Continental army's "sumptuous" Thanksgiving of 1777

After having no rations for 2-3 days, Congress "opened her sympathizing heart" and provided ..... 1/4 cup rice and 1T of vinegar.....to eat with "a leg of nothing and no turnips."

Pumpkin candies made from pumpkin pickles or chips

Several past posts have dealt with pumpkin chip recipes from 1770 and 1840 and how to cut pumpkins into chips HERE.  Chips or sweet pickles can be made into candies by rolling them in sugar.

Soup makes the soldier

Leopold Beyer (1789-1877) sketched French soldiers cooking soup in a pot in 1813.  A contemporary wrote that the French soldiers were better cooks than the English.  "...six French troopers fling their messes into the same pot, and extract a delicious soup ten times more nutritious..." while the English soldiers toss their meat onto the coals and burn it.

When a Steam Kitchen is not a kitchen using steam

Well, actually it used steam and was in the kitchen but steam kitchens were apparatus (after 1790) which heated water and then used the resulting steam to cook food.