Food Friday - Addy Walker (Civil War Era Meal!)

What's one thing that brings the family together better than anything else? Food. It's something you can incorporate everything in - your kids, your heritage (thank you great-grandma's recipe), and history. I think American Girl had that in mind as well, with Addy's Sweet Potato Pudding Making Set.

The set included a functioning cast iron skillet, bowl, spoon, and recipe. [source]
There are already blog posts about retooling the recipe to your own personal tastes and all. You can get any old sweet potato pudding recipe off the internet and make it yourself. So, I asked myself, why not take this a step farther and make a whole meal plan out of this? (Genius idea, I know.) I love cooking/baking, especially for my family. So why not include my blog readers in on that?

This won't be a diet-friendly meal, I can tell you that. In the 1860s, that was the last thing on people's minds. I think they were primarily focused on the big war going on, even though Addy's story comes in a bit earlier than the civil war, but it's around the same era. I will try to make this as historically accurate as possible but I doubt I'll succeed. This was before the days of our fancy ovens and oven ranges, microwaves, and electronic mixers. There wasn't really any electricity at all! No running water... Cooking must have been more of a chore than a hobby. You had to do it though to keep your family happy and fed. Without further ado, here comes the promised menu.

I looked through an article on civil war recipes here and found the entree and side I liked the best so we can save that sweet potato pudding for last!

ENTREE - Boiled Pork and Bean Soup [1] [2]


This is how you would have had to do to make this dish during the civil war, which this was a common meal for soldiers thanks to rationing: "Never serve beans until they have been soaked over night. At eight o’clock in the morning, put eight quarts into two kettles, and fill up with clean cold water. Boil constantly, over a brisk fire, for an hour or more, during which many of the beans will rise to the top. At the end of this time, take the kettles off the fire for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then pour off all the water, replacing it with fresh clean water. Add to each kettle a pound of parboiled pork, without rind, and boil continuously for an hour and a half longer. At quarter past eight o’clock, fill three kettles loosely with pieces of pork weighing from three to five pounds, cover with water, and boil briskly for one hour; then pour 011' all the liquid, and fill up with clean hot water, and boil for one hour and a half longer; then take out all the pork, and lay it aside. Take out also one-half of the beans from the other kettles, placing them aside for breakfast next morning, and add to the remainder the liquor in which the pork was boiled. To each kettle add also two onions chopped or sliced, with plenty of black or red pepper, some salt, and a tablespoonful of vinegar. After fifteen minutes’ longer boiling, mash the beans with a wooden stick made for the purpose, and serve, with a slice of pork, in a separate dish. If onions are plenty, mince fine eight or ten of them, fry them in a pan with a little flour and fat, with half a pint hot water, and the same quantity of the liquor in which the pork was boiled. After cooking five minutes, add pepper, salt, and half a glass of vinegar, and pour over the slices of pork." Thank you, civil war re-enactor Albert S. for your post about cooking and for this recipe, which I know to you all that it is vague, but they didn't have the fancy measuring cups on the battlefield. At least you, dear reader, won't have to go through all this trouble to make soup thanks to how spoiled we are by technology. You won't need that many beans or that much pork either, unless you are feeding an army too. 
This recipe comes from circa the 1830s [2]. Now, the poster says that it tasted bland but fine other than that, but I believe that can be fixed with some salt and pepper. Maybe even garlic salt. 

Ingredients 

  • 1 pound dried navy beans (any leftovers of these you can use for making your very own Ida Bean doll, like in my tutorial here
  • 1 pound pork shoulder/butt 
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 1 leek, diced
  • 1 garlic clove, diced
  • 1 sprig of thyme
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons bacon fat

Instructions 

  1. Soak beans overnight (use cold water)
  2. Dice the pork then boil it for an hour in water (or until it's tender). No measurement needed for how much water, you can cover the pork with the water. 
  3. Save the stock. 
  4. In a pot, combine the bacon fat and vegetables. Add the thyme and vinegar. 
  5. Add the beans and the pork stock.
  6. Add water if more liquid is needed.
  7. Let the pork and beans simmer for 30 minutes before adding pork.
  8. Add pork and let it simmer for 20 minutes (or until beans are tender).
  9. Add enough salt and pepper to your liking. 
  10. Ready to serve!

SIDE - Cornbread [1] [3]


I'll admit it, I never really liked cornbread. Until I had the Krusteaz's version (I swear I'm not sponsored, guys). I used the recommended replacement of milk with buttermilk and it made a world of difference. So feel free to try that yourself with your made from scratch cornbread! One of the recipes I will be using also recommended it. So this recipe will be broken down into 'historical', and 'modern'. I could find only historical recipes on the soup but mostly modern things with the cornbread.

Historical [1] 


Ingredients 

  • 1/2 cup yellow cornbread
  • 1 cup flour
  • Pinch of salt
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 3 tablespoons butter, (almost half of a stick) softened

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Combine cornbread, flour, and salt into a bowl. 
  3. Add eggs, milk, and butter, mixing well. 
  4. Put into an iron skillet and bake at 375 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes. 

Modern  [3]


Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup (a whole stick) butter
  • 2/3 white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup cornmeal
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
  2. Melt butter in large iron skillet. 
  3. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. 
  4. Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended. 
  5. Combine buttermilk and baking soda then add it to the mix.
  6. Stir in the rest of the ingredients until well blended and few lumps are left. 
  7. Pour batter into skillet (I honestly thought we already did this, but oh well, it's what this recipe calls for, so whatever)
  8. Bake in the oven for 30 - 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes clean out of it (like a cake). 

Dessert [4]


Ah, now time for the grand finale and the reason this meal plan exists in the first place - those sweet potatoes. This is an adaptation of an adaptation of a recipe. I agree with my source as I would prefer chopping the sweet potatoes myself instead of getting them in a can. This recipe was made with Addy's set in mind. 

Ingredients

  • 4 large sweet potatoes
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup melted butter (about 1/2 a stick) 
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/4 teaspoon ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon cloves
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon allspice
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 tablespoon salt

Directions

  1. Use a sharp knife to slash a few holes in the skins of the sweet potatoes. (So that they don’t explode in the oven. The last thing you want is exploded sweet potato gunk.)
  2. Bake the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet at 425 degrees for 45 minutes.
  3. Allow the sweet potatoes to cool, then peel their skins off. You should be able to do this by hand.
  4. Mash the sweet potatoes in a bowl, and stir in the remaining ingredients.
  5. Pour the pudding into a baking dish or pie plate (you may need to use 2 dishes).
  6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Enjoy gathering your family around for a fulfilling meal, and I can't wait to see you guys for another week of Koalaity Dolls' African American History Month!

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