I know, I know. Believe me, I KNOW! Nearly two weeks ago,
on New Year’s Day, I wrote:
I promise to get back to writing
here more often!
Yeah, sure, you bet! dagnabit. Guess I should’ve just stuck
with “Happy New Year” and been done with it! Alas, I didn’t.
It’s pretty amazing, though: take some time off from writing,
and suddenly a couple of days becomes several weeks. Like
I said, dagnabit!
So…enough of that. Time to get moving! Okay, think I’ll start
with my historic cooking activities back in December. Naturally,
I was incredibly busy at the hearth of the Israel Crane House.
Two main events were the month’s first Sunday (Dec. 4) and
then the annual two-day Essex County (NJ) Holiday Historical
Houses Tour (Dec. 10 & 11).
First up, that Sunday. Now, if I could remember what I did….
Har! Har! Just kidding. I brewed hot spiced cider, cooked up
apples ‘n sausages, and baked a cornbread. Oh, and I hung
cut squash near the apples (from weeks earlier) on the mantel
to dry AND merrily showed off the pumpkin I’d dried at home.
Visitors were constantly coming and going the entire time, and
I had a blast chatting with them all. HUZZAH!
____________________
Spiced cider set to brew:
Cornbread’s prepped and ready:
It’s a-bakin’ on the hearth:
YUM!
Interestingly, even though my cornbread was quite tasty, and
it disappeared in no time, it also crumbled far too easily. So as
I served pieces to more and more visitors, I wracked my brain,
trying to figure out what’d gone wrong. Why was it so crumbly?
Then suddenly, it hit me! With all the hustle ‘n bustle, mixing up
the batter, talking to this ‘n that person and then another, I’d
completely forgotten to add the egg! Which means there was
nothing to bind it all together. dagnabit. Yep, even I make one
or two goofball mistakes now and then. HUZZAH! Oh, wait, no,
that’s not the word, um…what? Oh, never mind. Onward!
Apples ‘n sausage sizzling while the cornbread bakes:
The above food combination was highly popular during the 18th
and early 19th centuries, and receipts (recipes) for it abound
in cookbooks of those times:
Mmmm, the perfect food for a cold afternoon:
Preserving food for winter, such as hanging squash to dry, was
extremely important in past centuries:
And…TA-DA! My dried pumpkin:
I appreciate your posts; thank you for taking the time. You probably have little awareness how useful this info is to those of us who read it, make use of the info, file it away, and typically do not reply. Meanwhile, I’m especially interested in the latter part of this post where you hung squash to dry. Is the dried pumpkin in the last photo from the string in the photo above? Well, I guess my real question is: “Was cutting it into pieces and stringing it up to dry the typical way for preserving all squash?” Where can I get more detailed info about the methodology of 18th century food preservation?
Hi Joyce, You’re welcome! It’s always nice to to hear that my posts are appreciated and that you’ve found the information useful. HUZZAH! I checked out your website. I love your building. It reminds me of one I used to spend alot of time in when I worked at Conner Prairie (sadly, it no longer exists). How exciting!
As to the squash and all…the pieces strung up by the fireplace in the one photo (second to last) are all squash (I used a buttercup), but pumpkin would’ve also been preserved the same way (it is, after all, technically a squash). Apples, as well. The last photo shows a pumpkin (obviously) with another one that was dried flat, which was just another way to preserve it. Of course, doing so could really only be accomplished if there was a bake oven in the house, and not everyone had one. In this particular case, there IS one in the Israel Crane House kitchen, and so it was very appropriate, as that’s how it might’ve been preserved. However, the Crane oven hasn’t been fired up in years, so I did this at home (in my modern oven…see my 12/2/2011 post for pics & info). Also, and more importantly, preserving any squash by drying it flat involves several more steps and takes alot more time, so stringing it was most likely the more common, and the more preferred, method.
As for where to find information on preserving foods for winter, a good place to start might be historic cookbooks. Receipts (recipes) for preserving fruits, vegetables, meats, and so on can be found in Hannah Glasse, Amelia Simmons, Mary Randolph, and others. There’s info in various books about historic foodways, as well. Of course, talking to other people who do it, or visiting other historic sites, particularly in the fall when such activities are taking place, can be highly informative, as well.
And don’t forget, many of what we eat everyday started out as, and were considered, “preserved foods” in earlier centuries: preserved milk becomes cheese; cucumbers become pickles; preserved raspberries become jelly or jam; cream becomes butter; preserved meat is smoked sausage or ham and beef jerky; etc.
Hope this helps!