In colonial America, a family might enjoy a Cheshire pork pie filled with pork tenderloin, apples, and spices. Another might enjoy a corncake, thanks to the maize long cultivated by Indigenous people. A wealthy family might indulge in a bird—but not just any bird, you see. A bird that had been plucked, cooked, and reassembled to sit in the center of the table. Dishes like these once appeared on the menu at King’s Arms Tavern, a “public house” that opened in 1772 in Williamsburg, which was then the capital of…
