Take the Historical Thanksgiving Cooking Challenge!

Calling all talented cooks! Help! We need you to go where no man has gone before, and help us create plausible – and palatable – 1621 side dishes for Thanksgiving. Using the food lists provided in our historical Thanksgiving guide, cook it up this year, take notes and pictures, and send them in to us [...]

Pumpkin Pie in 1621?

I am a voice way out in left field on this one, but I believe it was indeed possible for the pumpkin pie to have made an appearance in 1621.   I may become the butt of jokes for this one, but here is what I see… Main dish and dessert pies made with white flour [...]

Groundnuts: Perfect for Thanksgiving

It is reported that the earliest English settlers survived on the humble groundnut tuber.  Groundnuts, which are like small potatoes, can be harvested during the winter.  They are reported to taste very good, and may serve nicely as a mashed potato alternative. Groundnuts cannot be commercially grown due to their tendency to overtake the landscape, [...]

Native Strawberry Cornbread Experiment

One colonial source document mentions that the Native women cooked a type of strawberry “bread” that was deemed “delicious.”  No recipes were given for it, but I have some ideas what it may have been like. We know that there were no leaveners used by Native cooks.  We also know they sun dried many foods [...]

Historical Food Ideas for Thanksgiving

See It Here! $9.99 There are only two things you really need to know: 1. There are precious few recipes from this time and place in history, and only a handful of food descriptions.  Your best bet for period English recipes are the few primary source cookbooks available on the antiques market, which you can [...]