During an all too brief moment of boredom at work today I cruised over to The Straight Dope to see what was shakin’ there. A question from the classics archive caught my eye:
Dear Cecil:
A friend of mine says she heard from "a reputable source" that Thanksgiving was actually invented by Harper's Bazaar in the 1800s. Can this be true? --Mindy, Champaign, Illinois
You can read the entire answer here, but part of it piqued my curiosity:
…Enter Mrs. Hale. A native of New Hampshire, she became obsessed with the idea that "Thanksgiving like the Fourth of July should be considered a national festival by all our people." Her opening salvo was her first novel, Northwood, published in 1827. An entire chapter was devoted to a detailed description of a Thanksgiving dinner complete with stuffed turkey and pumpkin pie.
In 1846, nine years after she became the editor of Godey's Lady's Book, she launched a crusade to make Thanksgiving an official holiday. Every fall the magazine would editorialize on the subject, meanwhile running high-cholesterol but probably pretty darn tasty recipes for such things as "Indian Pudding with Frumenty sauce" and "ham soaked in cider three weeks, stuffed with sweet potatoes, and baked in maple syrup." Mrs. Hale also wrote hundreds of letters to influential people urging them to support her cause.
Just what the heck is “Frumenty sauce?
How about letting this recipe for venison with Frumenty answer that one:
THE FRUMENTY
4 oz Kibbled, Pearled or
Hulled Wheat
13 fl Rich full Cream Milk
1 oz Mixed Dried Fruit
1 Beaten Egg Yolk
1 ts Honey
1/2 ts Ground Cinnamon
Salt
FOR THE FRUMENTY:
Soak the wheat for 12 hours, or overnight, in water preferably placing the bowl in a warm place. Drain. Boil the wheat gently in the milk for 20 minutes, add the dried fruit and continue boiling gently for another 40 minutes. Beat the egg yolk with the honey and cinnamon and stir into the wheat and milk. Add a little extra milk if the mixture appears too stiff, but don't let it get runny. The grains of wheat should be soft. Season very sparingly with salt. If you make the frumenty in advance add extra milk when reheated.
Okay, a sweet porridge, easy enough. But that ham in cider for three weeks, I had never heard of a cider-cured ham. Three weeks, in the days before refrigeration sounds a little dangerous too, although there might be enough sugar in the cider to cure. There’s certainly enough for a ferment or there would never be hard cider. A better explanation is that a dry-cured ham is used, like a Smithfield ham, and it is soaked in cider instead of water to remove the excess salt. Three weeks would sweeten it and give it a nice apple flavor and the salt extracted into the liquid would prevent bacterial infection. I’d like to get USDA approval before trying that without refrigeration, it just a hunch, but if the idea of cider-soaked country ham is appealing, Fifer Orchards has that recipe:
CIDER-CURED COUNTRY HAM
(from In Praise of Apples, by Mark Rosenstein)
*9 lb. Country (dry cured) Ham, bone in & outer layer of fat removed
30 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
2 gallons fresh Apple Cider
1 Tbsp. black pepper
**1 C. Apple Cider Reduction (see recipe below)
Rinse the ham under cold running water, scrubbing its entire outer surface with a stiff vegetable brush. Place the ham in a bucket or plastic container, just big enough to hold it. Pour in cider to completely submerge ham, cover & refrigerate for 24 hours. The next day, skim any fat that has risen to the surface of the cider. Place ham in a large stockpot; pour in cider to cover ham; place over medium heat & bring to a boil. Lower heat & simmer ham for 3 hours *(allow 20 minutes per lb. or until internal temperature of ham reaches 150 degrees); turn the ham if necessary.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Transfer the ham from the pot to a roasting pan fitted with a rack. Discard the cider, which will be too salty for any other use. Add the pepper to the Apple Cider Reduction already made & brush onto the surface of the ham. Stick the whole cloves into the ham, spacing evenly. Roast for about 2 hours, until a nice, dark crust has developed & the meat is tender (internal temperature should reach 165 degrees). Slice the ham very thinly.
**Apple Cider Reduction: (Reduction is the simple act of concentrating the flavor of liquid by simply reducing the water in it, producing a syrup-like glaze.) Pour 7 cups of Apple Cider in a saucepan large enough to be no more than half full. Bring to a boil over high heat; then reduce heat to medium, just hot enough to maintain a very slow boil. If cider foams while boiling, skim off & discard as needed. Boil until consistency is that of syrup; remove from heat & allow to cool. Use reduction after cooled, or refrigerate until needed. Reduction will keep for months if it’s stored in a sterile, sealed jar; refrigerate after opening. 7 cups of cider should produce about 1 cup of reduction.
7:07:35 PM 
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