Tacky

MAYFLOWER MENU: The kids were reading up about life in the 13 American colonies and the journey here, and one of the things they read about was food that the settlers ate back in the day (see Annabelle's short report below).

One of the staples of those early travelers' diets was hardtack. Per Wikipedia, hardtack is "a simple type of biscuit or cracker, made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. Inexpensive and long-lasting, it was and is used for sustenance in the absence of perishable foods, commonly during long sea voyages, land migrations, and military campaigns.^[1] The name derives from the British sailor slang for food, 'tack'." 

I found a recipe online, and we decided to give it a go.

The kids carefully measured the salt, flour and water.

They mixed them in the bowl ... 

and then kneaded the dough.

Rolling it out was rather difficult. It's tough stuff!

The pilgrims probably didn't have cool Star Trek cutters. 

The last step before baking was perforating the squares.

An hour in the oven, and this is what we had. 

The kids took the warm from the oven 'treat' to share with their social studies club friends, and it was a hit! People really liked it, especially smothered in jam we also brought along.

Below is Annabelle's report. .. 

Mayflower Food
by Annabelle

You might think of the Pilgrims as having huge feasts with turkey and mashed potatoes, but the truth is, the Pilgrims on the Mayflower ate some things that we might not consider “Delicious”. One of their more common foods was Hardtack, crackers with a shelf life of years and years.

The only ingredients are flour, salt, and water. They’re very boring and tasteless, but they were enough to keep the Pilgrims going in a pinch. Once arriving in the Americas, the natives taught them how to grow corn. This led to many of their meals being comprised of corn and other grains.

They also ate a lot of game meat like venison (reindeer) and wildfowl (wild birds). The Pilgrims brought a few animals from their homeland, such as cows and sheep, but most of what they brought was shelf stable, meaning it could last on the long voyage. They didn’t have too much to drink with these meals- they drank exclusively beer and (possibly) wine, as alcohol was cleaner than water and the brewing process killed most of the germs and bacteria. In fact, the Pilgrims only landed at Plymouth because they ran out of beer. Even the children drank beer! I thought it was interesting just how little the pilgrims had on their voyage, and I wouldn’t want to eat hardtack that much!

And CJ wrote about the colonies and their names. 

Naming the Thirteen Colonies

by CJ

According to Wikipedia, the Thirteen Colonies were a group of British colonies on the east coast of the present-day US founded in the 17th and 18th centuries that declared independence in 1776 and formed the United States. The Thirteen Colonies, were, in order from North to South:
Massachusetts (the Northern section now becoming Maine in 1820), New Hampshire, New York (part of the Northeastern section becoming Vermont in 1791), Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia (the Western section becoming West Virginia in 1863), North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The etymology of the names of the Thirteen Colonies is very interesting. The colony of Massachusetts derived its name from the Massachusett, a Native American nation native to the colony’s area. The word “Massachusett” apparently translates to “near the great hill”, most likely referring to Massachusetts’ Blue Hills. New Hampshire was named by Captain John Mason after the Hampshire county in southern England. The Hampshire county’s name comes from the Old English “Hamtun”, which roughly translates to “village-town”.

A map of the Thirteen Colonies. The Colonies are pictured in red.

The colony of New York’s name was given to it in 1664, by England. The New York Colony was named after the Duke of York, which was a title of nobility in England (and, by extension, the United Kingdom). According to Wikipedia, the way Aquidneck Island (which would later become a part of Rhode Island) got the name “Rhode Island” is unclear. The most well-known version of the story is that Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano came across what would later be called “Rhode Island”, and gave it that name because he found it similar to the island of Rhodes in Greece. Later explorers, such as Pilgrims, would assume that anything they landed on in that area was Rhode Island, so eventually, a much larger region surrounding Aquidneck Island was christened as “Rhode Island”. The name “Rhodes” itself is either derived from the Greek words for “snake”, “pomegranate”, or “rose”.

The name “Connecticut” is apparently taken from Romanized version of an Algonquian word that translates to “long tidal river”. Pennsylvania got its name after King Charles II of England granted William Penn a land tract for the area that now includes Pennsylvania. Penn named the land he was granted “Pennsylvania”, derived from a Latin term meaning “woods”.

New Jersey is named for Jersey, a crown dependency of the United Kingdom. The origin of the name “Jersey” itself is actually very confusing, and could warrant a whole report of its own. Delaware was named for the Delaware River, which itself was named for Baron De La Warr, an English politician. Maryland was named after Henrietta Maria of France, then-Queen Consort of England. Virginia was named for Queen Elizabeth I, who was known as the “Virgin Queen” (the reasons for which are not appropriate class discussion).

Both North and South Carolina were named for King Charles II of England. Georgia, the Southernmost of the Thirteen Colonies, was named after George II of Great Britain.

I learned a lot while researching the etymology of the names of the Thirteen Colonies.