FOOD at Forest Hills Cemetery

FOOD is the topic of an upcoming walking tour at Forest Hills Cemetery led by Anthony M. Sammarco on Sunday, October 17th at 2:00 PM. Watch the calendar of events for more information, or check this Blog for more details.

Don't miss this fun tour!

Among those who will be included on this tasteful walking tour are S.S. Pierce, Maria Parloa, Thaddeus Clapp, Samuel Downer, Henry Pfaff and Ruby Foo. This will be a special walk, discussing the many aspects of food with samples along the way. Samuel Stillman Pierce (1807-1880) (known as S.S. Pierce, pronounced Purse) was known as the purveyor of fancy goods and libations to Victorian Bostonians. Opening his store at the corner of Tremont and Court Streets in the old West End of Boston in 1831, he catered to the carriage trade and created a company that involved four generations of the Pierce Family in its successful operations. As a businessman, Pierce was said to be “a man of unflinching honesty and sterling integrity of character."

Maria Parloa (1843-1909) was an astute cooking instructor whose teaching methods were well received, and she opened Miss Parloa’s Cooking School on Tremont Street in Boston. This led to her teaching at the Boston Cooking School, which she is also credited with cofounding. Her partial ownership of the Ladies Home Journal magazine allowed her articles on food and its preparation to be read by women far and wide, and her cookbooks, beginning in 1878 with Camp Cookery, eventually numbered eleven, including Miss Parloa’s New Cook Book: A Guide to
Marketing and Cooking and Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes by Miss Parloa for the Walter Baker & Company.

Thaddeus Clapp (1811-1861) was the hybridizer of the Clapp Favorite pear, a cross between the Flemish Beauty and the Bartlett pears but an early ripening pear that was awarded a medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Clapp's white marble monument has a bas-relief of the pear carved upon it.

Samuel Downer was a noted hybridizer who achieved fame for the Downers Late cherry. He was proprietor of Downer's Landing in Hingham, an alcohol free family amusement park in the late nineteenth century, that had a boat leavin Boston for the landing throughout the summer.

Henry Pfaff (1826-1893) was a well-known lager beer brewer whose brewery was active from 1857 to 1918, and was located at 1276 Columbus Avenue, the present site of Roxbury Community College. The abundant and crystal clear water from Stony Brook, along with artesian wells bubbling to the surface around Mission Hill, in addition to the affordable land after the City of Roxbury merged with Boston in 1868 made Pfaff’s one of the major brewers. With his brother, Pfaff established the H&J Pfaff Brewery that imparted a little bit of old Germany that created the demand for the new German type Lager beers.

Ruby Foo (1904-1950) was proprietor of Ruby Foo's Den, a popular Hudson Street restaurant in Boston's Chinatown that was among the first to offer Chinese cuisine to Bostonians.

Jacob Wirth (1840-1892) was an immigrant from Kreuznach, Prussia who six years after he immigrated to America opened in 1868 his namesake Germanic beer-hall style restaurant on Stuart Street in Boston. Above the long mahogany bar has been the Latin motto “Suum Cuiqce” which literally translates “to each his own” and which aptly fits the character of this legendary restaurant. Jake Worth’s has long been known for its Sauerbraten and Weiner Schnitzel, and other German style foods, as well as a wide selection of beers for every taste.

Don't miss FOOD at Forest Hills Cemetery.