American as apple pie

Apples are not native to North America, so the Pilgrims wouldn’t have enjoyed apple pie in their first years in the New World. However, “planting apples orchards was among the first tasks the early settlers took,” writes Peter Wynne in his 1975 book Apples: History, Folklore, Horticulture, Gastronomy. Clergyman William Blaxton planted the first orchard in Massachusetts in 1625, Wynne notes, as well as the first orchard in Rhode Island in 1635. How far has the modern apple pie strayed from the early American version? Not very, it appears. The one ingredient missing from today’s apple pie is rose water. The first American cookbook, American Cookery, published in 1796, includes this recipe for apple pie:

Stew and strain the apples, to every three pints grate the peal of a fresh lemon, add cinnamon, mace, rose-water and sugar to your taste—and bake in paste . . .

My version doesn’t require stewing the apples in advance. It also eliminates the rose water, which isn’t readily available. Mace, the dried outer covering of nutmeg, is available in the spice section of most grocery stores, but if you can’t find it, substitute nutmeg.

Old-fashioned apple pie

Crust:

2 cups flour

pinch salt

1 stick cold butter, cubed

½ cup or so of ice water

Sift flour into a bowl, add a pinch of salt. Add butter and work in with pastry cutter. Add ice water slowly until dough holds together. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate until ready to roll.

Filling:

6 to 8 large apples, peeled and sliced

Zest of a lemon

½ cup sugar

Mace (or nutmeg) and cinnamon to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove dough from refrigerator and divide. Roll out each section to fit a 9-inch pie plate. Gently place first round of pastry in pie plate. Do not stretch or press. Add filling. Top with second round of pastry. Roll edges under and crimp to seal. Make three slits in top of pie dough to vent steam. For a glossy crust, brush with milk, cream or egg wash. Sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired. Bake for 40 minutes or more, until the crust is golden.

Eat like a Pilgrim this Thanksgiving

Some evidence exists of what the Pilgrims ate. Based on records left by William Bradford and others, historians have been able to piece together what the early settlers might have consumed. Here are two contemporary menus including foods that could have been on tables in 17^th-century Plymouth. According to historical documents, all ingredients listed here were available to the early colonists. Whether they would have put them together in this way is merely educated conjecture.

Early Thanksgiving Menu

Lobster stewe with corn bread or mussels seethed (steamed) in beer

Roasted turkie , goose or venison with sauce of crane berries (cranberries)

Stewed pompion (pumpkin)

Rocket sallet (arugula salad)

 Indian pudding, crane berry slump

Ale, cider

True lobster stew

Several years ago I enjoyed an old-fashioned lobster stew on Mount Desert Island in Maine. Unlike the thick lobster bisque served in restaurants, this stew was thin and chock full of large chunks of lobster meat. I make a similar stew as the first course of Thanksgiving dinner, doubling this recipe:

Lobster stew

1-1/2 to 2-pound lobster, boiled and cleaned

3 tablespoons of butter

3 tablespoons of flour

1 cup of lobster broth

2 cups of milk, half and half or cream

paprika or cayenne

sherry (optional)

Earlier in the day or the day before, boil the lobster, remove the meat from the shell and use the pieces of shell to make lobster broth (see below). To make the stew, melt butter in a large saucepan; then add flour and stir to make a roux.  Add a few dashes of paprika or cayenne to taste. Add milk or cream and cook until mixture thickens. Then add lobster broth and cook a few minutes more. Add lobster meat last with a splash of sherry, if desired. Serves four.

Lobster broth
shells from a cooked lobster
one small whole onion
a rib of celery
bay leaf

Place all ingredients in a stock pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil; then lower the heat and simmer, lid tilted, for about 30 minutes. Strain.

Boiled lobster, the New England way

The Pilgrims enjoyed an abundance of seafood in New England, as Mourt’s Relation, a journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, published in 1622, attests:  “This bay is a most hopeful place, innumerable store of fowl, and excellent good, and cannot but be of fish in their seasons; skote (skate), cod, turbot, and herring, we have tasted of, abundance of mussels the greatest and best that ever we saw; crabs and lobsters in their time infinite.”

While the early settlers ate lobster, the crustacean was not considered the delicacy it is today. It rated then about as highly as a piece of chicken today. In Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford writes, as more ships arrived with English immigrants, the best dish the original Colonists could offer their friends “was a lobster or a piece of fish without bread or anything else but a cup of fair spring water.”

Lobsters are available in New England year round but certainly not in the same quantities they once were. Many claim autumn is the best time for American lobster. The summer molt is completed, and the lobsters have grown into their new, hardened shells. Most of us simply boil our lobsters—in sea water, preferably, but if no ocean water is readily available, sea-salted water will do. We enjoy cracking open the shells and dipping the succulent meat in melted butter. It’s a messy business, but well worth the effort.

Boiled lobster

Fill a large pot approximately three-quarters full of sea water or salted water. Use two tablespoons of salt per quart of water. Bring the water to a boil. Put in the live lobsters (don't attempt to remove the bands on the front claws), one at a time, cover and bring the water to a boil again. Lower the heat and simmer about 15 minutes for a small lobster (up to 1-1/4 pounds), 20 minutes for a medium lobster (1-1/2 pounds) and 25 minutes for a large lobster.