Colonial American recipes that are common today

[Magungo1066]

Hello all I hope all is well! What are some modern recipes that existed as a very, VERY similar/identical dish in Colonial America? I can list a few, mostly from my New England. Off the top of my head I can think of Johnny cakes, boiled dinners, and clam chowder for New England. Potato pancakes/sauerkraut, and scrapple for the middle colonies. It doesn't matter whether the recipes are for the lowliest farmer or a rich plantation owner. I am just interested in some cooking ideas where I can create the modern equivalent of a dish that I already enjoy today. Only interested in stuff from the 1600s-1700s in America. All of this is the same for sides/additions such as pickles or "salets" Thanks all!

 

[Brokennock]

Pot pies, various types of hand pies (that have gone by many names from many different countries), all sorts of soups, stews, and chowder.

Sausages with apples and cabbage.

Old fashioned donuts, fried (I have a post somewhere here about an old family recipe for potato starch based donuts)

Many pickles and relishes.

I recently saw a post from an 18th century cooking account on Instagram that was showing a unique way too make a pot pie. Haven't tried it yet, but it is on my list.
Not sure if I can link it here.

 

[Hawk54]

Townsends has a lot of good information on early cooking, meals, and recipes. Compare them to todays recipes and meals.

 

[Brokennock]

Understanding that the exercise is about Colonial American recipes that are still in use today,,,,,, not just good Colonial time recipes,,,,
I mentioned pot-pie earlier and a recent post from @18thcenturycook on Instagram.
Let's see if this link works for people...


Pot pie was common then and popular now. Other savory pies were common at the time, but seem to have fallen off in popularity, but chicken pot pie, remains popular regardless of location or personal interests.

 

[Magungo1066]

Understanding that the exercise is about Colonial American recipes that are still in use today,,,,,, not just good Colonial time recipes,,,,
I mentioned pot-pie earlier and a recent post from @18thcenturycook on Instagram.
Let's see if this link works for people...


Pot pie was common then and popular now. Other savory pies were common at the time, but seem to have fallen off in popularity, but chicken pot pie, remains popular regardless of location or personal interests.

I love savory pie! I have been to the UK a couple of times and I think we Americans really miss out on all the meat pie goodness. We hunters are a little different I guess because we often make them ourselves out of game but still!

 

[Hawk54]

Understanding that the exercise is about Colonial American recipes that are still in use today,,,,,, not just good Colonial time recipes,,,,
I mentioned pot-pie earlier and a recent post from @18thcenturycook on Instagram.
Let's see if this link works for people...


Pot pie was common then and popular now. Other savory pies were common at the time, but seem to have fallen off in popularity, but chicken pot pie, remains popular regardless of location or personal interests.

I was referring to Townsends information for people who have little or no knowledge of colonial foods and recipes. Hard to make a comparison when you don't know what they ate and how it was cooked.

 

[SOLANCO]

No expert on colonial victuals. But I'd suspect soups, stews and roasts were among the easier things to cook in a wood fired hearth.
Maintaining the coals and flames would require a lot more attention and forethought than using a modern range. I'd expect the recipes were uncomplicated.

 

[mushka]

Plain meat cooked over a fire on a stick or grate of some sort.

 

[TDM]

I love savory pie! I have been to the UK a couple of times and I think we Americans really miss out on all the meat pie goodness. We hunters are a little different I guess because we often make them ourselves out of game but still!

Shepherd’s Pie lends itself to using a variety of meat.

 

[PathfinderNC]

“Chicken a la King George”?

 

[appalichian hunter]

My wife has a killer recipe from Williamsburg for ginger cookies, were there a few years back and a lady was baking them in an outdoor oven. being a cookie fiend, ask for the recipe. Very simple recipe and holds up well in one's haversack.

 

[TDM]

I do love ginger cookies.

 

[Magungo1066]

I dont have any game right now but I have some “stew pieces” of veal that I was given by a farmer I used to work for. Chunks about half the size of a golf ball. They might make for a nice meat pie chopped up a little finer and tenderized. Any favorite meat pie recipes? I am thinking more of like a fully encapsulated “meat pie” rather than just a pot pie.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Hello all I hope all is well! What are some modern recipes that existed as a very, VERY similar/identical dish in Colonial America? I can list a few, mostly from my New England. Off the top of my head I can think of Johnny cakes, boiled dinners, and clam chowder for New England. Potato pancakes/sauerkraut, and scrapple for the middle colonies. It doesn't matter whether the recipes are for the lowliest farmer or a rich plantation owner. I am just interested in some cooking ideas where I can create the modern equivalent of a dish that I already enjoy today. Only interested in stuff from the 1600s-1700s in America. All of this is the same for sides/additions such as pickles or "salets" Thanks all!

Well there are pancakes, BUT you need to omit any baking powder or baking soda...
Pasties... in fact these are found in many areas once colonized by the British.
Hominy..., not hominy grits, but just hominy.....boiled
Pasta, though they would've likely hand cut the noodles....
Boiled oats, but they boiled the kernels whole, while we "roll" them first, or steel cut them, ...
French Toast, but it was a bit different than ours...,
A lot of the sausages haven't changed much...,
Cheddar and Parmesan cheese...,
Blanc Mange...,
You can find commercially made "porter" and "stout" but both have changed a lot since the 1700's....
Hard cider...,


LD

 

[Magungo1066]

Well there are pancakes, BUT you need to omit any baking powder or baking soda...
Pasties... in fact these are found in many areas once colonized by the British.
Hominy..., not hominy grits, but just hominy.....boiled
Pasta, though they would've likely hand cut the noodles....
Boiled oats, but they boiled the kernels whole, while we "roll" them first, or steel cut them, ...
French Toast, but it was a bit different than ours...,
A lot of the sausages haven't changed much...,
Cheddar and Parmesan cheese...,
Blanc Mange...,
You can find commercially made "porter" and "stout" but both have changed a lot since the 1700's....
Hard cider...,


LD

Parmesan and pasta are not something I would have initially thought! How would pasta have been made/used/served?

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Parmesan and pasta are not something I would have initially thought! How would pasta have been made/used/served?

Well our "macaroni and cheese" is actually "elbow" macaroni, and it's a bent tube...., from a machine...

So simply get a basic pasta dough recipe. You can use semolina wheat or you might try whole wheat pastry flour (in fact try WWPF for any colonial bread that you might bake). Then roll it thin, and use a knife to cut it into noodles, like linguini style. Dry and then boil and eat.
Jefferson had a recipe for Parmesan ice cream.
The French toast was done pre-toasted, then soaked in some egg, and cooked. No milk with the egg, and no syrup so they used powdered sugar.

LD

 

[Magungo1066]

Well our "macaroni and cheese" is actually "elbow" macaroni, and it's a bent tube...., from a machine...

So simply get a basic pasta dough recipe. You can use semolina wheat or you might try whole wheat pastry flour (in fact try WWPF for any colonial bread that you might bake). Then roll it thin, and use a knife to cut it into noodles, like linguini style. Dry and then boil and eat.
Jefferson had a recipe for Parmesan ice cream.
The French toast was done pre-toasted, then soaked in some egg, and cooked. No milk with the egg, and no syrup so they used powdered sugar.

LD

Very interesting. I am half Italian and parmesan/pasta dishes were not something I expected. I get that pasta in one form or another exists across a plethora of cultures but for some reason I never associated it with the Anglo colonies. Is this something that would have been seen in a book store cook-book in say Boston or New York?
I make a ton of pasta from hand so it would be awesome to incorporate some of it into a period dish

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Very interesting. I am half Italian and parmesan/pasta dishes were not something I expected. I get that pasta in one form or another exists across a plethora of cultures but for some reason I never associated it with the Anglo colonies. Is this something that would have been seen in a book store cook-book in say Boston or New York?
I make a ton of pasta from hand so it would be awesome to incorporate some of it into a period dish

Well cook books of the time were not nearly as they are today. A lot of stuff was considered "known"..., and then if you actually try one of the recipes you need to adjust ingredients to make it as they did. Eggs for example were what we call "medium brown" eggs today. The bread flour was what we call whole wheat pastry flour, as the hard red wheat that our flour is from today, is a 19th century thing here in America.

Here's an example of something that we have today, from a book from 1737. "Sack" is a rather sweet sherry :

LD

 

[Gus Alexander]

Pot pies, various types of hand pies (that have gone by many names from many different countries), all sorts of soups, stews, and chowder.

Sausages with apples and cabbage.

Old fashioned donuts, fried (I have a post somewhere here about an old family recipe for potato starch based donuts)

Many pickles and relishes.

I recently saw a post from an 18th century cooking account on Instagram that was showing a unique way too make a pot pie. Haven't tried it yet, but it is on my list.
Not sure if I can link it here.

Potatoes?? They are a new world vegetable, & nothing like the potato we know. Even corn in colonial days wasn't what it is now. Homany would be closer to correct. As for beans & peas, those weren't the vegetables you know either.. barley flour would've been more common in a colonial kitchen than any wheat flour. Barley grows better in temperate zones for a bigger faster yeild..

 

[DuncNZ]

There must have been a lot of recipes for wild game and fowl which would have been grilled or stuffed and roasted or just roasted ,they would be so common and uncomplicated that they would never be written down .
The potatoes which made it here to New Zealand were introduced by Whaling ships , they were small, purple /blue or red and are still grown today . The corn was maize ( Zee Mays Dent) not sweet corn, The maize dried and kept well but took a lot of processing including soaking to make it edible .
When tomatoes first made it here ,in my grand parents childhood, they were treated with suspicion by many who considered them poisonous , and were eaten by the brave ones as a desert , sliced with cream and sugar