Here are two suggestions. These unique cookbooks, both published by Massachusetts living history museums, combine tasty recipes with lessons in American history. And what you learn may not be exactly what you learned at your classroom desks.
The first book is called Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes & History, From Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie. This lovely book was put out by the folks of Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum which depicts life in Plymouth Colony in the 1600’s. I have never actually been to Plimoth Plantation, I actually bought* this book at Strawbery Banke, a living history museum in Portsmouth, NH. I’m sure the Plimoth Plantation museum store has it, as well.
This book delves deep into the history of Thanksgiving in America…you will learn what the Pilgrims and Native Americans REALLY ate back then, how Thanksgiving became a national holiday, and much. much more. Interspersed with your history lessons are dozens of tasty recipes, as well as photographs and drawings from the vast archives of Plimoth Plantation.
And here we have the newly revised and updated edition of the Old Sturbridge Village Cookbook. I just bought* this book yesterday at the OSV museum shop. I already had the previous edition, but this new one is so much better organized than the last one, and also contains more recipes. I had been disappointed that the last edition did not contain the recipe for Gourd Soup, which we first had at one of OSV’s Hearthside Bounty dinners. But this edition does have it, and you MUST try it, it is so very, very yummie!
Old Sturbridge Village is a living history museum in Massachusetts which depicts New England life in the early to mid 1800’s. Of course, they didn’t have electricity back then, nor any of the fancy kitchen gadgets we have now. In those days, all of the cooking was done in the fireplace. If you visit OSV, you are likely to find a costumed interpreter demonstrating hearth cooking in any one of several exhibit houses.
The OSV cookbook is unique in that the recipes are presented both as they would have been cooked in the 1830’s, and the method for modern-day cooking. So, if you have a fireplace and some cast-iron pans (which is what they used to cook in back in the day), and you want to give hearth cooking a shot, this book will show you how. But, if you’re like me, living in a apartment and dreaming of having a fireplace one day, you can still re-create all of these great recipes the modern way!
The links I gave for both books go to Amazon. But if you buy them directly from the museum shops, a portion of the proceeds goes to help support the museums, which I think is an important thing. If you can’t get to these museum shops, you can always order the books from their online shops.
Happy reading…and eating!
*Disclosure: I am a member of both Old Sturbridge Village and Strawbery Banke museums, and was not compensated by them, nor by Plimoth Plantation, to promote the museums or their publications. I pay the annual membership dues just like everyone else who’s a member. I purchased both of these books, and only got the standard 10% discount that all members receive.
