Food was different during the Civil War than it is now

There were different ingredients that were available, different ways of cooking the food, and what the recipes looked like was different too. Different ingredients were available in the 1860's. Some meat was venison, rabbit, squirrel, quail, and pheasant. If they wanted fresh produce, they usually had to grow it themselves. In big cities, cane sugar was available but most people would use bee-sweetnin' (honey), tree-sweetnin' (maple syrup), and molasses to sweeten their food. In the 1860's, there were no electric ovens like we have now. They cooked their food in stone or brick fireplaces with an oven compartment or even over the open flames. Very wealthy families might have had a wood-burning cast iron stove.