BY BETH KAISERMAN

Francine Segan shared fun food facts and discussed the culture of the 1860s at her recent lecture on the foods and dining customs of Abraham Lincoln at 92^nd St.Y.

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Coffee liqueur, ladyfingers, crisp cookies, Baci chocolates and Absinthe candy were served, but if it were the 1860s, the beverage choice would have likely been hot chocolate, Segan said. (She didn’t want to risk holding hot chocolate while walking on the slippery city streets Thursday night.) During Lincoln’s time, chocolate was only used as a drink, not as an ingredient in recipes or for candy. The first documented use of chocolate in an American recipe was in 1890.

Though not a big foodie, Abraham Lincoln played a major role in one of America’s favorite feasts – he made Thanksgiving a national holiday. Some of his favorite foods were cheese and crackers, fruit salad dressed in rum and sugar, and Chicken Fricassee.

Pre-Civil War dinner parties usually served oysters, soup, then a large roast of some sort, Segan said. Items we take for granted, such as bananas, were a privilege in the 1860s, she added. She even showed a special antique banana-shaped dish that was used to serve a single banana, peel and all.

African American slaves introduced food favorites such as fried chicken and okra. Published in 1881, Abby Fisher’s What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking was the first African American cookbook.

I enjoyed learning some interesting food facts and reflecting on the food culture of the Lincoln era, the night before his birthday on February 12.

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