Here are some of the menu items from the
Pioneer Thanksgiving Dinner.
The recipes are in the booklet
posted in the above turning page document.
We started the evening with frosty apple cider and these sweet, cold Apple Jack cocktails! Apple Jack is probably the oldest liquor made in the United States. Read all about it in the cook booklet!
Appetizers, using foods from the era, included raw turnip sticks to dip in artisan's salt and venison sausage.
The is dressed Colby cheese, which is the closest thing to the hard cheese that pioneers might have made. Dressing the cheese simply means topping or coating it with fresh herbs and storing it ... wrapped well, so it can absorb those flavors.
This is cream of chestnut soup ... used canned chestnut puree ... and persimmon corn bread baked in muffin tins shaped like maple leaves and another shaped like acorns. The soup was served in covered bowls, but a pretty garnish would have been crisp bacon crumbles with a drizzle of a little bacon grease ... yes, bacon grease!
And here are a few loaves of rustic friendship bread, baked from a yeast starter. You can bake it in regular bread pans, but I love the unusual shapes.
Recipes are all in the booklet!
Enjoy!
Make sure you check out my recently published magazine article ... see the favicon at the top of the side bar on the right ... beautiful pictures, recipes, menus and a perfect 'how-to' host great parties. Click the picture to link back to the Southern Illinoisan Newspaper's Life and Style magazine.
