Tag Archives: 1790s

More about salads – and vegetables

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Salad has a long history. One source I read claimed that the Greeks and Romans ate mixed greens with dressing.

I have salad recipes in my Queen Elizabeth I and King Richard cookbooks although they also include things like figs and are sweeter than we normally think of salad, which is now seen as more of a healthy food. The recipes from these renaissance cookbooks read more like dessert.

Besides wild greens and the tops of beets and turnips, early American farmers also grew several varieties of lettuce, cucumbers, radishes. What’s missing from the usual American salad? Why, tomatoes. Although now considered Italian, tomatoes are actually, like potatoes, from South America It was brought to Europe by Spain. And, a member of the nightshade family, it was considered a poison. It was not eaten at all during the Colonial period ( and grown as a decorative plant) but by the early 1800s was popular as a food. One story lists Thomas Jefferson as the who began planting and eating tomatoes. He was a passionate gardener who tried new foods but we don’t really know for sure.

But I digress. Cucumbers were frequently used as a salad and I have found old recipes for cucumber salad which usually consists of chopped cucumbers and vinegar.

Other vegetables: artichokes, onions, garlic, parsnips, asparagus and of course things like cabbage were popular. We think of the diet at this time as meat heavy, and it was, but cheese and diary and grains, as well as the vegetables, were also a big part of the diet.

I always mention food in my books. I’m a gardener myself and clearly a foodie – which regular readers of my blog can surely tell. And I find it fascinating to discover what our forefathers ate and didn’t eat. Sometimes it is surprising.

food in the 1790’s – salad and maple syrup

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Although trading went on, most food eaten was, by necessity, local. The port cities like Salem could import oranges, nuts, figs and more but for the outlying farms these items were exotic luxuries.

Salad (or salat) has been eaten for hundreds of years. Greens such as beet and turnip tops and spinach, cabbage are all greens that might be used. For the early New Englander, wild greens such as dandelion greens or violets would be eaten. (Fiddleheads are still eaten by Mainers, cooked of course, and have a flavor similar to spinach.) Our idea of a salad with lettuce and tomato was not the salad eaten by the early colonists. One of the memoirs from this time expressed a hunger for greens after a winter of salted and smoked food.

Poke weed was also used as a salad green. It is, however, poisonous, although the very young leaves – from accounts I have read – are not. I haven’t tried them. I have also read that the leaves are edible after cooking three or four times, discarding the water in between.

One note: since the native American tribes knew how to tap the sap from maple trees, maple syrup quickly became a staple. It was used as both lightly boiled sap, and the syrup we are more familiar with today.

 

 

Devil’s Cold Dish – contracts and edits

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I am happy to announce that I received both the contracts and the edits for the Devil’s Cold Dish.

devils

The contracts have been signed and  put  in the mail.

I am still working on the edits but they are almost done. These are line edits; i.e. the editor goes over the manuscript and comments/questions items. This is when the editor has the author correct the manuscript – are there too many repetitions of the same information? Does the plot need some changes? Too many characters?

I enjoy this part of the editing because it makes me think of the manuscript and the story in a new way. Confusing sections are clarified and sometimes I take the opportunity to expand on something. this is my chance to look at the story with fresh eyes – for good or ill since I can either think this book is good or terrible.

The next time I see the manuscript I will be working on copy edits which I don’t like at all. This is grammatical mistakes, any double periods I haven’t caught. If I haven’t paid close enough attention to the time line, I can be sure the copy editor will pick it up.

Witches and witchcraft – beyond Salem

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Although I don’t address witchcraft of the trials in Death in Salem, I write about a period 100 years later, I do use it in The Devil’s Cold Dish.I am fascinated by the persistent belief in witches. Although the trials ended before 1700 and reparations began to be paid to surviving victims and families of the executed, belief in witches and the trials did not end then. As I have written in other posts, belief – and accusations – continued well into the 1800’s. ( And actually into modern times ). With Halloween only days away, it seems appropriate to address the topic again. The craze in Massacheusetts came after several centuries of the trials and burnings in Europe. Belief in magic was widespread. Girls used spells to try and see the faces of future husbands and superstitions regarding illness, birth, harvest were rife. Harelips were caused when the mother saw a rabbit, birth marks because the mother ate strawberries, for example. One of my favorites: to protect a mother and child during birth put an ear of corn on the mother’s belly. Reasons given for the explosion of belief and hangings in Salem are many. I just read several pieces on Tituba. Variously described as an Indian or a black slave, her testimony apparently drove much of the content of the stories and was a direct cause of the eventual hangings of women described as her confederates. (Although they all protested their innocence, sixteen were hanged. Tituba was set free.) A shadowy character, she has been also described as practicing voodoo. Her testimony. at least to me, reads more like the Christian belief in demons and the devil. Once she was released, however, she, like the girls whose fits started the terror, faded into obscurity. By the late eighteen hundreds her name was used to frighten children and she is shown in illustrations in the witches’s black dress holding her broom. Considering the amazing staying power of accusations, one has to wonder about the psychology behind these beliefs. Of course malice plays a huge role as does mysogyny. But why the belief in evil supernatural powers and submission to the Devil? I still have trouble wrapping my mind around it.

Goodreads Giveaway – Cradle to Grave

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Beginning November 1, I am beginning a giveaway of twenty copies of Cradle to Grave.

cradle to grave

This is my third book and of the four I have published, and the one coming out next spring, is the one with the most emotional resonance for me. My daughter had had a baby the year before. There were some problems and she had to have a C-section. Then there were some problems with the baby, most of which he has grown out of of. That poor kid was in the hospital more times than I can count.

I had already come across the practice of warning out in my research for A Simple Murder and Death of a Dyer but it wasn’t an appropriate topic for those books. (And I must say, the research for the first two and then Death in Salem were a lot more fun. I love Salem, the Shakers are fascinating and, for Death of a Dyer, I messed around with dyes for months. The research was pretty grim for Cradle.) But I started thinking, what happens to single mothers? How would I feel if I had children and was trying to feed and raise them? What happens to orphans? How could a single mother even try to fight the power structure?

At the same time, I read an article in the New York Times about the practice in Las Vegas of rounding up the homeless and shipping them to California. The more things change, the more they remain the same, right?

I was also babysitting some older children so their mother could work. So, I based Jerusha, Simon and Nancy  on these kids, and the mixed race foundling that no one wanted is my first grandson.

I had to have a happy ending. Spoiler alert.

It may not be the best mystery of the lot but, for me, it has the most heart and the one that means the most to me.

 

 

Horses, buggies, wagons, and Will Rees

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Well, we have had a wide-ranging journey through the domestication of horses and the invention of wagons and buggies.

 

This is one of the things I find so incredible: horses (as well as donkeys, asses and other equines) were not only the main form of transportation for almost 9000 years, they were, except for shanks mare – i.e. walking –the only form. By the time of Will Rees in the late eighteenth century, wagons and buggies were polished and elegant inventions.

 

Okay, I can just hear someone saying ‘But what about shocks?’ Right, they didn’t have shocks. But the front wheels were slightly smaller than the rear and they were cupped to make for smooth turning. The axle, as mentioned before, is equipped with other pieces to make the operation both smooth and efficient.

 

And horses have been domesticated for literally millennia.

 

What does this mean? Well, as with dogs and the other livestock, (cattle, pigs, sheep) they are used to human companionship. Training a horse is a lot easier (I would say it requires) human contact from a very early age. Horses not only have to accept human companionship but also direction. They have to be trained to a bit and reins. If intended for a saddle horse, the animal has to accept a saddle and the weight of a rider as something normal. Horses destined to pull vehicles have to learn, besides the feel of the bit and reins, to accept the weight and the clatter of something following (Remember, horses are prey so they instinctually run).

 

In Rees’s time, most of the horses were trained as working horses, pulling wagons and buggies. Saddle horses were expensive and, as had been the case for several centuries, were pretty much owned and used only by the wealthy. A horse trained to pull a wagon could not serve also as a saddle horse unless it had been trained as one also. Horses were divided into the aristocrats and the cobs. The working and middle classes ( and I think of Rees as middle class since he owns property and has a craft) did not have the wherewithal to own saddle horses. They needed workers that pulled vehicles.

 

Of course things are different now.

 

For a time horses continued to be used simultaneously with the car. But gradually the engine took over. Although the Amish continue to use horses as they have been for thousands of years, for most of us, the horse has become a luxury animal. And it happened in less than one hundred years.

 

But not completely. One of my readers referred me to an organization that strives to keep the skills of using horses and oxen alive. Since the use of these animals are more sustainable in Africa than tractors, farmers there are assisted in their use. Thanks Kim for that information! I love it.

Wheels

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Wheels did not exist before 4000 BCE But within a few hundred years pictures of wheels were turning up on pottery and whole wagons were turning up in graves. As I mentioned in a previous post, wheels are not the only invention necessary for a wagon. Axles and axle arms are important for smooth turning of the wheels. Since, at this time, all the wagon pieces would be carved from wood, everything had to fit perfectly. Too loose and the wheels wobbled, too tight and the wheels struggled to turn. Drag, (remember I mentioned drag?) meant that these early wagons were narrow. Some of the wagons found in these old old graves are only three feet wide.

 

Wagons had to have something that connected to the draft animal: called harness pole, traces etc. Yes, by the time that wheels and then wagons were invented, horses had already been domesticated. But more about that later.

 

Later on, say 5000 years later, most of these inventions had been fine tuned. Wagons, such as the one my character Rees would drive, would be wide, fairly heavy, but constructed in such a way it rode smoothly over the crummy roads of the time. The front wheels would be smaller than the back ones, to turn easily, and also slightly cupped. The axle, although still made of wood, had other pieces attached, and by now most were made of iron. The wheels had spokes and iron rims. Sounds relatively simple, doesn’t it? Well, not so much. Even without brakes, there are a number of other parts, with names like bolster stake and flange and hound braces. (Really.)

 

Before 1860, most wagons were hand built by blacksmiths, wheelwrights and carpenters, probably all three.

 

Wheels are arguably one of the most important, if not the most important, inventions in human history. Although humans have always wandered, wheeled vehicles made us really mobile, and mobile as communities. Some of the early settlers on the steppes moved from place to place as a lifestyle. For those who settled, wagons enabled the farmers to carry manure to the fields and produce back home. In American history, the wagon is an icon. Think of the Conestoga – canvas covering over a wagon body.

 

But to be truly efficient, a wheeled vehicle has to have an animal to pull it. The Incas had wheels – which they used on toys – but they had no access to draft animals. The llama is not built properly to pull wagons. (And that’s not even mentioning the topography of the Incan Empire – high mountains, deep valleys and lots of up and down in -between)

 

Oxen are certainly one choice, in fact they were the first choice, as draft animals but they are not fast. The onager, which is a member of the horse family but more closely resembles an ass, is another. Although fast, they are small. Same goes for mules.

 

Onto the mighty horse.

Goodreads Giveaway

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Last call for the giveaway of my second book, “Death of a Dyer

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The giveaway ends Sunday night. In “Death of a Dyer”, Rees goes home to Dugard. He is trying to mend fences with David, his son. Lydia has accompanied him as well, as a housekeeper. Both have baggage from previous relationships and are hesitant to begin again.

Rees is home for only a short while when he is asked to look into the death of Nate Bowditch, Rees’s boyhood friend. A weaver like Rees, Nate has become a dyer. This is a time before the coal tar dyes. Besides indigo and cochineal, most of the dyes used in Dugard would have been natural dyes: some madder, black walnut, butternut and so on. And both indigo and cochineal were very expensive.

I had a lot of fun with this book since I got to include tons of stuff about dyeing and weaving.

Devil’s Cold Dish

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I am happy and so excited to announce that I have received the cover for the new Will Rees mystery – A Devil’s Cold Dish. The graphics arts department at Minotaur is so good. In my opinion, they have scored with every single cover.

devils cold dish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will and Lydia Rees return to Dugard after their adventures in Salem and find themselves in new trouble. Not only is Will accused of murder but Lydia finds her own life in danger.

Coming June, 2016