Pilgrim families were tough
By Staff
Michelle Blaylock, Mom's Corner
With Thanksgiving being a week away, I began to think about my plans for dinner. Since I recently had surgery, my hubby and children will take care of most of the preparation and I will be the director. (Um, I hope.)
Along the same lines, my 8-year-old brought home a sign-up sheet from her room mother asking for help in preparing food for their Indian/Pilgrim celebration. I began to look over the list and think about what the Pilgrim women would think about our modern day kitchens and modern day stores.
I’m sure the women would be delighted. Just think if we had to grind our own corn or wheat!
I don’t even like to think about how long it would take to grind five or 10 pounds of flour by hand.
I love to bake bread from scratch, but I doubt I could do it the way the Pilgrim women did.
If the women had “ovens” at all, their way of testing the temperature was to put their hand in the oven (not, on the oven, but in the oven) and see how long they could leave it there.
I read one article that said they probably didn’t have ovens at the first Thanksgiving, they probably baked in Dutch ovens that sat in the fireplace. Oh, fun.
Let’s also not forget some of the food the Pilgrims ate would probably not be very appealing to us. From one article I read they regularly had things like fish head and eel stew. Yuck!
Also, most of their foods would have been dried and preserved so they would have had an entirely different taste and consistency than what we are used to.
How about table manners? OK, how about the lack of table manners?
Pilgrims did not use utensils to eat. They ate with their hands and had a large napkin to wipe them. The napkin was also used to pick up hot pieces of food, too. I think I really like my forks, spoons and knives.
I’m honestly amazed anyone survived. I’m surprised they didn’t all die of food poisoning. Remember no refrigerators. I’m the picky one that insists if the food set out to long, i.e. over two hours, you pitch it. Pilgrims breakfasts normally consisted of whatever was leftover from the “noonmeat” or dinner from the day before. That is disgusting.
I haven’t even mentioned some of the other duties like soap making, candle making, cloth weaving, preserving food, washing (what little they did), and gardening.
I would never make a good Pilgrim. I certainly don’t want to grind my own flour. I really don’t want to fight with Dutch ovens.
I love my refrigerator. Not to mention as much as like to cook from scratch, I like to grab that cake mix off the shelf when I’m in a hurry.
I’ve talked about the Pilgrim women, but what about Pilgrim men?
The men had plenty to keep them busy — hunting for one. Now, my husband enjoys hunting, but I doubt he would want to do it on a continual basis. He would much rather go to the store and pick out his meat.
It’s one thing to hunt for fun. It’s another to hunt for survival.
Not to mention tending livestock, building and repairing houses and furniture, clearing land for fields and then farming those fields.
Overall, I’m quite content to live in the 21st century.
I like modern conveniences and I can only say of the Pilgrim women “better women than I.”
I hope you take time this year to be truly thankful for the blessings God has given you. If you have a question, comment or suggestion for Mom’s Corner, please e-mail: moms-corner@juno.com
