More Than a Kitchen Today's meals can't compare with former repasts

By Jan Burgess

Posted: July 22, 2009 at 5:31 p.m.

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BELLA VISTA — While the Fourth of July may have come and gone, the whole month has red, white and blue thoughts running through my mind.

As a country we are unique, and our history is an important part of who we are today.

Do you ever think about what people ate in the old days? We think about what early Americans ate at Thanksgiving, but there is more to our culinary history than turkey and corn.

All colonists did not eat the same thing. The Spaniards who settled in St. Augustine ate differently than the English in Jamestown or the Dutch in New York. This is, no doubt, because when folks migrated to the new country, they brought recipes, cooking methods and even some supplies with them.

Colonial meals not only consisted of different ingredients, their time and structure varied greatly from ours today. In the 18th century, breakfast was eaten early if you were poor and later if you were wealthy. There was no meal called lunch. Dinner, the biggest meal of the day,

was served at midday, and the evening meal, known as supper, was a very light repast.

Settlers arose early to attend to their chores. Farmers drank cider or beer and gulped down a bowl of porridge that had been cooking all night. City dwellers drank the usual mug of alcoholic beverage but often followed it with cornmeal mush and molasses.

A century later, breakfast was served as late as 9 or 10 o'clock, especially if you had money and could afford a more leisurely lifestyle. This meal included coffee, tea or chocolate, wafers, muffins and toast accompanied by butter in a dish. The southern poor ate cold turkey washed down with cider.

The size of the breakfast grew in direct proportion to the amount of wealth, and soon cold meats, fruit pies and pasties joined the menu, as did scrapple (cornmeal and headcheese), along with Dutch sweet cakes fried in deep fat.

Dinner for poor families was often served in trenchers made from

bread, usually stale, filled with stew from a common pot. Leftovers not consumed at the meal were given to domestic animals.

By the late 1700s, the dinner for a middle-class family consisted of two courses. First came meats, meat puddings or deep meat pies, pancakes, fritters and often a soup of some sort.

The second course consisted of an assortment of fruits, custards, tarts and pound, ginger, spice or cheese cakes.

Supper was a brief, light meal served late in the day - almost a bedtime snack and often made of leftovers, sometimes including an egg dish and the ever present cider, ale or beer.

Recipes used by cooks in Salem, Mass., now known

as Danvers, in the late 1600s were based primarily on popular English cookbooks of the day. These were either printed and leather-bound if one could afford them, or handwritten manuscripts passed on from family to family, often given as wedding gifts.

Ingredients used by Salem cooks would have been a combination of newworld foods, such as corn, squash, clams, beans, cranberries and potatoes; local fare, such as mollusks, fish, wild game, fowl, apples, nuts, berries, onions, cheese and eggs; and imported goods, such as tea, coffee, sugar, rum, citrus fruits and spices.

Unlike today, families then did not go out to eat for fun. Taverns, public houses and ordinaries were for travelers and not known for good food. In fact, most people who ate there complained bitterly about the poor food and service. The primary attraction of these places was the alcohol and company, which was mostly men.

Their daily "Bill of Fare" was whatever the cook decided to prepare that day,

and the menu was often etched on a slate board. Expectations were limited, and diners included children of the owner, indentured servants and apprentices. This resulted in the eventual establishment of private dining areas so the citizens of class did not have to intermingle.

Taverns located in cities were considered superior, offering a greater variety of foods and dining options. They ultimately became the seat of private parties, business and political meetings, celebrations and gatherings of male friends.

Thus it was that our founding fathers conspired, con

scripted and celebrated America's independence in taverns throughout the colonies.

If you are interested in the history of American cuisine, there is lots of interesting information on the Internet, and it is fun to browse about in your spare time. The following recipes are based on those from the early settlers of the northeast region and have their roots in English cuisine.

Jan Burgess has been a Bella Vista resident for 14 years. She and her husband, Bruce Burgess, are avid cooks.

Community, Pages 18 on 07/22/2009

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