Most popular food?

[Shot deer]

What was the most popular food/meat among soldiers and (completely different) "households" of the 1700's?

 

[tenngun]

Where?
People ate local, so what grew well in an area was what’s on the plate. Corn in America of course, European grains. The bulk of wheat was exported so from Georgia to New Hampshire most breads were mixed grain. Pigs were the primary meat animal.
Salted rations were the bulk of soldiers ration but in season they got local veggies and fruits.
Families, many even in town kept gardens.
Small game was sold in the street.
Ovens were expensive to run, so boiled puddings were common and quick mushes. Stewing was common. Lots of fish as most people lived close to the coast. Most people didn’t eat much food from more then fifty miles away. Rice grown in the south and sold in new England was a treat. Lobster were considered low food, As was deer. Beef was more of a specialty meat as only male would be butchered.
Townsend on you tube offer a bunch of vids on eighteenth century foods and cooking.

 

[shane a gress]

Correct me if I am wrong but apples were used a lot. I seem to recall that recipes called for apples.

 

[tenngun]

I would add old world cooking great influences what’s on the table. Germans in Pennsylvania, French isrish scotts in the south English and Dutch in the north. Slaves imported directly from Africa or from the Caribbean greatly effected cooking. Great Lakes French more easily shared Indian cooking and foods and a mixup therecame easy. Buccaneers brought barbaque to the south that quickly became heavily influnced by slave cooks who added a lot of European flavored vinegars.

 

[tenngun]

Correct me if I am wrong but apples were used a lot. I seem to recall that recipes called for apples.

Apples grew well in America and were real popular. However eating raw foods was considered dangerous and apples were mostly used cooked. They could go into pies but could just be covered with dough and boiled or baked. Sugar was expensive and sweets were often not as sweet as we use today. Berries of all sort were used both candied and fresh.

 

[tenngun]

I would also point out that ‘foreign foods’ was not as popular. Southerners looked down on plain ‘tasteless’ New England cooking. English in Pennsylvania were a little Leary of German foods next door. A lot of single men would eat in taverns where there was little choice but just came from a common pot.

 

[Shot deer]

Where?
People ate local, so what grew well in an area was what’s on the plate. Corn in America of course, European grains. The bulk of wheat was exported so from Georgia to New Hampshire most breads were mixed grain. Pigs were the primary meat animal.
Salted rations were the bulk of soldiers ration but in season they got local veggies and fruits.
Families, many even in town kept gardens.
Small game was sold in the street.
Ovens were expensive to run, so boiled puddings were common and quick mushes. Stewing was common. Lots of fish as most people lived close to the coast. Most people didn’t eat much food from more then fifty miles away. Rice grown in the south and sold in new England was a treat. Lobster were considered low food, As was deer. Beef was more of a specialty meat as only male would be butchered.
Townsend on you tube offer a bunch of vids on eighteenth century foods and cooking.

The thirteen colonies (or states) area is what I was thinking about. Sorry for not specifying. And wasn't there chicken back then?

 

[NW Territory Woodsman]

You could try hasty pudding.

 

[Shot deer]

You could try hasty pudding.

Ok, I'll try it in the next couple of days, if I can shove it down.

 

[tenngun]

Chicken was popular as a meat source, like cattle eggs were more important then meat, so capons were mostly what hit the plate.
North was different from south for eating and middle different too.
Hanna Glass is a good resource on American cooking. Duck and geese were common to for eggs and meat.

 

[Shot deer]

Chicken was popular as a meat source, like cattle eggs were more important then meat, so capons were mostly what hit the plate.
North was different from south for eating and middle different too.
Hanna Glass is a good resource on American cooking. Duck and geese were common to for eggs and meat.

We're the eggs more important just because of their protein? I mean I could see a person surviving with constant eggs for years but the meat would quickly be eaten. I doubt that it was easy to hatch the chicks? Thanks for the response(s).

 

[tenngun]

Chickens weren’t breed as well for egg laying, so they didn’t match today’s factory chickens. However a few birds could produce a healthy addition to a families needs. Looking at old recipes they were egg heavy. Most eggs were closer in size to medium today, and eggs can be kept fresh for a long time, and of course pickled was common.
They didn’t have ‘breakfast foods’ back then. Breakfast was often left over dinner. Eggs were often dinner or part of the daily big meal.
They didn’t use much chemical levening then, but whipped eggs and flour could make a fluffy quick bread. Pancakes, were a real popular staple, and depended on eggs to be fluffy.

 

[Shot deer]

Chickens weren’t breed as well for egg laying, so they didn’t match today’s factory chickens. However a few birds could produce a healthy addition to a families needs. Looking at old recipes they were egg heavy. Most eggs were closer in size to medium today, and eggs can be kept fresh for a long time, and of course pickled was common.
They didn’t have ‘breakfast foods’ back then. Breakfast was often left over dinner. Eggs were often dinner or part of the daily big meal.
They didn’t use much chemical levening then, but whipped eggs and flour could make a fluffy quick bread. Pancakes, were a real popular staple, and depended on eggs to be fluffy.

I really wouldn't have thought pancakes would be that common, because I thought flour would be special, you know, rare occasions. Could you verify or correct me?

 

[tenngun]

Pancakes were a regular food. I don’t know if the Brits used them sixteenth or seventeenth century time but they were very popular in the Low Countries and France. So got used in Dutch holdings in new York, and French settlements. Some sort of pancake maker or seller is a frequent motif in Dutch art from seventeenth century, often a middle aged or elderly woman, but men show up too.
Waffle and waffer makers were common colonial and federalist times

 

[Straekat]

Ovens were expensive to run, so boiled puddings were common and quick mushes.

Prior to the introduction of the Rumford fireplace, deep fireplaces usually had an oven built into the side of the chimney and covered with an iron plate. During summer months, cooking was usually done in a out-building to keep the house cool, and minimize the chances of a fire damaging the house. In winter, a fireplace was the main source of heat and the fireplace chimney would work as a heat sink and source of radiant heat, and the internal oven would be warm throughout the day.

 

[Straekat]

Sugar was expensive and sweets were often not as sweet as we use today. Berries of all sort were used both candied and fresh.

The majority of sugar produced in the islands was converted from cane sugar into molasses (including black-strap) then shipped to New England where it was turned into rum. Brown sugar rather than white was imported in lesser quantities because molasses/rum was considered more important than sugar. Typically, blackstrap molasses or watered-down molasses was used far more often than sugar as a sweetener.

European honey bees were introduced into the colonies during the 17th century and by the middle of the 18th, "tame" bees had escaped in considerable numbers so that colonist heading west out of the coastal areas were encountering wild hives throughout most of the east. Wild honey is every bit as good as the domesticated variety, and both were used as a sweetner for cooking and baking, mixing with alcoholic drinks, etc.

 

[tenngun]

Townsend in his cooking vids says the molasses used in colonial times was closer to Jamaican molasses then blackstrap.
I haven’t really looked in to it. I like the taste of both, but in cooking the blackstrap ‘pops’ more to me then Jamaican,and it’s easier to find.
Maple sugar and syrup was relativity cheaper and was very popular.
I have read that Indians called bees ‘white mans flies’.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

What was the most popular food/meat among soldiers and (completely different) "households" of the 1700's?

I'm not sure "popular" is applied to soldier's rations in the 18th century, as it was often more of "whatever we can get" situation. There were standardized rations (on paper) for what the enlisted men would eat per week.

Settlers in most colonies had to plant at least an acre of crops of some sort before a claim of new land would be considered "legal" when registered, and..., there had to be no other claims or there would be some sort of court dispute. That's still the law today, under maritime law. If one saw the movie "The Martian", to survive the main character has to cultivate a crop of potatoes, and thus becomes the first "colonist on mars", i.e. the first "Martian", after doing so. Part of the original problem was how much land did you claim with that acre? Could a person lay claim to 10 square miles of land after planting 1 acre of crops somewhere within it? But I digress...

The crop of choice for claims was normally "Indian Corn" i.e. maize. It took a lot less effort to get in a good crop of that than other grains, of European origin, such as wheat or rye. Once enough land was built, British colonists favored wheat, though Scots might also do oats, and Germans and Dutch liked rye, and potatoes. So depending on where you were the cereal crop was probably different. Daniel Boone several times had to move off of land upon which he'd built a cabin and had several crops of several acres of corn, and Boone often didn't register his land, or that detail that I wrote about, of how much land could a person claim, got Mr. Boone into a poor legal situation, as he might very well have moved onto a massive plot of somebody elses land and would have had no indication, OR somebody would file a written claim on land that included Boone's homestead, the thus be able to evict Boone.

I really wouldn't have thought pancakes would be that common, because I thought flour would be special, you know, rare occasions. Could you verify or correct me?

That's because you're thinking of the modern, wheat, rye, or buckwheat version.
"Hoe" cakes, or "Johnny" cakes, perhaps "journey" cakes with the first mention of "hoecake" being 1745 and "Jonnycake" being 1739 are probably what they were first eating. It might be noted that "nocake" is only off by a single consonant from "hoecake", and nocake is derived from the Indian word nookik, which referred to meal made from ground parched-corn, and is documented to the 17th century in New England. Perhaps a flatbread from ground, parched corn was the true origin of "hoecake"...??. There is so me evidence that they were baked on a flat griddle that might have resembled a "hoe", but they were probably not baked on the blade of the actual agricultural tool.



LD

 

[Shot deer]

Thanks for the info, Dave.

That's still the law today, under maritime law.

You mean that there is still a law in place that's not opposed? Awesome

 

[tenngun]

Had never heard the nookik theory before. I heard the ‘hoe’ as a flat griddle before. I doubt many people struck up a fire in the middle of a days work out in a field to cook up cakes amongst their crop.
From the daily ration aboard privateer Porus our of Salem
Sunday, beef and pudding
Monday pork and pease
Tues pork and beans
Wednesday and Thursday beef
Friday pork and beans
Saturday salt fish
A pound of bread, a gill of rice per day, 3/4 of a pound of butter per week and a half pint of vinegar. Beer would be taken till it went bad.
Such vessels didn’t stand at sea for months at a time and some fresh foods could be kept.