For the distaff side

[Joe Di Cola]

I wonder if bear-meat was deli food or rather a very common, cheap dish? Anyone knows what it is comparable to?

I can't remember, is there any source for the food Abraham and Mary had on their wedding day?

Bear is comparable to pork. In fact male and female bears are also boars and sows. Bear bacon is indistinguishable from American bacon processed from pork.

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Eva, I have looked but cannot find anything specific regarding food. In later years Benjamin Edwards' wife, Helen, said, "If I remember rightly, the wedding guests were few, not more than thirty; and it seems to me all are gone now but Mrs. Wallace, Mrs. Levering, and myself, for it was not much more than a family gathering; only two or three of Mary Todd's young friends were present. The 'entertainment' was simple, but in beautiful taste; but the bride had neither veil nor flowers in her hair, with which to 'toy nervously.' There had been no elaborate trousseau for the bride of the future President of the United States, nor even a handsome wedding gown; nor was it a gay wedding."

Roger,

In Ruth Randall's "Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage" there are a few references on the last-minute preparations for the wedding. Springfield had only one bakery at the time, Dickey's, and its offerings consisted mainly of gingerbread and beer. Also, that a wedding supper was placed on a long table with a linen cover that had a turtledove design, and that the wedding cake was still warm since it had so soon come from an oven. Of course, Randall's book is from an era where endnotes and footnotes were not used, so...?