Corn is one of the most common foods eaten by the colonists. Elizabeth makes mush and hoecakes and other kinds of corn bread from ground corn meal. She also prepares a dish called hominy by softening whole dried corn in lye or water to remove the hull. She makes succotash by combining corn and beans. The Lathams, like their neighbors, keep sheep and chickens. Hogs run loose on the farm and in the countryside, eating what they can find.
The Lathams butcher them for ham, bacon, fresh pork, and lard. Their bristles make fine brushes. Cattle and goats provide meat as well as milk for drinking. Elizabeth and her mother make butter and cheese from the milk. Elizabeth's father and older brother hunt turkey, deer, squirrel, and other game and catch fish in the streams and in the bay.