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Tag: agriculture

Pennsbury Garden Features Rope Hops Wall

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A new feature in the garden this year was our rope hops walls. These large structures were created to support 12 new hops plants, which in the future will be used in our beer brewing demonstrations.

Our staff gardener Mike and his volunteers spent time this summer working on building two walls to grow the hops that will be used in our beer brewing program. The walls are each 12 ft high and 21 ft wide, with six plants at the base protected by stacked firewood boxes. We’ve been watching over the past month as the hops slowly creep up and the gardeners wrap new tendrils around the ropes, encouraging them to spread out and up the wall. This fall when the hops are matured, the entire frame can be taken down and the vines easily harvested. 

It seems like craft beer brewing is all the rage these days, but it’s definitely not anything new!  Beer brewing had long been a common activity in the home when colonists began arriving in Pennsylvania. For those who could afford a higher quality beverage, professional breweries quickly sprang into action, making Philadelphia a beer-brewing center in the New World. William Penn was known to purchase up to 20 barrels of beer a month from renowned brewer Henry Badcock and ship them up the Delaware to his country estate, Pennsbury Manor. 

But for those who preferred to save their money, home brewing was easy and inexpensive. The two ingredients you need for a basic brew – barley and hops – could be grown in your Kitchen Garden. In fact, brewing your own beer would guarantee a ready supply of fresh yeast for baking in the kitchen. The brewing process involves bursts of activity followed by long periods of waiting, so it could be done in between other work in the kitchen. 

Pennsbury Manor features beer brewing demonstrations throughout the year; check the calendar of events for the upcoming program and stop out and savor the aroma.

 

  

 

 

 By Hannah Howard, Volunteer & Special Project Coordinator

Curioisities in Pennsbury Manor’s Garden

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We have many vegetables and herbs growing in the Kitchen Garden that we still grow and use today, but what about the ones we don’t? 

For the adventurous visitor who loves to poke around and explore, there are some wonderfully unusual plants you can find tucked away in corners and along the side paths of the Kitchen Garden.  I love taking a tour with our gardener, he can point out all sorts of curiosities and the creative ways they discovered for using them in the 17th Century!

One of my favorite plants is definitely the marsh mallow… yes, you read that correctly!  The roots of this plant, when crushed up and beaten with sugar and egg whites, produces a gooey, white, mixture very similar to our modern marshmallows.  If you visit the garden, be sure to touch the leaves, which are amazing – they feel like a thick, luxurious velvet!

Along the right wall of the garden, you’ll find a very special plant  – jewelweed, also called lady’s purse. The juice in the stem can combat poison ivy and poison oak. Modern hikers and campers should definitely learn to recognize this plant, which is most distinctive when it starts to bloom in August.  The blossoms are bright orange, and can often be found near where the poison ivy is growing. The juice of this plant is often used to combat other problems, including bee stings and mosquito bites.

Be sure to stop by Pennsbury’s Kitchen Garden and check out what’s growing this season!

By Hannah Howard, Volunteer & Special Project Coordinator

Pennsbury Manor’s Summer Harvest

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It’s been a great summer for our garden here at Pennsbury Manor! 

Because of all the rain, our summer harvest is growing quickly and will need to be harvested in the next few weeks.  This would have been fantastic news in the 17th Century.  By harvesting the summer crops quickly, they have more time to turn over the beds and replant the next crop. They wouldn’t want to waste a single day of warm weather, since what they can cultivate during the spring, summer, and fall will determine how much food they have to last the winter.

For those of us whose summer BBQ’s wouldn’t be the same without some tangy horseradish, check out the amazing crop growing near the garden cistern! Horseradish is one of those plants that can be continually harvested as needed, so it needs some good protection from the bunnies who like to tour our Kitchen Garden!  The fencing shown here is called “wattle fencing” and uses the flexible branches trimmed off of the apple trees in the spring. It’s a wonderful way to use the resources of the garden while also created a sturdy protection for your crops. 

Most of our field crops – barley, buckwheat, oats, wheat, and rye – were just harvested. Grains were an essential part of the colonists’ diet and could be dried and stored away to use throughout the winter.  The last one we’ll harvest will be the flax, which gets pulled up by the root and used as a fiber in making linen.  Most farms wouldn’t make their own linen, but they could grow it and sell it to the nearby cottage industries, who would then break the reeds, comb out the fibers, and weave on a loom. 

Our white pattypan squash has taken over one of the garden beds, it’s gorgeous!  Pattypan is an early squash, you can see they are starting to blossom and will hopefully have a large harvest.  Next up will be another planting of beans, radishes, beets, and yellow crookneck squash which wil be harvest this fall.

 Chives are a great plant to grow in the Kitchen Garden, since you can chop off the stalks and it will keep growing back all season.  Mustard Greens are another constant resource that can be picked anytime, and they are self-sewn and easy to grow. But some plants take a longer time to mature. Our asparagus is still in its first year of growth, so we’re not ready to harvest this year. Leaving the asparagus shoots alone for 2-3 years before harvesting means you will have a much bigger yield with larger stalks. But of course when living in the new colony, if the garden had a bad season and you were desperate for the food, you would have to harvest what you could to survive. 

 Stay tuned this fall for more updates on our Kitchen Garden’s progress!

 

German Cooking: Not the “Wurst” Food in the Colony!

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During the 17th Century, what we know as Germany was a hodgepodge of different states disputing everything from religion to politics. With religious persecution and destruction brought about by The Thirty Years War, many Germans were fed up and chose to leave for the New World.  But leaving their country behind didn’t mean leaving their traditions – especially when it came to their food!

 

Map of Western Europe, 1648
A smokehouse at Pennsbury Manor demonstrates one of several ways colonists could preserve meat.

The colony of Pennsylvania was appealing to a large variety of people, for it accepted diversity and offered freedom of religion. The first wave of German immigrants purchased about 15,000 acres from William Penn, a tract of land about 6 miles north of Philadelphia.  There they founded “Germantown” and were free to prosper without the political disputes of the Old World.  As the settlement prospered, many more Germans followed, and soon their population swelled to dominate south central Pennsylvania!

These new inhabitants came with respected farming techniques and prized cooking traditions.  The recipes used by these new settlers greatly varied by what regions of Germany they came from.  These people, erroneously referred to as the “Pennsylvania Dutch,” rather than the proper “Pennsylvania Deutsch,” became famously known for their hearty meals, heavy in starches and fats. As they mingled with the English, French, and other nationalities living in Pennsylvania, their traditions would intermingle.  William Penn was especially fond of the smoked meats Germans favored. 

A sampling of seasonal ingredients used for Open-Hearth Cooking at Pennsbury Manor

The majority of these immigrants came here impoverished, so what they ate was determined by what their new land offered. They became well known for their sausages and soups, which were great ways of getting the most from the ingredients available. Even today, local delicacies like Scrapple and Pork Rolls have their roots in the colonial Deutsch culture.  With the opportunities William Penn offered in his new colony, German immigrants helped establish the diverse state Pennsylvania has become.

 

Written by Ray Tarasiewicz, Intern

Further Reading:

Fletcher, S. W. Pennsylvania Agriculture and Country Life 1640-1840. Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1971. Print.

Peaches and peppers and squash… oh my!

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“The gardiner is brisk at work. The Peach-Trees are much broken down with the weight of Fruit this Year.”

The patched fence provides protection for Pennsbury's crops and a sunny spot to grow.

William Penn’s steward James Harrison reported this good news in October of 1686, but the same could be said of the fall harvest in 2012!  Indian blood peaches, radishes, red and yellow cayenne peppers, squash, gourds, and culinary and medicinal herbs have all thrived this year in Penn’s kitchen garden.

According to Pennsbury’s gardener Mike Johnson, this is due in part to the recent restructuring of the garden’s fences. While Penn’s original garden covered about two acres of his estate, the smaller area has allowed the garden staff to protect the plants from pests and to interpret seventeenth and eighteenth-century garden activities more effectively for visitors.

One of the several varieties of gourds currently growing in Pennsbury Manor's 17th-century kitchen garden.

You may be asking yourself, “What happens to all those fruits and vegetables?” Just as in Penn’s time, nothing goes to waste!  Harvested crops will be used in cooking demonstrations, educational programs, and seed-saving for future planting.

Let’s follow the path of the dipping gourd, which has yielded a particularly plentiful harvest this year. From the garden, the dipping gourds will make their way into storage to dry until next summer. At that time, our summer campers will remove the seeds and return them to the gardener so they can be planted. Once the seeds are removed, each gourd will be fashioned into a ladle-like tool used for watering plants. In a time when metal watering cans were expensive, being able to grow one’s own irrigation tools was certainly a favorable alternative. 

Dried gourds make excellent dippers for the cistern. Gourds and thumb-pots are favorite 17th-century tools kids can use as they water the garden’s many plants.

 

2012 was also a “hot” year for red and yellow cayenne peppers. Growing cayenne peppers has given the garden staff an opportunity to interpret contradicting horticultural ideas, as not everyone on the estate would have eaten them.  African slaves living at Pennsbury had their own culinary culture and probably would have cultivated cayenne peppers as a food source. However, the Penn family and Pennsylvania’s other English residents would have considered them to be primarily ornamental plants with some medicinal and culinary value. For example, cayenne pepper and other spices would have been added to hot chocolate for an exotic burst of spicy flavor.

The fall harvest is well under way and will continue for the next few weeks. On your next visit to Pennsbury, take a walk through the garden and reflect on the efforts of our gardeners, past and present. They cultivated food for the table, medicine for those who were sick, and even tools for future growing seasons. Autumn is the perfect time to celebrate their achievements!

By Danielle Lehr, Volunteer and Intern

The Country Life: It’s Harvest Time… Right?

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When many people think of the harvest, they think of autumn. But another important time for gathering crops, not to be forgotten, takes place in the heat of the summer!

In an age where food wasn’t from the local supermarket, but from the land people lived on, it was important to use the soil to the best of its ability.  With ground-breaking techniques (no pun intended!) of the time, farmers were able to work the land to provide maximum yield from the beginnings of spring, to the eve’s of winter.

The Corn Harvest (August), Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565

One important crop of colonial Pennsylvania was wheat.  Of three varieties grown, winter and summer wheat were able to be harvested around the month of June, if weather had been good.  Governor Penn even reports “they may sow eight acres; half with summer wheat and half with oats,” referring to successful agriculture production in his colony.  Other summer crops include rye, hemp, barley, oats and flax.  

In smaller kitchen gardens, more customized techniques could be applied to each plant being grown. Here at Pennsbury Manor we have a reconstruction of William Penn’s own kitchen garden. It was intended for raising vegetables, herbs, and anything else that could be found useful in the estates kitchen. Structures like “hot beds” were created to begin the germination of seeds in late winter. This wooden framework was filled with manure, and topped with a layer of soil; this bed could become as hot as 100°F in the coldest of winter. Once mature enough, they can be moved to garden beds.

A view of the cold frames and hotbed at Pennsbury Manor.

Similar to the hot bed, the cold frame was a structure used to protect fragile herbs.  This structure was enclosed with spare glass, matting or canvas. One would also find raised beds. This state of the art invention allowed planters to control the fertility of their soil and manage it accordingly.

With innovations such as these, the kitchen garden would be able to adapt to the seasons and continuously provide for the estate. In a time like Penn’s, it was always important to put time to its best use, even in the heat of the summer!

By Ray Tarasiewicz, Intern

William’s World: To Butter and Beyond

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Just as in the time of William Penn, the work was never done, and so too do we find our fourth post in regards to Dairying! 

Our first posts covered the business of being a milk-maid, the history of dairying and cheese-making.  Now let’s take a look at the importance of cream and butter, which held an important place at the table long before cheese was acceptable to anyone but “common folk.”

In these aristocratic households, their status and wealth meant their butter was made purely of cream. In addition, cream was used in pasties, dressings for meat, and custards.

The butter itself took on a purpose all its own in a number of different forms.  Initially, butter was acceptable for children and the old, but not middle-aged gentlemen of higher stature like William Penn. Even the most basic thoughts for butter (such as being spread on bread) were something that came from Flemish practices, who were influenced by the Dutch on this matter.  Eventually it became common practice for the English toward the late 16th to early 17th   century.

Still Life with Glass, Cheese, Butter and Cake, Floris Gerritsz. van Schooten, mid-17th century

The trend eventually went away from butter as a hard spread; as butter began to be melted and poured over vegetables, it became more prominent at the dinner table. Melted butter was also used for sauces on fish, meat, and other main dish delicacies.  Moreover, it became an important element of preserving food, which was always important in regards to ensuring enough sustenance for the winter months. “Butter was used lavishly to seal the cooked food from contact with the air, and in order to ensure that no cracks appeared in the sealing, many pounds of  butter were used in large households”.  “The improved arts of preserving food also involved another use for butter, by filling pies after they had been cooked with melted butter to make an airtight seal, and filling jars and pots of cooked meat and fish in the same way. Thus they kept for days or weeks”.

Landscape with Cows, Anthonie van Borssom, 1649

Furthermore, just as cheese took hold and started to become an area specialty, so too did butter.  It began to be made with less-expensive dairy products (whey, milk, town milk, etc), which allowed it’s accessibility to all classes. The variations in butter also came as a result the cows’ diets, which would affect the taste based on what was eaten. Fresh grass from the pasture was preferred for the best quality milk to turn to butter (just as it was with the milk to be used for cheese) yet, this was not always the case due to the large portion of cattle eating clover as well. Resultantly, this variation created noticeable differences and would often affect the flavoring and coloring of butter.

The dairy industry boomed and the growth of butter lead to its export from England from the 1630’s onward.  The height of which was between 1638 and 1675.  Does that mean we could perhaps call it… the bread and butter of the English economy?  Oh c’mon, that’s funny!

Written by Mary Barbagallo, Intern

Further Reading:

Food in Early Modern England – Phases, Fads, Fashions 1500-1760, Joan Thirsk, Continuum Books, 2007, New York, NY

The Country Life: Growing our Clothes

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As the summer heat drags on, we turn our focus to an important crop we’ve been growing in the Kitchen Garden: flax. This reed-like plant has been used for thousands of years to create a light-weight, durable fabric called linen, which was a staple textile for common folk and aristocrats alike. 

Flax plants starting to grow in the hot beds at Pennsbury, 2011

Linen production in the Delaware River Valley began primarily in Swedish settlements as farmers began cultivating flax. By the time William Penn held the proprietorship of the colony, local leaders were urging settlers to increase growth of this fiber crop.

The harvest of the flax begins in late July. Farmers would pull the crop from the ground and tie them into small bundles in which they would be laid out to dry for several days. Next step would be to pull the fibers apart with a tool referred to as a “ripple comb.” During this stage, the seeds would be removed and could either be used for planting or sent to an oil mill for pressing.   

Flax-breaker

Following this, the separated fibers would be wetted and laid out to soften. After separating them again, they would begin a process known as “hackling” or “hatchling.”  Workers would draw fibers through a board with fixed steel teeth, providing fibers for grades of linen varying from rough working clothes to finer table clothes and sheets. 

Combs for "hackling" the linen fibers

Flax was not initially a popular crop because of its need for fertile soil and the time-consuming, strenuous process of harvesting.  However, flax became more profitable up into the mid-1700s as a major export of the region. Soon, with the rise of cotton in the 1800’s, linen production would nearly cease to exist.  

Bolts of modern linen from Pennsbury's clothing program

On an estate such as Pennsbury Manor, linens of all kinds would be common, from the roughest weave to the finest bleached linen. Visitors can see evidence of it’s colonial role all around, from the tools of flax harvest found in the kitchen house to the linen press kept in Penn’s Great Hall to store his expensive investment.  Linen was one of the key fabics of its time, and continues its popularity today!

By Ray Tarasiewicz, Intern

 

William’s World: We’re So Cheesy

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Aelbert Cyup, "The Dairy Maid," 1650s

We’ve recently been discussing just how important dairying was, first as a career for the idyllic milkmaids and as a country business that was transported into towns (resulting in a more convenient, but poorer quality product).  As those articles mentioned, there were a number of ways to prepare milk to be turned into various food resources. Today, cheese is a highly popular product (and a great way to preserve milk long-term), but it wasn’t always so fashionable!

Volunteer interpreters Susan PLaisted and Joan Healy prepare to drain the whey from cheese curds at Pennsbury Manor.

A large amount of milk went into cheese making. Although dairy did take its role at the table of the 15th and 16th-century elite in a number of forms (of which the five most common were cream, curds, milk, buttermilk, and whey), the one seen at their table least was cheese.  Cheese evolved from being a resource associated with poverty to being a sought-after staple for all social classes.

The main change that occurred in favor of cheese took place in the 1650’s when cheese became the primary reliance of the English army’s soldiers in Ireland. Also used to feed servants or humbler guests, it was found on ships because it lasted without deterioration, and thus it was a good option to send with both sailors and troops.

The whey is allowed to drain from the cheese curds, then the bundle is poured into a cheesemold and wrapped with a linen cloth. Cheese needs to be rotated and maintained regularly while being cured, or the liquid will settle on one side and will turn bad.

Further support for the consumption of dairy in the form of cheese came about as Englishmen saw cheese savored at the tables of high-ranking society members abroad. Initially startling the English elite, especially if served toasted and not cold, cheese eventually took hold at their table. This was especially so as the milk industry boomed and the different counties of England began refining the cheese making process to produce various types include what would be most similar to that of a sharp cheddar today. And, although the outcome was surely delicious, the process behind cheese making is less appealing.

Calve's stomach, which was required every spring for cheese-making.

Firstly, “a suckling calf’s stomach- bag was the usual source of rennet” (rennet-a dried extract made from the stomach lining of a ruminant, used to curdle milk).  As a result cheese was made during the spring when a single calf could be sacrificed for the sake of cheese making and milk would be abundant. In conjunction, the process of cheese making was something simple that could be done at the home if you owned a household cow. Likewise, there was no need for special expensive equipment and the milk could be processed quickly.  The resulting cheese making industry soon grew too and frequented the spring with the annual cheese making processes.

Flrois Claesz van Dijck, "Still-Life with Fruit, Nuts, and Cheese," 1613

 

 

 

By Mary Barbagallo, Intern

Photographs by Hannah Howard, Volunteer Coordinator

 

 

  

Sources

Food and Drink in Britain – C. Anne Wilson, the Anchor Press Ltd., 1973, Great Britain

Food in Early Modern England – Phases, Fads, Fashions 1500-1760 – Joan Thirsk, Continuum Books, 2007, New York, NY

The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition – Houghton Mifflin, 1985, Boston, MA

William’s World: Hi-Ho the Dairy-O!

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“My cow is a commonwealth to me… for she allows myself, my wife and son for to banquet ourselves withal.” 
~  Food in Early Modern England

A while back, we posted a Springtime Ode to the Milkmaid.  Well it’s time to recognize the popularity of the product she was selling! 

From early 17th century England, well into the mid 18th century, the uses for milk can best be described as abundant!   However, in the early 1600’s it may have been hard to foresee the leaps in popularity this common resource would make. Although it was consumed, in one form or another, by all classes, it was most common among the poor until the mid 17th Century, especially in the form of cheese and butter.  It was only used amongst the upper classes for the occasional eccentricity, such as the Earl of Rutland in 1602 who was rumored as preferring to bathe in milk! 

Medieval Depiction of Dairying; Joan Thisk's Food in Early Modern England

Nevertheless, the notion of the beneficial properties of milk consumption came about when it was noted of “the fair complexions and good health of those who drank milk…”  In addition, it was thought to be the source of farmers’ and servants’ ability to complete hard labor day in and day out. Often consuming the leftovers such as whey (leftover liquid from cheese-making) or buttermilk (the byproduct of butter-making), the poor found ways of making even the lowest products of the dairying process ready for consumption with a few additions such as breadcrumbs, sugar, or spices. The availability of dairying changed, however; as milk climbed in popularity amongst the elite and dairy farmers took up commercial pig-keeping, the leftover dairy that once was disappeared.  Another reason for the diminishing availability of milk was due to the enclosure of what was public grazing area during the late Tudor period (late 1500’s, early 1600’s).

Marcellus Laroon's "Merry Milk Maid" - late 17th century

Furthermore, as the city populations began to grow (specifically in England) and keeping a cow became more inconvenient, as previously described, dairy shops took the place of local farms and milkmaids hawking their product in the streets took the place of individual household cows (Clarification: Just so nobody asks the question… no, I am NOT referring to milkmaids as cows!).  These maids would spend the day carrying pails of milk on yolks, and sometimes driving the cows themselves through the streets to be milked at your door. This option was to bring the milk in from the surrounding countryside, although the milk lost its warmth on the way into town, whereas on-the-spot milking ensured its warmth and freshness.  

As a result of these “new” practices, cows became town animals kept in town dairies. Oftentimes the result equaled poor-tasting and poor-quality milk.  This was the result of an improper diet; the feed given to town cows often consisted of bean shells, cabbage leaves and brewers’ grain, as opposed to the preferred natural pasture grass of the countryside. Moreover, the “town milk” was of poor quality due to the processing before it was sold. Usually diluted with water, it was skimmed of all cream before it made its way into any market. It was also guaranteed to be contaminated with whatever found its way into the pails as it was carried through the busy English streets. Thus, the safest, best quality milk came straight from the country-bred cow, and this was what was desired, not only to be enjoyed as a glass of milk, but also for the dairying processes to turn the drink into proper fare.

 

~ Written by Mary Barbagallo, Intern

Further Reading:

Food and Drink in Britain – C. Anne Wilson, the Anchor Press Ltd., 1973, Great Britain

 Food in Early Modern England – Phases, Fads, Fashions 1500-1760 – Joan Thirsk, Continuum Books, 2007, New York, NY

 

 

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