#handsonhistory

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When the brew needs to be strong enough to wake up your ancestors.

#coffee #TourGuideLife #museumlife #tourguide #museum #StephensonHouseMuseum #stephensonhouse #justhavingfun #mornings

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No, she's not...😏

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What did families in 1820s Illinois eat?

One staple on nearly every table was mush—a simple cornmeal porridge boiled in water or milk. It could be eaten hot with milk, sweetened with molasses, or sliced and fried with bacon the next day.

Important to know:

~Mush = plain boiled cornmeal.

~Hasty Pudding in America = mush (in England it meant wheat porridge).

~Indian Pudding = a baked cornmeal dessert with molasses, more like custard.

Cookbooks of the time praised mush for its thrift and nourishment. Lydia Maria Child wrote in 1829:

“Mush, or hasty pudding, is the most economical way of using [corn meal]… If eaten with milk, it makes a very wholesome supper.”

From frontier cabins to St. Louis tables, mush was everyday food—plain, filling, and deeply American.

To read a more indepth article visit our blog page "Extra History" at www.stephensonhouse.org on. https://bit.ly/4fRlfzt

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History Bites!

Rhubarb became quite popular in 19th-century cooking, both for its medicinal uses and as a tart fruit substitute in desserts. Recipes using rhubarb often balanced its natural sourness with whatever sweeteners were available. We think the following recipe is a keeper, especially if you love rhubarb as much as we do.

Rhubarb Tart (Modern adaptation)

Ingredients:

~Rhubarb (1 lb, chopped)

~Sugar (½ lb or more to taste)

~Shortcrust pastry

~Optional: pinch of ground ginger or lemon zest

Instructions:

Put uncooked rhubarb and sugar in a sauce pan with a small amount of water. Simmer for about an hour or until rhubarb is soft. Let cool.

Add a pinch of ground ginger (common in period recipes). Stir.

Roll out pastry and line a tart tin.

Fill with rhubarb mixture and sprinkle sugar over.

Optional: Cover with a pastry lid or make a lattice top.

Bake in a moderate oven (about 350°F / 175°C) until pastry is golden and rhubarb is bubbling.

"A new system of domestic cookery : formed upon principles of economy, and adapted to the use of private families", 1807, Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell, This book included many fruit pies and tarts, often adapting the filling based on availability. Rhubarb, gaining popularity after being cultivated more widely in England around 1800, began appearing in printed tart recipes by the 1820s–1830s.

#HistoricalRecipes #VintageCooking #OldFashionedRecipes #19thCenturyCooking #RegencyEraFood #HistoricalBaking #FoodHistory #stephensonhouse #museum

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When you take "hands-on history" a little too literally.

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We all need s a little pick-me-up after a full day of school tours.

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"When the new docent arrives and you have to pause your reign of chaos... just long enough to establish dominance with grace."

#schittscreek #tourguide #museumlife #TourGuideLife #funny #TourGuideLife #museum #StephensonHouseMuseum #stephensonhouse #schittscreekdavid #davidrose

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The Master Gardners have been hard at work. Everything is looking fantastic. New to the grounds is Witch Hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) planted close to the kitchen.