Tag: recipes

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This Week on Dispatches: John L. Smith, Jr. on Thomas Jefferson and French Fries

On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews educator, US Army and US Air Force veteran, and JAR contributor, John L. Smith, Jr., about the role Thomas Jefferson may have played in introducing fried potatoes—“French Fries”—to American cuisine. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is […]

by Editors
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Thanksgiving: A Week with Martha Bradley, The British Housewife, Day 3

To accompany our roast, Martha Bradley in her 1756 work The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion included recipes for stews, savory pies, dinner puddings, soups, sauces, and savory jellies called cullisses. She did not neglect side dishes of vegetables, one of which was the Savoy cabbage: Forced Savoys Chuse a Couple of […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Thanksgiving: A Week with Martha Bradley, The British Housewife, Day 2

Yesterday, Martha Bradley, in her 1756 publication The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion, explained to us the various poultry available in the month of November. Rather than presenting separate recipes for each bird, her November section on “Cookery” offered this one: To roast Fowls in the Italian Way. Chuse for this Dish […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Washington: Father of Two Scoops

He may have beaten the British, but by the time George Washington became president, his sweet tooth (singular tooth)[i] for tasty desserts had not yet been conquered. Puddings, jellies and pies had been commonplace dessert offerings when George and Martha entertained at Mount Vernon, which they did before and after the War for Independence. But […]

by John L. Smith, Jr.
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The Spirit of the Coffee

All of that great eating on Thanksgiving Day sometimes has natural consequences that lead us to seek entirely different recipes for Friday. If we’ve time-traveled to the mid 18th century and are relying on published cookbooks for information, we’re in luck: most books containing recipes were not strictly cookbooks in the sense that we know […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Dessert: Send it to Table

What to serve for desert after a Thanksgiving meal? Pumpkin pie, obviously. Unfortunately for the revolutionary-era aspiring chef in America, pumpkins are plentiful but pie-making recipes using them have yet to be published. Indeed, one of the most widely-printed British cookbooks said that “The Pumpkin is a very ordinary Fruit, and is principally the Food […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Side Dishes: Serve it Up

Yesterday we saw how to roast a turkey according to a popular 18th century cookbook. It wouldn’t be a Thanksgiving dinner without turkey, but it also wouldn’t be a Thanksgiving dinner without an assortment of tasty dishes to go with that luscious bird. This is where preparing the meal in accordance with published period recipes […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Baked Beans and Johnnycake

Although many immigrants to the American colonies enjoyed a richer and more varied diet than they had in their home countries, as evidenced by the relative height of European-born and American-born men[i], across much of inland New England, with trade disrupted by the Crown’s blockades and other military action of the Revolution, the most reliable […]

by Lars D. H. Hedbor
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Feeding the Slaves

While it is a shameful chapter in our national past, the fact of slavery during the Revolutionary Era is inescapable, and part of understanding how the people of this nascent country ate is exploring how the slaves were fed.  Sources are exceptionally scarce and contemporary recipes are nonexistent, but we can reconstruct some idea of […]

by Lars D. H. Hedbor