Gwen Mayo Guest Post: 1920s Food in Florida

In the 1920’s, Florida was trying to promote itself as the Sunshine State, and citrus as liquid sunshine. While northern states were blanketed in snow, Florida developers provided crates of oranges as snack food for prospective customers. Hotels had complimentary orange and grapefruit juice. Menus touted key lime pie, sour orange pie, orange and lemon cakes, and icy glasses of lemonade. Citrus was everywhere and seemed to be in most Florida recipes. Our intrepid snowbirds sampled a wide variety of citrus fruits on their journey. However, it is an entirely different Floridian food that takes center stage on this trip.

The Mullet Express is a train devoted to transporting large quantities of mullet, a fish that was a Florida staple in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Originally, the mullets were smoked to preserve them on their journey and packed into wooden barrels.

At the time of Murder on the Mullet Express, smoked mullet spread is still a favorite dish, one Professor Percival Pettijohn is eager to try on his first night in Homosassa. He and his companions, Cornelia Pettijohn and Teddy Lawless, share a plate of it with crackers as they dine under the stars at Riverside Lodge.

Dinner at the lodge is quite an event. The lodge caters to sportsmen, and diners have the option of having their catch prepared and served. For guests who are not hunters or fishermen, there is still plenty of local game, waterfowl, and seafood on the menu. The professor sticks with seafood, ordering the red snapper. Cornelia and Teddy opt for the roast duck with marmalade.  

Prohibition limits the beverages to lemonade or sweat tea, but Teddy manages to add a little of her “medicinal alcohol” to her glass. In fact, Teddy proves to be quite good at supplementing her supply of “medicine” with cocktails and a little spiked punch. As a result, most of her breakfasts consist of dry toast with a bag of ice on the side. At one point, she laments that she is a delicate flower, and Cornelia points out that she might not be as delicate if she didn’t get potted every night.

The portability of food is also important to the snowbirds. Many of Florida’s visitors in the early twentieth century were referred to as ‘Tin Can Tourists’ because of the canned food they heated over campfires. The Three Snowbirds don’t need to camp, but Teddy keeps a tin of Oreo cookies for snacking. Wrapped sandwiches also prove convenient for frequent trips to the jail after the professor is confined there. When supplies run short, there are roadside restaurants available, like the place offering frankfurters and fresh seafood (based on a photo I saw while researching the story). 

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Gwen Mayo is passionate about blending the colorful history of her native Kentucky with her love for mystery fiction. She currently lives and writes in Safety Harbor, Florida, but grew up in a large Irish family in the hills of Eastern Kentucky. She is the author of the Nessa Donnelly Mysteries, set in Kentucky during the Decades of Discord, and the co-author of the Three Snowbirds series with Sarah Glenn.