Colonial Foodways

When Did You Eat in Colonial Times?

Servants, the enslaved, and other lower to middling sorts of people, typically awoke long before sunrise (maybe as early as 4 am) to do morning chores like starting the fire and beginning preparations for the daily meals, feeding and caring of the animals, and getting water from the well. After several hours of work, they would “break the fast” from the previous night. The morning meal might be yesterday’s leftovers, a corn mush cake, or porridge. Dinner was served around 2 p.m. and it was the largest meal of the day. For the wealthy upper class gentry this midday meal was quite lavish and could offer many food items such as a roast or meat pie, porridge or pudding, salad, bread, ale or cider, and a fruit tart or other dessert. Look at the recipes listed later in the book to understand what was served at a typical dinner. The evening meal, called supper, was usually leftovers from the midday dinner.