Category: Food

Monmouth Menus

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food, Living History, Reenacting6 Comments

Food: It is always on my mind, even cataloging. When the tan and brown and black colors of a sampler make me think of Tiramisu,  I know it’s time to wrap up work for the day. But food is particularly on my mind this week, as I plan and calculate for Monmouth, hoping to use the lessons I’ve learned in the past instead of just being anxious. I know it’s not a test, but it feels like one, somehow.

The Young Mr has aged suddenly, in Don Draper’s kitchen.

Continental rations were supposed to be a pound of beef and a pound of flour a day for man, half that for a woman employed by the army and a quarter of that for a child. The Young Mr (who isn’t really a child and is sort of a soldier) would get more if he was really a drummer… but in any case, we’re looking at 2 + ½ + ¼ or 2 ¾ pounds of beef and the equivalent of flour at a minimum to feed two soldiers, a woman, and a child per day (at a minimum, I expect to feed the adjutant as well as ourselves).

I float out ideas like fire cake or pudding to take account of the flour, but Mr S reels me in and suggests that we should stick to what we know until we can test other ideas on the landlord’s fire pit. We shall substitute bread, therefore, and I probably will not make a nuisance of myself at the bakery or the grocery and ask them to weigh the loaves, as I have my own kitchen scale and can obsess about this in the comfort of our home.

Too fancy! From the Complete Housewife.
Too fancy! From the Complete Housewife.

My plan is about the same as every camp dining plan: that’s suitable, given the repetitive nature of Army rations (and the repetitive complaints of the soldiers, echoed in every war).

Friday
Pasties. They keep and travel well.

Saturday Morning
Bread, cheese, strawberries, eggs
Ideally, I’ll find a farm stand where I can buy local strawberries, but we will only get into a discussion of what exactly would have been in season on New Jersey in June 1778, which leads to a discussion of global heating.

Saturday Lunch
Bread, cheese, ham, cookies from home

Saturday Dinner
Beef stew and bread, strawberries, cookies from home

Sunday Morning
Bread, cheese, fruit, eggs

Sunday Lunch
Bread cheese, ham, and anything that’s left

This is essentially the same plan that I had for OSV last year, with the biggest sticking points being: will I remember the eggs? Will I manage coffee? I’m not very good at anything until I have coffee, or some kind of caffeine, which could be a challenge this time around. There’s an ice truck scheduled to go through the camps, but what I want to know is, when’s the coffee truck coming?

New Model Army Stove

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food, Living History, Reenacting7 Comments
From the BAR FB page.
From the BAR FB page.

Cooking and eating will be different at Monmouth, because there will be camp kitchens.

This means two things that give me stomachaches: trying something new in public and sharing with strangers. How to alleviate this discomfort? Research, of course, because we don’t think our landlord wants to have an 18th century camp kitchen in our yard, even as an attraction or energy saving option. (Nor have we figured out how to ask him about the hanging-chicken-cooking experiment we want to try using the metal fire pit he lights for snuggling with his many girlfriends.) For more on camp kitchens, you can read John U. Rees’s article here, or check out the work done on the common British soldier in America by the 18th century Material Culture Center.

"D" are the kitchens.
The circles are the kitchens.

With a camp kitchen, we can leave our three sticks at home. Kitchens are also far more authentic for a large camp (see the plan from von Steuben at right). I’ve also read that it’s quicker than cooking over an open fire, which is a plus.

A large heap of earth cannot be good in a downpour.
A large heap of earth cannot be good in a downpour.

The main downside that I can see to a camp kitchen is rain: from the photo and this drawing, you can imagine for yourself the results of a downpour. At least it’s going to be drier there by the end of the week…

To Lexington, Tomorrow

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food, Living History
The Battle of Lexington, 1775. Engraving by Ralph Earl. NYPL Digital Library
The Battle of Lexington, 1775. Engraving by Ralph Earl. NYPL Digital Library

We’re as done as we’re going to be. Buttonholes are stitched, the Young Mr’s garters are in process, so the last thing to do would be to replace the green ribbon on my bonnet with black, just because I feel picky and want to change it.

That, and pressing clothes and making lunches.

Mr S completed two hand-sewn market wallets so that the boys can have their own lunches and I do not have to be the walking buttery.

Clara Peeters (fl. 1607–1621) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

On the menu? A Cheshire pork pie or pasties (apple and pork), apples, water, and gingerbread cakes. I may pick up a loaf of bread (I ran out of flour this morning and barely eked out enough for the gingerbread, so rising time is out of the question) and bring some cheese as well. It’s a long day outdoors, and we are likely to be hungry. When my family gets too hungry, we get weird. By the time we are done, I expect to be this tired, so I am considering making Saturday night’s dinner tonight.

The modernized recipes for gingerbread cakes and the pork pie are from the History is Served website, but this week I found a wonderful site from the Westminster City Archives, The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies. Almond puddings are not portable, but they look fun to try.

Eating in the Field: Playing with Fire

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food, Living History2 Comments

Multi-Day, or Events with Fires

(e.g. Redcoats & Rebels at OSV, “encampments”)

Less will be more next time, I swear.

We use as small a cooler as we can, and save it for things that get dangerous, like meat. We skip dairy. If your impression is that of soldiers in the field, forget cream in your coffee or milk in your tea, unless you can point to the farm you stole it from! (See John Smith’s diary.) We hide the cooler under a blanket in our tent. Yes, the blanket is a red bed cover from Ikea and needs to be replaced.

Carrots, onions, potatoes, parsnips, beets, apples, can all travel in bags, baskets or bowls. Think basics if your impression is common soldier or common person.

Rations were generally a pound of beef for a soldier, half a pound for women on the ration, and a quarter pound for children. You can use these proportions to figure out what to make, and John Buss had a lot to say about the quality and frequency of the beef and other rations. Jeremiah Greenman of the 2nd Rhode Island ate dog on the way to Quebec, and that was one time they weren’t the 2nd Helping Regiment. We draw the line well on this side of that kind of authenticity.

Three sticks, two kettles, one bucket. I love that bucket.

Men carried their rations in haversacks, so yes, a little eeww if you’re thinking a pound of salted beef in a linen sack along with a pound of bread or flour.  That’s where the cooler comes in, and a metal bowl or plate. We use split firewood to cut the meat on, and then burn the wood instead of washing a wooden cutting board in the field.

I have brought home-baked tea bread to events, and taken cookies (little cakes) to the farm. But you have to think about the context of the event, and your specific impression. I’d like to strip everything down to the “three sticks, two kettles, no matches” principle, but we’re stuck with cooler because we cook.

What we did at OSV, which was two dinners (Friday and Saturday) and two breakfasts  and lunches (Saturday and Sunday) was this:

Friday Dinner: pasties

Saturday Breakfast: apples, bread and ham and cheese. Guess who forgot the eggs and oatmeal? Yes, me! The one in charge of stores. Thankyouverymuch.

Saturday Lunch: Apples, bread and ham and cheese.

Saturday Supper: Beef stew with carrots, onions and potatoes. Authenticity would have made this plain boiled beef but fortunately for us, OSV is a farm, and we could pretend John Smith had helped us enhance our rations. We scraped the kettle clean.

Sunday Breakfast: Apples, bread and cheese. The soldier in the tent next to us appeared with a cup of coffee. We eyed him with real envy; sensing peril, he quickly told us we could get our mugs filled at the OSV store, at a discount. Off we quick-marched, and Bob finished his coffee in safety. It wasn’t very good coffee, but it was the best coffee I had that week.

Sunday Lunch: By this point, the child had eaten anything that remained, and we had to buy lunch.

What did I learn from that experience?

  • Bring more fruit
  • Bring more bread
  • Bring the coffee & the coffee pot

When we consider packing for Monmouth this summer, these are the factors we’ll take into account, and one of the largest factors will be the amount the kid is accustomed to eating.