PC WINES and CHEESE'S

[omarick1948]

I realize that wine and cheese date way back to biblical times and way before, but I was wondering what types might of been COMMON in 17th and 18th Century America.

Nothing like a good glass of wine and cheese..even at an encampment at the evening campfire when the guns are put away!

Now before someone says it. I already know how to cut the cheese!....NO EXPLAINATION NEEDED! :shake: :redface: :shocked2:

 

[Birdman]

well being as yer down wind from me ya can cut all the cheese ya want just don't move up wind a me, seriously Port n Madera were common wines, very hearty n strong of taste. With cheese I would guess many of the popular ones we eat today chedder, munster, colby style would have been around or maybe a mild farmers cheese(home made style) would have been available. yer right though, a good glass of wine a bit of cheese, maybe some sausage n crackers or good french bread, dang now I gotta go cut some up cause ya made me hungry

 

[rabjr]

My first thought would be "Mead" but I guess that would depend on when exactly honey bees were brought over here, which I have no idea about. But wherever theres honey, theres Mead. which reminds me, I need to brew some more. I do have 6 bottles left that have aged almost two years now and can't wait to pop another cork come Thanksgiving. :thumbsup:

 

[Claude Mathis]

The first reference to the actual making of wine in what is now the United States is in the report of his voyage to Florida in 1565 by the rich and respectable pirate Captain John Hawkins, afterwards Sir John. In 1564 the French Protestant Admiral Gaspard de Coligny had sent out a colony of Huguenots to the mouth of the St. John's River in Florida, and there, at Fort Caroline, Hawkins found the wretched survivors a year later on the verge of starvation. Hawkins sold them a ship and left them food, noting with some disapproval that, though they had failed to grow food for themselves, yet "in the time that the Frenchmen were there, they made 20 hogsheads of wine."[20] It must, one supposes, have been made from rotundifolia grapes””that is, from the muscadine.
Recent inquiry into this story, which has long been received without question, shows strong reason to doubt it. The testimony of the French themselves is that they had no wine at all except for what they got from external sources.[21] After the French had been driven away from the Florida coast, the Spaniards made a settlement on nearby Santa Elena Island””now Parris Island, South Carolina””and a vineyard was reported as planted there by 1568. There is some evidence that the vines planted were vinifera, and, if so, the odds are overwhelming that no wine was produced from them.[22] But of course the Spanish colonists were surrounded by abundant wild grapes and so could easily have made the experiment of trying them for wine: in all probability they did. In any case, Parris Island may claim to be the place where the first attempt at winegrowing in America was made.

Link

 

[Trench]

I know George Washington brewed Applejack, a brandy made from apples. Laird's still brews it in New Jersey. It's great if you like brandy.

 

[Many Klatch]

I think Colby cheese was invented in Wisconsin, so that isn't a period food unless you are doing a Packers Fan interpretation. :rotf:

Madeira and Port, also called fortified wines, were readily available. Any cheap full bodied common red wine should pass inspection as well. Brandy is nothing more than distilled wine and there was plenty of Brandy available. Champagne was invented around 1700 so I guess you could do that. :thumbsup:

Rum was common, but black rum, not the thin stuff Bacardi makes. :barf:

Pusser's Rum, a corruption of Purser's Rum, is the same stuff that the Royal Navy served for a couple of hundred years.

Many Klatch

 

[Don Robertson]

The common wines of the day, as already pointed out, were typically Madeira and Port, or "fortified" wines. It was a way to make an inexpensive wine last the long journey from Europe to the new world. French wines, like we know today, were too delicate to travel the long distances without spoiling, or having the bottles break in transit. It sometimes took a year or more, as Jefferson once complained about, for an order to get to a French vintner, and back to the Colonies. I doubt seriously, the common man ever saw anything of these wines. A side note, Jefferson tried growing grapes to make wine, but failed miserably. Although, the vines he received from France still grow at Monticello, and were used to rescue the French wine industry in the early part of the 20th century after a blight killed most of the French vineyards.
As for Cheese, some of the easiest cheeses to make are cheddars and the soft "farmers" cheeses, which would probably be what they saw a lot more of. However, it would be an interesting thing to research, since a lot of foods and other goods had to be purchased from England, although I don't know if cheese was one of them.

 

[Coot]

As mentioned in earlier replies, fortified wines such as port and madera were the more common imports. There are few native north american grapes and their use is mostly in low production specialty wines. Domestic wines could have used the Concord or Catawba grapes in Canada & the north east, Cynthiana (sometimes called Norton) in the middle colonies and Muscadine or Scuppernong in the southern and gulf coast areas. www.epicurious.com has the scientific names & more info. Years ago, I could get a Virginia Scuppernong but that winery is long gone. Today, Mrs Coot & I take port and a Norton (nice red) to events. The Norton is produced by the Horton winery in Virginia and to the best of my knowledge, they (Horton) are the only producers of a Norton wine.

 

[crockett]

I'll agree on the Madeira

 

[wildeagle]

Any thoughts on goats milk cheese??

 

[PaulN/KS]

Coot,
Up until this year a small winery in Kansas was bottling a Norton grape wine. They have recently closed up operations due state "red tape"... I also believe thare are some winerys in Missouri that grow and bottle Norton grape wines. It is a good hearty redwine...

 

[Crossfire]

Just my 2 cents - but people have been making their own wine from available fruits, vegetables, and honey for thousands of years. Wouldn't that be the same for colonialists, settlers, and maybe even mountain men? I don't have PC documentation on this, it is more a question that I have assumed the answer to. I may be wrong.

Growing up, my dad and uncles made dandelion wine, watermelon wine, cherry wine, plum wine, and corn wine. Also had an uncle that made moonshine. They required no special implements that someone from any muzzleloading reenacting time period wouldn't have had and they made their own small batches to share.

I would put cheese in this same category as I had aunts who made their own farmers cheese (kind of like cream cheese or marscapone) and one who made a hard smoked cheese which was very yummy. Again, this takes no special tools except the stomach of a cow, milk, a pot and a cool storage place.

Just an observation that both of these might be so commonplace as to not be worth mentioning in books or correspondence of the time.

I know this type of assumption is somewhat sloppy and wouldn't pass muster with the PC police, but I'm just putting it out there as half observation and half question for discussion.

 

[Bountyhunter]

Hernando Cortez, Governor of Mexico ordered grape vines to be planted in California in 1525. They were so successful that another Governor ordered them to quit in 1595 for fear that they would become so successfully independent that they would not buy Mexican wine. The wine was referred to as Mission Grape Wine.

Later vinyards were planted in Florida by French Hugonots about 1562. This info does not agree with wikipedia, but then most good research doesnt. The wikipedia info is quoted from Gallo and other winery infos from California. This wine aparently was a good bold red wine. Wines on the east coast would have been imported from Spain or France, and would also have been red wines until champaign was available after 1700. So says my wine history book.

I am not spanish, nor do I cheer for them but writers of US historical facts are quick to tend to ignore that the Spanish had 200 years of thriving culture in the Southern US before the French and English took a good toe hold.


Here is a long review on cheese. Roquefort and Cheddar would have been available by import in colonial America. Asiago cheese would have been available from Mexico.
http://www.thenibble.com/REVIEWS/main/cheese/cheese2/history.asp

 

[kansas_volunteer]

Dont forget The Cask of Amontillado
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amontillado

 

[Crossfire]

Speaking of the Spanish - when I go trekking, my favorite cheese to take is Spanish - It's called 'Manchego'. It's a hard cheese made from goats milk and it keeps well without refrigeration. Oh yeah, and it tastes great too.

 

[mazo kid]

A favorite at rendezvous lately is a good Port along with some good dark chocolate to nibble on. The flavors compliment each other, and are fantastic! Emery