Forest Glen Thanksgiving offers twist on pioneers' meal

WESTVILLE – If the Thanksgiving at the Cabin menu was not totally authentic, the atmosphere at the Pioneer Homestead was: wood smoke wafting from open fires where chickens roasted and bread baked, people wearing frontier costumes, and the cabin itself.

Built after the 1830s Illinois frontier-style cabin, the rustic Pioneer Homestead at Forest Glen Preserve is the venue each year for a Thanksgiving meal, albeit not a sit-down affair, but rather a chance to sample foods that might have been served during pioneer days.

The main idea, though, is not to recreate a mid-19th century Thanksgiving – Illinois settlers likely didn't even celebrate the holiday – but to instead showcase local foods, most from within a 50-mile radius of Forest Glen southeast of Westville.

And one on the menu this year was pork. It's faster to cook than turkey and plentiful today as it was on the Illinois frontier.

"Hogs were easy to raise and ran wild part of the year, feeding on the 'mast' or nuts and fruits in the fall forest," Vermilion County Conservation District historical interpreter Susan Biggs Warner wrote on the menu, given to visitors during the three-hour Thanksgiving at the Cabin program.

At a harvest or other type of celebration, Illinois pioneers, used to eating wild game year-round, likely enjoyed pork rather than wild turkey, Warner said.

For Thanksgiving at the Cabin, Warner and staff served pork shoulder simmered in heavy cream and lemon, having used a recipe was from Food and Wine magazine.

"We're cheating; the pioneers wouldn't have had lemon," Warner said.

The menu also featured:

– Chickens split in half, marinated in olive oil and rosemary, roasted over an open fire of hickory and oak.

– Wild rice with butternut squash, leeks and corn, based on a recipe from Bon Appetit. Wild rice, actually a long-grain marsh grass, is native to Lake County in northern Illinois.

"The Native Americans would float up to it in their canoes and hit the grass with a wooden stick, and the seeds would fall into their canoes," Warner said.

– Mushrooms in white wine, garlic and butter, served over bread and stewed, like the other dishes, in large, heavy-duty Dutch ovens.

– Whole, small pumpkins filled with a fruit and nut stuffing and then baked.

– A salad of shaved Brussels sprouts with currants and chestnuts, based on a recipe from Bon Appetit magazine.

– Fireplace cranberries with maple syrup.

– Fresh ricotta cheese, made by Warner from cow's milk, with sun-dried tomatoes and basil.

All the herbs used for Thanksgiving at the Cabin came from gardens at the Pioneer Homestead and at Kennekuk County Park near Danville.

At the event, visitors lined up at a long table behind the cabin to receive samples of the food. Inside the cabin – which, for program purposes is twice as big as an Illinois pioneer house – staff members and volunteers served appetizers and sassafras tea sweetened with maple syrup. The tea was brewed from sassafras roots dug from hedges at Forest Glen, and the maple syrup was produced there as well.

Also inside the cabin were displays of native apples and other fruits, vegetables and nuts, in wooden bowls and plates. Among the nuts were American chestnuts, roasted, peeled and cut up into small pieces.

"The chestnuts are a special treat because the American chestnut trees that folks relied upon for wood and nuts were almost totally wiped out by a lethal fungus introduced by Asian chestnut trees around the turn of the century," Warner wrote.

The chestnuts for Thanksgiving at the Cabin were donated by Ben Kirkpatrick, who has a rare, blight-resistant American chestnut tree on his property just across the state border, in Indiana.

Warner, other district employees and volunteers, among them Robert Hale, a Civil War re-enactor from Chrisman who specializes in open-fire cooking, prepared the food, either in the large limestone hearth inside the cabin or over the pit fire behind it.

Hale roasted chickens on a grate just a few inches above white-hot oak and hickory logs, which he had split quickly and expertly with a heavy ax. In heavy-duty Dutch ovens, he cooked or baked other foods, including yeast bread and dinner rolls and two peach pies. He covered the lids of the Dutch ovens with embers to surround them with heat and to better brown the tops of the bread.

Visitors, many of whom come back year after year, sauntered back and forth from the cabin to the two fires in back, trying to find not only food but a little warmth – temperatures that Sunday in early November were just above freezing.

Inside, from the cabin loft, Lisa Raymond and Tim Decker of Sidney watched the activity below, around the hearth.

"It's like stepping back in time 150 years," Decker said. "It's like you'd like to live except you couldn't watch the election or use the Internet. It's a nice getaway for a couple of hours."

"Everything is so relaxed here," Raymond said. "Nothing is hurried, and the food is good."

Another bonus: Warner handed out a list of sources for heirloom ingredients and local foods, and copies of some of the Thanksgiving at the Cabin recipes, which follow:

Cream and Lemon Braised Pork Shoulder

7-pound bone-in pork shoulder or pork butt

1 head of garlic, halved cross-wise

2 sprigs of sage

2 cups heavy cream

5 cups of water

1 lemon

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In an enameled cast-iron casserole dish, add the pork, garlic, sage, cream and water. Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from the lemon in strips. Add the zest to the casserole dish. Halve the lemon and squeeze in the juice. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover the casserole and braise the pork for three hours, until tender.

Transfer the pork to a plate and pat dry. Strain the liquid into a heat-proof bowl and skim off the fat. Return the liquid to the casserole dish and boil until reduced to 2 cups, for about 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, if using a more fatty pork, heat oil in a large, deep skillet. Carefully add the pork, skin side down, and cook over moderately high heat, turning until the skin is crisp, or about 15 minutes. Use two pairs of tongs to steady the pork. Transfer the pork to a cutting board, skin side up, and slice it 1/4-inch thick. Serve with the gravy.

If using pork butt, there is no need to sear the fat. Just serve with the cream reduction.

Wild Rice with Butternut Squash, Leeks and Corn

1 1/2 cups or 9 ounces of wild rice

2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt

3 cups of 1/2-inch cubes of peeled butternut squash, from a 1 1/2-pound squash

1 1/2 cups of frozen corn kernels, thawed

1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 1/2 cups finely chopped leeks, white part only

Rinse rice in strainer under cold water; drain. Bring 6 cups water and 2 teaspoons kosher salt to boil in a large saucepan. Add rice; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer uncovered until rice grains begin to split and are tender but still slightly chewy, about 45 minutes. Drain. Spread on rimmed baking sheet to cool. Transfer to bowl.

Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a large skilled over medium heat. Add leeks and 3/4 cup of water; simmer until leeks are tender, about seven minutes. Add corn; simmer three minutes more. Add rice and squash; simmer until heated through and liquid is absorbed, about four minutes. Stir in 2 tablespoons of butter and parsley. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl and serve.

Tip: Some kinds of wild rice take longer to cook. The rice is fully cooked when tender but still chewy and beginning to split. Be sure to test the grains before draining.

Shaved Brussels Sprouts with Currants and Chestnuts

1/2 cup apple cider

1/2 cup dried currants

1 1/2 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 7- to 8-ounce jar of whole peeled chestnuts, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

5 tablespoons butter

1 1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Bring cider to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat. Add currants; let soak 30 minutes. Using processor fitted with slicing disk, push Brussels sprouts through feed tube and slice. Cover and chill currant mixture.

Wrap Brussels sprouts in paper towels, then enclose in resealable plastic bag and chill.

Heat oil in large deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add chestnuts; saute for two minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to bowl. Add brussels sprouts to skillet; saute until they begin to wilt, about three minutes. Add 1/2 cup of water and the butter; saute for about seven minutes or until most of the liquid evaporates and brussels sprouts are tender but still bright green; add more water by tablespoonfuls if mixture is dry. Stir in chestnuts, currant mixture and vinegar; saute until heated through, about two minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl.

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