Thanksgiving Day Fun

For the last several years, several members of Gardner's Company volunteer at Jamestown for the annual Foods and Feasts event. This event is over the Thanksgiving Day and the weekend and focuses on food, of course.


Carla and I usually set up "shop" in the Barracks Building of Jamestown Settlement. We volunteer there and do 17th Century English cooking demonstrations. Using period recipes we prepare various dishes in the huge hearth behind me in this picture.

While we are toiling away preparing food, there are also military activities, and some of our other members help fill out in other buildings of the fort.

Here are some of our guys in formation for a military drill. Robert is wearing the very sexy thrummed hat. It was a bit chilly in the morning.

Anyway, some of the wonderful foodies we made were:

A Mushroom and Leek tart on the Left and a Dried Fruit and Almonds Tart on the right.

Chicken Fricassie - Martha Washington's recipe I believe.

A meat pie. This particular recipe is a pork, fig, and cheese pie which turned out quite yummy.

And and almond tart. This tart is an amazing cream-based confection. The crust is like a sugar cookie and the filling is cream, almond paste, sugar, and egg whites. Yum.

That's just a sampling of the goodies we made. We made more that I didn't get pictures of before the volunteers and Staff gobbled it all down. It's hard to take pictures of stuff when you're supposed to be interpreting and trying to hide things like the camera under your apron. Thanks to some friends I have pictures of me, which I never get.

Overall, the weekend was some work, but I always have fun doing the cooking. It's also interesting working with the public and passing on some early American history in the process.