Printed 1691. Earliest Evidence of American Mother Goose

Wow! Check out this fascinating and extremely rare early-American book that contains a hand-written Mother Goose nursery rhyme.

The rhyme is written upside down, perhaps to counter Cotton Mather's religious rants!


Here is the rhyme fragment:

A man of word and not of deeds,
Is like a garden full of weeds.


Click here to visit RareBookBuyer.com to see photos of the book, the hand-written rhyme fragment, and to read some very interesting history of Mother Goose in Boston.

Pease Porridge Hot

Pease porridge hot,
Pease porridge cold,
Pease porridge in the pot,
Nine days old.
Some like it hot,
Some like it cold,
Some like it in the pot,
Nine days old.

With all the news lately about the importance of maintaining a healthy diet, and the difficulty of affording nutritious food, I feel compelled to write about pea soup. I can't think of a more affordable, easy and healthy way to feed a large family or group or friends than to make a big pot of pea soup.

At it's simplest: peas, water, salt & pepper, you can feed a family of four for about $1.50 (one pound of peas will make a 2 quart pot of soup...or even larger if you add veggies and pasta). Soak the peas overnight and your porridge will be done in an hour or two. Place in a crock pot and let the peas simmer on low for warm soup that is ready when you get home from work.

Plain pea soup, however, might be a bit too bland for any but your youngest children. Sautee onions, celery and garlic, then add to your pot of peas as they simmer in water. Dice up a few carrots and a potato. Throw in a handful of pasta. If it's summer, toss in sliced yellow squash or zuccini. If it's winter, add shredded cabbage. The more veggies (and rice, pasta, and even meat) that you add to your pea soup, the more liquid you can add as well, and the more soup you will have to eat during the ensuing nine days.

Here is a great way to get savory tasting soup without adding meat or too much salt: when the peas are soft and the soup is nearly ready to serve, add 1 tablespoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1 teaspoon tumeric, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, and any other spice or herbs you like. Let simmer in pot for another 10 minutes, then serve. Waiting until the end to add salt and spices, helps the peas stay tender and keeps the spice and herb flavors from boiling off.

Just as affordable as split peas are all kinds of beans. "Pease Porridge" hot (or cold i.e., gazpacho or even dip!) is excellent and so are bean soups. Accompany with corn chips, muffins, toast or croutons for a filling, home-cooked meal.

And remember, for families on a busy schedule that need quick cooking meals, soak the peas or beans overnight before cooking. Make a lot of soup at once, then serve for a few days. The flavors just get better. Freeze any extra for a nearly instant meal at a later date.

Miss Humpty Dumpty-Gothic Mother Goose-Fairy Tale

Miss Humpty Dumpty

Check out Pinky Toast art and dolls!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5852&section_id=5002089

I have just learned that Gertrude Stein was called "The Mother Goose of Montparnasse". I think the phrase was meant to demean her for her repetitive, rhyming and rhythmic writings. I also read that someone elaborated "The Mother Goose of Montparnasse, but with a brain", ouch!

Gertrude Stein was a truly experimental writer who exploded forms of poetry and narrative in a very freeing way. You can listen to Mother Goose of Montparnasse: Selections from the Writings of Gertrude Stein for free on Rhapsody.com.

Gertrude Stein's statue was the first public statue of a "real" woman to be installed in New York City. The only other female statue? The Mother Goose Statue in Central Park, placed there in 1938.

No, no my melodies will never die...A rose is a rose is a rose" !

Who Was Mother Goose?

I find the quote from "Ma'am Goose" so fascinating. (see the first post below!) Were Mother Goose and William Shakespeare born at the same time? She says "...all imitators of my refreshing songs might as well write a new Billy Shakespeare as another Mother Goose--we two great poets were born together, and we shall go out of the world together."

Billy Shakespeare! She is so familiar with him that she casually uses that nickname "Billy," just like a peer. Could she have been his sister Joan? Or perhaps a fellow actor or playwrite or lover of rhyme and folk history and the english language? Or maybe this Ma'am Goose is another pen name for Shakespeare...his feminine, playful, parental side? What does she mean "we two great poets were born together, and we shall go out of the world together"?

I first found this quote at Project Gutenberg, a fantastic resource for transcribed versions of early literary works. The book is called "The Only True Mother Goose Melodies" and was published in Boston in 1843. A very informative introduction and history by the Reverand Edward Everett Hale, D. D. and a rather anonymous "correspondent, N.B.S.", includes the quote by Ma'am Goose. You can read the Introduction, History of the Goose Family, and 160 classic nursery rhymes by clicking here.

My favorite mystery connection between Shakespeare and an early American appearance of Mother Goose goes is alluded to in the History of the Goose Family. Reverand Hale describes the happy marriage of Elizabeth Goose to Thomas Fleet, a book publisher in Boston. (Fleet, by the way, published "Songs for the Nursery; or, Mother Goose's Melodies for Children" in 1719.) The Goose family, a very old and wealthy family from England, came to America in the 1650s. A female descendant of this family, Elizabeth Goose, is married to Fleet in 1715. The marriage ceremony is officiated by, ooh, shivers here....Cotton Mather. Cotton Mather was the Puritan minister whose sermons fanned the flames of witchcraft hysteria that resulted in the Salem Witch trials in that horrible winter of 1692. The good people of Boston were, of course, horrified upon the Spring thaw, to learn of the goings-on in Salem.

Why does Reverand Hale find it amusing, gossipy, and ironic that in 1715 Mather presided over the marriage ceremony of Thomas Fleet and Elizabeth Goose? Mather also wrote some horribly depressing morality tales for little children. Could it be that Hale is pleased the forces of happy, loving, rhyme, song and games survived the worst a Puritan minister could do?

Cotton Mather, by the way, reportedly owned a collection of Shakespeare's works, kept under lock and key, I'm sure. "Records suggest that the owner of the oldest folio edition of Shakespeare’s works in the colonies was the Reverend Cotton Mather, a staunch Puritan and renowned witch-hunter in the mid-17th century." Visit this interesting public artworks site "The Dreaming" to read more about Shakespeare in the American colonies.

Banned Books? Shakespeare's works "bowdlerized" and censored...read more here!