Yesterday I had the pleasure of celebrating A Little House Thanksgiving at the gorgeous Farmers Branch Historical Park.
A Little House Thanksgiving
The event featured numerous activities geared towards children such as making your own pumpkin pies.
As well as crafting turkeys out of corn husks.
Throughout the park, volunteers shared various pioneer Thanksgiving and harvest presentations.
I was thrilled to be placed in the enchanting turn of the century schoolhouse.
Dapper Dan
This finely dressed young gentleman accompanied me.
He took the lead in reading about how Laura Ingalls Wilder celebrated Thanksgiving.
As well as answering many questions from the captivated audience.
1860’s Wool Ensemble
I wore a new 1860’s ensemble made from vintage wool and antique trim.
The weather was a bit brisk but I felt very comfortable.
An old hat was freshened up with some antique feathers and ribbon found recently at a French flea market.
On The Banks of Plum Creek
Chapter 12
“Grasshopper weather was strange weather. Even at Thanksgiving, there was no snow,”
“The door of the dugout was wide open while they ate Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Thanksgiving dinner was good. Pa had shot a wild goose for it. Ma had to stew the goose because there was no fireplace and no oven in the little stove. But she made dumplings in the gravy. There were corn dodgers and mashed potatoes. There was butter, and milk, and stewed dried plums. And three grains of parched corn lay beside each tin plate.”
At the first Thanksgiving dinner, the poor pilgrims had had nothing to eat but three parched grains of corn. Then the Indians came and brought them turkeys, so the Pilgrims were thankful.”
Now, after they had eaten their good, big Thanksgiving dinner, Laura and Mary could eat their grains of corn and remember the Pilgrims.
Little Town on the Prairie
Chapter 19
As if all this were not more than enough, the Ladies’ Aid planned a great celebration of Thanksgiving, to help pay for the church.
There was no school on Thanksgiving Day. There was no Thanksgiving dinner either. It was a queer, blank day full of anxious watching of the pie and the beans and of waiting for the evening.
“…Ma wrapped the great pan of beans in the brown wrapping paper and a shawl to keep the beans hot…”
“Pa carried the beans Ma bore in both hands the great pumpkin pie, baked in her large, square bread-baking tin.”
In the very center of one table, a pig was standing, roasted brown, and holding in its mouth a beautiful red apple.
In all their lives, Laura and Carrie had never seen so much food.
Those tables were loaded. There were heaped dishes of mashed potatoes and of mashed turnips, and of mashed yellow squash, all dribbling melted butter down their sides from little hollows in their peaks … large bowls of dried corn soaked soft again and cooked with cream… plates piled high with golden squares of cornbread and slices of white bread and of brown, nutty-tasting graham bread.
There were cucumber pickles and beet pickles and green tomato pickles, and glass bowls on tall glass stems were full of red tomato preserves and wild-chokecherry jelly. On each table was a long, wide, deep pan of chicken pie, with steam rising through the slits in its flaky crust.
Most marvelous of all was the pig. It stood so life-like, propped up by short sticks, above a great pan filled with baked apples. It smelled so good. Better than any smell of any other food was that rich, oily, brown smell of roasted pork, that Laura had not smelled for so long.
Artwork by Garth Williams, copyright Little House in the Big Woods.
Ma’s Pumpkin Pie
This recipe can be found in The Little House Cookbook.
9-inch piecrust Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup of lard
- ½ tsp cold butter
- You may add up to 3tsp of cold water if the dough is dry.
Filling Ingredients
- 2 cups of stewed pumpkin (or pumpkin puree)
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/4 cups whole milk or half and half
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 teaspoon of maple syrup
- 1 tsp of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg or ginger
Directions
Step 1: Preheat oven to 425 F.
Step 2: To make the pie shell crust mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Slice the lard and butter into small pieces and add to the flour. Blend ingredients together until uniformly coarse. Add water if necessary. Roll dough into a ball and chill.
Step 3: Flour surface and roll dough out into an 11” circle with a rolling pin. Place dough into a buttered pie pan. You may make a fluted border with the excess dough on the edge. Chill again while filing is prepared.
Step 4: Combine filling ingredients in a large bowl. Stir well.
Step 5: Pour filling into prepared pie shell crust.
Step 6: Place pie in the center of the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 F and continue to bake approximately 40-50 minutes until crust is brown and pumpkin custard is firm (a knife inserted should come out clean and dry). Cool pie completely before serving.
From our Little House to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!
Laura
As usual, this is so full of wonderful history and stories. I so enjoy all of your “Little House” post.s Happy Thanksgiving.
This is the most fabulous event! And no one is better suited to be sharing stories than you. So glad you had an able (and well dressed) assistant. As for you, well you looked just beautiful. Of all the period costumes you’ve done, this might be one of the loveliest.
Happy Thanksgiving, Laura. I hope it’s a beautiful day for you and your family.
What an enjoyable day for everyone. I’ll have to try the Little House pumpkin pie recipe, thanks for sharing.
What a fun event. You look smashing in your beautiful attire!
I love this post! I’ve read these books many times. But there’s something I didn’t think about until now. How did they control the temps of their baking???
Trial, error and experience! You’ll find that old recipes that have not been adapted for modern use will say ‘bake in a slow oven…” or a quick oven, a hot oven, a moderate oven…. Ovens integrated in chimneys would be heated by having a fire made in them, then coals removed or raked to the side – like a pizza oven -and pies and cakes might be baked in a dutch oven with coals underneath/on top, just as campers do today….
Colonial Williamsburg has a wonderful blog about historic cooking….recipes.history.org
Sounds like a great event! You and your son look wonderful!
Wonderful picture, s you are an excellent photographer. .. Your outfit is amazing and beautiful. Your son looks so into his part. How nice that he is interested and you will have such wonderful memories with him. The pie looks delicious also! What a nice post. Thank you for such an interesting informative post.
Perfect Laura as usual. I love your period costumes and this charming red outfit is lovely. I also love the history you tell behind each and every piece of clothing. What a Thanksgiving feast for the Ingalls family…stewed goose must have been a real treat. And baking that pie in Ma’s baking tin…oh to be a fly on the wall in those days, which I am sure were plenty of with doors wide open. Thank you for a visit back in time. Hugs and Happy Thanksgiving.
Laura, you look stunning in your woolens and hat! Sweet Guy looks very dapper. So glad it was a nice event for you. Happy Thanksgiving.
Laura, I am crazy about this post, too. Of great interest to me are the school room and your clothing because they are like a portal to the past. I can imagine because of the way the sun shifts across the floor what it must have been like to sit there as a student, whether daydreaming or being actively engaged. I feel sorry for today’s students who no longer see the sky or are invigorated by the air of a September afternoon while in classes.
Look how close the front desks were to the teacher’s desk. They certainly had to toe the line.
Your new wool dress and your comment about its warmth is very interesting. I was thinking the other day about the smell of mothballs in our wool blankets when they were first taken from storage in the autumn. They were very warm. The top sheet, the wool blanket, and bedspread kept us toasty all night.
I think your blog is one of the top three excellent blogs on the Internet. They are visually beautiful and are content interesting. I always learn something.
Laura, I ditto everything that Ginene said! Especially about your consistently excellent blog. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Oh what a wonderful event! Is this done every Thanksgiving? I’m only a couple of hours away, so it would be doable. Your red wool outfit is just beautiful! Will you be wearing this to Dickens on the Strand too? I hope you are going to enter the costume contest. It was one of my favorite events. Happy Thanksgiving!
P.S. Just finished reading Prairie Fires. All I can say is WOW!
What a stunning outfit to wear at your Little House Thanksgiving! It’s gorgrous , and would also be perfect for Christmas. Have as very happy Thanksgiving with your family!
Happy Thanksgiving. As always I am thankful for another year of your blog. I truly do enjoy and cherish reading it.
Happy Thanksgiving, Laura and to your family. I enjoyed this post very much. I so love “Little House. Your costume is absolutely beautiful.
A wonderful post, Laura, so full of history and holiday cheer. I love your costume! And I love the old fashioned school room especially since – would you believe it – I was going on my morning walk and found by the skip on of these school desks with the rising wooden top and wrought iron legs. I cannot imagine who would throw out such a thing but you can be sure that I took it home with me 🙂
Amalia
xo
Loved your red outfit and your son looked amazing. Where did he get his beautiful moccasins ? My grandson has been looking for some.