I don't own Hetalia okay? I was watching this Youtube channel called Townsends about 18th century America and they make videos with 18th century cooking. They often mention a book by Amelia Simmons called American Cookery. So yeah, that inspired this fic. Anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!
Amelia sighed and looked around. She had just finally broken free and become independent and it was going to be tough to impress the other nations and have them take her seriously. While she would never admit it to anyone, she couldn't have done it without the help from France, Spain, Prussia and even Russia and a darker part of her mind told her that they only helped her because they hated England and wanted to see him fail. Losing to a colony would certainly have embarrassed him and that was all they cared about. This land was valuable and a resource that Europe was fighting for for years and she knew that she had to be tactful. While her male counterpart was out in the fields with the men and the general, Amelia often found herself stuck with many of the wives of the generals of the Continental Army. They were all quite interesting but she wanted to do something much more than just host parties. Hearing of Sybil Ludington alert her town after a 40 mile ride, she knew she could do better than what she was, but noooooooooooooooooo she was the female personification of the nation, let Alfred do the dirty work. Stay with the wives of the various men who are out there fighting and learn to be a proper lady. Sucks to that. Did Mary Hays just stand by and let her husband get killed? No! She had tried to sneak in dressed as a young man to join and had met another woman who had done the same and all the fellow soldiers had called her Robert Shirtliff, but in a skirmish, she had pushed her fellow disguised soldier out of the way, was injured and recognized. Since that time, she had not heard from Deborah Samson aka Robert Shirtliff again. After a long scolding and pleading by Alfred for something for Amelia to do, she agreed that if she wanted to help it was best to help with the wives of the leaders of the Revolution.
While Amelia would never admit it, she did like learning some of the recipes these ladies had. All she could remember from when she was being raised was England's cooking and it was terrible. She didn't know how Alfred could have stood it, but she just assumed it was a thing they had. But when she was helping Abigail with her family while John was away, she had taught Amelia a few things about how to cook and maintain a household while having discussions of just what a woman's role should be in the new republic. It had given Amelia some hope that while she had not seen any real action like Alfred had, there may have been use for her after all and she was not just to be there and look pretty.
However, she was getting hungry. Alfred was off trying to make a bunch of delegates agree at the Continental congress. Like they will listen to our like... She scoffed. Sure some of the officials in forming this nation took what she and Alfred had to say with heart, others did not. But it was what it was. "I need to find something to make..." She sighed as she looked at what was left in the house. There was some butter, flour, and a few bits of meat she had managed to hunt while tending the home. It may have been a few pigeons and some left over salt pork, but it would do. Looking around, she sighed. "Damn it" She said as she noticed the fire in the stove almost going out. "This is just what I need!" She rolled her eyes as she went to the woodshed. Noticing that since she had been in Massachusetts there was no one who had really kept the wood split, she growled. "Really?" She asked as she grabbed an axe and brought it over the large hunk of wood. "I'll show you!" She yelled as she took the handle in both hands and held it over with an evil smile. If she couldn't help defeat the redcoats, she would take the pent up frustrations out on the log. Dropping it with rage, she split the log and found her axe stuck in the ground. "Guess I don't know my own strength." Lifting it up, she wiped the mud off with the apron she was wearing with a casual sigh. "Well more to chop." She said as she chopped enough wood to get the fire in the stove going again and carried it in. With this, she tossed the wood in carelessly until it started back up.
"Boil water..." She said as she added water in and then headed back to where she had her ingredients. Looking over she saw that her cat was looking at the meat with a greedy scowl. "Heroine, get out of here! I set the entrails aside for you!" she said as she shooed her yellow cat off the kitchen table, leaving paw prints in the flour. "3 parts flour to 1 part butter..." She said as she mixed the two together, adding some water a little each time until it was the consistency of dough that she liked. In the crock she had lined it with the dough, then a layer of the salt pork, then dough, then pigeon and some more salt pork. Heroine had come back and was looking up at her hungry again. "You're worse than Alfred is sometimes! I don't know what England did to him, but I swear. Here!" She said as she laid down some more of the leftover meat that the cat took and walked away with it. She had looked at the rest of the recipe and placed a plate over the deep crock and tied it shut. "Good. Now stick it in the boiling pot for..." She looked at the notes she had. "one to two hours!" She rolled her eyes and placed it in the pot. She had remembered that when England was on official naval business this was something that he said they had made for him and the other officers but when he had made it, it was awful. There were times that Alice, his female counterpart would look after them when he was away, but she would only be better at making sweets. Often if she was looking after Amelia, her cooking wasn't much better. "Oh well." She sighed as she headed back to her study to work on her sampler. It was a way for her to vent her frustrations in a way that was acceptable for her by society. She had started to work on her needlework of a copy of some of the old 'Join or Die' snake that had been published in one of Franklin's newspapers. While not quite what was typical of samplers, it was her work. As she finished the lettering, she looked up and over to the pot.
"Oh my god!" She said running to the pot. "How long has it been!" She said noticing the pot as it was nearly boiled out of water. Pulling the pie out of the pot, she placed it down on the table and then waved her hands around. "Owie! owie owie!" She said as she placed her hands in a nearby cool water bucket and sighed. Pulling out a knife, she cut the twine she tied on the plate and headed back to her needlework. As she looked at the details, she heard the door swing open and a dragging noise was behind it. "God he's back..." Amelia said.
"What's up?" He smiled as Amelia came up and looked over at him.
"What did you do?" She asked, slightly amazed, slightly horrified and slightly impressed at the bear he was dragging behind him.
"Came across this guy's path." Alfred shurgged. "Nearly attacked me. But hey we have dinner and I can work on skinning this thing. Trust me you want warm mittens in the winter. It's hell having your fingers freeze off."
"Oh like I wouldn't know." Amelia said with a huff.
"Oooooooh yeah..." Alfred said. "Sorry..." He said as she stared crossly at him. While he was trying to explain his indiscretion to her and how she was lucky to not have to face the battles he did when she had wanted to take part in fighting for her independence in a more real way than just being a housekeeper. While Alfred hadn't paid attention to the historical tales from Europe, she did and knew about what Hungary, a fellow female nation had done. "But you're lucky, you didn't have to do push ups in the snow while Prussia yelled at you in German... lass fallen und gib mir fünfzig! Jetzt! Du fauler Abschaum! So wirst du nie unabhängig!" Alfred said as Amelia rolled her eyes.
"Just stop." She said. "Just tell me if Abby taught me well." Alfred looked confused. "I made Sea Pie using some of her methods for the crust and hopefully it's better than when England used to cook." She said as they walked to the kitchen. While Alfred was bringing in the bear, the door was standing wide open for unwanted visitors to come in. "Shoo..." She said as she shooed away Heroine. "AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW HELL NO!" She said as she grabbed a nearby knife and ran to the pie. A raccoon had snuck in and began to eat the pie "Why you little!" She said as the racoon took some more bites of her pie as she ran after it with the knife, and Alfred grabbed her around the waist.
"Dude, chill!" He said.
"That raccoon is going to pay! I worked too hard on that for some vermin to eat it!" Amelia said.
"It already ate it!" Alfred sighed "Not much we can do." She turned with the knife and stared him down. "Uhhhh I'm sure it was good."
"I'm skinning that thing and we're eating bear tonight. I guess I'll just roast a hunk of that meat." Amelia said as she bent down and began to dress the bear.
"Uhhhhhh...nice sampler...looks better than that old woodcut Franklin published..." Alfred said to try and make Amelia happy.
"Thanks." She said. "I just wanted to show I can actually cook, last time I made cheese soup, I burned the thing."
"Look, I know you don't think you're helping or that you're being ignored you're not. I'm pleading with Washington to take consideration of what you think as well. Like there's no way I could discount what you and other women did but you know how bosses are." He smiled, remembering the times England complained about what his boss did but at the same time, neither Alfred nor Amelia could forgive the fact he did nothing to try and stop his boss from treating the American colonists so badly. "And he wants to talk to you personally, hear you out."
Amelia smiled. "Great." She said as she cut a hunk of meat off the bear. "Get some of the turnips from the root cellar and I'll get some greens from the backyard." Alfred blinked. "Just let me finish this and let me know if it's better than what we had growing up."
"Aye aye mam!" Alfred said as Amelia rolled her eyes. Hopefully we don't have to live together... and as if to read her mind, Alfred spoke up, "I did get the members of the continental congress agree to one thing." He said, knowing how just so many arguments were brought up between delegates from northern and southern colonies, now states. It did not bode well in Alfred's mind and he felt a rock in the pit of his stomach at those debates like it would only get worse from there.
"And what is that?" Amelia asked as she brought in some poke greens and spring onion to cook with the bear steak she was putting on a spit over the stove.
"You can have your own property. Your own house, farm, just what have you." Alfred said. "I don't want to impose on you, you helped more than you think. Even if you never saw combat."
"I saw some." Amelia reminded him. "Tarrytown and helped Debbie treat her wounds so the surgeons wouldn't find out she was a woman."
"I know, I know." Alfred said. "And that's what I said too and if nothing else you can be in charge of your own house in any of the states. I'm planning a place near Virginia, explored that state so much when I was young and would make it easier to stay in contact with Washington."
"Sounds good." She said. "Now stay out of my way, I will let you know when this is done." Alfred bowed in an overly granados way, causing Amelia to sigh and roll her eyes. As she had worked on the dinner, Alfred walked over and took a spoonful of mashed turnip, much to Amelia's ire, earning him a smack from the spoon she was using. "Pretty good. Maybe you should write a book with your recipes."
Translation Guide:
(Obtained Via Google Translate)
lass fallen und gib mir fünfzig! Jetzt! Du fauler Abschaum! So wirst du nie unabhängig!-German- drop and give me fifty! Now! You lazy scum! You will never become independent this way!
So how was that? Good? Bad? Short? Long? Let me know in a review. There is some historical figures mentioned in this. Yes they are real people. This is just a quick little oneshot that came up when I was watching some 18th century recipes on Youtube. I do recommend the Townsends channel if you are interested in the life in the colonial days. And yes, the book "American Cookery" being written by a woman named Amelia Simmons got my Hetalian juices flowing. But yeah, remember to read (well you just did) and review. Ciao for now,
otherrealmwriter
aka
Realm.