A Measured Response
A New England History in Three Recipes
Maria Picariello
Citation: Picariello, Maria. “A Measured Response: A New England History in Three Recipes.” The Coalition of Master’s Scholars on Material Culture, October 16, 2020.
Abstract: What can a family cookbook from 1764 tell us about life in 18th century New England? Sarah Fayerweather’s receipt book was compiled in 1764 and passed down from generation to generation. These handwritten pages are not simply recipes frozen in time. They are a looking glass in which the careful observer can distinguish the nuances of New England’s colonial past. Scholars have focused primarily on published recipe books, but Fayerweather’s book reveals much about life in colonial New England, a world on the brink of revolution. Consider just three of the recipes it contains: one for rye and Indian meal cakes, another for ginger snaps, and an alleviant for abdomen pain. Through an analyzation of these three recipes, this personal receipt book provides an incisive study on the social, cultural, political, economic, and medical nuances that affected the daily lives of women in late-eighteenth-century Massachusetts.
Key words: colonial cookbook, colonial New England, colonial women, ancestry, recipe books, daily life
Sometimes the most mundane artifacts can provide an immense amount of historical information. Sarah Fayerweather’s receipt book was compiled in 1764 and passed down from generation to generation. This personal manuscript eventually found its way to the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University through a donation from a distant Fayerweather relative. Within these sixty-seven pages, one can find a recipe for everything ranging from calf’s foot jelly to Marlborough lemon pudding. Yet these handwritten pages are not simply recipes frozen in time. They are a looking glass in which the careful observer can distinguish the nuances of New England’s colonial past.
Although a definite history does not remain on Sarah Fayerweather, her life can be pieced together through the legacy of her cookbook. The yellowed, handwritten pages of the Fayerweather receipt book were the product of years of development and collaboration. This book is not merely a recitation of ingredients and measurements. There is a personal element that is impossible to ignore. The Fayerweather family cookbook provides an indirect account of their daily life. Vague patterns of culinary likes and dislikes can be traced based on the inclusion and exclusion of certain foods. This book also illuminates Sarah Fayerweather’s connection to other members of her New England community. Although the topic of female kinship will be expounded in depth in the proceeding pages, it is worth noting that most of the recipes at the end of the cookbook were attributed to other women in Sarah Fayerweather’s life. Some were attributed to Sarah’s family members, while others were shared through her local community.
The field of colonial cooking is well established and well documented. There is no shortage of historical literature available on early American cuisine. Food history, specifically, is an area that has recently received a lot of scholarly attention.[1] Although colonial manuscripts and cookbooks have been analyzed by historians, no one has provided a microhistory on the Sarah Fayerweather receipt book. Scholars have focused primarily on published recipe books, such as American Cookery (1796) by Amelia Simmons or Lydia Marie Child’s The Frugal Housewife (1829). Fayerweather’s book reveals much about life in colonial New England, a world on the brink of revolution.
Consider just three of the recipes it contains: one for rye and Indian meal cakes, another for ginger snaps, and an alleviant for abdomen pain. Each ingredient takes on a meaning that extends beyond the pages of Sarah’s book. The recipes are dissected to tease out the elements that are unique to colonial New England. Through an analyzation of these three recipes, this personal receipt book provides an incisive study on the social, cultural, political, economic, and medical nuances that affected the daily lives of women in late-eighteenth-century Massachusetts.
Who was Sarah Fayerweather?
Little concrete information remains on Sarah Fayerweather’s life, but much can be inferred from her extensive and varied book of recipes. The first step in tracing Sarah’s genealogy was a piece of information provided by the librarian at the Schlesinger Library. Although the Library has almost no information regarding the author, the distant Fayerweather relative who donated the receipt book mentioned that Sarah Fayerweather had married into the prominent Appleton family. The Appleton’s had an entrenched lineage in the Boston area. Sarah’s husband, John, was an acquaintance of Thomas Jefferson and her father-in-law, Nathaniel Appleton, was a successful businessman and civil servant.[2] In order to effectively analyze Sarah’s receipt book, her residence and class must first be determined.
At the time of the receipt book’s attribution in 1764, Sarah was estimated to be only five years old. It can be inferred that Sarah’s mother, also named Sarah Fayerweather, began compiling the recipes, and then passed down the book to her daughter once she reached maturity. Historians Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald indicate that often, “a housewife inherited a collection from a relation then added her own favorite dishes to the volume.”[3] A sudden change in handwriting midway through the receipt book confirms that Sarah Fayerweather Appleton must have picked up where her mother left off. For this research, Sarah will be referenced using her maiden name as inscribed on the receipt book. Genealogical research placed Sarah Fayerweather in eastern Massachusetts.[4] Sarah’s location was further narrowed based on several recipes in the cookbook that were attributed to newspapers articles published in Boston.[5] The Fayerweather book also contained numerous recipes that include fresh oysters and lobsters, which confirmed her proximity to the Atlantic.[6] [7] The integration of these native New England ingredients allows the careful observer to develop assumptions about the author and her peers.
There are hints, too, that Sarah Fayerweather occupied a comfortable status in society, which she would have as a member of the Appleton family. The fact that Sarah’s family was able to afford exotic ingredients, such as “cocoanut” and oranges, indicated that they may have been able to afford a domestic slave.[8] During this time, women who were wealthy would not cook and bake for themselves. Rather, enslaved people or servants oversaw the culinary matters. The Medford Historical Society and Museum asserted that Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island were the three New England states with the largest slave population. In fact, “by the mid 1700’s, there were as many as one African for every four white families in these three states.”[9] It is possible that enslaved people prepared recipes found within the pages of the Fayerweather receipt book.
The receipt book also demonstrates the obvious distinction that Sarah Fayerweather and her mother knew how to read and write. Over the years, the literacy rate in colonial America steadily increased for white women. The research of Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald estimated that “the percentage of females able to read and write rose from at most 40 percent at the end of the seventeenth century, to 60 percent in the 1760s, to 80 percent in the 1790s.”[10] Thus, the Fayerweather women were a part of this dynamic change in society. This dramatic statistic was the product of early New England colonial legislature. “In the first few decades of settlement, all the New England colonies except Rhode Island passed legislation requiring all households to teach reading to their children, girls as well as boys.”[11] This basic research provided a superficial overview of Sarah Fayerweather’s life; however, her recipes illuminate not only the intimacies of her life but also the idiosyncrasies of life in eighteenth-century New England.
Rye and Indian Meal Cakes
Rye, Indian meal, cream tartar, soda, salt, water, and molasses mix together to form small meal cakes.[12] These dense pieces of bread would typically be served alongside a main course of meat or vegetables. To soften its stiff texture, New Englanders would dunk the dark brown bread in milk or water. In fact, the crust was so stiff that it was used instead of a spoon for stews and porridges.[13] Eighteenth century New Englanders feasted on rye and Indian meal cakes, and similar breads, as a regular part of their diet. This everyday staple illuminates the agricultural, political, economic, and cultural factors that affected eighteenth century white women in New England. The development of this recipe was the product of years of trial and error. Bread, pudding, or cake typically accompanied traditional English dinners. Wheat was a necessary ingredient to recreate these English foods and early Massachusetts colonists wanted to replicate the diet of their homeland. Early Massachusetts colonists “intended to plant wheat and rye, as well as oats, buckwheat, and field peas.”[14] The rocky New England soil, however, made cultivation of these grains difficult and time consuming. Many regions of Massachusetts were not able to grow their own wheat. The wheat crop would flourish in the warm weather and freeze in the cold weather.[15] To compensate for the declining wheat production, farmers began cultivating rye to supplement the scarcity of available wheat.[16] The prices for imported wheat increased and created a divergence in culinary standards. Wheat flour created fluffier breads and flakier crust. Not only was wheat flour better for baking, it was also a status symbol. Only the upper crust of society could afford this grain. Although eighteenth century colonists preferred wheat breads, many could not afford this delicacy. As a substitute, Indian corn gradually inched its way into their traditionally European cuisine.With the help of Native American tribes, these early New England settlers quickly learned that indigenous Indian corn was better adapted for this climate.[17] Although the early colonists initially resisted the integration of Indian corn, it eventually became a staple of New England diet. “Corn is raised with less expense of ploughing and manual labor.”[18] The Middlesex County estate inventories showed that “Indian corn was the most common cereal… and it remained the standard bread grain for two hundred years.”[19] Since Indian corn grew so well in New England, even families with small landholdings could grow this grain on their property. By 1764, families, such as the Fayerweather’s, would be accustomed to this indigenous New England ingredient. Sarah Fayerweather’s simple meal cake recipe also illuminates political and economic relations in eighteenth century New England. The Fayerweather family’s proximity to the ocean afforded them access to many trade goods, such as molasses, sugar, and rum. The fishing industry, and its successes in early colonial times, contributed to the development of the far-reaching trade system in New England. In The Economy of British America, 1607-1789, the overseas fishing industry “concentrated capital in shipping, stimulated improvements in ship design and navigational techniques, and served as a ‘nursery of seamen,’ of masters and mariners competent in transatlantic voyages.”[20] An emphasis was placed on the maritime industry in this region. The fisheries fostered the New England shipbuilding industry, which was substantial as early as the mid-seventeenth century.[21] Accessibility to ports, seamen, and ships created a hub for trans-Atlantic trade. In fact, colonial Boston had over twenty shipyards and hundreds of maritime artisans.[22] As a result, New England developed a well-integrated commercial economy based on trade. Sarah Fayerweather’s manuscript thus elicited “the degree to which Boston eaters benefited from their city’s connections to other colonial American ports, British holdings in Canada and the Caribbean, and Europe.”[23] Although Sarah Fayerweather did not live in Boston, she benefited from the spoils of its healthy economy. Her proximity to these overseas goods, such as molasses, allowed her to create a wide range of foods—including her rye and Indian meal cakes.Molasses became a contested item between the colonial empires of this time. In 1764, the French were still recovering from their losses in the Seven Years’ War. The need to repay British debts and recreate a successful colonial empire motivated the French to loosen their strict trade restrictions in their colonies in the West Indies. The French government dismantled their monopoly and began covertly trading with the English colonies. In response to the widening of French trade routes and their own massive debts incurred by the Seven Years’ War, Great Britain ratified the Sugar Act. This British legislation aimed to end the smuggling of sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies and provide “increased revenues to fund enlarged British Empire responsibilities following the French and Indian War.”[24] In this sense, the Sugar Act allowed the British to enforce strong customs duties on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies from non-British Caribbean sources. This lucrative and efficient molasses production caused the West Indies to become a pawn in international colonial demarcation.As expected, the Sugar Act produced a ripple effect on the Atlantic trade and economy. The passage of the Sugar Act coincided with the relaxation of the French exclusive system, which further intensified colonial resentment. The colonists believed that the French would have been valuable trading partners and could have helped expand their network of exchange. Despite the efforts of both French and British officials to enforce their trade regulations, “the higher prices for French products offered by traders in the British colony, rendered the suppression of contraband trade virtually impossible.”[25] The French West Indies produced an immense amount of sugar and molasses. On the French island of Martinique, the “bulk of the imports was in rice, flour, fish, and lumber of all kinds. The largest exports were molasses, soap, wine, and brandies” to the New England colonies.[26] The prevalence of molasses on the market allowed for its affordability. Sarah Fayerweather’s receipt book contains numerous recipes that include molasses. The Sugar Act, however, created a resentment among New Englanders towards the British. Always thought to be equals with their European counterparts, the Act made the New Englanders feel inferior and powerless. This resentment would be perpetuated and compounded in the years leading up to the Revolution.The rye and Indian corn meal cake recipe conveys not only the agricultural, political and economic factors of the eighteenth century, but also the cultural distinctions of this region. This recipe projects an image of life in colonial Massachusetts. The ingredients are local to America, yet carry a semblance of European cuisine. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, a distinct New England culture developed. Colonists no longer tolerated, but embraced the indigenous ingredients, such as Indian corn. Historian Katharina Vester states, “Maize was a New World starch European writers generally dismissed as animal fodder.”[27] One of the most vocal proponents of Indian corn was Benjamin Franklin, who sang the grain’s praises in his letters. He used terms such as “wholesome,” “pleasing,” and “delicacy” to describe this once begrudgingly accepted corn.[28] According to Franklin, “[t]he flour of mayz, mix'd with that of wheat, makes excellent bread, sweeter and more agreable than that of wheat alone.”[29] In that sense, Franklin attempted to boost the attributes of the American colonies through culinary propaganda. Vester goes on to say, “[w]hen American authors such as Franklin embraced corn and its products in the revolutionary era, they were engaging in a political act. Corn as an image for the determination of the colonies trickled into popular culture, as in the revolutionary anthem ‘Yankee Doodle.’”[30] As the rift between the English and Americans intensified, colonists distinguished themselves by embracing their uniquely American attributes, such as Indian corn. Indian corn morphed from a staple of New England cuisine to a political force. Thus, a combination of resentment towards Parliament and necessity to adapt to American climate fostered the prevalence of American ingredient-based recipes. Not only were political allegiances shifting during this time, social and gender norms were evolving. These advancements can be appreciated through an analyzation of Sarah Fayerweather’s ginger snap recipe.
Ginger Snaps
The Fayerweather family recipe for ginger snaps is one of the many desserts offered in the receipt book. Its measurements are both exact and estimated. Sarah called for a pint and a half of flour and “a piece of butter half as large as an egg.”[31] She again incorporated molasses and soda, but this time she included spices. The ginger and caraway seeds were a stark divergence from the otherwise bland palate of most other Fayerweather recipes. This was perhaps due to the fact that Sarah did not create the recipe; a woman by the name of Cassie Haven contributed this recipe to the book. Within this ginger snap recipe, one can tease out some of the gendered and social underpinnings of colonial New England society.
In the 1760s, the social networks of New Englanders evolved and expanded. These changes were rooted in the development of a healthy economy and improved agricultural techniques. An improved standard of living translated into an expendable income for many individuals. White women, although still considered inferior to white men, began to enjoy some new liberties as a result of these changes. Families, such as the Fayerweather’s, were able to entertain guests and host social gatherings. Women were at the center of these gatherings. Entertaining was no longer reserved for the wealthy citizens. Thus, desserts became a distinguishing marker of this social change.
As previously mentioned, New England coastal areas benefited from the successes of the trans-Atlantic trade. As a result, “New England's economy flourished in the three decades before the Revolution” and, thus, wages increased.[32] Improvements in food preservation and farming techniques ushered in a higher standard of living and a more substantial diet for the New England colonists. According to historian Sarah McMahon, gradual agricultural changes allowed New England farmers to improve the “quantity and variety of their standard fare and overcame traditional limitations on the availability of both fresh and preserved foods.”[33] Consequently, these changes produced a trickle-down effect on the economy and overall health of the colonists. Improved farming techniques not only allowed for less manual labor in the field, but also allowed farmers to produce more crops. Food prices decreased, making it possible for families to cook more substantial meals that included desserts, such as ginger snaps.
An increase in the standard of living and an established trade industry laid the foundation for a consumer revolution in New England in the 1740s. By the 1760s, New Englanders were fully engrossed in this social shift. An emphasis on consumer goods would have certainly been felt by the Fayerweather family. Their inclusion of numerous dessert recipes points to their participation in this social phenomenon. This revolution was said to have occurred in both Great Britain and North America in the eighteenth century. Colonists spent more of their discretionary income on items for entertaining others. The increase in standard of living caused a shift towards a more social community. Historians Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald noticed that “[f]amilies began owning more chairs than they needed for their own use, indicating that they intended to have repeated occasion to make such a declaration of good breeding when people outside the family came in and used the chairs.”[34] The increase in household chairs demonstrated society’s emphasis on good hospitality. It became the cultural norm to provide comfort to visitors. These comforts would have included a dedicated seat and dessert, such as ginger snaps. Curiously, this consumer revolution affected the shape of the kitchen tables. Stavely and Fitzgerald note that the main purpose of the new round or oval tables “were for taking meals with invited guests and offered a different meaning.” These “tables without corners” established a connection between men and women who valued the arts of civility.[35] The New England town of Wethersfield contains probate inventories that show an increase in possession of round and oval tables from four in the 1720s to eighty-nine in the 1770s.[36] It was also during this time that dining rooms entered the scene of the American household. The “new type of design- and color-coordinated space for the exhibition of refinement and gentility was the ‘dyning room,’ in which one was to partake of meals with one’s social equals.”[37] Though it is not known if the Fayerweather family had a “dying room” of their own, one can assume they entertained many guests with their numerous recipes for cakes, cookies, and pies. New Englanders were no longer eating for mere sustenance. They were creating and developing cuisine, and sharing these recipes with others, as demonstrated by the ginger snap recipe.
These Fayerweather recipes demonstrate the importance of social comradery in everyday life in colonial New England. The numerous attributions in Sarah’s Fayerweather’s receipt book highlights the influence of peers on everyday life. For example, the Rye and Indian Meal Cake recipe was attributed to a woman by the name of “J. T. Haven.” In fact, Historian Barbara Ketcham Wheaton notes that both ““recipe” and “receipt” derive from the late Latin recipere, to receive.”[38] In this sense, Sarah Fayerweather’s manuscript acted as “a means of preserving and disseminating the culinary tips and fashions…often over the course of a lifetime.”[39] Women in eighteenth century New England connected with other women, not out of sheer necessity, but out of a desire to socialize.
Since the matters of the home fell within the female sphere, colonial women were at the forefront of this shift in society. Women, like Sarah Fayerweather, experienced a revival of female kinship. Socializing and entertaining became an important part of life. The Fayerweather receipt book demonstrates this emphasis on female social networks through its extensive list of recipes attributed to other women, including the recipe for ginger snaps. Moreover, Wheaton argued that, in manuscripts such as Fayerweather’s, “if the attributions are abundant, a whole network of kinship, neighborhood, and domestic staff can be traced.”[40] Fayerweather and her mother must have been immersed in a large community of neighborhood women. “Recipes were collected from cookbooks that circulated informally among friends and relations. Some were original to the cook.”[41] The forces of the consumer revolution and the improved standard of living combined to revive a sense of female community in eighteenth century New England.
Moreover, Sarah Fayerweather’s ginger snap recipe provides an overview of women’s role in society. In the early days of settlement, farming families assigned gender roles based on physical ability. While the men worked in the fields, the women performed less demanding tasks within the home. Although much had changed agriculturally and economically in Sarah’s world since the seventeenth century, “gender ordered male and female spheres in ways that went beyond obvious physical distinctions.”[42] These ideas of physical and mental abilities continued into the eighteenth century. Ongoing, substantive transformations encouraged the feminization of some tasks, skills, and occupations in New England. Healing and caregiving, cloth making, shoemaking, and teaching saw particularly dramatic reconfigurations along gendered lines in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.[43] Historian Gloria Main provided a summation of gender roles at this time:
Religion, custom, and law combined to reinforce patriarchal authority over the household, but all three also supported separate spheres of responsibility for husband and wife. This division helped maintain respect between spouses by giving wives an area of clear authority over resources, children, and servants. Perhaps keeping out of each other's way also promoted harmony in cultures, such as in colonial New England's, that afforded little scope to self-assertiveness for females.[44]
In this sense, cooking, baking, and cleaning were not merely chores for Sarah Fayerweather; it was her entire life. Women did not have much autonomy outside the home during this time. “Society judged women according to how well they performed as wives, mothers, and neighbors.”[45] The extensive Fayerweather receipt book indicates that Sarah aimed to reach this standard and valued the opinion of others. Katharina Vester asserted “The realm of food had traditionally given women a space to engage politically without overstepping the boundaries of propriety.”[46] Baking also allowed colonial women the opportunity to interact with the outside world. By making these ginger snaps, Sarah Fayerweather was able to remain within her domestic realm, while simultaneously engaging with other women or families. Creating a recipe that yields a large quantity of product connotes the idea that the baked good was created to share with others. Thus, the ginger snaps, and other dessert recipes, allowed Sarah Fayerweather a means of interacting and conversing outside the home. Women in colonial New England not only nurtured social relationships, they also cared for the wellbeing of their family members.
Bilious Cholick
As previously mentioned, colonial New England women tended to the matters of the home. Part of these responsibilities included caregiving and healing. When members of the household fell ill, it was the woman’s responsibility to care for the sick. Sarah Fayerweather’s receipt book contains numerous holistic recipes. A lack of scientific knowledge in the 1760s created this holistic approach to medicine. Remedies were often created using common household items. “In the face of devastating epidemics such as smallpox or more mundane complaints like stomach ailments and earaches, Americans treated themselves with butter, salt, rum, sugar, nutmeg, crab’s claws, and other foods that in another setting would have looked like elements of a typical meal.”[47] One such recipe in the Fayerweather book was dedicated to treating “bilious cholick.” This at-home remedy demonstrates the lack of medicinal knowledge in colonial New England and the colonists’ dependence on holistic treatments.
During Sarah Fayerweather’s time, abdomen pain that was accompanied by fever, drowsiness, and vomiting was diagnosed as “bilious cholick." Today, this abdomen pain is referred to as “biliary colic.”[48] This sudden pain occurs due to a gallbladder blockage in the cystic duct.[49] Without the proper surgical procedure, this discomfort is apt to return. Sarah Fayerweather needed to identify this abdomen pain in one of her family members and diagnose it as bilious cholick. The existence of this medicinal recipe solidified the idea that colonial women were a jack of all trades. Though they were socially and economically limited, women carried an immense amount of responsibility within the home.
Sarah Fayerweather’s remedy for bilious cholick contained lime juice, brandy, castile soap, “hogs fatt,” and molasses. Molasses and sugar were often thought to have substantial medicinal qualities. Stavely and Fitzgerald noted that sugar “played a significant part in the remedies collected by those who kept handwritten recipes.”[50] English food historian C. Anne Wilson stated that:
sugar’s ‘medical reputation’ was especially high in the early modern world. It was offered to the sick in many forms. It might be combined with powdered licorice, aniseed, or coriander to make cough cures, or melted into a syrup and mixed with violets and rose petals to reduce ‘burning agues’ and ‘purge choler and melancholy.’[51]
Based on the ingredients of Sarah’s remedy, one can assume that this medicine took the form of a syrup. It is possible that the alcohol found in the brandy was a means of numbing the pain. The thick “hogs fatt” may have acted as a binding element. The inclusion of certain ingredients must be analyzed through the mindset of eighteenth-century colonists. Their impression of medicine was founded in an ancient Greek notion of balance.
Much of the medical knowledge at this time was rooted in a concept that the human body consisted of four elements. According to humoralism, all things were composed of these four elements: fire, air, earth, and water, which had the qualities of hot, cold, dry, and wet, respectively.[52] It was necessary to maintain a balance of these elements to remain in good health. The correct mixture of the humors gave the body its color, odor, and structure. Colonists thought that as long as the humors combined in the right proportion, the organs would function properly. Disease came from an excess of one of the humors. For instance, if there was an imbalance of moisture, then the remedy must include an agent that would induce dryness. The various medicines were thought to act specifically on the different humors. “One type was necessary for phlegm; quite another was needed to dispel the black bile that weighed on the spirits of a hypochondriac.”[53] In colonial New England, the frigid temperatures of winter would have an adverse effect on the body. Colonists believed that cold weather induced a sickness that was a consequence of a chilling of the elements of the body. The Fayerweather recipe for bilious cholick instructed the reader to serve the medicine hot. It can be inferred that the goal was to counteract the cold element in the body. It may have also been necessary to serve the remedy hot as a means of congealing the mixture of solids and liquids. It is equally possible that this assortment of ingredients was only ingestible when warmed. Sarah Fayerweather’s recipe attempted to bring the body back to equilibrium through the inclusion of ingredients designed to counteract the imbalance.
Thus, the Fayerweather recipe was developed using common household items. A home remedy allowed for a quick and convenient alleviant. Though it utilized common ingredients, it was thought to have medicinal qualities. People during this time believed that the “world was one great pharmacy and God had placed on each substance some cryptic signature to indicate the disease for which it was good. Man's duty was to decipher this label by noting color, odor, form, and other marks.”[54] The colonists attempted to work within their means. Through trial and error, one could hopefully find a treatment.
Medicine in colonial New England was far from the science of today. “Ranging from the sheerest absurdities to the chance findings of trial and error,” the remedies and treatments of this time present a crude method of relief.[55] Although Sarah Fayerweather’s receipt book was written in the mid-eighteenth century, colonists abided by an ancient Greek view of medicine. Despite technological advances in agriculture and preservation, colonists in 1764 continued to follow this view of the human body. Aside from the visiting physicians, which were often quite expensive, colonists were forced to try and uncover their own means of salvation for common ailments.
Although modern medical information was not available in the eighteenth century, colonial physicians had a fairly accurate idea of the qualifications of bilious cholick. Many physicians’ writings from colonial times correctly identified “stones” in their references to bilious cholick. These writings were impressively accurate in their depiction of “stones” in the body since gallstone formation occurs from the precipitation of crystals. A seventeenth century physician described the scene of a patient suffering from bilious cholick. The physician wrote, “I have seen Symptoms occasioned by it resembling exactly the Stone in the Bladder.” The patient was suddenly “seized with a violent pain in the region of the Bladder, and with a suppression of Urine; and having understood that she was subject to many Hysterick Indispositions, I thought the Disease was not that they imagined it to be.[56] In modern times, these gallbladder attacks are typically treated with surgery; however, the Fayerweather family proscribed a home remedy to deal with these unfortunate illness. At this time, even physicians were powerless to cure this disease that was destined to take its natural course.
Conclusion
A bounty of information can be determined based on a single family’s receipt book. A careful examination of just three recipes allows for an in-depth examination of the underpinnings of late eighteenth-century Massachusetts’ society. Numerous recipes might have been included, such as, Fayerweather’s alcohol recipes for mead, currant wine, and cherry wine. In fact, an entirely new research paper could be written comparing Sarah Fayerweather’s medicinal home remedies with the Native American holistic approach to medicine in New England. There is certainly no limit to the variety of subjects available within this single manuscript.
In this sense, the recipes were somewhat arbitrarily chosen. The idea is that a deep dive into any of the numerous recipes can provide a wealth of information on this period in New England. Through an analyzation of the ingredients, preparations, and attributions, each recipe can provide a unique element of focus. The goal is to place the reader in Sarah Fayerweather’s shoes. A careful eye can see that the ingredients and recipes in Sarah Fayerweather’s receipt book are not as simple as they appear. They provide signposts for the struggles and successes for white women in New England. Thus, the book she created is truly a product of its time.
The Rye and Indian meal cakes recipe allows one to analyze the trade, politics, and environmental forces that went into its ingredients. The ginger snaps recipe provides a jumping off point for further exploration of social and gender norms, while the recipe for bilious cholick affords the ability to investigate ideas about medicine and the human body at this time. A careful eye can see that the ingredients and recipes in Sarah Fayerweather’s receipt book are not as simple as they appear. It is remarkable that a seemingly unimportant colonist in pre-Revolutionary New England provides so much invaluable information for historians of colonial America.
Endnotes
[1] Dessa E. Lightfoot, ""God Sends Meat and the Devil Sends Cooks": Meat Usage and Cuisine in Eighteenth-Century English Colonial America." 2018. and Kelley Fanto Deetz, Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2017. The writings of Dessa E. Lightfoot and Kelley Fanto Deetz are a couple examples of this resurgence of colonial cuisine research. Their works, ““God Sends Meat and the Devil Sends Cooks”: Meat Usage and Cuisine in Eighteenth-Century English Colonial America and Bound to the Fire: How Virginia's Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine, respectively, detail the multiple influences that led to the development of the American diet.
[2] Thomas Jefferson, “To Thomas Jefferson from John Appleton, 1 October 1802,” in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Barbara Oberg, vol. 38 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-38-02-0395.
[3] Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, “Culinary Tradition,” in United Tastes, The Making of the First American Cookbook (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017), 29.
[4] "Sarah Fayerweather Family Tree," Ancestry database, accessed May 4, 2019, https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/family-tree/person/tree/102098237/person/210015626100/story.
[5] Fayerweather, “Cookbook of Sarah Fayerweather, 1764,” 37.
[6] Fayerweather, “Cookbook of Sarah Fayerweather, 1764,” 46.
[7] Fayerweather, “Cookbook of Sarah Fayerweather, 1764,” 21.
[8] Fayerweather, “Cookbook of Sarah Fayerweather, 1764” 11, 16.
[9] “Slaves in New England,” Medford Historical Society & Museum (blog), accessed April 22, 2019.
[10] Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, “Culinarily Colonized: Cookbooks in Colonial New England,” in Northern Hospitality, (University of Massachusetts Press, 2011), 20.
[11] Stavely and Fitzgerald, “Culinarily Colonized,” 20.
[12] Fayerweather, “Cookbook of Sarah Fayerweather, 1764,” 49.
[13] Sarah F. McMahon, “A Comfortable Subsistence: The Changing Composition of Diet in Rural New England, 1620-1840,” William and Mary Quarterly 42, no. 1 (1985): 33.
[14] McMahon, “A Comfortable Subsistence,” 31.
[15] McMahon, “A Comfortable Subsistence,” 32.
[16] McMahon, “A Comfortable Subsistence,” 32.
[17] McMahon, “A Comfortable Subsistence,” 31.
[18] Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, “Agriculture, Fishing, Horticulture,” in United Tastes, The Making of the First American Cookbook (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017), 149.
[19] McMahon, “A Comfortable Subsistence,” 32.
[20] John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, “New England And Atlantic Canada,” in The Economy of British America, 1607-1789, (University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 98.
[21] McCusker and Menard. “New England And Atlantic Canada,” 99.
[22] Joseph F. Cullon, “Colonial Shipwrights and Their World: Men, Women, and Markets in Early New England” (PhD diss., The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2003), 204.
[23] Theresa McCulla, “Food in Colonial North America,” Harvard University, 2016, http://colonialnorthamerica.library.harvard.edu/spotlight/cna/feature/food-in-colonial-north-america.
[24] “Sugar Act | Summary & Facts,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed April 15, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/event/Sugar-Act.
[25] Dorothy Burne Goebel, “The ‘New England Trade’ and the French West Indies, 1763-1774: A Study in Trade Policies,” William and Mary Quarterly 20, no. 3 (1963): 354.
[26] Goebel, “The ‘New England Trade’ and the French West Indies, 1763-1774: A Study in Trade Policies,” 352.
[27] Katharina Vester. “For All Grades of Life’: The Making of a Republican Cuisine,” in A Taste of Power, 1st ed., (University of California Press, 2015), 22.
[28] Nathan G. Goodman, ed. “Indian Corn,” in The Ingenious Dr. Franklin, Selected Scientific Letters of Benjamin Franklin (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1931), 76.
[29] Goodman, ed. “Indian Corn,” 77.
[30] Vester, “For All Grades of Life’: The Making of a Republican Cuisine,” 23.
[31] Fayerweather, “Cookbook of Sarah Fayerweather, 1764,” 48.
[32] Gloria L. Main, “Gender, Work, and Wages in Colonial New England,” William and Mary Quarterly 51, no. 1 (1994): 49.
[33] McMahon, "A Comfortable Subsistence: The Changing Composition of Diet in Rural New England, 1620-1840," 45.
[34] Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, “Domestic Culture,” in United Tastes, The Making of the First American Cookbook (University of Massachusetts Press, 2017), 127.
[35] Stavely and Fitzgerald, “Domestic Culture,” 128.
[36] Stavely and Fitzgerald, “Domestic Culture,” 128.
[37] Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald, “Culinarily Colonized: Cookbooks in Colonial New England,” in Northern Hospitality, (University of Massachusetts Press, 2011), 22.
[38] Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, “Cookbooks as Resources for Social History,” in Food in Time and Place, ed. Paul Freedman, Joyce E. Chaplin, and Ken Albala, 1st ed., (University of California Press, 2014), 277.
[39] Keith Stavely, and Kathleen Fitzgerald, “Culinary Tradition,” 31.
[40] Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, “Cookbooks as Resources for Social History,” 285.
[41] Keith Stavely, and Kathleen Fitzgerald, “Culinary Tradition,” 29.
[42] Gloria L. Main, “Gender, Work, and Wages in Colonial New England,” William and Mary Quarterly 51, no. 1 (1994): 56.
[43] Marla R. Miller, "Introduction: Early American Artisanry Why Gender Matters," in The Needle's Eye: Women and Work in the Age of Revolution, (University of Massachusetts Press, 2006), 6.
[44] Main, “Gender, Work, and Wages in Colonial New England,” 39.
[45] Amy D. Schwartz, “Colonial New England Agriculture: Old Visions, New Directions,” Agricultural History 69, no. 3 (1995): 468.
[46] Vester, “For All Grades of Life’: The Making of a Republican Cuisine,” 31.
[47] McCulla, Food in Colonial North America, http://colonialnorthamerica.library.harvard.edu/spotlight/cna/feature/food-in-colonial-north-america.
[48] The Whole Works of ... Dr. T. S. ... Translated from the Original Latin, by J. Pechy, Etc. R. Wellington, 1697, 158.
[49] “Gallstones | NIDDK,” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, accessed April 20, 2019, https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/gallstones.
[50] Stavely, and Fitzgerald, “Culinary Tradition,” 30.
[51] Stavely, and Fitzgerald, “Culinary Tradition,” 30.
[52] Gary Alexander Puckrein, “Humoralism and Social Development in Colonial America,” JAMA 245, no. 17 (1981): 1755.
[53] David Harris, “Medicine in Colonial America,” (California and Western Medicine, 1939), 416.
[54] Harris, “Medicine in Colonial America,” 417.
[55] Harris, “Medicine in Colonial America,” 38.
[56] The Whole Works of ... Dr. T. S. ... Translated from the Original Latin, by J. Pechy, Etc. R. Wellington, 1697, 158.
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