Random Disgusting Foods People Really Ate In 18th Century America (15 items)

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  (#15) Scrapple, Pork Scraps And Cornmeal Formed Into A Loaf

  Scrapple: its very name suggests what it is. Found mainly in the Pennsylvania Dutch country and other regions of the mid-Atlantic Colonies, scrapple consisted of scraps of pork that were cooked with cornmeal to form a loaf. Usually, scrapple used parts of meat that would otherwise go to waste, like the heart and liver.

  Some Amish and Mennonite communities continue to eat scrapple today.
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  (#2) Chocolate Mixed With Ambergris, A Decadent Delight

  Whale vomit? One of history's most stomach-churning food additives is known as ambergris and, in essence, it's expensive whale spit-up - and men and women in the 18th century loved to add it to their food for a decadent treat. Adding ambergris to chocolate was a European import. First developed in Europe in the 17th century, the recipe spread. Pretty soon, cooks in Colonial North America were flavoring their chocolate with ambergris, too, thanks in no small part to the growing whaling industry in New England.

  Today, ambergris is used as an ingredient in lots of expensive perfumes, thanks to its musky odor and attractant properties. And, you can still get in fancy hot chocolates some places if the urge ever strikes.
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  (#10) Lobster, A Dish Best Served To Poor People, Slaves, And Prisoners

  Though some foods have remained constant over the centuries, the meanings and associations of those foods have changed dramatically. For most contemporary Americans, lobster connotes an expensive, splurge-worthy meal. Not so for early Americans. The British North American Colonies clung to the Atlantic seaboard, making seafood common. There was no more common food - in all senses of the word - than the then-lowly lobster.

  In fact, lobster as a meal was associated with the vulgar lower classes of Colonial America.

  Lobsters were so cheap, in fact, that they were used to feed slaves and prisoners.
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  (#13) Pigeon, A Delicacy Prepared With The Greatest Care And Flare

  Today, they're known as sky rats. But in the 17th and 18th centuries, many wealthy Colonial Americans looked to pigeons as their dinner. For the upper classes who could afford elaborate meals, pigeons were a delicacy that should be prepared with the greatest care and flare.

  For those who could not afford expensive spices, simple pigeon pies were also consumed. 
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  (#6) Pepper Cake, A Treat You Could Keep In The Pantry For "Halfe" A Year

  Colonial Americans may have had some of the same ingredients we use today - but that doesn't mean they used them like we do. Case in point: Martha Washington's Pepper Cake recipe from her cookbook, A Booke of Cookery. Pepper, a newly acquired spice from India that could be used to show off a hostess's fancy-schmancy social status, went into the cake alongside sweet ingredients like molasses.

  And here's the kicker - these little babies could (and were meant to) last for "a Quarter or Halfe a Year." Like many in the 18th century, Martha Washington liked to put pepper into things we might not think to add it to, especially sweet, dessert-like concoctions. 
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  (#1) Beaver Tail, Some Delicious "Gamey-Tasting Fat"

  The huge population of beaver in North America meant that the Great Lakes region hosted a booming fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. It should come as no surprise, then, that beaver meat was also consumed. Beaver tail was a particular - and peculiar - delicacy in Colonial America.

  The meat was very fatty and typically roasted, and it has been described by at least one contemporary cookbook writer as "essentially gamey-tasting fat." 

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