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In July the Museum hosted a lecture, tasting and
tour on the colonial foodways at the Bidwell House. Foodways refers to
the procurement, preparation and preservation of food, and part of our
research included a search for recipes, journals, diaries and
manuscripts that could contain information on Bidwell foodways. We were
looking for answers to the questions: What was cooked? How was the food
prepared and preserved? What food was grown, and what was purchased?
Unfortunately, no records were found—there is little written evidence of
domestic life at the Bidwell House in the 18th century. So to understand
what and how food was prepared, we turned to reproductions of English
and American cookbooks that were likely to have been available to the
mistresses of the Bidwell colonial home. Although we may never know
exactly how household management was done, we have discovered some
interesting facts about the cookbooks that were available to colonial
homemakers. Our research relied on our reading of the original cookbooks
in reproduction, as well as the academic research available on the
subject. What follows are the highlights of what our exploration of
early American cookbooks revealed.
We learned first that American cookbooks emerged from English books
brought to the colonies. Original cookbooks were probably all English.
Perhaps the three most popular volumes were:
• Gervase Marham’s English Huswife was originally written in 1615 as a
guide to housewives. It included household management ideas, herbal
remedies as well as recipes. It was, however, meant as a model for the
ideal homemaker rather than a handbook for everyday living.
• Hannah Glasse's Art of Cookery first published in 1747. It was
considered very English in style but was the most creative and ingenious
cookbook of its time.
• Elizabeth Raffald’s Exper-ienced English Housewife, was a blending of
household manual and book. It was first published about 1782.
English authors saw an opportunity to profit from colonial cooking and
issued American editions of their original publications. Susannah Carter
first published her cookbook, Frugal Housewife, in England in 1742. It
was designed to be used by middleclass women rather than by servant
cooks. She reissued the book, in 1772, with accommodations for American
homemakers. A local Boston printer, Paul Revere, did the illustrations
and printing. Hannah Glasse reissued her cookbook in 1805, adding a
special section at the back that was designed for American homemakers.
Finally, Elizabeth Raffald adapted her work for the colonial market in
1801 with little fanfare.
In addition to the English cookbooks, colonial homemakers probably
gathered recipes and instruction through word of mouth and observation
of family members and servants. Also, many cooks may have brought
manuscripts or collections of recipes from England, to which they added
over time. We also know that many homemakers used their cookbooks as
family journals. Records of household wisdom, local recipes and social
information can be found in the margins and bindings of many commercial
cookbooks.
The first distinctly American cookbooks were published beginning in the
1790's. Most were based on or adopted from English works. Perhaps the
three most popular volumes were:
• Amelia Simmons, American Cookery, was published in Albany in 1796. She
based much of the format and adopted many of the generic recipes from
Susannah Carter's book. It is considered the first true American work
because all the recipes have been adjusted for colonial ingredients and
cooking facilities. Based on her recipes she must have been a creative
and talented cook. Her use of local spices and knowledge of cooking
techniques is wonderful.
• Lucy Emerson, New England Cookbook, published in 1808 was edited to
focus on the needs of New England homemakers. Eliza Smith had already
published a cookbook in 1742 that focused on the ingredients and cooking
styles of Virginia and the southern colonies. Miss Emerson's book was
quite popular. It was, however, heavily based upon and borrowed from the
Simmons book. Its real contribution is the addition of New England
coastal cooking and recipes.
• Maria Childs wrote the most enduring of the period’s cookbooks, in
1829. Titled American Frugal Housewife, it was the most complete
"Americanized" cookbook of the period. So complete, in fact, that
Sturbridge Village adopted the recipes and published their own excellent
historical version of the cookbook. The volume compares the preparation
of most of Child’s recipes using colonial hearth techniques with modern
kitchen methods.
The recipes found in American cookbooks were adapted for local
ingredients. The original English recipes were based on the ingredients
that were available to English cooks. Many of these ingredients, such as
spices and herbs, were imported from other countries. Early colonial
pantries were limited to local grown or hunted and gathered ingredients.
Remote settlements relied upon what they could grow on their own family
farms. The native people of a region introduced many new ingredients to
the colonial households. Prep-aration of more sophisticated recipes
became possible only when American merchants imported the needed spices
and preserved foods.
The recipes found in American cookbooks also had to be adapted for the
available kitchen equipment. English versions of the recipes often
assumed that the cook had access to complete hearth kitchen facilities
with all the latest equipment. American colonial kitchens, such as the
Bidwell House, were often more modest and not equipped with specialized
equipment. As more equipment was imported from England local artisans
copied these items and made them available to colonial homemakers.
From our review of the literature it seems cooking was an interesting
and exciting pursuit in the 18th century Bidwell House. Old recipes and
cooking techniques combined with new ingredients and kitchen equipment
helped to create a new way of cooking. During the time when the new
American colonies were seeking a means to separate from England,
colonial foodways were undergoing a sort of revolution of their own. |
