Nancy Prescott came to Peterborough with her husband Samuel and their children when he was hired as an overseer at the Phoenix Mill. Because of his position, they were able to rent one of four small mill houses. Their home was situated about 25 feet from the Nubanusit River on Samuel Smith’s downtown mill property. […]
Bird’s Nest Pudding Recipes for Bird’s Nest Pudding, or Crow’s Nest Pudding as it was sometimes called, were popular in the late 18th century. In the fall when apples would be readily available to housewives, they would make fresh apple pie, apple sauce, apple butter, and recipes like this one. Extra apples might be stored […]
This recipe for Lemon Minced Pie comes from Maria Rundell‘s 1808 cookbook, A New System of Domestic Cookery. This recipe makes a delicious pie with a bright taste. It’s easy to make as long as you can find the rendered suet (the beef tallow from the cow’s kidney area). I purchased some online from James Townsend & Sons. […]
This little garden outside the Phoenix Mill house is growing ingredients for our fall hearth cooking programs. Crops include onions, potatoes, celery, squash, and various herbs.
December 14th dawned cold with the first major storm of the year coming in the afternoon. John, Lorraine, Mary and I arrived dressed in warm layers prepared for a day of extreme hearth cooking. From the start, the temperature made for a very different day from our October and November Saturdays before the hearth. We […]
Each time we offer a Hearth Cooking Saturday, we try out some new recipes and techniques. At our November session, we experimented with a standing crust pie. Pies go back to ancient times but those ancient pies were different than the flaky crust, melt in your mouth pies that we make today. The pie crust […]
As you can see from the photo, we had a great day last Saturday cooking in the Phoenix Mill House. John Patterson (pictured in his 18th century duds) has become the caretaker of the mill house and graciously came in early that morning to get the fires going and to fire the bee hive oven. […]
The smell of strawberries always brings to mind my grandmother and the hot humid day in June when she took me (a twelve year old recently transplanted from Southern California) to pick the wild strawberries that grew at the edge of the old hayfield on her Hancock farm. The strawberries were nothing like I had […]
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