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Holiday Nights in Greenfield Village Dinner Package at Eagle Tavern

December 5-7, 12-14, 18-23 and 26-27, 2014
Treat your family to a delectable holiday feast.

Holiday Nights Supper with Santa Package

December 5-7, 12-14 and 18-23, 2014
Enjoy a casual buffet-style holiday turkey dinner perfect for kids!
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The Henry Ford has a "tasty" collection of food-related artifacts that let us peer into kitchens from America's past. It is one of the best collections of its kind in the country.

1780-1800
Butter Churn
Probably Massachusetts
71.1.203
Gift of David M. Gwinn
The 20th century concept of “ready made food” was not part of the experience of people living in the 1700s. Meals had to be prepared from scratch using foodstuffs grown on the farm or available in the local community. It was a labor-intensive process--a housewife could spend a good part of the day preparing food for her family.

Butter making was one of the many responsibilities of the rural colonial housewife. After milking the cow and setting out the milk in flat pans to separate the cream, she put the cream in a churn like the one above. Then she--or one of her children--moved the churn’s dash handle up and down countless times until the cream finally turned into butter. The housewife used butter for baking or in roasting, or to spread on bread at meals.