Tag: 10th Massachusetts

Dirt Stew & The King’s Oreo

On By kittycalashIn Events, Food, Living History, Reenacting4 Comments
What Lights through Temple window Break?

What do you do when the kettle tilts off the pothook and spills onto the floor?
Scoop the food back in and keep cooking.

That’s how you make dirt stew, with just enough ash to keep the texture interesting at the bottom of your bowl, plus ham, onion, turnips, parsnips, potatoes and carrots. If you wash the inside of the kettle later in your motel bathtub, you will add to the list of very bad things you’ve done in the bathrooms of temporary accommodations.

On Saturday, the original event plan called for a camp kitchen demonstration; this was nixed because a long string of permissions could not be obtained in time, so we fell back on bringing the three sticks and two kettles. Outdoor fires of all kinds were nixed Thursday because of red flag warnings, and after downpours Friday night followed by rain on Saturday afternoon, we ended up cooking in the back room of the Temple building.

Third from the left, Mr S in the ‘Ugly Dog’ coat.

Some of us were too focused on getting food into the kettle to tidy up the surroundings, and that is why you need several people in any group: someone has to keep their head and clean up the wreckage of previous occupants. Fortunately for us, Mr McC managed that while the Young Mr swarmed around like a cat wanting its dinner, I cut vegetables and Mr S stewed about spilling the stew.

In the end it was a cozy evening boiling roots and hearing stories. I took no photos because that would have ruined it, but Mr S kneeling before the fireplace in the Ugly Dog coat and overalls as the last of the light came through the watery glass made a Vermeer-like and beautiful sight.

On Sunday morning, Our Musician Friend (who has turned his coat, and now sports yards and yards of lace and a bearskin hat nicknamed Lamb Chop), produced a package of Oreos from his haversack, and the Young Mr and I took the King’s Oreo with pleasure and no commitment.

Interpreting Bridget

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History, Reenacting3 Comments
Shirts? What shirts?
Shirts? What shirts?

This weekend, we’ll be at the Brigade of the American Revolution’s School of Instruction, taking anxiety to the Hudson Highlands as I give a presentation on interpretation. Sure, it’s part of my day job to interpret objects and documents and even, sometimes, to do costumed interpretation, but experience has never prevented me from worrying. It has allowed me to focus my worries more productively and specifically. One of the things we’ll be trying, or attempting to try, are vignettes based on the shirt-stealing and selling ring of 1782.

Events from Captain Abbot’s Orderly Book for interpretive vignettes

Soldiers Steal a Shirt and dispose of same (~July 13-14, 1782)*
Cast: Two soldiers, officer who catches them
Props: shirts

Court-Martial July 15, 1782: Paul Poindexter and Titus Tuttle, for theft of a shirt
Cast: Two soldiers, accusing officer, three officers of the court
Props: Shirt; table and seats, orderly book (optional)

Discovered buying a shirt (~July 21-22, 1782)*
Cast: Bridget, soldier selling shirt, officer who catches them
Props: Shirt(s), money

Court-Martial July 23, 1782: Bridget tried for buying a ‘publick shirt’
Cast: Bridget, accusing officer, three officers of the court
Props: Shirt & money; table and seats, orderly book (optional)

Insolence to Officers of the 10th Mass (~July 23-24, 1782)*
Cast: Bridget, officers (two preferable, one adequate)
Props: None required, large stick probably handy

Court-Martial July 25, 1782: Bridget tried for insolence
Cast: Bridget, accusing officer, three officers of the court
Props: Table and seats, orderly book (optional)

Expelled from camp, July 25, 1782*
Cast: Bridget, drummer, officer(s), jeering onlookers; Francis skulking at the edge
Props: Drum, Bridget’s chattel

* Events are extrapolated from the Orderly Book as things that must have happened to cause the events that followed.

We’ll see…in the meantime, I’m finishing up a shirt for the Young Mr, so that his small clothes will no longer be too-small clothes, and so we have extra shirts for this black market ring.