Month: May 2012

Pork Pies in Dighton

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food2 Comments

The weekend before Memorial Day, we spent two days in Dighton along the Segregansett River. It was a Continental Line event, and as such it was interesting to see that different organizations host reenactments with subtle differences.

The biggest difference for us was we got to day trip it from home since Dighton is so close, and that meant two different lunches. Day one, a variation on pasties. Day two, bread and cheese and fruit.

For the pasty variation, I cheated with store-brought crust. I figured the week my guy fell in a 12-foot-pit, I could cut a corner or two that did not involve safety, since I was getting home so much later.

Here’s how the filling worked, riffing on a Daily Mail recipe:

  • Some olive oil (a tablespoon, perhaps)
  • Half a medium sized onion, diced fine
  • A teaspoon of sage
  • Half to two-thirds of a pound of pork cutlet or boneless chop, whacked thin
  • One firm apple, sliced thin
  • One carrot, sliced thin, or a parsnip, or both, or neither
  • One medium potato, diced small
  • Tablespoon of flour
  • A tablespoon of lemon juice
  • Salt & pepper to taste
  • Small amount of water, as needed
  • 1 egg, lightly beaten

Heat the oil in a skillet; add the onion and sage, cook until soft.
Add the pork, cook until lightly browned.
Add potato, apple, and lemon juice; this is the time to add carrot/parsnip.
Sprinkle lighly with flour or cornstarch.
Cook until pork is browned and vegetables softening but not soft; add water as needed to create some juices.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

It is best to let the filling cool before spooning it onto the crust.

Cut the circles of crust into halves. Divide the filling into four equal parts, and distribute among the half-circles. Fold the crust over, pinch closed. Brush with beaten egg to glaze, cut small slits for steam holes. Bake at 350 degrees until filling bubbles and crust is brown, about 30 minutes, depending on oven.

Rhode Island’s Early Veterans

On By kittycalashIn History, Reenacting

In the process of helping to create a year of programming based on “Rhode Island at War,” and as a member of a re-enacted Revolutionary War regiment, I hear and think a fair amount about the need not to glorify or romanticize war. I don’t always hear a counter point about remembering what war means, and still less about remembering the men who served. “We’re not glorifying war, are we?” someone asks, and feels they’ve done their duty.

That’s not enough, not really. What about remembering the effects of war, beyond treaties made and boundaries changed, the effects of fighting a war on the men who serve? An organization I belong to, the Brigade of the American Revolution, is dedicated to recreating the life and times of the common soldier of the American War for Independence, 1775-1783. I mention this because what I think is most important is the adjectivecommon. Officers get fancier uniforms and better food, larger tents and nicer equipment. There were also far fewer of them. We have more diaries and letters from officers, more personal effects and portraits. What we do have for the common soldiers, aside from the amazing and idiosyncratic journal kept by Jeremiah Greenman of the 2nd RI, are records.

In considering the men who served, and what happened to them, we are fortunate to have, in the transcribed Records of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a “list of Invalids resident in the State of Rhode Island, who have been disabled in the service of the United States during the late war, and are in consequence thereof entitled to received a monthly pension during life.”  This list was assembled after the Congressional act passed June 7, 1785 establishing pensions for wounded veterans.

The list includes the soldiers’ names, monthly pay, age, rank, and Regiment (or Corp or Ship) in which they served, as well as the disability and its causes. The range is moving, and all the more so because the injuries often make real the simple facts we absorb as early as grade school: Washington’s soldiers had no shoes. Here is Joseph A. Richards, Corporal, age 37 in 1785, who served with the Rhode Island Regiment commanded by Jeremiah Olney. “Loss of part of all the toes on the left foot, by reason of severe frost when on the Oswego expedition, commanded by Col. Willet, in Feb., 1783; also a wound in the knee in the battle of Springfield, June 23, 1780.”

Richards is not the only man to have suffered from frost on theOswego expedition. Oswego! I had to look at a map; the last time I’d heard Oswego named was in Room Service. Oswego, as geographically-savvy readers will know, is a port city on Lake Ontario, home to a fort held by the British throughout the revolution, despite being challenged by the Americans. Let us take a moment to consider how far from Rhode Island Oswego, New York actually is (about 330 miles), and that Corporal Richards would have walked there, and that the action in Oswego took place in January and February 1783, and that Oswego is in a region well-known for snow fall.

Other disabilities call to mind the shabby condition and privations of Continental Soldiers. Benvil Laroach, born in 1746, Sergeant in Olney’s Regiment, lost the use of his left arm “by reason of a fall from a sleigh when on public service, after clothing for troops, from Saratoga to New Winsor, in January 1783.” Washington’s soldiers were dressed in rags. January of 1783 is very nearly the end of the war, and this disability resulted from a fall while going out to get clothing for the troops. This is dull business, but very necessary.

These are but two examples of young men, men who would have been just 30, or thereabouts, when they enlisted. There are older men, too, and we forget that men of all ages served. An excellent additional resource is the Regimental Book, Rhode Island Regiment, 1781 Etc. recently published by Bruce MacGunnigle, Cherry Bamberg, and the R.I. Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

William Parker, age 69 in 1785, Private in Olney’s Regiment: “A very bad rupture in the groin, occasioned by a fall, when on a march from Red Bank to Mount Holly, in November, 1777, together with the infirmities of old age, which renders him incapable of obtaining a livelihood.”  1777 is the year of the Defense of the Delaware, when Washington’s army tried desperately, and ultimately failed, to keep Philadelphia from falling to the British. The march from Red Bank to Mount Holly was a retreat following battles at Red Bank and Fort Mifflin on the Delaware River, when the army headed to winter quarters. The following summer, at the excruciating Battle of Monmouth, George Bradford, serving under Colonel Israel Angell, received the wound that caused his disability: “A lame arm, occasioned by a wound received in the battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, which fractured the bone and renders the arm weak, and the wound has several times broken out, per certificate from Dr. Mason.” Bradford would have been about 21 when wounded.

When I think about opening an exhibit on June 28, the 234th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth, and celebrating the opening with cake and punch, I have a sense of unease. How can we celebrate such a miserable anniversary, of a lengthy and confusing battle fought in heat that reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a battle that got Major General Charles Lee a court martial, and resulted British official losses of 65 killed, 59 dead of “fatigue”, 170 wounded and 64 missing, and American losses of 69 killed, 161 wounded and 132 missing (37 of whom were found to have died of heat-stroke).

Bradford was but one of 161 wounded, out of an estimated 11,000 American soldiers.  Losses were fewer than in a comparable Civil War battle because of the inaccuracy of smooth-bore muskets in the Revolutionary War period. That the men lost were a smaller percentage of the whole force makes them no less important, or meaningful, than any other loss or casualty in battle. To die of heat stroke in battle is still to die in battle; to suffer for the rest of your life from a wound received while collecting clothing for troops is still to be wounded and disabled. Let us take a moment to remember all the soldiers present and past, their sacrifices great and small, and thank them for all they have done for those of us lucky enough to remain in the comforts of home.

(from the work blog, because writing for two blogs this week is proving challenging)

Stitch Counting

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Reenacting3 Comments

There are other derisive terms for the authenticity snobs, but stitch counter will do well enough for me.

I didn’t mean to turn out this way, but I did. It might have something to do with being interested in historical costume for as long as I can remember, or spending summer afternoons at the Chicago Historical Society, or a grandmother who could turn fabric and thread into anything. But inauthentic clothing and gear grates on me, and that’s one reason I’m incredibly unlikely to trail along with the “colonial” women behind a militia unit in a local parade. I just can’t trot along next to a woman wearing Hush Puppies and a short gown made of fabric last seen on Bob Ross’s couch.

This is not to say that I’m perfectly authentic—I have problems with gear and clothing, mostly revolving around fit and using a sewing machine on some long seams, or seams that get stressed, and let’s not get into what I carry in my sewing basket. But I keep trying to learn more, and trying to figure out what would fit my persona of the past. Here’s what I do know:

Like my grandmother, I’m picky. I would never have given up stays unless my child would starve if I didn’t sell them.

And like Elsa, I care about my appearance—I’m just less successful in presentation. So how my clothes went together would have mattered to me.

Shoes. Guaranteed, we would have managed shoes, since my great-great grandmother made her own.

As much as I try to get into a real lower-sorts place, I can’t. Tidy, orderly, as clean as possible. That’s just part of who I am.

So what about those women in their upholstery-like prints, plastic glasses and little cotton caps plopped atop modern haircuts? What to do about them–and their men? One man asked us yesterday where we’d gotten Dave’s uniform–where’d we find the hunting frock and overalls?

I made them, I said. By hand.

I Love a Parade…Until I Don’t

On By kittycalashIn Events, History

The boys were in the Dighton, MA Memorial Day Parade today. I sat in the car, I didn’t even take photos. That’s how it is some days.

Here are the things I saw: Two Rehoboth, MA Special Operations Hummv’s, in urban camo.

The Lions Club truck, with stuffed toy lions affixed to cab and grill.

A brigade of tractors, including one from 1942, noting FDR’s presidency.

It was not immediately clear if the Special Operations vehicles were on hand to deal with an uprising by the tractor-borne army of angry squash farmers of Rehoboth. It was not immediately clear why Rehoboth needed Hummvs while Providence seems to have none, and North Providence has closed fire stations. My best guess is that Rehoboth has someone better at tapping into federal homeland security and/or grant funds.

But the weirdest, saddest things were these: no Civil War reenactors in a Memorial Day parade, and the line of tractors that could appear to consign family-farm-based agriculture to a past as foreign as the Revolutionary War.