allowed on the court.
The court only meets four times per year to hear cases, and eat soup. They sit ‘en banquette’ on a long banquette (hence the legal phrase, en banc), in front of which is a long oak table. Tradition dictates that anyone arguing a case before the court is required to ladle out equal portions of soup to the judges, and then one portion for him or herself. If they fail to make the portions equal, they must cede their opening statement time to the other side. The building was originally a music hall, and the banquette where the judges sit was said to be where Sally “Racey” Rossiter, the famous singer and society courtesan of the 1880s, held her own special sort of court.
“When I choose a man,” Rossiter told one admirer,” you can appeal all you want…and so can I.”
Remember the “Moho”? Jules Verne-nerds aren’t the only ones who would like to journey to the center of the earth. The quasi-private Commission on Subterranean Research runs the Museum of the Mohole, (278 American Samoa Ave., S.E.), out of a Reconstruction-era townhouse left to them by an early booster. They’ve got a working model of this 1960s-era project to drill into the Mohorovicic Discontinuity, between the earth’s crust and mantle. Your admission helps fund their half-century effort to revive the project for reasons that are unclear, but nonetheless seem awfully noble. It’s only open Sunday through Tuesday (Admission $6.50). They have been funded modestly by the federal budget, but their biggest champion, Sen. Gregory Silt (R-Wyo.), just died, so the future is uncertain.
A Buchanan’s Bog secret: the best parties are given by The Mission of French Amazonia, which represents the interests of a group of banana plantation owners in an area of Brazil just south of French Guiana; they assert their 15,357 square mile territory is really a part of French Guiana, but due to a cartographic error, it has been incorporated into Brazil—which is fun, but, after all, not French. Learn more about the cuisine of French Amazonia at their restaurant, or about their capital, Boueville. (Mission de la Amazonia Francais, 627 First St., S.E.). If you’re lucky, you’ll catch their annual food festival in the spring; it features fish, but also bananas prepared dozens of different ways—really, too many different ways, if you ask me.
Speaking of food, I had lunch with Fair Food Prices Foundation executives (456 Guam Ave., S.E.), at their delightful, public, in-house cafe, serving organic, farm-to-table, nose-to-tail, pulp-to-peel cuisine. The foundation supports agricultural subsidies and the Unfair Food Prices Coalition, which is actually controlled by the Fair Food folks—they figure if they start a group that opposes what they do, then they can control how the opposing group fights themselves and they can make sure they win and the opposing group loses. So they appoint real dummies to the opposing group’s board, w
hich makes the whole issue the opposing group is fighting for look terrible and amateurish; the Fair Food folks look brilliant.
I inquired: “That’s pretty clever. But, hasn’t the press figured out the game you are running?”
“No, not that you could tell,” said a Fair Food executive.
A fine restaurant is Entente (entrance in a dead-end alley behind 322 St. Croix St., S.E.) which occupies the original U.S. offices of the 1920s central European alliance known as the Little Entente, an early 20th century coalition focused on checking Hungary’s ambitions for world domination. Entente knits together central European cuisine in a delicious, if slightly contemptuous style. The starter was both delicate and thorny: stripped baby birch twigs, grilled and coated with burned caramel sauce. Potatoes Pickelhaube was a rather in-your-face new potato, just one, in a savory vinegar and paprika-inflected sauce with a little spiked helmet atop, composed of a salted cinnamon stick surrounded by a cape of under-cooked carrot dough as the helmet. It’s a somewhat severe meal, which leaves you feeling full, yet uneasy.
When you’re done eating, educate yourself. What’s great about the Smithsonian is it’s free. Well, almost. The new Museum of Games and Gambling (417 B St., S.E) contains some pretty interesting slot machines. It chronicles gambling history riverboat faro games to illegal slots and Indian and Internet gaming. There’s no admission, but there is a gambling minimum to meet congressional conditions that it be self-supporting. A computer simulation lets you play with various odds, betting on different political and social issues. For instance, the odds of getting hit by a bus are actually pretty low. But the odds of turning 50 without adequate health-care, if you’re not on a company plan, are quite good. Try your luck!
I made my way over to the Capitol for my meeting with a friend of a friend’s uncle, Rep. Bartholomew Coade (R-MT). In the lobby of the Longworth House Office Building, I went through security. After I had been irradiated, de-loused, searched, x-rayed and micro-chipped, I made my way up to the third floor to meet Rep. Coade.
After perusing a few magazines, as well as examining a stuffed bison, and a working model of a copper mine in the waiting area for a few minutes, Rep. Coade popped his head out of his office.
“And, howdy, you must be my nephew Zip’s friend,” Rep. Coade blasted in a loud western drawl. I explained that I was really a friend of his nephew’s friend, and hoped to ask him about health-care for freelance travel writers, along with some Bog history, like what had actually happened that night to President Buchanan's lost boots, and where might his destination have been—and, of course, about Dolly Madison’s flight from the city, Teddy Roosevelt’s antics, and Taft’s tub.
The congressman changed the subject immediately. “Nate, are you married? Now, our Zip, seems like he has a new girl every month,” and the congressman chuckled to himself, while he busily made what looked like a Gin Gimlet at his mini-bar. “Goodness, I’ve never met anybody with such an eye for the ladies like our Zip, and that includes me!” Completing his alcoholic toilette, Rep. Coade rejoined me, drink in hand, in a kind of conversation pit in front of his enormous desk.
He launched into his next discourse. “I don’t know if Zip told you about his auntie Helen? Yeah, well, she breeds miniature pinschers and cutting horses up in Sabertooth Falls, Montana. Helen’s got a new gal pal up there at the farm, and this Beatrice or Belletrice, or Belladonna…anyho, she’s a mighty fine arm-wrestler, and she knows sumo, too. My lord, she threw me so far during a demo, when I come to, I thought I was in Wyoming.”
We were interrupted by the congressman’s assistant, who poked her head in the office door. “Congressman, your 11 o’clock sumo training session is in five minutes in the congressional gym.”
Coade tilted his head upward at his assistant. “Oh yes? Well, tell Toshi I’ll be about five minutes late.”
The assistant added, quietly. “it’s Hashi, sir.”
“Yes, alright,” responded Coade.
He continued. “Anyhow, this gal is pretty darned strong—I told Helen, hell, send her to Afghanistan—it’s not too late; I can probably get her a pretty good berth over there—maybe she’ll whip those scorpion terrorists into shape.”
I was about to respond, when Coade got up abruptly and turned to me, saying, “Nate, just remember, as you walk these hallowed halls, we’ve got to fight fire with fire, here. Smarty-pants stuff won’t help us out in the coming apocalypse. When someone throws mud at you, you gotta take that mud and make a delicious Mudslide. Don’t forget this acronym, ‘KISS’: keep things stupid ‘n simple.’”
Amazingly, I looked up just then, and I thought I spied a pair of boots in a glass case, high up on a shelf in his office, and turned to ask the congressman about them. But, he was moving out the door as I rose, virtually shouting back to me, “God bless you on your journey through our great country, and God bless the second district of Montana.” As Rep. Coade exited, he touched the head of the stuffed bison with two fingers and then brought those fingers to his lips, as if the dead creature were a kind of preserved mountain-man mezuzah.
The office door slammed, and after petting the stuffed bison one more time, I reflected that I would probably never find out the whole truth behind this intriguing urban neighborhood at the heart of America's capital. I exited into the hallway, completing my visit to historic and important Buchanan’s Bog.
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