The Wright brothers had a sister, and her name was Katherine. They also had two brothers, Reuchlin and Lorin, but it is Katherine who has grabbed our fancy, especially since she made a mean chicken salad.
We learned this during the Music Institute of Chicago’s ever-interesting and ambitious annual lecture-concert-food series held at Nichols Hall in Evanston. This year’s series was “From the Ground Up: Milestones in the History of Flight” and featured lunchtime discussions between myself and various experts; musical performances devoted to the flying machines of Leonard da Vinci, hot air ballooning and Apollo 8, the first manned flight to orbit the moon; and food.
We “met” Katherine Wright during a talk given by Peter Jakab, the chairman of the aeronautics division of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum and co-author of “The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age.” We learned that she was 15 years old in 1889 when her mother died, and that she then took over the household. After her brothers’ famous 1903 Kitty Hawk flight, she traveled the world with Wilbur and Orville and was something of a similar sensation. Spain’s king called her the “ideal American.” In France, she was awarded the Legion of Honor and was called “the third Wright brother.”
The music, performed by MIC members and teachers and other pros, included such little-heard tunes as “Song of the Wright Boys” and “Come Take a Trip in My Air Ship.” The food included caramels based on an Orville Wright recipe, chicken salad and deviled eggs from Katherine’s recipes and goods from Mike-sell’s Potato Chip Company, the oldest manufacturer of chips in the country. The connection? Owner Daniel W. Mikesell was a neighbor and friend of the Wrights.
Now, this information may not win you any barroom bets. But such knowledge does have a way of making life more interesting. The MIC series (as well as the institute’s extensive year-long programming) is an example of the sort of ongoing, free-form intellectual life that exists in this area. On any given day, there are lectures, concerts, seminars, discussions and readings-many of them free, as were those at the MIC-that seek to entertain, enlighten and inform.
And so, in that spirit, and for the first and likely last time, Sidewalks offers the following recipe, courtesy of the Wright sister and Whole Foods of Evanston. Think of us while you’re on that first picnic of the spring.
Chicken Salad
9 eggs
1/2 pound of butter or 1 teacupful of olive oil
1 teacupful of strong vinegar
4 tablespoonfuls of sugar
1 teaspoonful of black pepper
3 cold, cooked chickens, or 1 medium-sized turkey
2 or 3 bunches of celery
Beat the eggs up well, adding all the ingredients but the vinegar, chicken and celery. Put it in a kettle to cook, stirring it all the time, till it cooks almost as thick as mush. When cold, add the vinegar and pour the dressing over the chicken and celery chopped together and salted to suit the taste. Mix well, leaving out enough dressing to cover the top. Serves a lot.
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rkogan@tribune.com
