17 Century Table Manners

Subject: 17 Century Table Manners Fri Oct 31, 2008 10:22 pm

What foods topped the table at the first harvest feast?

Historians aren't completely certain about the full bounty.

In 1621 the Plymouth colonist and the Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast which is now known as the first Thanksgiving. While cooking methods and table etiquette have changed as the holiday has evolved, the meal is still consumed today with the same spirit of celebration and overindulgence.

* The Pilgrims didn't use Forks, they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers. They wiped their hands on large cloth napkins which they also used to pick up hot morsels of food.

* Salt would have been on the table at the harvest feast, and people would have sprinkled it on their food. Pepper, however was something that they used for cooking but wasn't available on the table.

*In the seventeenth century, a person's social standing determined what he or she ate. The best food was placed next to the most important people. People didn't tend to sample everthing that was on the table ( as we do today) they just ate what was closest to them.

*Serving in the seventeenth century was very different from serving today. People weren't served their meals individually. foods were served onto the table and then people took the food from the table and ate it. All the servers had to do was move the food from the place where it was cooked onto the table.

*Pilgrims didn't eat in courses as we do today. All the different types of foods were placed on the table at the same time and people ate in any order they chose. Sometimes there were two courses. but each of them would contain both meat dishes, puddings, and sweets.

* Our modern Thanksgiving repast is centered around the turkey, but that certainly wasn't the case at the pilgrim' feasts. Their meals included many different meats. Vegetable dishes, one of the main components or our modern celebration, didn't really play a large part int he feast mentality of te seventeenth century. Depending on the time of year, many vegetables weren't available to the colonist.

*The pilgrims probably didn't have pies or anything sweet at the harvest feast. They had brought some sugar with them on the Mayflower but by the time of the feast, the supply had dwindled. Also, they didn't have an oven so Pies and Cakes and breads were not possible at all.

*The food that was eaten at the harvest feast would have seemed fatty by 1990's standards, but it was probably more healthy for the pilgrims that it would be for people today. The colonist were more active and needed more protein. Heart attack was the least of their worries. They were more concerned about the plague and pox.

* People tend ot think of English food as bland, but, in fact, the pilgrims used many spices, including cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, and dried fruit, in sauces for meats.

*In the seventeenth century, cooks did not use proportions or talk about teaspoons and tablespoons, instead, they just improvised.

*The best way t cook things in the seventeenthy century was to roast them. Among the pilgrims, someone was assigned to sit for hours at a time and turn the spit to make sure the meat was evenly done.

*Since the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians had no refrigeration in the seventeenth century, they tended to dry alot of their foods to preserve them. They dried Indian corn, hams, fish, and herbs.

*The biggest meal of the day for the colonist was eaten at noon and it was called Noonmeat, of Dinner. The housewives would spend part of their morning cooking that meal. Supper was a smaller meal that they had at the end of the day. Breakfast tended to be leftovers from the previous day's Noonmeat.

*In a pilgrim household, the adults sat down to eat and the children and servants waited on them.

*The foods that the colonist and Wampanoag Indians ate were very similar, but their eating patterns were different. While the colonist had set eating patterns - breakfast, dinner, and supper- The Wampanoags tended to eat when they were hungry and to have pots cooking throughout the day.