Thanksgiving at Corgyncombe Cottage

An Old Fashioned Feast to Be Thankful For!

Corgyncombe Cottage celebrated Thanksgiving Day with favorite traditional Thanksgiving food. Diane made pumpkin pies from pumpkins grown in the Corgyncombe Vegetable Garden. 

 

The photographs below show the steps in preparing the pumpkins for pumpkin pie.

 Extreme care must be taken whilst cutting the pumpkins. 

 

  After the pumpkins are cut in two, the seeds are scraped out and the pumpkin is then put on a baking pan and put into the oven. The seeds were dried and saved. 

 

  After cooling, the outer skin is peeled off and the pumpkin is mashed. 

 

  The pumpkin is then put into cheesecloth and tied up. 

 

 The cheesecloth bag is put into a colander in a bowl and pressed with a weight overnight in the ice box to remove the excess liquid. In the morning the cheesecloth bag with the pumpkin in it is squeezed to get the rest of the liquid out. 

 

  The pumpkin is put into a bowl and the rest of the ingredients are added. 

 

 Cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and a little bit of nutmeg make the Corgyncombe Cottage kitchen smell delightfully like Thanksgiving.

 

 

The pumpkin pie before baking. 

 

 

Red Pontiac potatoes from the Corgyncombe Vegetable garden cooked over the fire in Diane's Grandmum's iron kettle. Diane's Grandmum always used the kettle to cook potatoes. 

 

 

Cranberries cooking over the hot coals. 

 

 

 

The turkey and stuffing is done! Diane uses her Grandmum's platter for the turkey with bay leaves from Diane's bay tree tucked around the edge.

 

 

Diane will soon have a tin kitchen to roast her turkey before the fire. In the bowl are Red Pontiac mashed potatoes, made according to the receipt in "The Tasha Tudor Cookbook". Squash was also prepared.

 

Here is a link to: Our Thanksgiving Page on Our Favorite Things

 

 

After barn chores pumpkin pie is served with cheese.

 

Louisa May Alcott wrote a story called "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving". Diane's 5th great grandfather Eliakim May was 1st cousin to Louisa May Alcott's great grandfather Samuel May.

 

In Tasha Tudor's "Around the Year", Tasha has illustrated a tin kitchen with traditional Thanksgiving food around it. In "A Time to Keep", Tasha Tudor illustrated a lady basting the turkey in a tin kitchen in front of the fire. Hungry corgyn gather round, hoping for a taste of turkey. "The New England Butt'ry Shelf Cookbook" written by Mary Mason Campbell and illustrated by Tasha Tudor, also features an illustration of a woman using a tin kitchen with a table of Thanksgiving food.

 

 

In "First Poems of Childhood", for the poem "Over the River and Through the Wood" by Lydia Maria Child, Tasha Tudor illustrated Thanksgiving food and a family going over the covered bridge with horse and sleigh to a lovely old house and barn where they will enjoy Thanksgiving dinner. The old house and barn remind The Corgyncombe Courant of Corgyncombe Cottage and barn. 

 

An old fashioned Thanksgiving for those at Corgyncombe Cottage, a delicious feast to be most thankful for!

 

Here is a link to a YouTube video where they prepared pumpkin for pumpkin pie using a similar method with the cheesecloth:

 

Pumpkin Pie from Scratch on YouTube 

 

It has more instructions on cooking times and preparation.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~