New England cookery
Nov. 4th, 2014 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidLast week I went to a lecture on the history of New England cooking, titled "Puritans and Pumpkin Pies, Brahmins and Baked Beans: New England Cooks Up the American Diet", presented by Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, who in addition to having co-written two books about food in New England (America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking and Northern Hospitality: Cooking by the Book in New England) co-write a blog at their site, http://www.stavelyandfitzgerald.com/.
Of the two, Fitzgerald was a much faster talker, and felt more focused, though that could have been an effect of trying to get through far too much material in less than an hour; I took a lot of notes (where "a lot" = almost a whole page, which translates to.... I'm not sure what in online media form, until I post this). There were a lot of photos of frontispieces, old recipes, and the foods made in a modern kitchen (not the best-quality food photos, alas), with talk of some recipes as indicative of greater trends.
The notes, slightly amended for flow and suchlike:
We know what cookbooks were imported to New England because we have the booksellers' records.
In the late 16th/early 17th centuries, nutritional information came in three ways: farm/household manuals, dietaries (diet/manners books), or secrets books (how the rich live (and eat)). In yeoman-style diets, foods were mostly kept separate, not fancy; venison, on the other hand, was for the nobility, as were well-mixed and spiced foods. Sugar was used in small quantities because it was seen as a spice (as in an apple tart recipe they showed, using cored and peeled apples under a crust with a minimum of sugar).
By the 1670s, food tastes had moved away from heavy spicing, moving from Galen's four humors (and their associated foods, to keep one's humors in balance) towards Paracelsus' ideas with fermentation and the digestive process.
When Puritans could have them, they liked complicated foods, with the bounds put on them by religion (fast days, etc), and whatever issues of availability (of ingredients or expertise). [It was only later that the assumption of what the Puritans ate was plain food became the norm.]
In 1727 E. Smith's Compleat Housewife was published; it was the first cookbook to have a printing in the American colonies (at Williamsburg in 1742). The next best-selling cookbook was Hannah Glasse's book, which included the first published chowder recipe, which was more of a pie than a soup. The next genre best-seller was Elizabeth Raffald's 1769 book, Experienced English Housekeeper.
In the 17th and into the 18th century, regular farmers' diets were not as fancy as the foods in the cookbooks, but it became greater as more foods became available, as well as a trend towards greater literacy and reading of non-religious works.
In 1680 there was the first dining room in Boston (rather than a multi-purpose room that included dining), which lead to more dining as an event, requiring specialized furniture and table-settings and such.
In general, all parts of the animal were used, including the blood [the historical note-keeper in me knows this and approves; the kosher side of me shudders]. Meat in pies was not boned, as it is today.
By 1796, Amelia Simmons published American Cookery, which included recipes plagiarized from English cookbooks, while others used American ingredients/techniques. It included the first pompkin pie that was custardized, rather than earlier recipes that were more savory (which were also two crusts). It also included the first printed recipe for Indian pudding and johnny cake, also "small cakes" = cookies.
In the 19th century, society moved from agrarian to industrial and agricultural, including boom and bust cycles. Lydia Maria ["ma-RYE-ah"] Child (who was also ostracized for being abolitionist) published in 1829 Frugal American Housewife, with information on making things from scratch, with what was presumed Puritan simplicity, to make things more affordable. Her watchwords were restraint and self-sufficiency.
Sarah Josepha Hale (also the editor of Godey's Lady's Book for 40 years) wrote The Good Housekeeper, published in 1839, which included more fancy-style foods, stating that only "excessive" luxury was not congruent with liberty. She was trying to combing elegance and frugality.
In 1832, the Cooks Own Book was published, taken from three British cookbooks.
In 1846, Catharine Beecher's Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book was published (note the eponymous title). It espoused that cooking food for health was better than cooking food for pleasure, and didn't like using condiments/spices or oils. She also stressed being organized/systematic, which later spawned the domestic science movement.
This period is the source of our views of Puritan food.
Post-Civil War was the Colonial Revival period, which looked at the colonial period as the ideal way of life. They selected a few dishes from that period to promote/emphasize, ignoring the rest of New England traditional foods, hence the focus on baked beans, Boston bread (which was pretty much the old rye'n'injun bread with lots of sweetener added, especially because the sweetener chosen, molasses, was seen as rustic), and chowder.
In 1825 the Erie canal opened. New England wasn't good at growing wheat (far too good at growing stones :-), so when the mid-west was settled, wheat grown, and then transported back, wheat became available, replacing the rye'n'injun bread (rye and corn) that people had made because that's what was available, though they always preferred wheat.
Of the two, Fitzgerald was a much faster talker, and felt more focused, though that could have been an effect of trying to get through far too much material in less than an hour; I took a lot of notes (where "a lot" = almost a whole page, which translates to.... I'm not sure what in online media form, until I post this). There were a lot of photos of frontispieces, old recipes, and the foods made in a modern kitchen (not the best-quality food photos, alas), with talk of some recipes as indicative of greater trends.
The notes, slightly amended for flow and suchlike:
We know what cookbooks were imported to New England because we have the booksellers' records.
In the late 16th/early 17th centuries, nutritional information came in three ways: farm/household manuals, dietaries (diet/manners books), or secrets books (how the rich live (and eat)). In yeoman-style diets, foods were mostly kept separate, not fancy; venison, on the other hand, was for the nobility, as were well-mixed and spiced foods. Sugar was used in small quantities because it was seen as a spice (as in an apple tart recipe they showed, using cored and peeled apples under a crust with a minimum of sugar).
By the 1670s, food tastes had moved away from heavy spicing, moving from Galen's four humors (and their associated foods, to keep one's humors in balance) towards Paracelsus' ideas with fermentation and the digestive process.
When Puritans could have them, they liked complicated foods, with the bounds put on them by religion (fast days, etc), and whatever issues of availability (of ingredients or expertise). [It was only later that the assumption of what the Puritans ate was plain food became the norm.]
In 1727 E. Smith's Compleat Housewife was published; it was the first cookbook to have a printing in the American colonies (at Williamsburg in 1742). The next best-selling cookbook was Hannah Glasse's book, which included the first published chowder recipe, which was more of a pie than a soup. The next genre best-seller was Elizabeth Raffald's 1769 book, Experienced English Housekeeper.
In the 17th and into the 18th century, regular farmers' diets were not as fancy as the foods in the cookbooks, but it became greater as more foods became available, as well as a trend towards greater literacy and reading of non-religious works.
In 1680 there was the first dining room in Boston (rather than a multi-purpose room that included dining), which lead to more dining as an event, requiring specialized furniture and table-settings and such.
In general, all parts of the animal were used, including the blood [the historical note-keeper in me knows this and approves; the kosher side of me shudders]. Meat in pies was not boned, as it is today.
By 1796, Amelia Simmons published American Cookery, which included recipes plagiarized from English cookbooks, while others used American ingredients/techniques. It included the first pompkin pie that was custardized, rather than earlier recipes that were more savory (which were also two crusts). It also included the first printed recipe for Indian pudding and johnny cake, also "small cakes" = cookies.
In the 19th century, society moved from agrarian to industrial and agricultural, including boom and bust cycles. Lydia Maria ["ma-RYE-ah"] Child (who was also ostracized for being abolitionist) published in 1829 Frugal American Housewife, with information on making things from scratch, with what was presumed Puritan simplicity, to make things more affordable. Her watchwords were restraint and self-sufficiency.
Sarah Josepha Hale (also the editor of Godey's Lady's Book for 40 years) wrote The Good Housekeeper, published in 1839, which included more fancy-style foods, stating that only "excessive" luxury was not congruent with liberty. She was trying to combing elegance and frugality.
In 1832, the Cooks Own Book was published, taken from three British cookbooks.
In 1846, Catharine Beecher's Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book was published (note the eponymous title). It espoused that cooking food for health was better than cooking food for pleasure, and didn't like using condiments/spices or oils. She also stressed being organized/systematic, which later spawned the domestic science movement.
This period is the source of our views of Puritan food.
Post-Civil War was the Colonial Revival period, which looked at the colonial period as the ideal way of life. They selected a few dishes from that period to promote/emphasize, ignoring the rest of New England traditional foods, hence the focus on baked beans, Boston bread (which was pretty much the old rye'n'injun bread with lots of sweetener added, especially because the sweetener chosen, molasses, was seen as rustic), and chowder.
In 1825 the Erie canal opened. New England wasn't good at growing wheat (far too good at growing stones :-), so when the mid-west was settled, wheat grown, and then transported back, wheat became available, replacing the rye'n'injun bread (rye and corn) that people had made because that's what was available, though they always preferred wheat.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-05 01:12 pm (UTC)and now we have the pumpkin pie donut (it was pretty terrible)
no subject
Date: 2014-11-06 11:43 pm (UTC)