Quaking Pudding & Cackling Farts!
Join us as we re-discover the tastes & techniques of 17th century cooking. Each Friday (July 8 - August 12, 2022) we'll post an original colonial recipe and challenge you to recreate it in your own kitchen.
Join the fun
Did we mention the prizes?
With their bizarre ingredients, missing measurements, and directions only a goode huswife could follow, 17th century recipes are anything but simple. But don't dismay! We make it easy for you to join in the fun.
Along with the original 17th century recipe, we'll also post our best guess at a 21st century translation. Plus, back at the Colony of Avalon's 17th century kitchen, Lori and Krista (our Living History Interpreters) will be cooking right along with you. For the next six days, they’ll share their successes, failures and lessons learned via the Colony's social media feeds and we're hoping you'll do the same. And to spur you on, we're offering some great weekly and grand prizes.
Prizes, Prizes and More Prizes
At the end of each week, we’ll put every entry in a hat (or butter pot) and randomly draw a winner. But that's just the start. All entries will also be added to our grand prize draw. Cook and post all 6 recipes and you’ll be automatically entered to win our bonus prize!
And just to keep things interesting.... Each week as our collective skills and confidence grow, the recipes will get just a little bit harder. So what are you waiting for? On you marks, get set .... uhh ... dewte on be eggys?
For your chance to win, simply cook the week's recipe, snap a photo and add it as a comment under the recipe post on the Colony of Avalon's Facebook page. Simple, right?
our Mission
Established in 1621 by Sir George Calvert (the first Lord Baltimore), the Colony of Avalon is widely recognized as the best preserved early English colonial site in North America. The Colony of Avalon Foundation is a not-for-profit, charitable organization, located in Ferryland, Newfoundland. Our mission? To investigate and preserve the archaeological remains of Lord Baltimore’s Colony of Avalon, and to present its history in a way that makes you care as much about it as we do.
The Great Colonial Cook Off encourages you to cook and eat the food of Lord Baltimore and his colonists. It's a lot of fun and the food tastes great. (ok, MOST of it tastes great). But our hope is that cooking and eating this food (and sharing your experiences in person and/or on line) will encourage you to think about the lives of the people who originally prepared and ate these dishes, how their world defined the food choices available to them, and how their creativity and ingenuity transformed food culture. And along the way, maybe (just maybe) it will spur some similar thinking about yourself the food you eat today.