The Evolution of American Cooking

By Diane Euston

  We are a population of people on the move, constantly out of time and rushing to our next commitment. This is especially true during the holiday season where, despite time away from work, time seems to escape us so quickly due to busy schedules filled with shopping trips, holiday parties and family gatherings.

  When we arrive home from work, oftentimes the afterthought is what you’re going to feed your family for dinner. Despite having a pantry full of canned goods and a refrigerator packed with everything from frozen pizzas and meats, we frequently throw our hands up in the air and opt for easier options. We can hit the drive thru, go to a local restaurant or even buy “homemade” meals from local grocery stores that simply require a quick zap in the microwave.

  As “busy” as we are, we have been blessed with so many modern conveniences that make our lives so much easier than they would have been in the antebellum era. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, cooking was simpler in so many ways but more complicated due to isolation and lack of ingredients.

  This is especially clear when one looks back at the cookbook and its metamorphosis in the United States. 

Cooking in the Antebellum Era

  Cooking looked much different during the antebellum era. Most of the time, a kitchen was detached from a home due to the smokiness emitted from it – and the dangers of a fire. Keeping a kitchen separate helped give some sense of security to the home.

  In rural areas, three meals a day were cooked – and preparation for these was a full-time job for the women of the household. The largest of the meals served was breakfast. Dinner was served between noon and 3:00. Supper was a lighter dinner later in the evening. 

  The concept of eating a large, prepared dinner in the evening emerged first in cities where men at work would not eat a large supper in the afternoon.

  In most rural homes, an open fire in the hearth or a wood-burning stove was used to prepare all meals. A Dutch oven on hot coals, heated from the top and bottom, would help prepare breads and stews. 

  In places like the Midwest, the isolation from larger cities made the work in the kitchen even more laborious. While men worked on the farm, women were expected to take care of the children and prepare all meals.

   In our region where many transplants came from the Upper South, households that could afford it held enslaved men and women. Missouri was known as a “small scale slaveholding state” where most slaveholders held 10 or fewer enslaved. Often, at least one of the few enslaved held in bondage worked as a cook, assisting the woman of the house with the extensive responsibility of cooking.

  On farms, deer, turkey and pigs were common proteins of a diet, and in modest homes, rabbit, squirrel and venison were commonly prepared. 

  Because there was no refrigeration, cured meats were especially common. After butchering in the late fall or early winter, meats (especially pork) were put in salt and then hung in a smokehouse. Small fires would burn over time, giving the meat a delicious smoky flavor. 

  Needless to state, we Kansas Citians still enjoy our smoked meats!

  Recipes were rarely printed in newspapers and publications near Kansas City during the antebellum era. Cooking secrets at the time were frequently shared by word of mouth or were written down privately and passed to family.

  Henrietta Simpson Harris (1804-1881) arrived in the Westport area by covered wagon in 1832 with her husband, John “Jack” Harris. In 1842, the couple purchased a hotel, known as the Harris House,  at the northeast corner of Westport Rd. and Pennsylvania. In 1855, the couple built their impressive brick home which stands today.

  Henrietta, called “Hennie” by friends and family, was well-known for her Southern cooking. In 1918, a great niece of Henrietta shared a century’s old recipe from “the old cookbook used by ‘Aunt Hennie’” that was printed as “Aunt Hennie’s Chess Cakes:”

  One cup butter, 2 cups brown sugar (English golden); yelks of 8 eggs. Flavor with nutmeg and vanilla or a little sherry wine. Work the butter and sugar until very creamy; add the well beaten yelks of the eggs, and lastly the flavorings. Bake in small patty pans, in paste. Bake in a very slow oven.

The Revolution of “American Cookery” 

  Most early “recipes” crafted in the United States during the antebellum era were brought with immigrants from Western Europe. Staples from Great Britain were commonly fixed, and by the Civil War, were adapted into our distinctly American cuisine. 

  Americans, to no surprise, had a sweet tooth. British pies were adapted over time to be much sweeter than their European counterparts, giving us the traditional fruit pies with a flaky crust we love today.

  Following a recipe looked much different during the late 18th and 19th centuries. For one, you couldn’t tell someone to set their oven to 350 and cook for an hour; cooking and baking was much more an artform and a guessing game. And, recipes at the time were often called “receipts.” In fact, the word “receipt” was used in “Canterbury Tales” when referencing the preparation of a concoction of medicine.

  The earliest known English cookbook dates from 1742. The first cookbook published in America didn’t make its way to the press until 1796. Called “American Cookery” and written by “orphan” Amelia Simmons, the book included 47 pages of recipes. 

  Little is known about the author, but the introduction hints that due to her parents being deceased, she was employed by a household as a servant, likely giving her the cooking strategies listed throughout the pages.

  “American Cookery” opens with a list of what Amelia deemed the best ingredients for cooking. When selecting carrots, “the yellow are better than the orange or red.” Thyme is good in soups or stuffings, and sage “is used in cheese and pork, but not generally approved.”  Interestingly, Amelia didn’t have a fondness for one of my favorites, garlic. “Garliks, tho’ used by the French,” she wrote, “are better adapted to the uses of medicine than cookery.” 

  “American Cookery” claimed that rare roast beef was best for your health. And for use of rabbit, “the wild are the best, either are good and tender; if old there will be much yellowish tat about the kidneys.” Stuffing a turkey or fowl was described as follows:

  One pound soft wheat bread, 3 ounces beef suet, 3 eggs, sweet thyme, sweet marjoram, pepper and fait, and seme add a gill of wine; fill the bird therewith and sew up, hang down to a steady solid fire, bailing frequently with fait and water, and roast until steam emits from the breast, put one third of a pound of butter into the gravy, dust flour over the bird and baste with the gravy; serve up with boiled onions and cranberry-sauce, mangoes, pickles or celery.

  The recipes, designed to be made in large quantities, are rudimentary in today’s terms and certainly have ingredients we would never ingest in our bodies today. 

  But there were innovations in this first attempt at an American cookbook. “American Cookery” is where we get the term “slapjacks” and used terms we see today, such as shortening. It’s also the introduction of cupcakes (an American creation), and Amelia Simmons took the Dutch term koekje and spelled it “cookey.” She had two recipes for this treat, one that she called the “Christmas Cookey:” 

  To three pound flour, sprinkle a tea cup of fine powdered coriander feed, rub in one pound butter, and one and half pound sugar, dissolve three teaspoonfuls of pearl ash* in a tea cup of milk, kneed all together well, roll three quarters of an inch thick, and cut or stamp into shape and size you please, bake slowly fifteen or twenty minutes; tho hard and dry at first, if put into an earthen pot, and dry cellar, or damp room, they will be finer, softer and better when six months old. 

 *Pearl ash was carbonic acid, which is now used widely in producing glass and soap!

  Because baking soda wasn’t introduced until 1846, “American Cookery” used other leavening agents such as pearl ash that were available at the time. Baking powder wasn’t created until 1856, and it became the first cheap alternative in cooking.

  Controlling temperature in an open fire or wood-burning stove wasn’t easy. One method used to test the temperature of a fire was to toss in flour near the fire. If the flour browned at the correct speed, it would be ready for baking.

  “American Cookery” faded out and was forgotten as cookbooks became more popular and precise in their directions. However, “American Cookery” has been designated by the Library of Congress as one of 88 “Books that Shaped America.”

The Move to Precise Measurements

  Until the Civil War, most American food culture didn’t develop. Cookbooks from the Civil War era have rarely survived because paper that was used was of lower quality. 

  Kansas City’s hotels, especially on holidays such as Christmas, hosted large meals for its guests. In 1871, the Pacific House at 4th and Delaware offered a Christmas feast that included roast beef, mutton, spiced tongue, head cheese, boiled turkey with oyster sauce, leg of mutton with caper sauce and saddle of antelope with currant jelly. Desserts were more forgiving; vanilla ice cream and lemon sherbet were offered.

  Common “sides” at the time, which we would now consider condiments, were Worcestershire sauce, cucumber pickles, catsup, cranberries and pickled beets. 

  Cooking at home was always the most common; people did not usually eat out unless they were out of town. Cooking over an open fire or wood-burning stove was replaced by gas stoves, and these quickly integrated ovens at their base. Still, controlling time and temperature was an art form.

  The move to precise measurements in cooking required someone to study the science of cooking. Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857-1915) was born in Massachusetts to parents who expected her to go to college. At the age of 16, Fannie suffered a stroke that partially paralyzed her and derailed her plans to go to school.

  While at home, Fannie spent much of her time learning how to cook. At 30 years old, she enrolled in Boston Cooking School where she graduated in 1889. She joined the staff and continued to study the nutrition and science behind cooking.

  In 1896, Fannie Farmer published “Boston Cooking-School Cookbook,” the very first cookbook with recipes given in precise quantities and measurements. She wrote, “Correct measurements are absolutely necessary to insure the best results. Good judgement, with experience, has taught some to measure by sight; but the majority need definite guides.” 

  The science and nutrition of foods was especially important to Fannie Farmer. “It is my wish that [the cookbook] may not only be looked upon as a compilation of tried and tested recipes, but that it may awaken an interest through its condensed scientific knowledge which will lead to a deeper thought and broader study of what to eat,” she wrote.

  The innovation of “Boston Cooking-School Cookbook” was in the form it was written. Instead of recipes in paragraph form with no precise measurements, Fannie Farmer wrote a list of ingredients with measurements at the top of each recipe followed by cooking instructions.

  In exactly 100 years from the publication of the first cookbook in America to the publication of “Boston Cooking-School Cookbook,” the extensive change of American food can be witnessed. Instead of two recipes for cookeys, Fannie Farmer published precise recipes for 27 different cookies – the most common being made with ginger and molasses. 

  The “Boston Cooking-School Cookbook” contained 567 pages and sold for $2 in 1896. It was a bestseller, and it’s still available for sale today in reprint and updated forms.

Cooking From the Heart

  The evolution of cooking in the United States shifted greatly from the antebellum era, through the Civil War and continued to change after the turn of the 20th century. By the 1920s, electric stoves became widely popular in replacing gas stoves. Still, temperature control was a problem.

  Around this time, thermostats for ovens entered the market, and this invention added to ovens wasn’t too accurate in the beginning. Regardless, it changed cooking techniques and the ability for the less-than-average home cook to use an oven with a little bit more accuracy.

  Cooking drastically changed in its accuracy over a short amount of time, but the time, patience and perseverance of the home cook remained the same. Without the ease of modern conveniences such as refrigeration, temperature-controlled ovens and precise recipes, women across America still managed to feed their families and pass down cooking techniques to their kinfolk. 

  We pass along recipes from one generation to the next, vividly recalling fond memories of when these recipes were made for friends and family. Whether it was your grandma’s sugar cookies or your aunt’s excellent apple pie, recipes which stick with us the longest are those written down in careful cursive on a now-browned and dog-eared card or piece of paper.  Modern cookbooks certainly made cooking easier, but the real recipe for cooking- cooking from the heart for those close to you- still remains a key ingredient for success.

Diane writes a blog on the history of the area. To read more of the stories, go to http://www.newsantafetrailer.blogspot.com.