Our Pilgrim Dinner

We bought this wonderful book a few years back. I heard rave reviews from other homeschooling moms about it and I found it through a used book seller that we frequent. Last year we simply read and discussed it but this year we put it into more action.

I love the details that this book goes into regarding the pilgrims lives. It goes far beyond your basic book on the pilgrims. During the last few chapters we learned a lot about the eating habits of the pilgrims.

The heart of the Pilgrim house was the fire in the stone fireplaces. The fires never went out because it was hard to make a fire. Because a fire was dangerous the pilgrims would rake ashes carefully over the hot embers at night before they went to sleep. Ashes made the fire burn more slowly and kept sparks from glowing. Then in the morning the cook fanned the sparks to get them going again.

The pilgrims ate a lot of puddings which they called spoon meats. They used the word meat to mean any kind of food. Spoon meat was a food that you ate with a spoon. In England, their favorite spoon meat had been hasty pudding. They made it by boiling water and wheat flour in a cloth bag. As the pudding cooked, the wheat flour absorbed the water. It swelled and filled the bag. But in America, where they had trouble growing wheat, they made their old favorite with corn flour. They called it Indian pudding because the Indians had taught them how to cook with corn. Indian pudding had to boil for hours. The Pilgrims ate so much of it that a heavy pot of Indian pudding was kept steaming and bubbling over the fire almost all the time.

During those first few years their was so much work to be done that the pilgrim families rarely ate together. They would pull food from the pot over the fire as they each needed to eat and often they would stand by the fire eating it and then go right back to their work. Once they did begin eating together as families more regularly, their tables were typically a couple of barrels with boards thrown over them. In many Pilgrim families only the father had a chair to sit in. Sometimes the mom too. If a guest came to dinner they would sit closest to the father in the other chair. Many times Pilgrim children did not have chairs to sit in. They just stood around the table.

We therefore removed all of the chairs from around our table except for Bryan's. The rest of us stood for our meal.

We also learned that the pilgrims evaporated salt from the sea water and a bowl of it always sat on their table at dinner. The children always had to stand "below" the salt. We did the same thing around our table.

We learned that the Pilgrims didn't like to drink water or milk. During those first few years several cows were brought over from England but the pilgrims didn't like the way that the milk tasted so they used it primarily in soups and to make breads. What they did like to drink was beer! Lots of beer and as soon as a child was old enough to hold a cup he was given beer to drink. The pilgrims however ran out of the beer that they brought over on the Mayflower and even when more was brought over they often ran out in between shipments. They were forced to drink water whether they liked it or not. Most pilgrim families had only 1-2 cups per household so a large kettle of water was always on the table and the cups were dipped in the pail of water and then passed from one person to the next. We didn't do this because some in our family had recently been sick so all of us had our own cups but we did put this bowl of water out to dip our cups in initially.

We also learned that breads were baked in many ways. Johnnycakes - little round cakes of cornmeal and water were popular. The pilgrims were used to eating meat, bread, and pudding, all washed down with plenty of beer. They had issues growing wheat on American soil though. The one crop that flourished for them that first year was Indian Corn. Because of this their breads were made with ground corn. They didn't think it tasted as good as wheat bread but they were just happy to have something to eat. Corn is what kept them from starving. So for our dinner we made a corn soup since the Pilgrims used corn in puddings, soups, and stews often.

We also learned that most pilgrim families did not have silverware, plates, or bowls. They typically brought over a knife or two and a couple of cups with them when they came to America but the pilgrims thought it was "showy" to have much more than that. They believed that simple was best. I had to wonder what their reaction would be to our homes today where many of us have plates for all seasons and holidays and even some standing in our China cabinets that rarely or never get used! The pilgrims used stale bread as their plates. They put whatever soup, pudding, meat, etc. on their stale bread and at the end of the meal they would often dip the stale bread in the soup or pudding to soften it and then they would "eat their plates."We therefore ate our meal on bread plates and our soup out of bread bowls that I made. That is corn soup in the bread bowl. And I have to tell you that the soup recipe was not real authentic. Our book has authentic Pilgrim recipes in the back of it and their is one for corn soup but I knew my crew probably wouldn't eat it so I used a corn soup recipe that I knew everyone would love. And yes, that is cheese on top which the pilgrims did not have the luxury of having those first few years. We talked about that. 

Natalie "eating her plate".

I mentioned that the Pilgrims typically did not have silverware other than a knife or two per family. They did make some "spoons" during those first few years though. They tied seashells onto sticks. We sat seashells at each place setting to represent this. We used only one knife on the table during our dinner. The pilgrims ate most of their food with their fingers and we did too.

The pilgrims loved nuts and ate them often when they had them. They roasted them over the fire. We therefore sat some nuts on our table though our nuts were already shelled and salted. ;-)

We learned that the pilgrims brought over a couple of chickens on board the Mayflower. The chickens roamed around the pilgrims garden and Pilgrim children would look for fresh eggs every day. The pilgrims would boil, roast, fry, or bake the eggs and use them in pies or custards. Not dessert pies like we bake today, but typically meat pies. In fact, they didn't think of pies as dessert pies like we do. They thought of pies as a crust filled with meat and other things of the like. We boiled some eggs for our dinner to represent this.

We used a recipe from the back of our book called Bannock Cakes. They are a simple biscuit like cake made from stone ground cornmeal.

The pilgrims had a lot of cranberries in there area and they used them to make a jelly. They called the jelly bearberries or bearbelly jelly because the bears liked the cranberries too. This jelly recipe was also from the back of our book and oh my goodness it was sooo good! After Thanksgiving I want to can some of this recipe.

Standing while they eat.

We also thought it was interesting that the pilgrims did not like fruit. Yet they planted apple, pear, and peach seedlings as soon as they could. They wanted the fruits to make ciders. Families kept their own cider in barrels called hog heads. Everyone drank the cider. Hunger did force the pilgrims to eat the fruit even though they didn't want too. The pilgrims didn't like vegetables either but just like the fruit, they came to eat them out of hunger.

The pilgrims loved meat but were horrible hunters. Their guns were not accurate and they were just plain bad at aiming. One shot scared away all of the animals. With time the Indians helped show the pilgrims how to be better hunters so they didn't have much meat those first couple of years unless they traded things with the Indians.

They did bring a few pigs over on the Mayflower but they needed to breed them rather than eat them. Instead of fencing the pigs in, the pilgrims fenced their gardens in and let the pigs run wherever they wanted through the village.

Everyone knows the popular story of how the Indians showed the pilgrims how to plant fish with their corn seeds to help them grow. We learned though that the rotten fish smell attracted wolves and the pilgrim children had to take turns standing next to the crops with a pile of rocks to throw at any approaching wolves. I don't know if I could have sent my child out into the field with only a pile of rocks to ward off hungry wolves! Yikes!

Their were so many other interesting things that we learned from this book and their were plenty more recipes in the back of the book that we didn't do this year. I love this resource! We had a wonderful time with our Pilgrim dinner. I think we have started a new tradition in the Unsell Household.

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. ~H.U. Westermayer