A Comfortable Subsistence: The Changing Composition of Diet in Rural New England, 1620-1840

O N April 21, I 658, John Greene of Charlestown, Massachusetts, in his last will and testament, instructed his executor to care his widow far as her necessary occasions shall require and to provide food, clothing, and fuel for her more comfortable supply all the time of her life. More than a century-and-a-half later, Abel Fletcher, a gentleman residing in Boxborough, Massachusetts, made similar provisions. His will, written in i817, guaranteed his wife ample, easy and comfortable maintenance . .. so that the evening of her days may be as easy and pleasant as outward good things can make it.' These wills are in some ways strikingly similar. The testators were prominent members of their communities. Each wished to preserve his wife's accustomed standard of living, and the directions providing foodstuffs conformed to the customary practices of rural New England families. Every year, the widows were to receive an allowance of food comprising grains harvested from the family fields, vegetables and fruit grown in kitchen gardens and orchards, butter and cheese from the dairy, and beef and pork from the livestock that grazed on the farmstead.2 The provisions of such wills,