Bisbee daily review., 1907-10-27
CANNOT DIVORCE YANKEE FROM
 THE DISH
introduced First To Pilgrim Fathers, Succotash Is Still the Favorite Delicacy of the New England Family,


 taught the early white settlers to pre- pare, Is now the chief delicacy on the dinner tables Of the Connecticut Tar. rners and many nthers fnr that mat. ter. What the old-fashioned plum pudding was to Merry England, sue. cotash is to staid Connecticut.
 Since the days in the long ago when the old Puritans learned the never-to- be-forgotten art of mixing corn and lima beans from the Indians. upward of 300 years ago, the fame of succo- tash in this state has never diminish ed. In the country regions of Con necticut there are few housewives that fail to serve several kettlefuls of the delicious dish to their hungry families every week. No farm din- ner is quite complete at this time oG the year without a bowl of succotash.
 In the cities and. larger towns of the state it is served as a side dish, and the hungry man gets only a taste of the food when he would like big dishful. It is never served as side dish in the country, but often the whole family will have for their noon meal a kettleful of hot succo, tash.
 One successful man said the other day that when a boy on the small farm where he was brought up the regular Sunday bill of fare through August and September was suceotash warm for dinner and more succotash cold for supper. Nobody ever had enough in those days
 Many country youngsters crave Tor it as do the city urchins for candy and peanuts. The effect of a stomach overloaded with either commodity IS about the same. but there would probably be more safety in the succo- tash than the candy.
 Farmers wives have their own ways of preparing the succotash. some aver that salt pork makes. fine addition, while others deplore the use of it. Some housekeepers add milk to the combination, while the woman on the next farm will tell you that good spring water is sufficient to make succotash as palatable as her man wants It.
 But after everything is said and done, the good. old-fashioned way os using plenty of corn and lima beans with a little salt pork, such as Con- necticut farmers have, makes tke best mixture, and many a successful New Yorker today will tell you that his fondest hopes in his childhood days were centered on good dish of this steaming mixture of corn and a strip- ling on the Litchfield Hills. or on the shore of Long Island Sound. he made meal, day after day, in the fall on a bowl Of succotash and bread and but ter.
 Large quantities were devoured at Sunday dinners by the whole family, and nobody ever heard anybody else complain that he didn't have enough. Suecotash retains its old-time popu- larity still and ayways will so long as the descendants Of the Puritans in habit the state.
 Succotash, next to Indian pudding is probably the oldest dish known of Connecticut origin. When it origi- hated nobody knows. It was in use among the Indians before the English arrived at Plymouth
 It was the principal article of food among the Connecticut Indians dur ing the summer months and fall, and it is said to have been the creation at some very remote period of the Narragansett Indians of Rhode Island. fThey called it "Micquatash," which I7H TvTy IT0aI sITUU0ta5fT5 15I1 from that word came thG present 1 name of the dish.
 When the Englishmen landed III Massachusetts and Connecticut they found the Indians eating it, and soOu | learned the art themselves and it has remained with them ever since l The red men are gone, but their ia yorite creation in the shape of sum. mer dish remains with us. In Plymouth Colony there used to be made dish which was called by the general term succotash, but il was in reality another preparation. It is still made there and is usually served with much pomp and cere. mony on Forefathers' Day, December t22
 Tradition informs us that the dish l and the town are of the same age that the settlers made the dish the fall after they had reaped their first harvest of corn and beans, and that succotash probably dated from that time-at least the English rendering of the Indian recipe This Plymouth succotash is a strange concoction, but when a visitor gets acquainted with | 1t he rarely stops eating before 3 good-sized dish is consumed.
 An old lady of Plymouth who has made it Tor half a century says the i Plymouth brand of succotash should contain turnps. beef and chicken, and that the mystery of how to prepare | it with perfect success is a matter Of l family pride, handed down among the women folks from one generation to another. We of Connecticut origin accustomed to plain corn and beaHs with a little pork, look askance on this complicated Massachusetts dish and fight shy Of it, but stick to the oldfashioned dish our forefathers ate and gloried in.
 Succotash played an imporant part in the old country taverns of our grandfathers, and the dish was Ire quently served, we are told. in great style as the only article of food for dinner. A big bowl of the hot sue cotash would be placed on the table and the hungry traveller would helI himself to it as long as 1t lasted. | A quart of succotash usually re quired a quart of fine old Madeira or Oporto to wash it down. When this form of liquid refreshment was not al hand the more plebeian drink of hard cider was used instead When that was missing plain water did the trick but they could get along without any of them better than they could with out the succotash-
 ! fr