In large part, the answer depended on a person’s social status. The diet of an enslaved person was quite different from that of a middle class or wealthy person. While the main food ingredients were the same for the social classes, what was added for flavor varied. For example, during the colonial period most people ate some type of corn cake. However, with extra money, one could purchase sugar, butter, and spices to enhance the recipe. You may be surprised to learn that colonial cooks could prepare just about everything we eat today — including ice cream! They cooked foods by frying, roasting, baking, grilling, and boiling just as we do in our homes.
During the 1700s, meals typically included pork, beef, lamb, fish, shellfish, chicken, corn, beans and vegetables, fruits, and numerous baked goods. Corn, pork, and beef were staples in most lower and middle class households. Dinner for these groups usually consisted of a stew made from a piece of pork and dried or fresh vegetables, and a starch such as corncake or corn pone. Fish was also a frequent dish in lower income households because it was inexpensive (or free) and a good source of protein. Living near the South River in London Town and the Chesapeake Bay allowed “lower sorts” people (a colonial term for poor people, servants, and enslaved persons) to fish, crab, and catch foods directly from the water.
If you think about it, so-called American food is really a blending of the foods of different cultures, reflecting the diverse groups of people who have come here over time. Historians believe that from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, enslaved people brought or adapted many cooking techniques and ingredients from their native lands to their lives in America. Slow-cooked stews, deep-frying techniques, and vegetarian dishes are a few examples of the foodways enslaved people brought to Maryland. New ingredients brought to the colonies from Africa eventually became staples in the diets of Americans both enslaved and free. These include collard greens, black-eyed peas, peanuts, sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, kidney and lima beans, watermelon, rice, okra, sorghum, millet, pineapples, chili peppers, and sesame seeds. In many places in Africa it was common to slow cook stews and porridges. Enslaved people continued to cook foods in these familiar ways in the colonies. Slow cooking stews in a single pot did not require much work or attention. It was a very convenient way for enslaved people to prepare meals, as they often worked in their masters’ homes or fields for most of the day and were unable to tend to the fires back at their quarters. Perhaps even more important, an enslaved woman could stretch a small meat ration by cooking it into a stew with vegetables and grains. Slow-cooked stews and soups were also common meals for other lower sorts of people.
Food rations for servants and slaves varied from owner to owner and from plantation to plantation. An enslaved person’s rations were often insufficient to sustain a healthy life. Most surviving documents that list these rations include pork as a main food. Depending on their status and job, the rations for enslaved people included from one-half to five pounds of meat (usually pork) per week. Think about that: a week’s supply of meat might equal the amount we use in one hamburger today! To survive, many enslaved people found ways to supplement their diets. Some planters allowed their slaves to hunt and fish — which meant that owners could provide less food. To improve the quantity and quality of foods in their diets, enslaved people frequently planted gardens around their quarters.
Colonial cooks fried, roasted, baked, and boiled. They used many of the same foodstuffs found in today's groceries: beef, lamb, pork, chicken, fish, vegetables, and baked goods. Then as now, coffee, tea, and chocolate were popular beverages. Beyond these common roots, though, little was the same as it is today.
A typical comfortably fixed family in the late 1700s probably served two courses for dinner. The first course included several meats plus meat puddings and/or deep meat pies containing fruits and spices, pancakes and fritters, and the ever-present side dishes of sauces, pickles and catsups...
Food would have been cooked in the fireplace over the flames, or in a big cast iron pot with a lid called a Dutch oven, or a tin oven or tin kitchen which is like a rotisserie. Most colonists would have used wooden plates and spoons to eat with.
They tried raising lamb, beef and pork, but early on had to abandon sheep because they fell prey to wolves that roamed the forests of southern Maryland. Not surprisingly, the Colonists also hunted and fished. Archaeologists have found evidence that the settlers ate oysters, rockfish, ducks, deer and rabbits.
Foodways are a vital component of a culture's identity. They tell the story of a culture's history, environment, social structure, and world view. One aspect of foodways is the production and acquisition of food. This includes a culture's mode of subsistence.
Colonial forests were packed with wild game, and turkey, venison, rabbit and duck were staples of the colonists' meat-heavy diets. In addition to these better-known (by modern standards) options, many colonists enjoyed eating passenger pigeons.
As well as eggs and bacon, which was first cured in the early 18th century, the breakfast feast might also include offal such as kidneys, cold meats such as tongue and fish dishes such as kippers and kedgeree, a lightly spiced dish from colonial India of rice, smoked fish and boiled eggs.
Much like today, families usually ate three daily meals. The main meal in the 1800s, however, was not the large evening meal that is familiar to us today. Rather, it was a meal called dinner, enjoyed in the early afternoon. Supper was a smaller meal eaten in the evening.
Now colonists ate a remarkably rich and varied diet of European and American grains and vegetables. They had livestock, poultry and wild game, as well as exotic foods like chocolate, rum, spices and sugar from the West Indies and tea and spices from East Asia.
A typical breakfast could be toasted bread, cheese, and any leftover meat or vegetables from the previous dinner. In summer, people drank fresh milk. The backcountry relied heavily on a diet based on mush made from soured milk or boiled grains.
So instead of drinking water, many people drank fermented and brewed beverages like beer, ale, cider, and wine. Children drank something called small beer. One of the first steps in brewing beer is to boil the water, which kills the germs and bacteria and makes it safe to drink. This first brewing has alcohol in it.
Forks were a well-established part of dining practices during Jefferson's time. In colonial America, forks were used for serving and anchoring food so that it could be cut with the knife. When dining, a person would use the sharp point of a table knife to spear a piece of food, and then eat directly from the knife.
Cakes and cookies were flavored with spices, and with the massive influx of Pennsylvania Germans into the port city of Philadelphia, flavors like apples, rum, nutmeg, and cinnamon influenced greatly the recipes of the colonial baker.
At harvest time many fruits and vegetables were dried, but one vegetable was especially common — corn. Corn was stored in dry storage bins and used in meals throughout the winter months. Curing or smoking food deposits phenols, guaiacol, and catechol on the food.
“Conditions became increasingly desperate,” Horn said. At first the settlers ate their horses, then their dogs and cats. Jamestown residents also ate rats, mice, and snakes, according to a firsthand account by George Percy, who became the colony's temporary leader after John Smith left.
Food colonialism refers to the historical and ongoing processes through which colonial powers exerted control over the food systems of colonized territories, perpetuating exploitative practices and cultural erasure.
Rations were irregular during the first few months of the encampment. Soldiers were supposed to receive daily amounts of beef, pork or fish; flour or bread; cornmeal or rice; and rum or whiskey.
Colonialism is the pursuing, establishing and maintaining of control and exploitation of people and of resources by a foreign group. Colonizers monopolize political power and hold conquered societies and their people to be inferior to their conquerors in legal, administrative, social, cultural, or biological terms.
Introduction: My name is Gregorio Kreiger, I am a tender, brainy, enthusiastic, combative, agreeable, gentle, gentle person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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