Our Visit To Coggeshall Farm

By Emelia Law When we went to Coggeshall Farm with our home schooling group, we saw how they made maple syrup in the 18th century.

First they carved a Sassafras log into a trough. And then they carved out a tap out of an elderberry bush. They put the tap in a maple tree with the trough under the tap and the sap from the tree fell in the trough.

They boiled the sap in the woods because that’s where the maple trees are. They boiled the sap into sugar. The reason they turn it into syrup is because the syrup couldn’t store as good as the sugar. The reason they could store the sugar better than the syrup is because they didn’t have to bottle it.

We all got to try the sugar it was REALLY good.

Then we went into the house.

We learned how to make Johnny cakes two of the different ways that they did it in the 18th century. They let us help make the Johnny cakes, I got to stir. One kind of Johnny cake had pig fat in it, but it had molasses and there was a vegetarian one that didn’t have molasses, I thought the one with pig in it was pretty good, even though I’m a vegetarian. I decided to try it because it was raised on the farm and not packaged in plastic in the store.

The guy told us other things about the 18th century. When they made the Johnny cakes, they realized that the part of the Johnny cake that touched the ashes turned puffy, so they started to put ashes in their Johnny cakes. Now instead of using ashes, we use baking powder. The way they stored their garlic and herbs was to store it on their walls for the winter. The reason that they stored it on their walls was so that they could stay dry. Along time ago in the 18th century, people only ate five pounds of sugar a year, but now they eat 200 pounds a year.
When the tour was over we got to play outside in a big field. We got to go into a barn full of hay. There were pigs too. There was a turkey that kept following us around everywhere we went. We got to pet the turkey who was very nice. I am hoping to go back to the farm. We had a great time.
The End