John Janney
Cooking
Baking and Sweets
Bread baking was done on Saturdays. Enough was made to last an entire week. Yeast for cooking was supplied from the hops plants grown in the family garden. Baking powder had not yet been invented.
Janney mentions that pies were commonly made for dinner. Depending on the season, pies were made of apples, pumpkins, peaches, and on rare occasions, custard pie.
Cornbread was very common and was baked or fried. Crackling bread was made from hog lard and mixed into the cornbread before baking.
Sugar was still a luxury and came in conical loaves wrapped in paper. Molasses was more common and came in 120 gallon barrels. Janney writes that he very rarely had sweet cakes and occasionally had gingerbread sweetened with molasses.
Meats
Janney mentions that he ate very little fresh meat and that most of it came from pigs. Janney writes that they usually had fresh meat at Christmas, which was during the season of butchering and preserving meat.
The trimmings and hog intestines were used to make sausage. Janney writes that making sausages was a family event and everyone was involved, from cutting the meat to cleaning the intestines.
Occasionally, a calf or an older cow was slaughtered for fresh meat. Chicken and geese were widely used. Meat was preserved by salting, smoking or pickling. In the case of salting, the meat had to be soaked in water for at least 24 hours.
Salted shad (fish) was purchased at market and was a popular breakfast food during the summer months.
Foods
Food consumed by the Janney family.
Oysters
Corn
Dumplings
Noodle soup
Hominy pounded into flour for corn cakes
Mush with milk. Mush is cornmeal boiled or fried.
Rye Mush
Potatoes, beets, turnips, parsnips, green beans and cabbages. Cabbages were consumed raw.
Vegetables could be preserved by burying them in a pit, pickling them or drying them.
Hazel and hickory nuts
Milk
Eggs
Blackberries and dewberries
Gooseberries
Hunting and Fishing
Hunting and fishing enhanced the Janney diets. John writes that his friends made special nets to catch quails and partridges. He mentions catching eels in Katoctin Creek and rarely did they catch a fish from Goose Creek that was large enough to eat. Rabbit, possum and coon hunting were very popular.
