The Taste of Revolution

Welcome to my blog, "The British Are Coming, Y'all!" The week of 29 June – 5 July, I'm participating with more than two hundred other bloggers in the "Freedom to Read" giveaway hop, accessed by clicking on the logo at the left. All blogs listed in this hop offer book-related giveaways, and we're all linked, so you can easily hop from one giveaway to another. But here on my blog, I'm posting a week of Relevant History essays, each one focused on some facet of the American War of Independence. To find out how to qualify for the giveaways on my blog, read through each day's Relevant History post below and follow the directions. Then click on the Freedom Hop logo so you can move along to another blog. Enjoy!

Relevant History welcomes Christine Blevins, who writes what she loves to read – historical adventure stories. The Turning of Anne Merrick is the second in a three-book series set during the American Revolution, and the companion book to The Tory Widow. A native Chicagoan, Christine lives in Elmhurst, Illinois, along with her husband Brian, and The Dude, a very silly golden-doodle. She is at work finishing the third novel inspired by a lifelong fascination with the foundations of American history and the revolutionary spirit. For more information, check her web site.

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Because I find so much pleasure in cooking and eating, I tend to feature comestibles and cooking in my novels. These types of delicious historical tidbits are among the most fun to research, and it is always such a delight to try and weave the tastiest of them into the story.

While writing The Turning of Anne Merrick, I would easily get lost in learning about Iroquoian techniques for cooking and eating indigenous woodland ingredients, like the snack "chips" made from the inner bark of a white pine the Oneidan scout Neddy made for Jack Hampton. It was fascinating to find out how soldiers like Titus Gilmore prepared standard but ingenious Army rations like Pocket Soup, and then compare that to the elaborate meals prepared in the "French Style" by the British General Burgoyne while in the middle of the wilderness on campaign. [Note from Suzanne Adair: In my first book, Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution, Sophie Barton and her friends use pocket soup aka "soup squares" while on the trail.]

Though most goodwives might write down and keep a collection of their receipts, published cookbooks of the period were few and far between. One of the best sources I used is considered the first American cookbook. With the ponderous title of American Cookery, or the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves, and All Kinds of Cakes, from the Imperial Plumb to Plain Cake. Adapted to this Country, and all Grades of Life by Amelia Simmons, it was first published in 1796.

When I read these recipes, not only can the ingredients and preparations seem odd (and sometimes gross) the recipe "prose" quite often brings a smile to my face. I am always struck by the quaint and descriptive terminology used — a stew is "simmered softly," and one should "milk your cow directly into" the syllabub. Without standardized measurement, 18th-century cooks relied on "handfuls" and "pinches," or most often, the recipe didn't even bother with exact amounts.

The founders would have a hard time recognizing most of the food and drink we 21st-century Americans consume. Here is a sampling of what you might find to eat and drink once you climbed out of your time travel machine in 1776:

Sons & Daughters of Liberty! Give memorable Proof of your patriotism and abstain from the Pernicious Custom of drinking British tea.

A Receipt for a Proper Liberty Tea

Blend in equal parts: Lemon Balm, Rose Petals, Lavender Flowers and Crushed Red Root. Steep a generous pinch in a pint of boilt water. Pour and strain. If you are fortunate, sweeten with a lump of shop sugar and a good measure of rich cream.

Mom not only brewed the libation, she made the yeast!

Spruce Beer

Take four ounces of hops, let them boil half an hour in one gallon of water, strain the hop water then add sixteen gallons of warm water, two gallons of molasses, eight ounces of essence of spruce, dissolved in one quart of water, put it in a clean cask, then shake it well together, add half a pint of emptins (see below) then let it stand and work one week, if very warm weather less time will do, when it is drawn off to bottle, add one spoonful of molasses to every bottle.

Emptins (yeast):Take a handful of hops and about three quarts of water, let it boil about fifteen minutes, then make a thickening as you do for starch, strain the liquor, when cold put a little emptins to work them, they will keep well cork'd in a bottle five or six weeks.

Who can resist a recipe that begins with the words "Take a large rattlesnake…"?

Snake Stew

Take a large rattlesnake; skin, gut, and wash it until clean; cut into pieces no longer than the two joints on your finger. Set meat into a clean pot and put to them a gallon of water. Season well with a handful of salt, a blade or two of mace, whole pepper black and white, a whole onion stuck with six or seven cloves, a bundle of sweet herbs, and a nutmeg. Cover the pot and let all stew softly until the meat is tender, but not too much done. Pick the meat out onto a dish. Strain the pot liquor through a coarse sieve. Return the meat; cut carrots into coins and add with peeled Irish potatoes. Take a piece of butter as big as a walnut and roll in flour. Put into pot with one cupful each of catchup, and sack; Stew till thick and smooth and send to the table speckled with minced parsley.

Got cow? Then you got dessert!

To make a fine Syllabub from the Cow

Sweeten a quart of cider with double refined sugar, grate nutmeg into it, then milk your cow into your liquor, when you have thus added what quantity of milk you think proper, pour half a pint or more, in proportion to the quantity of syllabub you make, of the sweetest cream you can get all over it.

 

Notes: Liberty Tea and Snake Stew recipes were adapted and written by Christine Blevins (after much and thorough research). The Snake Stew recipe appears in The Turning of Anne Merrick as a device for hiding the a secret message sent from Anne Merrick to Jack Hampton, and written between the lines in invisible ink.

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A big thanks to Christine Blevins. She'll provide giveaways (see below) to three people who contribute legitimate comments on my blog today or tomorrow. Make sure you include your email address. I'll choose the winners from among those who comment on this post by Wednesday 4 July at 6 p.m. ET, then publish the names of all drawing winners on my blog the week of 9 July. And anyone who comments on this post by the 4 July deadline will also be entered in the drawing to win one of two copies of my book Regulated for Murder: A Michael Stoddard American Revolution Thriller.

 

 

1st prize: One autographed copy each of The Tory Widow and The Turning of Anne Merrick in trade paperback format. Delivery is available worldwide.

 

 

2nd prize: A Revolutionary Survival Kit which includes black tea, liberty tea, lavender soap, lavender sachet, bayberry candles, a tin of sugar comfits, a bottle of lavender water, and a lace hanky. Delivery is available worldwide.

 

 

3rd prize: An 18th-century stationery bundle that's perfect for keeping track of your favorite recipes. The bundle is decorated with a quill and wrapped for convenient stowing in your cupboard. Delivery is available worldwide.

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Comments

[Tracy Smith]

What I'm curious about concerning food from this time concerns practical matters: how ingredients were stored, especially with concern to preventing spoilage, how long such items could be stored, what kinds of preservatives were used, and also the storage and use of leftovers. I imagine the storage times were much shorter for most things than nowadays, and that it varied according to the season and what kind of living situations the people in question had. For example, I'm sure that people who lived on farms, who had their own cows and chickens, approached the storage of milk and eggs quite differently from city dwellers who did not have direct access from the source for these things. For farm dwellers there was no need to "store" such items, but with city dwellers, I imagine "going to market" to get such supplies was an every day thing, which it probably no doubt remained until people had iceboxes and then, later on, refrigeration.

I'm also curious about how common food poisoning was during this time.

[Laura Tarbutton]

I enjoy the authenticity of your books. I feel as though I have been "transported" to the 18th Century" with you.

I especially enjoyed your recipes today and will share the Spruce Beer with my Homebrew Master husband! Can't wait to try it.

[Suzanne Adair]

Hi Tracy! Good questions. Obviously people had to consume seasonal produce, except for those few people who had the space and the finances to afford something like a greenhouse. (Thomas Jefferson had the equivalent of a walk-in freezer that kept food cool for most of the year.) People ate a lot of food that had been preserved through techniques like pickling, salting, and drying as well as foods that stored well in the coolness of cellars and streams. Of course, freshly-killed meat had to be managed immediately. I've read recipes from the Middle Ages that used honey and heavy spices to cover up the taste of meat that was going bad.

Christine, what else?

[Suzanne Adair]

Laura, I want to know what you and your husband think of that Spruce Beer after you make it.

[reading mind]

It really looks like a lot of reserach is needed in order to give an authentic flavor! And I loved the receipe, it looks really interesting!!!

[Suzanne Adair]

Welcome to my blog, reading mind! Yes, plenty of primary and secondary research is required to infuse historical fiction with period-authentic sensory impressions. We study journals and letters. We talk with subject-matter experts. We roll up our sleeves and have at the past, hands-on, with living history activities.

[Suzanne Adair]

Christine, I chuckled over your comment about Burgoyne enjoying elaborate "French style" meals. It was suggestive of Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton's dining experience at the feast that followed Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown.

Cornwallis and all his high-ranking officers except Tarleton were invited to George Washington's table. The snub to Tarleton was supposedly intentional, as negative propaganda about his combat cruelty was in full swing.

So who invited Tarleton to their table that night? The French. One cannot help but imagine how much better he dined and conclude that he didn't sulk long over the snub from the Continetals. For the experience was the beginning of a friendship between Tarleton and the French that didn't always assist his political career years later.

[Suzanne Adair]

Christine, I'm curious about the "catchup" in the snake stew. Please tell us more about it.

Also elaborate on the potatoes. Although potatoes were a New World food, everything that I've read and heard suggests that they didn't find their way onto the tables of Americans for several decades after the Revolutionary War.

[Beverle Graves Myers]

I'll skip the Liberty tea and snake stew, thanks. How about recipes for those puffs and tarts? They sound yummy.

[Suzanne Adair]

Hi Beverle! I'm with you on the snake stew -- although I suppose that if you're really, really hungry, it would have to do. The fact that they had a recipe for rattlesnake suggests how often they encountered them. Ugh.

And I'm suspicious of the "red root" in liberty tea. What was it? Some indigenous plants materials have been known to cause interesting side effects in people.

[Christine Blevins]

Hello all! Happy 4th of July Eve!

Good question on food storage, Tracy, and one I delved into with some detail in my first novel, MIDWIFE OF THE BLUE RIDGE. Farm and frontier folk made use a a natural refrigeration system called a spring house- stone structures built over cool running springs and creeks to store dairy and other perishables. Root cellars that were dug deep were the place to store root vegetables like squash, potatoes, and yams. Dry attic space was used to store grains , flour and meal, smoked meats, and dried fruits and veggies like apples and beans. City dwellers had access to daily markets to purchase ingredients that were perishable to use for that day. But also may have cisterns that served as a cool place to store perishables.

[Christine Blevins]

Laura- there are a LOT of interesting libation recipes from the 18th century out there. My sons are both home brewers and have recently created a honey mead that is quite tasty. I experimented with a couple period punch recipes that turned out really well- although I think our forefathers (and mothers!) had a much higher tolerance for strong drink. I find it funny that having an ale with breakfast was quite common.

[Christine Blevins]

"catchup" or ketchup is the period spelling for an 18th century condiment that is nothing like modern day ketchup. The word is derived from "ke-tsiap" a Chinese pickled fish sauce. the condiment made its way to Malaysia where it was discovered by English sailors who brought it west. Catchup was first mentioned in print in 1690.

[Christine Blevins]

From A MODERN BOTANICAL by Mrs. M. Grieve:

Red Root

Botanical: Ceanothus Americanus (LINN.)
Family: N.O. Rhamnaceae

---Synonyms---New Jersey Tea. Wild Snowball.
---Parts Used---Root or bark of the root.
---Habitat---North America.
---History---This is a half-hardy shrub growing to 4 or 5 feet high. It has downy leaves and stems and small ornamental white flowers in great numbers, coming into bloom June or July, followed by bluntly triangular seedvessels. It is usually called 'New Jersey Tea' in America because its leaves were used as a substitute for tea during the War of Independence. In Canada it is used to dye wool a cinnamon colour. It takes its name from its large red roots. Its wood is tough, pale brown red, with fine rays - taste bitter and astringent with no odour. Fracture hard, tough, splintering. Its bark is brittle, dark-coloured and thin.
---Constituents---The leaves are said to contain tannin, a soft resin and bitter extract, a green colouring matter similar to green tea in colour and taste, gum a volatile substance, lignin, and a principle called Ceanothine.

---Medicinal Action and Uses---Astringent, antispasmodic, anti-syphilitic expectorant and sedative, used in asthma, chronic bronchitis, whooping-cough, consumption, and dysentery; also as a mouth-wash and gargle, and as an injection in gonorrhoea, gleet and leucorrhoea.

[Carol Luciano]

I truly appreciate all the research an Author does for their books. I can't imagine eating Snake Stew no matter how hungry :) But the things that seem so "gross' to me were normal for the times I guess.I'm sure they suffered many stomach ailments due to the proper storage. I too remember reading where various spices were used and marinades to cover up the smell and taste of bad meat. We really have it so good compared to back then as far as food and storage. Thanks so much for all the info and Happy 4th everyone.
Carol L.

[Suzanne Adair]

Christine, thanks for all that! I sense several blog posts of excellent information there. :-)

[Suzanne Adair]

Carol, thanks for commenting. You're so right about how fortunate we are. We take many things for granted, like indoor plumbing, refrigeration, and availability of fresh food in supermarkets. After many weekends spent camping with reenactors at Revolutionary War events, I can assure you that even the shelter of your own home's roof against the elements seems like such a blessing.

[Don N. Hagist]

A note on food preservation: Many (most?) cookbooks published in the 18th century (there were many published in England, available in America) included as many "receipts" for preserving foods as they did for cooking foods. Dozens of "receipts" for pickling appear in most published cookbooks, as well as various other methods for making perishable foodstuffs into things that will last.

[Darlene]

I don't think I'm up for trying Snake Stew, but the Liberty Tea sounds lovely!

Thanks for the giveaway!
darlenesbooknook at gmail dot ocm

[Tracy Smith]

I've read that the reason why ale and other alcoholic beverages were so widely partaken of was partially because the water wasn't always safe to drink, what with their haphazard means of sanitation and people dumping their waste and dead animals into the rivers, thus fouling them as sources of drinking water. Plus, the threat of cholera was ever-present in those days.

[Suzanne Adair]

Don, thanks for providing more resources and background information.

My maternal grandmother, born in 1895, had several old cookbooks, their pages yellowed and dripped-on from countless meal preparations. In the books were entire chapters devoted to canning, pickling, and other forms of preserving food.

After she died, and my mother, aunts, and uncles were cleaning out a storage area of her farmhouse, they found shelves and shelves of pickled and preserved fruits and vegetables that she'd been putting up for years in her spare time. The food in them was still good.

She lived a good portion of her early life in a rural setting, without electricity, in an age when women did all that food preservation to get families through the winter and also as a safeguard against scarcity. Those skills helped her raise five children during the Great Depression.

[Suzanne Adair]

Darlene, thanks for stopping by. Yeah, that snake stew isn't very appealing.

[Warren Bull]

Fun blog! It would have been hard to be a non-drinker in those days. I've read that alcohol was so popular because the water in Europe was unsafe and early settlers were not sure the local water was potable.

[Suzanne Adair]

Warren, you and Tracy are on the same wavelength here!

Although they could filter sand and grit particles from a water supply, those filters didn't remove the bacteria and protozoans that had such a grand time in the human digestive system. The alcohol content of many of those drinks was less than what we're accustomed to today. Still Francis Marion (aka "The Swamp Fox") supposedly drank only vinegar and water.

[Christine Blevins]

Absolutely right Tracy. Though 18th century folk may not have had an understanding of bacteria, they knew they were were better off drinking beer, rum, brandy, teas and coffee- all which required water to be boiled.

[Linda]

Another wonderfully informative post--thanks Suzanne for hosting another author I need to add to my TBR mountain ;-)

The rattlesnake stew actually sounds decent--all game (and snakes were considered game) was probably much appreciated and stews were easy to stretch to feed last minute visitors. I've eaten fried rattler before and it's not bad--of course, I like liver, oxtail, heart, gizzards and other meats many folks consider "nasty, gross, yucky" stuff (quoting my granddaughter). Not so sure about the Syllabub though--I've tried several times to drink raw milk and just can't keep it down.

And regarding alcoholic beverages--was the actual alcoholic content as high as it is today? Just curious...

[Suzanne Adair]

Hi Linda, is it true that rattlesnake tastes like chicken?

(Christine, did you actually eat the snake stew? If so, what did you think of it?)

I've had alligator fritters. When you're a native of Florida, people sort of expect that. :-) I wouldn't be surprised if people in the 18th-century Florida backcountry ate alligator, too.

And the alcohol content in many drinks served in Revolutionary War-era taverns wasn't as high as it is now. Small beer had very little alcohol in it.

[Christine Blevins]

I have not eaten snake, or snake stew, but I've heard that snake tastes like froglegs, which I have eaten. I imagine a well seasoned snake stew could be quite tasty.

In regard to the alcoholic content of 18th century libations, I think it was quite high, and though tolerance was also high, alcoholism was quite rampant. I remember reading a narrative of frontier longhunters who, after consuming the supply of drink they'd brought along, we're reduced to drinking the fermented stomach contents of a just killed buffalo. (ick, right?) That is pretty desperate.

[Suzanne Adair]

Christine, I've had frog legs, too, and they're quite tasty. You have to get past the appearance, which is problematic for other foods like squid.

Beer and cider, the mainstays of taverns, were often brewed by the proprietor of the establishment, thus way low in alcohol content and much cheaper than wine, which usually had to be imported. The alcohol content of wine was much greater than that of beer and cider, which meant that it cost more, so it tended to be drunk by folks who had money (or needed to look prestigious). Now, if you wanted an alcohol fix, you went for rum and/or whiskey, drinks of choice for pirates, bandits, and scruffy backwoodsmen. Or, in a pinch, anything else fermented, like the (ick is right!) contents of a buffalo's stomach. I can just imagine the hangovers those guys had for the next day or two.

[Sandra]

As has been noted in other comments, there were lots of ways to preserve food for later use, and people were more used to seasonal foods. Milk and eggs just plain weren't around all year (unless you made cheese or had isinglass to cover the eggs). But spices were NOT used in the Middle Ages to cover the taste of rotting meat. The spices cost more than the meat did! And there were laws on the books about penalties for selling bad meat.

[Linda]

Snake reminds me of a chicken thigh if you have microwaved it--it has the same chewy consistency and the taste is not as delicate as frog legs. It would not be my first choice of protein, but I'd definitely prefer it over something like rat. I was talking with a friend the other day who wondered why we no longer eat pigeon? I guess we could start a whole blog on birds and mammals that our ancestors ate but we no longer consider edible, couldn't we?

I missed out on alligator when I lived in New Orleans, and that is something I regret. If I ever get back there, that's one of the dishes I want to try first.

Thanks everyone for the info on the alcohol, but I think I'd draw the line at the buffalo's stomach contents LOL.

[Suzanne Adair]

Sandra, that's an interesting point about laws and penalties for selling bad meat. On the one hand, I'm glad that such laws were in place. But on the other hand, I wonder how well officials could enforce them.

At some point with an unfrozen, unpreserved piece of meat, microbial growth hits an exponential stage, and the meat assumes those characteristic off-flavors and off-smells. Sometimes that happens rapidly, unexpectedly, almost capriciously, within a few hours. So Joe the usually-reliable butcher could sell you a haunch of mutton, and by the time you got it home, it was already smelling off.

When people killed a farm animal (or poachers killed an animal for food), it was an all-hands-on-deck process to get the meat to a point where it wouldn't go to waste. People involved had to either consume or preserve all useable parts of the animal quickly, or they'd lose food. Even a day made a difference in the smell and taste of meat. That "extra" day happened a good bit.

Commoners had access to whatever herbs they grew in their gardens, many of which were used to disguise that "not quite right" taste. Nobility did have access to spices as well as herbs. From what I've read on using spices to disguise the off-flavors, it involved nobility.

[Suzanne Adair]

Linda, good heavens, have you actually tried rat?

I find historical references to all sorts of recipes for various birds. Some of the species were so small that you wonder why they bothered: so little meat obtained after plucking, gutting, deboning, etc.