ID you ever wonder what they
ate, and how they cooked it, in
the very new New England of a hundred
years ago? Or have you supposed that,
like Mother Goose’s old woman, they

“lived upon nothing but victuals and drink?”

They certainly did; but with smaller variety in
material and fewer utensils, their food necessarily
differed widely from ours, and many very delicious
old-fashioned dishes are‘now almost forgotten.

The whole country was new then, and Vermont
was farther inland, practically, than the remotest
corner of Arizona is now; and the food of each
family was almost wholly produced on the farm upon
which they lived, so that the sturdy, determined set-
tlers were independent of foreign lands.

I have often heard Madame Thankful Whitney’s
cooking spoken of, and some of her receipts have
passed down to me, but I suppose the dear old peo-
ple who told them to me, would think the same
dishes if cooked in modern stoves and ranges, lacked
a peculiar appetizing flavor which is imparted only
from the brick oven, the bake-kettle, or the fireplace,
or more probably from Madame Whitney’s skilful
handling and compounding ; it certainly did require
more skill to cook well then than now.

The very earliest settlers in Vermont used gener-
ally to come in small companies, all men, bringing
with them little beside a change of clothing, a gun,

 

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an axe, and a small supply of flour and salt. There
would, perhaps, be two horses belonging to a party
of five or six, and on these they bound the more un-
wieldy articles; the rest they strapped upon their
own backs. When they found a favorable location,
they built a cabin of bark and bushes, selected and
staked out their farms, and each immediately began
to clear his own.

They could shoot game enough for their meat
supply, and the handiest one of their number was
deputed to make unleavened bread as often ‘as
occasion required; and they did their cooking in a
little fireplace in, or near, the cabin.

Week after week they chopped down the great
primeval trees; when a sufficient quantity had been
felled in any one of the lots, they all worked together
to pile the brush and logs for burning. The huge
fires were a wild and splendid sight, especially at
night, and frightened the wolves to safe distances
for some time. After the burning, if it was in season,
they immediately sowed wheat, bought at the nearest
settlement, and patiently hoed it in. The land was
too rough for use of plow and harrow, therefore as
fast as the wheat was scattered the ground was mel-
lowed and the seed covered by means of a hand hoe.

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