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Daily midday meal demonstrations return to Greenfield Village farmhouses

In The Can

At Firestone Farm in the mid-to-late 1800s, canning was in its infancy, and most home preservation continued centuries-long traditions of pickling using vinegar. We do know, however, that Sally Anne Firestone, Harvey Firestone’s grandmother, had some jars and bottles on her probate inventories. So the Firestones were likely moving into the world of canning before 1885.

If You Enter The

Firestone or Daggett farmhouses around noon this summer and fall, you’re just in time to see dinner. After a long hiatus due to the pandemic, daily midday meal cooking demonstrations are back in 2023 at these two living history sites in Greenfield Village. And everything is prepared by historical presenters using period-appropriate recipes and cooking methods and produce harvested from the farms.

“We have about 30 living history presenters with an age range that has at times spanned from 18 to 80s,” said Mary Weikum, senior manager of Greenfield Village daily programs at The Henry Ford. “These presenters are dedicated, passionate and love sharing with guests their knowledge of producing, preserving and cooking food using historical processes.”

At Daggett, presenters make traditional colonial dishes of a farm family from 1760s Connecticut — stews simmering over the fire, puddings baked in cast iron and root veggies dressed in butter and cooked on open flames or with hot coals. Meanwhile, Firestone Farm follows food prep practices perfected in 1885 Ohio on a coal-burning cast-iron stove, with cuts of pork slowroasted or fried, fresh-baked bread and produce plucked from the farm as the menu’s mainstays. There’s everything from heirloom tomatoes and summer squash to fruit preserved on-site (see sidebar).

As summer days morph into autumn

ONLINE For more information, hours and pricing for Greenfield Village, visit thf.org/villagec ones, village visitors also get a glimpse of before-winter preparations. It’s a fascinating lesson on how different tools, traditions and technologies of the times help each farm work toward similar goals: harvesting crops, storing vegetables and fruits, and preparing and preserving a winter’s meat supply.

The Daggetts would store root vegetables like turnips and potatoes in cellars and stone-lined pits to prevent hard freezing. Produce like parsnips and salsify would be kept in the frozen ground and dug out as needed. Beans and peas would be dried and stored in sacks in cool, dry places. One hundred years later, the Firestones used similar techniques, with pits and root cellars still playing an important role.

Fruit, especially apples, was also carefully preserved for winter. While the Daggetts had limited technology when it came to canning as we know it today, fruit jams or preserves were kept in small crocks or glass jars and sealed with beeswax, spirit-soaked parchment or animal bladders. Fruit was also dried by slicing and laying it out in baskets or on wooden racks. Fresh fruit was carefully packed in barrels whole to keep in a cool spot. By the 1850s, canning jars with sealable lids were perfected, and by the 1880s, the Firestones made full use of this technology, resulting in a dazzling array of sealed jars filled with pickles, jellies, jams, sauces and so much more.

— JENNIFER LAFORCE, MANAGING EDITOR, THE HENRY FORD MAGAZINE

As part of Greenfield Village’s historic cooking programming, some canning — as we understand how it was done in the 19th century — is done on-site, following recipes that appear in Estelle Woods Wilcox’s Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, 1880, and other 19th-century cookbooks. Victorian Americans tended to use fewer spices than their colonial ancestors, and the resurgence of a wider variety of spices — like savory, marjoram and garlic — doesn’t take place until the latter part of the 20th century. In the 19th century, pickling and drying produce remained popular, but canning things like jellies and tomatoes grew in favor.

— MARY WEIKUM,