Q: What was the American eating experience like?
A: Rough. Very rough. Even wealthy elites, as much as they tried to outgrow the wild and wooly associations of the frontier, found themselves eating food that had been hunted and foraged and stewed in a single pot. Most settlers wanted to replicate the established culinary habits of England. As many cookbooks as they imported, however, they failed to do so, having to settle for compromise after compromise—and these compromises son became standardized. Tree stumps took the place of chairs, an array of serving dishes were replaced by a single “mess” of a stew, hands were used in place of forks, napkins were replaced by shirtsleeves. These conditions improved with time, of course, but the willingness to make changes due to the conditions in the colonies became a habit in and of itself. I think food probably tasted quite good—it was almost always produced locally and almost always fresh. But the manner in which Americans ate took the ceremony— the pomp and circumstance-- out of eating to such an extent that Americans came to take pride in their simple, frugal ways, especially after the American Revolution, when America wanted to define itself as distinct from England not just politically but culturally as well.