Random Recipe Post: Historical Thanksgiving Menus

This Thanksgiving, I was ruminating on our food traditions, how it seems like it's the same every year.  Not that I'm complaining! I love Thanksgiving supper soooooooooooo much. Turkey is my favorite. I love leftovers - cold turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, and bowls full of literally everything (mashed potatoes on bottom, then green beans, then cranberry, then turkey, gravy on top - oh mama).

After a little research, I figured out that the menu's been the same since...well, since forever! The ladies over at Inn at the Crossroads found a menu from 1779 that featured "Haunch of Venison, Roast Chine of Pork, Roast Turkey, Pigeon Pasties, Roast Goose, Onions in Cream, Cauliflower, Squash, Potatoes, Raw Celery, Mincemeat Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, Indian Pudding, Plum Pudding, (and) Cider." That's way more (and way more meat) than I've ever had, but it seems the basics, like turkey, squash, potatoes, cider, and pumpkin and apple pies were there from the beginning, and as any Wisconsinite can tell you, Venison is a Thanksgiving tradition, too!

Anyway, although the basics have been the same, I thought it might be fun to construct a couple menus featuring recipes, cooking methods, and supplies from our nation's past. I have one menu from each century. I will admit that in order to make the recipes distinct, I started to ignore old standbys, but I think I've done a good job balancing the traditional with the merely old-timey. I haven't done extensive research, but I've spent a good day or so on each one.  If anyone has any suggestions for additions or improvements, let me know! I found the project really diverting, and am thinking about maybe attempting these menus when I have kids, as a little history learning exercise once a year or so.

1634 - Wisconsin Discovered:

Wisconsin was discovered in 1634, which is what the heading just said, I guess. Anyway, at the time, this territory belonged mainly to the Ojibwe (Chippewa), Menominee, Ho Chunk, Potawatomi, and Oneida nations. For this menu, I tried to track down recipes that might have been made by these peoples at the time, but they were few and far between. It was by far the hardest one to assemble.

One difficulty comes from the generalization of the term "Native American." Who does that refer to? Where did they live? America, I guess. Any "Native American" recipes are suspect - how do I know they came from the midwest, as was my desire when I started this? Further, how on earth does one weed out all the piles of different recipes for "Indian Tacos" or frybread? Search for general Native American recipes, and I get those and tex-mex stuff. Search by nation, and I get almost nothing. 

It was quite depressing really, to realize what our nation's policies did to the varied nations of this land we inhabit. Frybread came about as a necessity, when food on reservations (located mainly in the west/south-west) became scarce. We forced people so far away from home that they couldn't practice their culture anymore. The Ho Chunk nation was split in two - the other half, called the Winnebagos, are still in Nebraska. We treated them like a homogeneous mass, shoved them all together into one area of the country we weren't using, then starved them. It's no wonder I can't find any recipes - these people are struggling just to retain their language after their diaspora. Up until the 70s, it was legal to kidnap their children to "educate" them - which really meant beating them until they forgot their own culture. Needless to say, I tried to avoid fry bread recipes, since they wouldn't have been current to this century. The recipes I was able to find are almost exclusively Ojibwe. I don't know why there seemed to be more of those on the internet, but after hours of searching by tribe, this is what I came up with.

Starter: Anishinabe Manomin Naboob (Ojibwe Wild Rice Soup, recipe below)
Main: Turkey! - roasted or smoked (if you're ambitious) would probably be the most authentic
Starch: Lugaled
Starch: Wild Rice with Cranberries - The midwestern nations cultivated a great deal of wild rice, which was very important to their survival. Plus, cranberries are classic Wisconsin :)
Veg: Baked Pumpkin
Veg: Succotash
Dessert: Pumpkin and Corn Pudding
Dessert: Maple Popcorn Balls - Evidently, popcorn was a thing even this long ago.  It makes sense, considering the importance of corn in the diets of most First Nations people. Maple syrup was plentiful, too, so while maybe not strictly historically accurate, it could have happened.
Drink: Wintergreen and Camomile teas

Anishinabe Manomin Naboob (Wild Rice Soup)

• 3–4 pounds of chicken, partridge, or venison 
• 1/2 pound wild rice, washed and cleaned
• 1 medium onion, chopped 
• 2 cups chopped carrots
• 2 teaspoons salt 
• 2 cups chopped celery
• 2–3 quarts of water 
• 2 cans chicken broth (optional)

1. Fill a large stockpot with the meat, onion, salt and water. Boil until stock has formed.
2. Add wild rice and vegetables. Cook until rice and vegetables are done, adding more water to cover ingredients if necessary.
3. For more flavor, add 2 cans broth when adding rice and vegetables.
Yield: 5 quarts (20 one-cup servings)
From: Joe Chosa, Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe

1779, Colonial:

This one was by far the easiest menu to put together. Part of that was the work done by the Inn at the Crossroads ladies who started this whole project for me, but also because of Colonial Williamsburg's efforts to maintain accurate historical lives. There are recipe books and such from this era lying about as well, though not as many as one might hope. This was the only menu I intended to create when I set out, both because of the traditional narrative of the holiday and also because the colonial period always fascinated me. Felicity was my favorite American Girl. The colonial period was always interesting to learn about in class, and it happened early, before I got bored and stopped paying attention.  Ah well. Anyway:

Starter: Pemmican (With cranberries and venison!)
Main: Roast Turkey with Chestnut Stuffing
Starch: Spinach Toasts
Starch: Potato Balls
Veg: Spiced Squash
Veg: Onions in Cream
Dessert: Hasty Pudding
Dessert: Apple Pan Dowdy (Make a day ahead)
Drink: Cider and Syllabub

1848, Wisconsin Stateified:

Wisconsin became a state in 1848, so I figured that would be a good thumbtack for the 1800s. That's a bit before the Civil War. Civil War recipes are awful, what with the war, and no one seems terribly interested in cataloging recipes from before it. I was able to track down general 1800s recipes, but that's a wide margin of error. Ah well. 

Also, because I wasn't able to find very good modern sources for these, I have the text from the time period itself, back when most cooking was still done by professional cooks, who were able to make assumptions about what was missing in the gaps. For this, then, I tried to modify the recipes a bit myself or else just choose recipes that were fairly straightforward.

Anyway, these recipes, for some reason, are largely in difficult-to-read lists, so that made research really obnoxious. Anyway, after much thought and grumbling, I'm going to have to do basically the same thing.



Starter: Ham Balls
Main: Roast Turkey - the recipe below is just for interest, as it's very normal
Starch: Cork Cake
Starch: Stuffing

Veg: Cranberry Sauce
Veg: Carrot Friters
Dessert: Ginger Drops

Dessert: Vinegar Pie - Mincemeat pie was still more popular at this time, and more popular than pumpkin or pecan at this time. However, modern folks don't seem to like it very much (though I've enjoyed it, personally, but I'm weird like that, about meat pies especially) There were two different kinds of vinegar pie, one without eggs cooked as a cobbler in a Dutch oven, and the one below which is a custard pie.
Drinks: Cider and Wine

Ham Balls 

Take cold-boiled or baked ham, chop fine, add as many eggs as there are persons to eat, and a little flour beaten together and make into balls. Fry brown in hot butter or dripping.

Roast Turkey

Rinse out the turkey well with soda and water, then with salt, and lastly with clear water. Stuff the craw and tie up the neck. Fill the body and sew up the vent. Tie the legs to the lower part of the body, that they may not "sprawl" as the sinews shrink. Put into the dripping pan, pour a teacupful of boiling water over it, and roast, basting often, allowing about ten minutes for every pound. Be careful not to have your oven too hot, especially during the first half hour or so. The turkey would otherwise be dry and blackened on the outside, and raw within. Much of the perfection of roasting meats and poultry depends upon basting it faithfully. 

Boil the giblets tender in a little water. When the turkey is done set it where it will keep warm; skim the gravy left in the pan, add a little boiling water, thicken slightly with browned flour, boil up once and add the giblets, minced fine. Season to taste, give another boil, and send to table in a gravy boat.

Corn Cake

• 1 pint Indian meal (cornmeal)
• 2 teaspoonful wheat flour
• 1 tablespoonful sugar
• 1 teaspoonful salt
• 1 teaspoonful soda
• 2 teaspoonful cream of tartar
• 
  
• 1 pint sweet milk
• 1 beaten egg 
• butter the size of an egg

Mix first 6 ingredients well by sifting. Mix rapidly and thoroughly with milk, egg and butter. Bake in a shallow pan twenty minutes, in a hot oven.

Stuffing For A Turkey

Mix thoroughly:

• 1 qt. of stale bread, very finely grated; 
• grated rind of 1 lemon; 
• 1/4 oz of minced parsley and thyme (one part thyme, two parts parsley)
• pepper and salt to season. 

Add to these:

• 1 unbeaten egg 
• 1/2 cup of butter; 

Mix all well together and moisten with hot water or milk.
Other herbs than parsley or thyme may be used if preferred, and a little onion, finely minced, added if desired.
The proportions given here may be increased when more is required.

Cranberry Sauce

• 2 qt cranberries
• 2 cups water
• white sugar to taste

Wash and pick over the cranberries; put on to cook in a tin or porcelain vessel with water. Stew slowly, stirring often until they are as thick as marmalade, a little over one hour. Sweeten plentifully with white sugar and strain through a coarse tarlatan or mosquito net into a mold wet with cold water. Do this the day before they are needed, and then turn out into a glass dish.

Carrot Fritters

• 2 small carrots, boiled and beaten to a pulp with a spoon or something
• 3-4 eggs
• half a handful of flour
• cream, milk, or a little white wine to taste
• sugar
• lard to fry
• 1 orange
• powdered sugar

Add eggs and flour to carrot mash. Moisten with cream, milk or a little white wine and sweeten to taste. Beat all well together, and fry them in boiling lard. 

When of a good color, take them off and serve, having squeezed over them the juice of an orange, and strewed them over with powdered sugar.

Ginger Drops

• 1/2 cup of butter
• 1 cup of molasses
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of cold water
• 1 heaping teaspoonful of soda
• ginger and salt to taste

Mix, drop in tins and bake in quick oven.

Vinegar Pie

• Pie crust, whatever
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 3 egg yokes (Save the whites for a meringue.)
• 1 cup water

Line a pie pan with your favorite pie crust. Bake the crust about half done before placing the mixed ingredients into it.
Bake in a slow oven until the custard is done.
If you would like you can use the egg whites for a meringue, but it is not necessary.

1943, WWII:

This one was a very interesting one to put together.  I never did much studying in this era of history.  I managed, by fluke, to pass a test that let me skip US History II - Civil war to the modern period.  Then World History stopped just before the French Revolution. Then I passed APUSH by the skin of my teeth, and retained practically nothing. Moral of the story: I don't know a whole lot about WWII, apart from the couple of History Channel specials. 

I must say that I would have taken more interest in history if it had ever been about people, rather than battles. The more I study literature, the more drawn in I get to different time periods, and the more interested I am in the minutia of life in those times. It's far more interesting. Had I really known that, I might have majored in history rather than literature, though the distinction is (literally) academic. Lib Arts is Lib arts, really.

Anyway, Americans put up with lot of crap during WWII, rationing included. I have trouble believing that people would be willing to sacrifice in this way, but that comes, I suppose, from living in a post-Vietnam, post-9/11 world. Anyway, the menu with recipes is as follows, however, you might find it - I don't know, "fun?" - to try to follow a rationing diet for a week before Thanksgiving, or even the whole of November. It would be difficult, but I think it would be cool, both as a history lesson and as a way to appreciate the feast when it does come. That's what Thanksgiving is about, right? Being thankful.

Starter: Stuffed Lettuce
Main: Roast Chicken or Goose (recipe follows) - Though poultry was never rationed in the US, turkey was scarce during the war, as they were mainly shipped overseas for the soldiers' holiday meals.
Starch: National Loaf (A British thing, but relevant nonetheless)
Starch: Potato Floddies
Veg: Piquante Spinach with Beets
Veg: Savory Carrot Pie (see newspaper clipping at bottom)
Dessert: Brandy Snaps filled with Lemon-Blueberry Fool (The snaps do not contain brandy. The name comes from 'branded' as in burned. Fruit was hard to come by during wartime, but using [home-]canned preserves means that rations could be saved/stretched until there was enough for this.)
Dessert: Sugar Ration Apple Pie
Drink: Grape Juice in Ginger Ale

Roast Goose with Sage and Onion Dressing  

For about an eight-pound goose 

• Giblets
• 2 cups bread crumbs, moistened with water 
• 1 chopped onion, fried in 2 tablespoons fat 
• 1/2 teaspoon sage 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• Pinch of pepper 

Cook the giblets till tender; chop and mix with other ingredients. After cleaning and washing the goose thoroughly, stuff and sew at the neck and back. Roast very slowly — about three hours. There is a great deal of fat on a goose, and in these days of scarcity of fats, this should be saved and utilized for other cooking.
-MARY ELIZABETH'S WAR TIME RECIPES

2015 - NOW

Idk, ask Martha. We're not far enough into this century to decide yet

While this project started on a lark, it ended up being really fascinating, and making me think more critically about a couple of our not-so-long-lost eras of American history. What I thought was just going to be an interesting little project turned into a contemplation about how our food reflects who we are, and how we live.

Even if you're not as interested in historical cooking as I am, there are other ways to reevaluate one's relationship with both food and the people around us during the Thanksgiving season. Numerous recipe blogs I follow, for example, participate in the Hunger Challenge every year, where they try to survive on a food stamp budget - between $2-5 per day (depending where you live). I encourage you to try something like it in the week or so leading up to Thanksgiving.

There's a reason that almost every religion uses fasting in some way. Food is vital to life, not just on a physical level, but on an emotional and cultural one as well. We have comfort foods (grits with a runny egg on top and lots of hot sauce for me). We bond with family over the dinner table and publish little church cookbooks as a way to cement our tiny place in this tiny culture that is our social network. Our holidays reflect that relationship to food. We give thanks for all we have with a feast. For those of us who already have plenty, however, the real impact of this can get lost in the noise of it all. Taking a little time away from our prosperity reminds us that not everyone has these things. Hopefully, it makes us a little more aware of those around us with less. When the feast does come, hopefully we are all the more thankful to see it arrive.