texasmesquite

Old Food Ways Are New Again Written by Cyndi Wood
Source: The Ellsworth American
Thursday, September 04, 2008

CASTINE — Turns out they had it right over 200 years ago.

“The Art of Cookery”
by Hannah Glasse “The Frugal Housewife”
by Lydia Maria Francis Child
“Keeping Food Fresh: Old World Techniques & Recipes”
edited by Claude Aubert
Despite the modern marvels of refrigeration and chemical preservatives, food was often saved longer and thrown away less in a frontier kitchen.
A seasonal food supply necessitated ingenuity, according to author Sandy Oliver, who gave a talk on historic food preservation techniques at the John Perkins House in Castine Aug. 20.
“When I’m looking for new ideas or ways of doing things, I’m very likely to turn to the past…or the Web,” Oliver told the small crowd gathered for her hearthside talk.
Armed with historic cookbooks and 37 years of experience, she demonstrated preservation techniques from the late 18th into the early 19th century.
At the time, people had a slew of options for preserving their food. Salting, freezing, fermenting, drying, pickling, canning and smoking could all help keep food fresh through the winter months.
Preserving agents such as salt, vinegar, sugar, fat, oil and acidic substances have withstood the test of time and are still used today.
Oliver began her involvement with food history in 1971, when she developed a fireplace cooking program at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut. The Islesboro resident is the author of “Saltwater Foodways,” a book about New England food history, and publishes a food history Web site, foodhistorynews.com.
Oliver has watched in recent years as Americans, once enthralled with packaged, highly processed food, have shown increased interest in local produce as a cheaper, environmentally sustainable option.
Backyard gardeners do not have to watch their produce go to waste when the weather cools, Oliver said.
She demonstrated several simple ways to can fruits and vegetables that involve little more than boiling the produce and adding a natural preservative or two.
Another historical technique for preserving nutritional value was to transform produce into alcohol.
“You can save an awful lot of apples by making cider,” Oliver said.
Likewise, beer can preserve grains.
Maine’s cold winters were a boon to early residents who needed to rely on stored food.
“It’s a great big ol’ walk-in refrigerator,” Oliver said.
Salt, which removes moisture from food, was a preservation staple 200 years ago. One of the first thing early settlers did when moving into an area was to ensure a salt supply, she said.
She said she was surprised during the big ice storm 10 years ago, that many people complained they’d had to throw out all their frozen food.
“Well yeah, if all you’ve got in your freezer is frozen burritos, then you will, but if you’ve got real food in there, then you’ve got things you can do,” she said.
Cooking food is one option. Oliver suggests cooking sausage and storing it in a covered crock full of grease. The fat keeps air away from the meat, preserving it longer.
Early Americans actually ate more meat in winter than the summer. Animals were butchered in late fall so they wouldn’t have to be fed through the cold months. The natural cold would preserve the meat, which could be put under salt to last through summer.
In the summers, families would eat small animals that could be consumed quickly so the meat would not go to waste.
People could also take advantage of the “social refrigerator” and share meat with neighbors, Oliver said.
She said people today need to adjust their perception of what fresh meat looks like.
The bright red meat sold at the grocery store keeps its color because of chemicals sealed into the package with it, she said. Meat stored at home can develop a grayish color and still be good, she added.
Smell can be a powerful tool in determining whether food has begun to rot. If it smells fine, it probably is, Oliver said.
She thinks modern people are overly obsessed with sanitation.
“I’ve got an idea that a few more antibodies is a good thing,” Oliver said.
Learning the basics of “putting up” food should be easy for most, according to Oliver.
She added that beginners should be careful when using historic cookbooks, which often assume readers have a background in preserving.
The recipes also measure ingredients by weight, not by cups.
“They were more like prompts,” Oliver said. “Most of the early recipes were for preserves and desserts — things that people wouldn’t make every day.”