Dora Bremond

Colonial food played a vital role in the Colonial Era. If it weren’t for food the colonists would not have survived. The Native Americans, Africans and the English shared foods from their different cultures. The process of cooking these foods showed that everyone in the family was included, but each culture had different techniques and privileges. When the colonists first arrived they struggled with the process of finding food. The colonists started off terribly.  Even though there was food surrounding them in every corner, they didn’t realize this. They were unfamiliar with a lot of the plants and they did not know how to grow any of the crops. At the beginning of their journey they suffered a lot with finding their resources but in the end turned out to be successful. Colonial cooking has always been important because those recipes where the bases of our cooking to this day.

Stella Kekalos

Servants were necessary in the kitchen house for preparing, cooking and serving food. Servants also had to bring the food from the kitchen into the dining room, where most meals were eaten. Even though the food was made by servants and slaves the mistress of the house overlooked most of the work. The cook held a respectable role on the plantation. Four ranks of cooks were recognized in different classes. First male cooks and their staff in the grandest houses, then there were trained cooks with a couple of staff in gentry houses. Plain cooks with no staff in some houses and maids of all work or cooks-general who might do a bit of cooking in households. The kitchen staff included servants up to the late 17th century. The cooks at the plantation were all African women who cooked with the best ingredients and developed all the dishes that would become popular. Having these women cooking brought many traditional African meals to the tables of the English. African meals have inspired many of early American cookbooks too. The people in the south who did eat well were plantation owners who didn’t do any of their own cooking.

Lily Parks

Food is and was very important because it kept and keeps people living, and impressed guests. From each class, to each culture, food was prepared differently, but used for the same reasons. It was eaten everywhere from taverns, to plantations. It was all that people wanted to show off. Food was the only interesting thing that people had to show off, because it was something that you would remember as a guest. Though food may seem unimportant,  without food, guaranteed none of us would be here today.

Nina Gerzema

A farmer had many options as to where they could grow crops, but the decision depended on what they wanted to produce, and sell. For instance, if a farmer wanted to fish, their farm might be near the ocean. This would be beneficial since ships dock at the marketplaces to trade with farmers selling their goods. There might even be pirates trading from far away from other countries or colonies. At the marketplace near the ocean on the docks, there were thousands of traders and farmers selling their goods.