Pilgrim Switchel

We first discovered Switchel when my daughter, Miss Whimsy, was in elementary school. I was her homeroom mother, as usual, and I was in charge of the Thanksgiving party for her class, as usual.

Have I mentioned that I love Thanksgiving?  And that it’s my favorite holiday of the year?   And that I have an unnatural Pilgrim obsession?

Yes, I think I have.

You can imagine how jazzed I was to discover that the husband and therefore daughters are direct descendants of Governor William Bradford. It’s true. In fact, into his line of the family was passed the Geneva Bible which Bradford carried across the ocean on the famed voyage. It was long ago donated to the museum at Plymouth.

That man of mine is the gift that keeps on giving...

One of our favorite family vacations included a trip to Plymouth (Plimoth) Plantation.

You see, we’re one of  *those* families whose idea of a vacation is to haul our kids to historical sites. You know the type.

We’ve thrown the tea

 into Boston Harbor

 and rabble roused

 with the Sons of Liberty.

We’ve given the “huzzah”

to Patrick Henry at Williamsburg

 and danced with Cherokees

in North Carolina.

 We bought poke bonnets

 at Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Home

 and coonskin caps

on a mountaintop in Tennessee.

Yep.

According to my girls, we’ve visited every log cabin  east of the Mississippi. They inherited their Smarty Pants from that Bradford side of the family...

But of all places, my favorite was Plymouth Plantation. The characters at Plymouth have so studied their roles that they literally become the figures in question. That’s the reason we don’t have photos of the girls posing with them a la Disney World. They have no clue as to the purpose of a shiny red Kodak.

It was at Plymouth that I purchased that cookbook

 full of recipes and tidbits.

This introduction cracks me up.
Click to enlarge.

In it, I found the recipe for Switchel. It's a drink of ginger water which they believed to be safer to drink than plain water in the hot sun.  We first made it as part of that aforementioned party for little Pilgrims and Indians to sample and take home.

It’s a fun Thanksgiving activity and pretty tasty too.

But wait… there’s more.

Quite by accident, we discovered that year that Switchel is also a miraculous cure for a sore throat. I guess it’s the honey and vinegar in it, but it not only soothes the sore throat, it eliminates it completely, stopping any further advance of other cold symptoms in their tracks as well. Seriously. 

I made some this morning. You see, while his family passes down Bibles and Smarty Pants, mine just passes down colds.

So there ya go. How I managed to evolve from travel reporter to tidbit teller to snake oil salesman all in one post, I do not know. 

All I really wanted to do was share this recipe for

 Pilgrim Switchel

(I halved it.)

2 quarts water
1/2 cups molasses (We use honey)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 t. ginger