Ah, where to begin on the subject of Cuisines in my own words? Well, to start, I'm just going to say that before there was "cuisine" there was just basic survival cuisine. Native Americans cooked with campfires, just like you see in those survival movies and shows. Often using stones to throw in a pot of water to bring it to boiling temperature and then using that hot water to cook root vegetables. And pretty much everything else was put directly on a fire. Thought they did seem to invent clay cooking pots that could withstand the heat of fire and made cooking a little more of art beyond mere fire roasting. Some Native Americans created adobe clam-shelled type ovens in the ground. I think the origination of Boston Baked Beans was done in one of these ground ovens. The recipe: beans, bits of fat and maple syrup. Hmmm..I'm going to have to try that. I'm generally used to brown sugar and ketchup style baked beans.
As I moved forward in the timeline to Colonial America, I discovered Hannah Glasse and her popular cookbook of the time The Art of Cookery (circa 1747). It just so happens that that was about the time Boulanger was making sheep's foot stew in France. It is so fantabulously neato to learn how food was prepared before we had stoves and running water. We all know of the spits and fires and dutch kettles (by watching history based movies of course) but what is interesting to me is that they were able to do an amazing variety of recipes with such a limited set of equipment and tools. Roasting, braising, boiling, pickling, and baking cakes, puddings and pies. I figured they could roast and boil and that was pretty much it. But there were lots of elaborate forced meat savory pies and puddings which often involved smashing, rolling and beating the hell out of some liver and knuckles into a paste. Oh wouldn't they just love a food processor?
What is really, truly interesting is that the diet back then was very heavily based on protein. Flour wasn't used as prolifically as we use it now. Biscuits and bread seem more like wallflowers rather than being the prized part of the meal. (Same is starting to hold true today, especially in light of all our health issues we have now involved bread and sugar). Veggies really weren't the object of a cook's efforts. They played a supporting role. Onions and sage were used in almost all recipes (as we use salt and pepper today). Mace is another spice I saw used in many meat recipes. I can attest to having never used sage or mace in a beef recipe. And I'm probably not alone in this statement. (You know I have to try this now).
Grocery stores, as you know, didn't exist. Water had to be fetched from a spring. Food was mainly hunted or the servant cook made trips to the market square for their raw animals. Getting an animal skinned and cut up was not really an option. In Hannah's book, there are a number of instructions on what to do with an animal's skin. There are also many animals mentioned for consumption that we would surely cringe if asked to eat today. These include: squirrel, frogs, rabbits, badgers, pigeon and ox...and whatever else that moves and is native to north america. Though I never saw a recipe for horse,dog or cat. Ah, the Colonial hippie food movement, whose buggy stickers might have read "Please be kind, to not eat animals of the transportation or hunting kind."
The second most interesting thing is the parts of the animals consumed. Which, really, the question should be "What part of the animal wasn't consumed?" There is a section in her cookbook on boiling heads: Head of lamb, mutton, deer, cow and pig. She even describes done-ness by whether the eyes bulge or not. Then there's a recipe for making a platter of tongue for a party of 10. Ha, I'd like to try that on my friends. I wonder what future Julie & Julia movie inspired food blogger will be tackling all of the Hannah Glasse recipes in one year? I'm pretty adventurous, if only I had more time to make frog leg and cow tongue stew in a kettle in my backyard and find some brave souls willing to sample. Or hang cuts of beef from my kitchen ceiling to allow the air to dry the outside of it for a few days.
You know, as much as some people's cooking and sanitation practices scare me, I'm feeling grateful right now that I'm not relying on a cook to determine whether beef has been sitting out too long to be "deemed forfeited."
As an aside, going into food history has proven more interesting than I expected. For if I had not, then I would never have come across Hannah Glasse's book and highly entertaining recipe directions such as: "if you like, you may add an old cock beat to pieces."
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