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A root vegetable easily stored over the winter, many colonists considered the beet an essential winter food. Eaten raw, boiled, steamed and roasted, George Washington experimented with them at Mount Vernon. And in 1794 Jefferson's first planting plan for his gardens at Monticello included beets. A silicone mold of real beets was made to create these faux roasted
beets. They were cast in plaster.
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A tea table setting in the parlor of a wealthy 18th century family includes grapes and a faux sweetmeat dish with candied orange peels dusted with a coating of sugar. In the center is a dish the crispy-light wafers today called pizzelles and faux cornucopia-shaped cornets filled with rich egg custard. Created for the Camden County Historical Society.
Photo: © copyright HistoricFauxFoods.com
Green Gage plums were grown by both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Sir Thomas Gage brought them to America in the eighteenth century, giving these small, sweet plums with their green skin tinged with yellow or rose pink his name. To create the faux version, small Styrofoam balls were covered with Porcelain Clay and sculpted to give them their characteristic cleft. They were then painted and subtly shaded with acrylic paints.
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Beef tongue cast from plaster in latex molds created from the real thing is part of the recently upgraded kitchen display at the Independence National Historical Park's Deshler-Morris House. The facility, which served as the summer White House of George Washington in 1793 and 94 is located in the historic Germantown section of Philadelphia.
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Most period cookbooks contain at least one recipe for mince pies, including Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery and Hannah Glasse's Art of Cookery, made Plain and Easy. These little pies, combining meat with fruit, sugar and spices and baked in kaleidoscopic shapes that fit together like pieces of a puzzle, have been enjoyed since medieval times. In this faux version, Styrofoam rounds encased with Crayola Model Magic were carefully painted and shaded with acrylic paints.
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Designed and created for Historic Deerfield's Dinner is Served! Dining and the Decorative Arts exhibit, this plate of faux forced cucumbers is a typical 18th-century dish. The cucumbers were stuffed with ground meat, tied with string and then fried or gently stewed. They were served with the "lids" on or as garnish.
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A faux duck dish with individual meat and bone parts molded in latex from real poultry and cast in plaster for the final piece. Created for the Winterthur Museum & Country Estate's exhibit of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's Feeding Desire: Design and Tools of the Table 1500-2005.
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Historic Speedwell Village in Morristown, N.J., commissioned a display of ten faux "funeral biscuits" for a Victorian exhibit. Part of 18th and 19th-century funerary traditions, the cookie-like confections were marked with a cross and wrapped in paper closed with black sealing wax and a death head symbol. (Read full story of Victorian funeral biscuits.)
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