Screven House, Savannah GA
Culinarian: Abraham Cobb (1854-1916)
From his arrival in Savannah in 1884 until his death in 1916, the African-American chef Abraham Cobb was reckoned the premier culinarian in the city. Installed as head cook at Screven House at the age of thirty by proprietor Bernhard Dub, Cobb elevated the stellar reputation of that famous hotel for cuisine. He headed the staff at Screven House from 1884 until 1893, when he became dissatisfied with his compensation, spent several months catering for the Oglethorpe Club before becoming the head chef of Pulaski House in 1894, Screven House’s chief culinary rival in Savannah. Charles F. Graham, the proprietor, had often tasted Cobb’s fare at the Screven during the sociable evenings held by the leaders of the city’s hospitality trade. He headed that kitchen for a decade until a range fire got out of control in January 1905, destroying the kitchen and forcing the closure and renovation of the hotel. He patched up his differences with B. Dub and resumed his place as chef of Screven House. In 1911 physical ailments forced him to surrender the strenuous job of running the kitchen, so he migrated to the much easier routine of overseeing the meals of Savannah’s Harmonie Club, the post he held until his death.
Born in Augusta, Georgia, Abraham Cobb was hired as a kitchen assistant at the Planters Hotel in that city at age sixteen. When Bernhard Dub took over management of the Planters Hotel in 1879, having given up control of Macon’s most storied hotel, the Lanier, the new proprietor found Cobb a talented assistant cook. Dub took over Cobb’s culinary instruction, particularly in the sphere of pasty cooking. Cobb appears to have been elevated to head cook sometime in 1881. When Dub left Augusta for Savannah and Screven House with him, he took Cobb with him to oversee the kitchen staff.
All of the surviving bills of fare created by Cobb date from his tenure at the Pulaski House. A lavish banquet menu designed for the 1894 meeting of Savannah’s St. Andrew’s Society proved so memorable that the Society reprinted it in their official History. His event menus had certain signatures—a local dish (Broiled shad roe in local bacon, possum and Sweet Potatoes) intermingled with cosmopolitan standards—the choice between a light soup (tomato bouillon) and a stew (terrapin) for the soup course—fish dusted in cornmeal—a white meat course of rabbit or pork—an abundance of vegetables including mashed turnips, cushaw squash (a holdover from his Augusta roots?). During the Georgia products dinner competition of 1913 the Savannah entry menu was largely an elaboration of his standard banquet courses. The January 1894 banquet for Savannah Freemasons at the Pulaski House suggests the tenor of his society dinners.
Cobb’s obituary notice contains a number of factual errors, but it correctly indicates the Cobb desire to have his body interred in the city of his nativity, Augusta.