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| Banana oatmeal chocolate cookies and coffee: replicating Lizzie Borden's breakfast? |
You
can have cookies for breakfast if you put oatmeal in them! #truefact
So,
I did, and it made me think about a breakfast 125 years ago. A breakfast that
was examined much later in a glass jar by a forensic scientist, trying to
determine how long ago the breakfast was eaten, based on the degree of
digestion.
I'm
talking of Andrew and Abby Borden, victims of separate vicious hatchet attacks
in the same Fall River, Massachusetts, home on Aug. 4, 1892. The attacks were
fatal for husband and wife.
The
couple breakfasted together with a visitor, John Morse, the brother of Mr.
Borden's first wife who had died. Much attention was paid to their strange
repast.
They
ate warmed-over mutton soup.
What
the heck is mutton? Lamb.
They
had a meat soup for breakfast. Pause for a moment to digest that. (ha!) Not
only that, but that same mutton roast had been served up in different ways over
the course of a week. It may have been going bad. In 1892, refrigeration was a
chunk of ice in a cupboard and whatever foods you could quickly scoot in and
out of the cupboard without the cold air escaping or the ice melting too
quickly.
They
also ate johnnycakes. Phew! Way more traditional. A sort of pancake made with
cornmeal rather than flour. The other bit of breakfast put upon the table was . . .
cold slices of that same mutton. I refrain from commenting.
After
eating, Mr. Borden and Mr. Morse prepared to leave the house for their errands,
while Mrs. Borden went upstairs to change the pillowcases on the guest bed
where Mr. Morse had slept the night before. She never left the room alive.
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| Abby Borden |
Bridget
Sullivan cleared the breakfast table, and Lizzie Borden came down later for her
breakfast. She didn't dine with her father and stepmother anymore, not after a
family dispute a few years earlier. Lizzie's sister Emma was away visiting
friends in another city.
Lizzie
ate cookies for breakfast.
Perhaps
they had oatmeal in them to justify this.
She
had one cup of coffee with her cookies. Bridget Sullivan assured the court
Lizzie never had two cups.
Bridget
washed windows, outside and in, while Lizzie did any number of things.
Mrs.
Borden was attacked during this time period, upstairs in their small home, and
her body was left undiscovered for several hours.
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| Andrew Borden |
Mr.
Borden came home, sat down on the sitting room sofa to read the newspaper, fell
asleep, and was attacked.
After
letting Mr. Borden into the house, Bridget had gone up to her attic bedroom to
take a nap. She awoke to Lizzie calling her downstairs because, "Someone
has come in and killed Father!"
So...why
was the breakfast important?
Mr.
and Mrs. Borden ate at the same time, but Mr. Borden's stomach contents were
considerably more digested. In other words, the breakfast helped roughly
establish time of death. And since Mrs. Borden predeceased her husband, his
entire estate went to his two daughters rather than any relations of Mrs.
Borden, who was Lizzie and Emma's stepmother. Who they resented. Whose
relatives they resented.
When
you stay at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, you get to experience a
version of this breakfast. I was sad they did not serve mutton stew, but
honestly I would've taken one spoonful for experience's sake and then let it
sit. I hate to see food go to waste. So instead, you are served johnnycakes
(they are actually pancakes), eggs, fruit and potatoes. Standard fare. And no
one threw up! (I'm deliberately suppressing a vital bit of information about
the Borden household, which is that there was possibly food poisoning or
possibly outright
poisoning in the days before the hatchet murders).
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| Me at the B&B |
If
you're interested in my narrative about my overnight at the B&B, click here
to read my article in The
Millions.
They
say a good breakfast is the best way to start your day. Unfortunately for the
Bordens, they seemed to have proved that true in reverse.
. . . .
. . . . .
