History in the Tasting!

Laura FrantzFrontier, Garden, History, History in the Tasting, Home, Recipes, Uncategorized

Every spring we sow several rows of pea seed in our garden. One of my favorite things is shelling peas on the porch and then steaming them for supper. I just add a wee bit of butter and some salt and pepper before serving. Until I went to a Colonial Culinary Workshoprecently at Fort Boonesborough. Those early settlers ate high on the hog as we Appalachians like to say and this historic recipe is no exception! I even had seconds:)

PEAS FRANCOISE

The English Art of Cookery 

by Richard Briggs, 1788

Take a quart of young peas, put them in a stew-pan, with a large Spanish onion, if you have one, or English ones chopped fine, and two cabbage or Silesia lettuces cut very small, with half a pint of water, seasoned with beaten mace, nutmeg, pepper and salt, cover them close, and let them stew gently for half an hour, then put in a quarter of a pound of butter mixed with half a spoonful of flour, a spoonful of ketchup,* cover them close, and let them simmer half an hour, then dish them up.

VOILA!

*Ketchup was not the same then as now. Back then it was mushroom-based, more like Worcestershire. Tomatoes were even regarded as poisonous at that time. Here’s the product used in the workshop:

George Watkins Mushroom Ketchup