Colonial Foodways | The Colonial Williamsburg Official History & Citizenship Site (2024)

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text by Ed Crews

Principal cook William Sparrow began his dayearly at the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg. He went to the kitchen as soonas he had light to see to work. He couldn't waste a minute. Servants had to beawakened. Fires required stoking. The market opened early, and Sparrow hurriedto it as soon as he could to buy the day's groceries. He created a menu and hadthe staff prepare and cook food. Everybody focused on delivering dinner, theday's largest and most elaborate meal, to eager visitors at about 2 p.m.Cleanup followed. Probably, Sparrow then could catch his breath. After all, asusual, supper and tomorrow's breakfast would be leftovers from the afternoonmeal.

The six members ofColonial Williamsburg's foodways staff work at a less demanding pace thanSparrow. But like him they use eighteenth-century kitchenware, recipes, andingredients to make the same meals that graced the tables of the wealthy andpowerful in colonial Virginia. Specialist Dennis Cotner, journeyman RobertBrantley, and apprentices Barbara Ball, James Gay, and Susan Holler teachguests about colonial food processing, cooking and consumption. The team'sculinary achievements range from roast pigeon to a ragout of cucumbers, friedox tongue, mince pies, and syllabub, a sweet, frothy, alcohol-laden dessert.Guests can watch them preparing these and other colonial specialties in theHistoric Area at the kitchens for the Governor's Palace and the Peyton RandolphHouse, places to accommodate a crowd, to demonstrate cooking techniques, and toexhibit finished dishes.

The foodways teamprepares dishes served to the colony's upper class because so much historicalinformation about their culinary life is available, said Frank Clark, foodwayssupervisor and Colonial Williamsburg's first journeyman cook. Historians knowfar less about food practices of people further down the social scale, butcookbooks, documents, kitchen inventories, and archaeological research providea detailed picture about how the governor and the gentry dined. For example,Sparrow's account book survives, detailing his marketing. With thisinformation, Williamsburg interpreters use the same ingredients on the samedays Sparrow did when he worked at the Palace in 1769 and 1770.

Modern Americans have afew things in common with the dining habits of the colonial upper crust. Basiccooking techniques haven't changed. Colonial cooks fried, roasted, baked, andboiled. 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 commonroots, though, little was the same as it is today. Food preparation andpresentation were different. So were diner's tastes, customs, and expectations.

To start,eighteenth-century cooks could serve only food that was in season. Fresh fruitsand vegetables were not available year round. Colonial Virginians couldpreserve some foods for the long term, typically by smoking or salting.Short-term preservation, say a few days, was impossible without refrigeration.

Anyone who wantedchicken for dinner got the bird early in morning, killed it, cleaned it—whichincluded plucking—and cooked it. Colonists ate the leftovers at supper and breakfastbefore they could spoil. Dining on a grand scale was a logistical challenge.The English nobility kept kitchen staffs filled with specialists because ofthis. King George II employed 200 cooks at one time.

Cooking and bakingrequired the ability to use a wood fire. Nobody employed kitchen thermometers.So successful cooking meant gauging and using wood heat accurately andcarefully.

"Cooking with wood isn'tany more difficult than cooking with any other fuel. Heat is heat regardless ofthe source. However, with wood, the cook has to be more patient and planahead," Gay said. "You have to generate hot coals, which when piled up, becomeyour burners. The best fuel to use is well-seasoned hardwood, which burnshotter and longer than softwood. The cook has to be able to 'read' the fire andknow which coals are the hottest. You judge heat by color and brightness, muchlike a blacksmith looks at hot iron. Yellow heat is hotter than orange, whichis hotter than red. You also have to remember that once you take hot coals outof the fire, you have to put more wood on it."

Cooks also approachedseasoning differently than their twenty-first-century counterparts becauseeighteenth-century tastes were different. By today's standards, colonial fareoffered too much grease, too much meat, too much seasoning, and too muchsweetener. Diners liked meat and lots of it. They considered animal organs,like hearts and brains, tasty delicacies. Cooks used sugar, cinnamon, andnutmeg liberally. Raw fruits and vegetables were considered unappetizing. Sothe kitchen help usually cooked them. Sweet drinks prevailed, too. Dry wineswere not popular. Madeira, a sweet wine fortified with brandy, was. co*cktailsdidn't exist, but alcohol-rich punches did.

Food presentation wasdifferent. The main meal, dinner, was served midafternoon. Formal meals had twoor three courses. Meat dishes often came to the table with the animal's headand feet attached. The upper class ate little bread. Instead, they might use aroll to maneuver food on a plate and sop up gravy and sauce.

Anybody aspiring to cookfor the upper class in America or England learned the art through anapprenticeship. This meant finding a skilled cook to serve as instructor. Forpart of the eighteenth century, it also meant learning to fix French cuisine.Brought to England by Charles II, French food had a limited but enthusiasticfollowing in the nobility. This style relied heavily on sauces and dishesrequiring multiple steps in preparation. In Virginia, a governor might have a European-trainedhead cook. The gentry probably didn't, although they might encourage theircooks to learn European techniques.

Not everybody approvedof Gallic cuisine. People lower in society liked their food simpler. Thatexplains why the period's most popular cookbook was Hannah Glasse's The Artof Cooking Made Plain and Easy for Housewives and Maids, published in 1745

Almost everybody in the1700s could cook, Brantley said: "Guests are surprised by who was actuallydoing the cooking. They automatically assume that only black females didcooking in the eighteenth-century homes. Some guests are shocked when theylearn that many people—men, women, black, white, rich, and poor—learned to cookon some level."

Governor Dunmore cookedfor himself on trips to the frontier. Lawyer George Wythe did the same,traveling to meetings of Congress in Philadelphia.

The ColonialWilliamsburg apprentice program covers a body of knowledge from butchering tofrying, broiling, roasting, and baking and making sauces, soups, and creams.Special programs focus on beer brewing, chocolate making, and hog butchering.

"Everybody is interestedin food," Clark said. "At one point, everybody has tried to cook. So we have aninstant connection with people the moment they step in the kitchen. We reachtheir hearts through their stomachs."

Ed Crews is contributing a series of stories onColonial Williamsburg trades. His story "Spies and Scouts," on RevolutionaryWar intelligence, appeared in the summer 2004 issue. Read his article "Cast in the Colonial Mold" from the winter 2003-04 journal.