Miss Vera's advice: When it comes to food, think of a re-enactment as a two day picnic. Memorize and meditate on this advice. It is the hard learned wisdom of an experienced camp cook. In the peak of summer, try to avoid cooking during the heat of the day, or at all. It is entirely possible to live on uncooked, picnic style foods for a two day reenactment. This also saves you alot of work, and makes a busy day less stressful.
Although cooking in the summer should be avoided, there are times during the colder months when it is pleasurable to hover over a pot of beans or stew.
Clean hands We suggest that you review the Food Section on our Safety Page. There is some good advice on handling and storing foods. An essential item you need to acquire is a pump bottle of hand sanitizer. Hand washing opportunities are limited at reenactments, and the best you can do sometimes is a wash in cold water. All persons handling food should make use of this commodity, and diners should spread some on before eating.
Storage Make sure perishables are kept on ice. Disguise your ice chest, but use it to keep foods at a proper temperature to discourage spoilage. If your ice supply runs low, then by all means go to a store and get more ice-and do it before your current supply melts away. Store meats in air-tight "Tupperware" types of containers instead of the store wrappings they are purchased in. Juices from the meats can leak in your ice chest and contaminate other foods.
Some folks are quick to point out that such storage methods were not available during the Civil War era. I am just as quick to point out that dysentery was a wide-spread, deadly disease during that time, and spoiled foods were the major cause of that complaint. I'm sure you don’t want to spend the weekend running back and forth to the porta-potty with a period correct case of dysentery.
Washing Dishes Purchase anti-bacterial dish soap for washing dishes-you can keep some soap in a small period correct bottle by your scullery area. Ideally you would douse your dishes with boiling water to sanitize them. Since that is not always practical, I recommend that you purchase sanitizer for your rinse water. A few drops of chlorine bleach will work, but it tastes nasty and is hard on your hands. The best sanitizer is BTF (Bar Tender's Formula), available at restaurant supply stores; it is tasteless, odorless and rinses cleanly.
Cutting Boards Wooden cutting boards are not only period correct, they are more sanitary to use. They are excellent for preparing and serving breads, meats and cheeses on. Be sure to wash your board between uses.
Towels You just can't have enough of these. Period towels were made of flour-sack, muslin, or made from cast off clothing. We make piles of towels inexpensively from thrift shop sheets. These can be bleached clean, or if they get too funky, we just throw them away and make some more.
Drinking Water Make one of your first purchases a period correct water jug, cask or barrel. This essential item will insure that you have plenty of cool drinking water available. If you have to go into your hot tent to get a drink from a plastic jug, you will not do it often enough to avoid dehydration. A period correct water jug, keep within easy reach, is the best investment you can make for your health.
Water may be kept in period correct crocks, jugs, buckets or barrels. Make sure your water vessel has a cover or stopper to keep out dust and bugs. If you use a crock or cask with a large opening for filling, you can plunk in a nice chunk of ice to keep your water cool. Thick earthenware crocks and jugs keep water cool without ice if they are tightly covered and stored on the ground.
Washing Water Although wooden buckets are period correct, metal buckets were also in use during the era. Metal buckets also have the advantage of being lighter, and you can place them directly over the coals to heat wash water in. Get in the habit of leaving a bucket or large pot full of water on the fire at all times, so that warm wash water is available when you need it. You will need at least two buckets to wash dishes, one for washing and one for rinsing.
Dining Ware You will need knives, forks and spoons to dine with. Scour the thrift shops for silver plated flatware in period patterns. Don't bring stainless steel dining ware-it really is farby. Period forks only had two or three tines (no eating peas with your fork!), these may be hard to find, so do the best you can until you can acquire some reproduction forks from a sutler.
Dishes Soldiers use tin plates or pie pans, these will work for some impressions, but successful merchants or high class persons would use china sets in a period pattern. Wooden bowls are widely available.
Bowls & Crocks Serve your repast in stoneware crocks, wooden bowls, or fine silver trays and dishes. Refer to our section on Hunting & Gathering for great tips on acquiring bowls, crocks, and serving flatware.
Cast Iron Pans These are the standard for camp cooking. Iron holds up to the extremes of heat found in open fires and were the original "non-stick" cookware. A well seasoned iron pan will be easy to cook in and easy to clean. They are terribly heavy, so be sure you are up to lifting a heavy pan full of heavy food. See the Hunting & Gathering section for tips on purchasing these items.
Enamel Ware Graniteware as available today (black, blue or red with white speckles) was not available during the Civil War. Camouflage your graniteware coffee pot by spray painting it with flat black engine enamel.
Tinware Tin pots were used on stoves, but the solder seams do not hold up well to open fire cooking. Don't think you can pass your aluminum pots off as tinware. It is painfully obvious that they are just aluminum pots-leave them at home.
Remember that any pot or pan used over an open fire gets covered with icky black soot on the sides and bottom-it is a real mess to clean off. Bring trash bags to pack your cookware in for the ride home so you don't blacken everything they come in contact with.
An iron grill is a dandy thing to have if you will be cooking in camp. When you cook directly over the open fire, you have to balance your cooking ware across logs or coals, and the perch is sometimes precarious. A grill keeps your cooking pots level and makes it easy to add more fuel to the fire if needed.
Some folks use clever stoves that contain the fire above the surface of the ground (dandy for cooking in parks who want to preserve their manicured lawns). These stoves are usually custom made by a blacksmith or local welder. Look around at encampments for nifty ideas for constructing your own stove.
We plan to try out a small, old charcoal burning stove with grill I found at an estate sale, we'll let you know how it works...
Image from the Carson Collection
