2 26 HIS TOR Y OF COM A SSE T. 



be baked was put into the hot oven. But it is plain that 

 the baking was always done in a falling heat. Further- 

 more, it took so much time to get the oven just right that 

 once a week was about as often as a housewife could 

 bother with the baking. Consequently for most of the 

 time stale baked food was eaten. It is on record that an 

 apple pie baked at Thanksgiving time was not eaten until 

 the next March. 



Mince and pumpkin pies of such an antiquity were the 

 natural result of clumsy ovens. Before the days of the 

 Revolution potatoes were not much used ; in fact, no such 

 luscious varieties as we now have were known. The 

 prejudice against this vegetable is illustrated by the 

 superstition that " if a man ate them every day he could 

 not live beyond seven years." * 



Turnips, pumpkins, and squashes were not uncommon 

 vegetables and shared with the bread in giving companion- 

 ship to the meat foods. 



No butcher carts in those days brought to every humble 

 dwelling the fine-grained beef and mutton and pork from 

 Chicago, a city then unborn in the far Western wilderness. 



Dreary days of corned beef and salt pork were passed 

 in many a frugal family. 



Fresh meat was rare and was obtained only by the 

 slaughter of their own animals. An ox or a cow that was 

 past usefulness or a young steer that would not break well 

 to the yoke was fattened for beef and killed in the barn 

 by its owner or by some neighbor more skilled in the 

 butcher's art. This was done in the fall of the year 

 usually to avoid furnishing hay through the winter and 

 also that the meat might be kept fresh for many weeks by 

 freezing. The greater part was salted or " corned " for 

 summer use. Some of it was "jerked" — cut into long 

 strips and dried, a fashion of curing meat long in vogue 

 among the Indians. 



♦Customs and Fashions in Old New England, p. 153, 



