Can you imagine that lobster used to be so plentiful and so under appreciated, prisoners in jail charged that serving it to them more than three times a week was cruel and unusual punishment?
Via NY Post:
As you fold that slice into your mouth this Fourth of July, imagine what was on the menu in 1776.
If you were a tricorn-hatted colonial around the American Revolution you were living in a time of food abundance, according to food historian Cynthia Clampitt.
“There were clams and lobster everywhere, and so many ducks, people wrote of having to push the ducks out of the way to cross rivers,” says Clampitt.
Other popular foods included fish, oysters, meat pies, stews, baked hams, and corn bread.
“If you knew how to hunt at all you were stuffing yourself all the time. Corn was superabundant, so dinner might be ham and a pile of Johnny cakes and a glass of rum.”
Clampitt points out that the colonies were becoming so wealthy, particularly in the rum trade, the Brits intervened, taxing molasses and sugar. “The Sugar Act was the first time Sam Adams said ‘No taxation without representation.’ It wasn’t first about tea. But we don’t teach our kids about how much alcohol people were drinking back then.”
People made hard cider from their own fruit trees, kids drank “small beer” (weak beer) and everyone over 15 drank about five gallons of rum a year.
New York had a Dutch influence, with lots of bread, buttermilk, boiled or roasted meats, cheese, and salads because the Dutch were keen gardeners.
Sturgeon was so plentiful in the Hudson that it was called ‘Albany beef.’
In New England the poor ate lobster, while chicken and beef were for the wealthy. In Boston a good codfish and clam chowder would cover the bases, along with brown bread and beans which also used molasses.