hardtack lasted a very long time but was tasteless and hard enough to break teeth to be soaked or cooked before being eaten Worms and beetles often infested the hardtack Sometimes these insects were eaten along with the hardtack for extra nutrition Starving with Food All Around Even though there was food growing running flying and swimming all around them the colonists didn’t know how to make use of it They were unfamiliar with most of the wild native plants and didn’t know how to grow crops Most didn’t even know how to hunt or fish Back in England hunting and fishing were leisure activities for the very wealthy A nobleman would own an estate and hunt his own 6 The Colonial Cook
deer and fish in his own streams Anyone who trespassed on his land to hunt or fish was a poacher and might be imprisoned or even hanged In fact when they first met local Native American tribes colonists thought the women were very hardworking because they farmed while the men were lazy aristocrats because they hunted and fished all day Desperate Times Although surrounded by food the settlers began to starve to death The years 1609 and 1610 were known as the Starving Time Of the 214 original Jamestown colonists only 60 survived They slaughtered their horses first then dogs cats and rats They boiled the leather of their shoes There is even evidence that the survivors resorted to cannibalism or the consumption of human flesh to stay alive Human bones recovered from the site show signs of butchering An English supply ship finally provided relief Eventually the colonists learned to use the abundant natural resources Relations with the local Native American tribes such as the Powhatan Confederacy and the Wampanoag were sometimes good sometimes bad But it was from the Native Americans that the colonists learned how to survive New World New Foods 7
New Foods The New World was full of new fruits vegetables and grains Among the foods found in the colonies but not in Europe were corn maize wild rice peanuts sunflowers blueberries pawpaws pecans walnuts chestnuts maple syrup and many kinds of squashes and beans Some other foods found in Central or South America and later introduced to the English colonies and Europe included peppers tomatoes and potatoes The colonists initially weren’t impressed by the Native American farms To them the fields seemed jumbled and disorganized The English were used to huge fields with neat ordered rows The Native American fields had lumps and mounds and different kinds of produce were all grown together Three Sisters Most of the tribes the colonists encountered used the Three Sisters method of agriculture For each planting they would make a flat-topped mound Five kernels of corn would be planted in the center of the mound one for the blackbird one for the crow one for the cutworm and two to grow Climbing beans would be later planted at the base of the corn They would use the corn stalk for support Squashes such as pumpkins with vines that spread along 8 The Colonial Cook
the ground would be planted among the mounds They would serve as living mulch to keep weed growth under control The farmers would bury a small fish such as a menhaden in the mound to act as fertilizer The native American tribes planted with the Three Sisters method mixing corn squash and beans in the same plots New World New Foods 9
