An Early 1860s Strawberry Party in Greenfield Village

June 12, 2021 Archive Insight, Think THF

By the mid-19^th century, true leisure time was a rare commodity among the American population. There were very few “official” holidays on the calendar and a twelve-hour workday, six-day workweek was the norm. For these Americans, bringing and sharing food to an outside gathering, whether it be an excursion to the seaside, to a rustic location, or to enjoy a simple meal after church, was a shared experience, a time to pause and take a breath.

What we call a picnic derives from the 17^th-century French word “pique-nique,” a term used to describe a social gathering in which attendees each contribute a portion of food. They ranged from very formal affairs with several courses served by servants to very simple gatherings with the most basic of foods being served.

Mid-June is strawberry time here in Michigan, and strawberry-themed gatherings were a popular entertainment. Period magazines, newspapers, and other sources of the 1850s and 1860s go into great detail about picnic ideas and the logistical requirements for a successful event.

On Saturday, June 12, 2021, step back into the early 1860s to our re-created strawberry party outside the Chapman Home in Greenfield Village from 10 AM to 4 PM. You’ll be able to purchase strawberry hard cider, strawberry shortcake, strawberry pie, and strawberry frozen custard at various locations within the Village to soothe your own strawberry cravings, and can watch historic cooking demonstrations highlighting strawberries at Daggett Farmhouse, Ford Home, and Firestone Farm.

The recipes we’ll be demonstrating at each building are included below. Note that these are historic recipes and some of the measurements and techniques may not be familiar to today's home cooks. For more modern recipes dedicated to all things strawberry, check out Strawberry Love, featured in our Shop Summer 21 catalog.

Daggett Farmhouse

A Pound Cake 

Take a pound of butter, beat it in an earthen pan with your hand one way till like a fine thick cream; then have ready twelve eggs, with half the whites; beat them well, and beat them up with the butter, and work into it a pound of flour, a pound of sugar, and a few carraways, well together for an hour with your hand, or a great wooden spoon. Butter a pan and put it in, and then bake it an hour in a quick oven.

--Susannah Carter, The Frugal Colonial Housewife, 1742, pg. 104

To Make Currant Jelly

Strip the currants (strawberries) from the stalks, put them in a stone jar, stop it close, set it in a kettle of boiling water, half way the jar, let it boil half an hour, take it out, and strain the juice through a course hair-sieve; to a pint of juice put a pound of sugar, set it over a fine clear fire in our preserving pan or bell-metal skillet; keep stirring it all the time till the sugar is melted, then skim the scum off as fast as it rises. When your jelly is very clear and fine, pour it into gallipots; when cold, cut white paper just the bigness of the top of the pot and lay on the jelly, dip those papers in brandy; then cover the top close with white paper, and prick it full of holes; set it in a dry place, put some into glasses, and paper them.

--Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, 1747, pg. 183

Ford Home

Strawberry Shortcake

2 cups of flour            

1 tsp baking soda       

1 tsp salt

4 tbsp shortening (1/2 butter)

About 1-1/2 cups sour milk “lobbered”

Sift the flour, salt, and soda together into a bowl and work in the shortening. Make a hole in the center and pour in the milk, stirring the flour into it from the sides with a wooden spoon. The dough should be just about as soft as it can be handled, so the amount of milk is indefinite. Pour it out on to a floured board and then pat it out or roll it gently—handling it just as little as possible—to a cake about three quarters of an inch thick. Put this into a buttered baking tin either square or oblong and bake it on a hot oven (450 degrees) for fifteen minutes. The amount of soda depends somewhat on the sourness of the milk. Do not try to sour pasteurized milk, for it can not be done. It will get "old" but it will not "lobber."

And if you don't know what "lobbered" means, it means thick—the dictionary stylishly calls it "clambered." If you use too much soda, the cake will be yellow and taste like lye. Of course, you may be safer in making a baking-powder dough, in which case you take your regular recipe for biscuits but add another tablespoonful of shortening (using half butter, at least, for the shortening) and bake it the same way.

When your cake is done (and "shortcake" in my kind of recipe doesn't mean "biscuits"), proceed after this fashion: have your strawberries (dead ripe) washed, hulled, mashed, and sweetened, in a bowl... And be sure there are plenty of them. Turn your hot cake out on the platter and split it in two, laying the top half aside while you give your undivided attention to the lower. Spread this most generously with butter just softened enough (never melted) to spread nicely, and be sure to lay it on clear up to the very eaves. Now slosh your berries on, spoonful after spoonful—all it will take. Over this put the top layer, and give it the same treatment, butter and berries, and let them drool off the edges—a rich, red, luscious, slowly oozing cascade of ambrosia. On the top place a few whole berries—if you want to—and get it to the table as quickly as you can. It should be eaten just off the warm, and if anybody wants to deluge it with cream, let him do so. But the memory of a strawberry shortcake like this lies with the cake and not the cream.

--Della Lutes, Home Grown, 1936, p. 128-130

Firestone Farmhouse

Strawberry Pickles

Place strawberries in bottom of jar, add a layer of cinnamon and cloves, then berries, and so on; pour over it a syrup made of two coffee-cups cider vinegar, and three pints sugar, boiled about five minutes; let stand twenty-four hours, pour off syrup, boil, pour over berries, and let stand as before, then boil berries and syrup slowly for twenty-five minutes; put in jars and cover. The above is for six quarts of berries.

--Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Estelle Woods Wilcox, Ed., 1877, p. 268

Fruit Ice Cream

To every pint of fruit-juice, allow a pint of sweet cream. The quantity of sugar will depend upon the acidity of the fruit used. Apples, peaches, pears, pine-apples, quinces, etc., should be pared and grated. Small fruits, such as currants, raspberries, or strawberries, should be mashed and put through a sieve. After sweetening with powdered sugar, and stirring thoroughly, let it stand until the cream is whipped—2 or 3 minutes. Put together and then whip the mixture for 5 minutes. Put into the freezer, stirring it from the bottom and sides 2 or 3 times during the freezing process.

--Mrs. Frances E. Owens, Mrs. Owens’ Cook Book and Useful Household Hints, 1884, p. 301


Jim Johnson is Director of Greenfield Village at The Henry Ford.

2020s, 1860s, 20th century, 19th century, recipes, Greenfield Village, food, events, by Jim Johnson