Colonial Cooking

Discusses everyday life, family roles, cooking methods, most important foods, and celebrations of the colonial period in American history. Includes recipes and sidebars.

Notable for their early dates and historical significance, these manuals afford previously unavailable insights into lifestyles and foodways during the evolution of Chesapeake society." "One cookbook is an anonymous work dating from 1700; the other is the 1739-1743 cookbook of Jane Bolling Randolph, a descendant of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. In addition to her textual analysis that establishes the relationship between these two early manuscripts, Harbury links them to the 1824 classic The Virginia House-wife by Mary Randolph."--Jacket.

Colonial Christmas Cooking will assist those wishing to plan a Yule-themed dinner, as well as anyone interested in learning about historic foodways. Descriptions of different styles of celebrating the birth of Christ are presented - from the Moravians' devout joyousness to the Anglican's bubbly merriment. (And then there was the Puritan non-participation in the celebration....) Recipes for "Wassail," "Joy Tea Cakes," "Jamestown Sweet Potato Pudding," etc., will definitely put one in the holiday mood.Published 1991, revised from the original 1990 edition. Contains 52 authentic, interpreted (redacted), and commemorative recipes; 95 research notes; and 127 numbered pages including index. This and other books by Patricia B. Mitchell were first written for museums and their patrons. Each of her books summarizes a food history topic, using quotations and anecdotes to both entertain and inform. She carefully lists her references to make it easy for others to launch their own research. Since the 1980s Patricia Mitchell's work is a proven staple of American museum culture. Her readers love to share her ever-present sense of discovery. Her sales are approaching a million copies, and she is widely known by her web identity FoodHistory.com.

Ranging from the simple to the sumptuous, here are over 200 recipes for modern Americans inspired by dishes and beverages the authors discovered in cookbooks, family journals, and notebooks of 150 to 250 years ago. Did you know that breakfast in the eighteenth century was typically a mug of beer and some mush and molasses, invariably taken on the run? That settlers enjoyed highly spiced foods and the taste of slightly spoiled meat? Or that, at first, Colonists didn’t understand how to make tea and instead stewed the tea leaves in butter, threw out what liquid collected, and munched on the leaves? These peculiar facts precede tried and tested recipes, some of which include: · Cold grapefruit soup · Tweedy family steak and kidney pie · Madras artichokes · Sour rabbit and potato dumplings · Apple-shrimp curry · Pumpkin chiffon pie · Lemon flummery · And much more Each chapter of recipes is introduced with accounts of how early Americans breakfasted, dined, drank, and entertained. The illustrations of utensils, tankards, porringers, and pots used in the early days are drawn from actual objects in major private and public collections of early Americana and make Colonial Cooking a great resource for American history enthusiasts.

Colonial cooks served everyone from commoners in taverns to politicians in palaces. Explore the lives of colonial cooks.

"Discusses the everyday life, family roles, cooking methods, most important foods, and celebrations of the colonial period in American history. Includes recipes and sidebars"--

The first Europeans to settle on the Aboriginal land that would become know as Australia arrived in 1788. From the first these colonists were accused of ineptitude when it came to feeding themselves: as legend has it they nearly starved to death because they were hopeless agriculturists and ignored indigenous foods. As the colony developed Australians developed a reputation as dreadful cooks and uncouth eaters who gorged themselves on meat and disdained vegetables. By the end of the nineteenth century the Australian diet was routinely described as one of poorly cooked mutton, damper, cabbage, potatoes and leaden puddings all washed down with an ocean of saccharine sweet tea: These stereotypes have been allowed to stand as representing Australia’s colonial food history. Contemporary Australians have embraced ‘exotic’ European and Asian cuisines and blended elements of these to begin to shape a distinctive “Australian” style of cookery but they have tended to ignore, or ridicule, what they believe to be the terrible English cuisine of their colonial ancestors largely because of these prevailing negative stereotypes. The Colonial Kitchen: Australia 1788- 1901 challenges the notion that colonial Australians were all diabolical cooks and ill-mannered eaters through a rich and nuanced exploration of their kitchens, gardens and dining rooms; who was writing about food and what their purpose might have been; and the social and cultural factors at play on shaping what, how and when they at ate and how this was represented.

Of the one hundred Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth in 1620, nearly half had died within months of hardship, starvation or disease. One of the colony's most urgent challenges was to find ways to grow and prepare food in the harsh, unfamiliar climate of the New World. From the meager subsistence of the earliest days and the crucial help provided by Native Americans, to the first Thanksgiving celebrations and the increasingly sophisticated fare served in inns and taverns, this book provides a window onto daily life in Colonial America. It shows how European methods and cuisine were adapted to include native produce such as maize, potatoes, beans, peanuts and tomatoes, and features a section of authentic menus and recipes, including apple tansey and crab soup, which can be used to prepare your own colonial meals.