It’s 5 in the afternoon, and gone are the days when the sun still blazed for three more hours. Instead, darkness envelops Old Sturbridge Village, a re-created Colonial settlement in Sturbridge, Mass. Frosty November winds sweep the sandy paths of the village, located a few miles north of the Connecticut border.
Then, a light in the darkness: A guide arrives to lead your group down the
candle-lantern-lined path to the parsonage, a stone “salt box” house with a white fence. Inside, the kitchen is a wooden room with a large brick oven. This warm hearth provides your entertainment as well as nourishment for the next three hours.
Welcome to “Dinner in a Country Village,” an Old Sturbridge Village culinary program started more than 20 years ago and now one of the village’s most popular programs. Once a week, from the beginning of November until the end of March, three costumed staff members lead groups of 14 gastronomic aficionados in preparing a 19th-century feast.
If cooking your own meal sounds too ambitious, Old Sturbridge Village puts on a monthly dinner in a replicated tavern, and it also serves a huge Thanksgiving meal. But “Dinner in a Country Village” is the crown jewel--participatory cooking taken to its most historic. The utensils haven’t been in general use since before the Industrial Revolution. The recipes are taken from early-19th-century publications. It is all designed to give guests the satisfaction of making their own dinner, with an added educational component, says Debra Friedman, the village’s program coordinator for historic food.
“The ambience is a big part of what makes this program special,” says Friedman.
The kitchen’s center of gravity is its massive brick hearth. The fire in the main pit, set two hours before the guests arrive, is covered by a grate that provides ample room for pots and other cooking devices.
Two smaller, square compartments with doors are built alongside the open pit. These compartments actually have their own fires going inside. Guests learn how to clean the fire out of these areas. Then the heat stays in the bricks, making these compartments ideal for baking. In the old days, explains Friedman, a family would have set aside one day a week for baking all of their pastries and pies.
The dinner menu changes each year, in deference to the number of guests who return to repeat the program. For 2004, the main course will be roast stuffed chicken and fricassee of cold roast beef. “Very little chicken was consumed in the 19th century,” Friedman says, due to the amount of labor it took to prepare the bird, relative to the amount of meat yielded. While a chicken produced two to three pounds of meat, a slaughtered pig would yield 300.
“Chicken and turkey were ‘special occasion’ food, like lobster today,” she says.
Modern chefs simply turn a dial when they want to control temperature, but cooking on a hearth requires different techniques. The pots of simmering sauces and soups are moved further away from the open fire to reduce the heat, and moved directly alongside to go from a simmer to a full boil.
The recipe for mulled cider gives an idea of some of the unexpected utensils that are used in this historic context. After a modern hard cider substitute is combined with cloves, allspice and two cinnamon sticks, and simmered over low heat for three hours, it sits cold for a day. An hour before serving, the mixture is brought to a simmer once again. Then the guests heat mulling irons--which look something like fire pokers--in the fire until they become cherry red. These irons are “quenched” in the cider--literally stuck in there. This is done once more before serving in order to heat the drink.
This year the menu features other dishes such as potted cheese, plain potato pudding and macaroni soup. And for dessert? Dried apple and cranberry pie, along with a “trifle”--homemade custard spooned on top of cake.
If you plan to try this event, here are a few tips to keep in mind. First, dress in layers. Though the weather outside might be chilly, the kitchen is sweltering. Also, kids under 18 aren’t allowed. And this is an alcohol-free event--the program coordinators originally allowed it, Friedman says, but some guests got a little carried away, and considering all the open fires and knives, it was better to curtail the practice.
Cost for the evening is $85 per person. The end result of your two and half hours of labor is a sumptuous feast enjoyed family style, by candlelight, in the same kitchen where you cooked.
For those less enthusiastic about cooking, Old Sturbridge Village’s “Hearthside Bounty” might be a better fit. Instead of a small kitchen, guests gather in a replica 19th-century tavern. There they can enjoy bawdy humor and ginger beer (and other alcoholic drinks) from a cash bar. The staff prepares a meal that includes roast beef cooked over an open fire and squash soup. Cost is $49.95 per person, and the event lasts from 6 to 10:30 p.m.
Thanksgiving is a big event at Old Sturbridge Village. Starting at 9:30 a.m., demonstration dinners are prepared to give people an idea of how early New Englanders celebrated the holiday. Then an 1830s-style Thanksgiving service takes place at the Center Meetinghouse, followed by songs and stories from long ago.
If you want to eat, the village’s two taverns serve a classic Thanksgiving dinner. Friedman says they serve more than 1,000 people annually. That’s a lot of people looking for a turkey dinner, served with a generous helping of history.

Old Sturbridge Village: 508/347-3362;
www.osv.org