THE DUTCH LARDER
There is no doubt that the Dutch colonists were very valiant
trenchermen; more avid, perhaps, of quantity and frequency in their
food than exacting of variety. Cardinal Bentivoglio (the diplomatist
and historian) writing at the time of the first emigration to New
Netherland, says that the greatest pleasures of the Hollanders were
those of the table. This love of eating made them provident and lavish
of food-stores in emigration; and the accounts of scant supplies, poor
fare, and dire starvation which are recorded of other colonies, never
have been told of the _vol-gevoedt_ Dutch. Then, too, they landed on a
generous shore,--no rock-bound coast,--Hendrick Hudson said the finest
soil for cultivation that he ever set foot on. The welcoming fields
richly nourished and multiplied the Hollanders’ store of seeds and
roots and grafts. The rye quickly grew so tall that a man could bind
the ears together above his head. Van der Donck saw a field of barley
in New Netherland in which the barley stems were seven feet high.
Domine Megapolensis stated that a Rensselaerwyck _schepen_ raised fine
crops of wheat on the same field eleven years in succession. Two ripe
crops of peas or of buckwheat could be raised on the same land in
one season. The soil seemed inexhaustible; and fields and woods also
offered to the settlers a rich native larder. Among these American food
supplies came first and ever the native Indian corn, or “Turkie-wheat.”
The Dutch (fond of all cereal foods) took to their liking and their
kitchens with speed the various forms of corn-food.
Samp and samp porridge were soon their favorite dishes. Samp is Indian
corn pounded to a coarsely ground powder in a mortar. Like nearly all
the foods made of the various forms of Indian corn, its name is of
Indian derivation, and usually its method of preparation and cooking.
Roger Williams wrote of it:--
“Nawsamp is a kind of meal pottage unparched. From this the English
call their samp; which is the Indian corn beaten and boiled.”
Samp porridge was a derivative of Indian and Dutch parentage. It was
samp cooked in Dutch fashion, like a _hutespot_, or hodgepot, with
salt beef or pork and potatoes and other roots, such as carrots and
turnips. These were boiled together in a vast kettle, usually in large
quantity, as the porridge was better liked after several days’ cooking.
A week’s supply for a family was often cooked at one time. After
much boiling a strong crust was formed next the pot, and sometimes
toward the end of the boiling the porridge was lifted out of the pot
bodily--so to speak--by the crust and served crust and all. Samp was
pounded in a primitive and picturesque Indian mortar made of a hollowed
block of wood, or the stump of a tree. The pestle was a heavy block of
wood shaped like the interior of the mortar and fitted with a handle
attached to one side. This block was fastened to the top of a growing
sapling which gave it the required spring back after being pounded down
on the corn. Pounding samp was slow work, often done in later years
by unskilled negroes and hence disparagingly termed “niggering” corn.
After those simple mortars were abandoned elsewhere they were used on
Long Island; and it was jestingly told that skippers in a fog could
always get their bearings off the Long Island coast because they could
hear the pounding of the samp-mortars.
Suppawn, another favorite of the settlers in New York, was an Indian
dish made from Indian corn; it was a thick corn-meal and milk porridge.
It soon was seen on every Dutch table, and is spoken of by all
travellers in early New York.
From the gossiping pages of the Labadist preachers we find hints of
good fare in Brooklyn in 1679:--
“Then was thrown upon the fire, to be roasted, a pail full of Gowanes
oysters which are the best in the country. They are fully as good
as those of England, better than those we eat at Falmouth. I had to
try some of them raw. They are large and full, some of them not less
than a foot long. Others are young and small. In consequence of the
great quantities of them everybody keeps the shells for the burning
of lime. They pickle the oysters in small casks and send them to
Barbados. We had for supper a roasted haunch of venison which he had
bought of the Indians for three guilders and a half of sea-want, that
is fifteen stivers of Dutch money (fifteen cents), and which weighed
thirty pounds. The meat was exceedingly tender and good and also quite
fat. It had a slight aromatic flavor. We were also served with wild
turkey, which was also fat and of a good flavor, and a wild goose,
but that was rather dry. We saw here lying in a heap a whole hill of
watermelons which were as large as pumpkins.”
De Vries tells of an abundant supply of game in the colony; deer (as
fat as any Holland deer can be); great wild turkeys, beautiful birds
of golden bronze (one that he shot weighed thirty pounds); partridges
and pigeons (in such great flocks that the sky was darkened). Domine
Megapolensis says the plentiful wild turkeys and deer came to the
hogpens of the Albany colonists to feed; fat Dutch swine and graceful
red deer must have seemed strange trough companions. A stag was sold
readily by an Indian for a jack-knife. In 1695 Rev. Mr. Miller said a
quarter of venison could be bought “at your door” for ninepence. Wild
swan came in plenty, “so that the bays and shores where they resort
appear as if they were dressed in white drapery.” Down the river swam
hundreds of gray and white-headed geese nearly as stately as the swan;
Van der Donck knew a gunner (and gives his name, Henry de Backer) who
killed eleven gray geese with one shot from his gun. Gray ducks and
pelicans were plentiful and cheap. Gone forever from the waters of
New York are the beautiful gray ducks, white swan, gray geese, and
pelican; anent these can we sigh for the good old times. The Earl of
Strafford’s letters and despatches, telling of the “Commodities of the
Island called Maniti ore Long Ile wch is in the Continent of Virgenea,”
confirms all these reports and even tells of “fayre Turkees far greater
than here, five hundred in a flocke,”--which must have proved a noble
sight.
The river was full of fish, and the bay; their plenty inspired the
first poet of New Netherland to rhyming enumeration; among them were
sturgeon--despised of Christians; and terrapin--not despised. “Some
persons,” wrote Van der Donck in 1656, “prepare delicious dishes from
the water terrapin, which is luscious food.” Two centuries and a half
of appreciation pay equally warm tribute to the terrapin’s reputation.
Patriarchal lobsters five and six feet long were in the bay. Van der
Donck says “those a foot long are better for serving at table.” Truly a
lobster six feet long would seem a little awkward to serve. W. Eddis,
in his “Letters from America” written in 1792, says these vast lobsters
were caught in New York waters until Revolutionary days when “since the
late incessant cannonading, they have entirely forsaken the coast; not
one having been taken or seen since the commencement of hostilities.”
Crabs, too, were large, and some were “altogether soft.” Van der Donck
corroborates the foot-long oysters seen by the Labadists. He says the
“large oysters roasted or stewed make a good bite,”--a very good bite,
it would seem.
Salted fish was as carefully prepared and amiably regarded in New York
as in England and Holland at the same date. The ling and herring of
the old country gave place in New York to shad. The greatest pains was
taken in preparing, drying, and salting the plentiful shad. It is said
that in towns, as in New York and Brooklyn, great heaps of shad were
left when purchased at each door, and that the necessary cleaning and
preparation was done on the street. As all housewives purchased shad
and salted and packed at about the same time, those public scavengers,
the domestic hogs, who roamed the town-streets unchecked (and ever
welcomed), must have been specially useful at shad-time.
At a very early date apple-trees were set out and cultivated with much
care and much success. Nowhere else, says Dankers, had he seen such
fine apples. He notes the Double Paradise. The Newtown pippin, the
Kingston spitzenburgh, the Poughkeepsie swaar-apple, the red-streak,
guelderleng, and others of well-known name, show New York’s attention
to apple-raising. Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, spoke of the splendid
apple-orchards throughout New York in 1749, and told of the horse-press
for making cider. Cider soon rivalled in domestic use the beer of
the Fatherland. It was constantly used during the winter season,
and, diluted with water, sweetened, and flavored with nutmeg, made a
grateful summer drink.
Peaches were in such lavish abundance as to become uncared for. The
roads were covered with fallen peaches which even the ever-filled hogs
would not eat. Plums were equally plentiful. Cherry-trees were planted
in good numbers and produced in great quantities. “All travellers and
passers-by could pick and eat at will,” says Kalm. Comparatively scanty
and poor are peaches, plums, and cherries in New York State to-day.
There were also plenty of vegetables: _cibollen_ (chibbals), _peasen_
(pease), _chicoreye_ (chiccory), _karoten_ (carrots), _artichock_
(artichoke), _lattouwe_ (lettuce), _beeten_ (beets), _pastinaken_
(parsnips), _radys_ (radish), and many others. Pumpkins and squashes
abounded, but do not appear to have been in as universal use as in New
England. _Quaasiens_ were so easily cooked “they were a favorite with
the young women,” says one authority; they “grew rapidly and digested
well,” also were qualities accorded in their favor. Under the name of
_askutasquash_, or vine-apples, Roger Williams sung their praises.
Musk-melons, water-melons, and cucumbers were grown in large number
and excellent quality. Whether they cooked the _Duyvel’s broodt_, the
picturesque Dutch name for mushrooms, I know not, but the teeming woods
of the Hudson valley offered them rich and abundant store of this
dainty food.
The Swedish naturalist, Kalm, visited Albany in 1749. He has left to
us a very full account of Albany food and fashions of serving at that
time. He found the Albanians faring as did their great grandfathers in
the Netherlands, who were sneeringly called “milk and cheese men,” and
he found them rasping their cheese as had their far-away forbears in
Holland, and as do their descendants in Holland to this day. He writes
thus:--
“The inhabitants of Albany are much more sparing than the English.
The meat which is served up is often insufficient to satisfy the
stomach, and the bowl does not circulate so freely as among the
English.... Their meat and manner of dressing it is very different
from that of the English. Their Breakfast is tea, commonly without
milk. About thirty or forty years ago, tea was unknown to them, and
they breakfasted either upon bread and butter or bread and milk.
They never put sugar into the cup but put a small bit of it into
their mouths while they drink. Along with the tea they eat bread
and butter with slices of hung beef. Coffee is not usual here: they
breakfast generally about seven. Their dinner is buttermilk and bread
to which they sometimes add sugar, and then it is a delicious dish
to them: or fresh milk and bread: or boiled or roasted flesh. They
sometimes make use of buttermilk instead of fresh milk to boil a thin
kind of porridge with, which tastes very sour but not disagreeable
in hot weather. To each dinner they have a great salad prepared
with abundance of vinegar and little or no oil. They frequently eat
buttermilk, bread and salad, one mouthful after another. Their supper
is generally bread and butter, or milk and bread. They sometimes eat
cheese at breakfast and at dinner: it is not in slices but scraped
or rasped so as to resemble coarse flour, which they pretend adds to
the good taste of cheese. They commonly drink very small beer or pure
water.”
The “great salad dressed with vinegar” was doubtless “koolslaa,”
shredded cabbage, which we to-day call coleslaw. It was a universal
dish also at that time in Holland. A woman-traveller there in 1756
wrote:--
“Everything of vivers is dear in Holland except vegetables, upon which
the commons live all summer, and the better sort a great deall. Every
body, great and small, sups on sallad with oil and vinegar.”
The Dutch were famously fond of “bakers-meats,”--all cakes and
breads,--and excelled in making them, and made them in great variety.
There was early legislation with regard to bakers, that they use just
weights and good materials. In 1656 they were ordered to bake twice a
week “both coarse and white loaves, both for Christians and Indians,”
at these prices: Fourteen stuyvers for a double coarse loaf of eight
pounds, with smaller loaves at proportionate prices; and eight stuyvers
for a white loaf of two pounds. Two years later the coarse wheat loaf
of eight pounds was definitely priced at fourteen stuyvers in sea-want,
ten in beavers, and seven in silver. The bakers complained, and a
new assize of bread was established at a slightly higher rate. Under
Dongan’s charter bread-viewers were appointed; then the bread had to
be marked with the baker’s initials. I have puzzled over a prohibition
of any bakers selling _koeckjes_, jumbles, and sweet cakes, unless he
also had coarse bread for sale; and fancy it was that the extravagant
and careless purchaser might not be tempted or forced to buy too costly
food. One baker was prosecuted for having gingerbread in his window
when he had no coarse bread. There were also “pye-women” as well as
bakers.
Favorite articles of food were three kinds of fried cakes of close
kinship, thus described by Irving,--“the doughty doughnut, the tender
olykoek, the crisp and crumbling cruller.” The doughnut was an equal
favorite in New England, and was in some localities called a simball,
or simblin; which was a New England variant, a Puritan degradent of
the simbling-cake, or simnel, of the English Mid-Lent Sunday. In New
England country-houses doughnuts were eaten, indeed, are eaten, all the
year around three meals a day; but Mrs. Vanderbilt says the Dutch in
Flatbush only made them from November through January, because at that
period the lard in which they were cooked was still fresh. She also
says they were limited in their public appearance to the tea-table or
for children to eat “between-meals.” I don’t know that I am willing to
acquiesce in her assumption that when the Pilgrims were in Holland the
English goodwives learned to make doughnuts from the Dutch _vrouws_,
and thus be forced to yield doughnuts to the other triumphs of “Dutch
colonial influence.”
The famous _olykoeks_, or _olijkoecks_, were thus concocted, as given
by an old Dutch receipt of the year 1740 belonging to Mrs. Morris
Patterson Ferris:--
“About twelve o’clock set a little yeast to rise, so as to be ready
at five P. M. to mix with the following ingredients: 3³⁄₄ pounds of
flour, 1 pound of sugar, ¹⁄₂ pound of butter and lard mixed, 1¹⁄₂
pints of milk, 6 eggs, 1 pint raised yeast. Warm the butter, sugar
and milk together, grate a nutmeg in the flour, add eggs last. Place
in a warm place to rise. If quite light at bedtime, work them down by
pressing with the hand. At nine next morning make into small balls
with the hand, and place in the centre of each a bit of raisin,
citron, and apple chopped fine. Lay on a well-floured pie-board and
allow them to rise again. They are frequently ready to boil at two
o’clock. In removing them from the board use a knife, well-floured,
and just give them a little roll with the hand to make them round.
Have the fat boiling, and boil each one five minutes. When cool roll
in sifted sugar.”
The name means literally oil-cakes, and they were originally boiled
or fried in oil. They were called “melting,” and I am sure from this
description of the process of manufacture they were delicate enough to
deserve the appellation. The Hessian officers in Revolutionary times
give eloquent approval of these “rich batter-cakes.”
Tea-cakes which were made both in New England and New York were what
Mrs. Vanderbilt calls “izer-cookies.” They were so termed from the
Dutch word _izer_, or _yser_, meaning iron; for they were baked in
long-handled irons called wafer-irons, which often had the initials of
the owners impressed in the metal, which impression of course rendered
the letters in relief on the cakes. Often a date was also stamped
on the irons. These wafer-irons sometimes formed part of a wedding
outfit, having the initials of the bride and groom intertwined. The
cakes were also called split-cakes because, thin as they were, often
they were split and buttered before being eaten. Other wafer-cakes
were called _oblyen_. Cinnamon-cakes resembled a delicate jumble with
powdered cinnamon sprinkled on top. Puffards, or _puffertjes_, were
eaten hot with powdered cinnamon and sugar, and were baked in a special
pan, termed a puffet-pan. Wonders were flavored with orange peel and
boiled in lard. Pork-cakes, made of chopped pork with spices, almonds,
currants, raisins, and flavored with brandy, were a rich cake. The
famous Schuyler wedding cake had among other ingredients, twelve dozen
eggs, forty-eight pounds of raisins, twenty-four pounds of currants,
four quarts of brandy, a quart of rum. This was mixed in a wash-tub.
Many of these cakes are now obsolete. In one of the old inventories
of the Van Cortlandt family, in a list of kitchen utensils is the
item, “1 Bolly-byssha Pan.” This is the Anglicized spelling of
_bollo-bacia_,--_bolle_ the old Dutch and Spanish word for a bun, or
small loaf of flour and sugar; _bacia_ the Spanish for a metal pan. In
old receipts in the same family the word is called _bolla-bouche_ and
_bolla-buysies_. The receipt runs thus:--
“To a pound of flower a quarter of a pound of sugar, the same of
butter, 4 egs, sum Nut-Meg and Senamond, milk & yeast, A pint of milk
to 2 pound of flower.”
Domestic swine afforded the Dutch many varied and appetizing foods.
Two purely Dutch dishes were _rolliches_ and head cheese. _Rolliches_
were made of lean beef and fat cut in pieces about as large as dice,
then highly seasoned with herbs and spices, sewed in tripe and boiled
for several hours. This roll was then pressed into an oblong loaf,
which made pretty slices when cut and served cold. Head cheese, or
_hoofd-kaas_, was similar in appearance, but was made of pigs’-feet and
portions of the head chopped fine, boiled in a bag, and pressed into
the shape of a cheese. This also was served in cold slices.
_Speck ende kool_, pork and cabbage, was another domestic stand-by;
fried pork and apples were made into an appetizing dinner dish. Roast
ducks were served with pork-dumplings,--of which the mystery of
manufacture is unknown to me.
A great favorite of the Dutch is shown through this advertisement in
the “New York Gazette” of December 17, 1750:--
“The Printer hereof, ever mindful to please and gratify his Customers,
finding but little Entertainment at present suitable to the Genius of
many; has been obliged to provide for the Winter Evening Diversion of
such of his Friends as are that way inclined, A Parcel of the Nuts
commonly called KESKATOMAS NUTS which he sells at _One Shilling_ per
Half a Peck. N. B. They are all right ‘Sopus and of the right sort.’”
A writer in the “Literary World” in 1850 thus defines and eulogizes
these nuts:--
“Hickory, shell-bark, kiskitomas nut!
Or whatsoever thou art called, thy praise
Has ne’er been sounded yet in poet’s lays.”
Michaux, in his “North American Sylva,” says that many descendants
of the Dutch in New Jersey and New York still call the hickory-nut
_Kisky-Thomas-nuts_. The name is derived from an Indian word, not from
the Dutch. These nuts were served at every winter evening company,
great or small. Mrs. Grant tells of their appearance on the tea-table.
Of the drinking habits of the Dutch colonists I can say that they
were those of all the colonies,--excessive. Tempered in their tastes
somewhat by the universal brewing and drinking of beer, they did not
use as much rum as the Puritans of New England, nor drink as deeply as
the Virginia planters; but the use of liquor was universal. A libation
was poured on every transaction, every action, at every happening in
the community, in public life as well as in private. John Barleycorn
was ever a witness at the drawing up of a contract, the signing of a
deed, the selling of a farm, the purchase of goods, the arbitration of
a suit. If either party to a contract “backed out” before signing, he
did not back away from the “treat,” but had to furnish half a barrel
of beer or a gallon of rum to assuage the pangs of disappointment.
Liquor was served at auctions or “vendues” free, so Madam Knight
says,--buyers becoming expansive in bidding when well primed. It
appeared at weddings, funerals, church-openings, deacon-ordainings, and
house-raisings. No farm hand in haying-field, no sailor on a vessel,
no workman in a mill, no cobbler, tailor, carpenter, mason, or tinker
would work without some strong drink, some treat. The bill for liquor
where many workmen were employed, as in a house-raising, was often a
heavy one.
A detailed example of the imperative furnishing of liquor to workmen is
found in the contracts and bills for building in 1656 the first stone
house erected at Albany, a government house or fort. It cost 12,213
guilders in wampum, or about $3,500, and was built under the charge of
Jan de la Montague, the Vice-Director of the Fort. Every step in the
erection of this building was taken knee-deep in liquor. The dispensing
of drink began when the old wooden fort was levelled; a tun of strong
beer was furnished to the pullers-down. At the laying of the first
stones of the wall a case of brandy, an anker (thirty-three quarts) of
brandy, and thirty-two guilders’ worth of other liquor wet the thirsty
whistles of the masons. When the cellar beams were laid, the carpenters
had their turn. Two barrels of strong beer, three cases of brandy, and
seventy-two florins’ worth of small beer rested them temporarily from
their labors. When the second tier of beams was successfully in place,
the carpenters had two more cases of brandy and a barrel of beer.
The beams had already received a previous “wetting;” for when brought
to the building they had been left without the wall, and had been
carried within, one at a time, by eight men who had half a barrel of
beer for each beam. There were thirty-three beams in all.
All the wood-carriers, teamsters, carpenters, stone-cutters, and masons
had, besides these special treats, a daily dram of a gill of brandy
apiece, and three pints of beer at dinner. They were dissatisfied, and
“solicited” another pint of beer. Even the carters who brought wood
and the boatmen who floated down spars were served with liquor. When
the carpenters placed the roof-tree, a half-barrel of liquor was given
them. Another half-barrel under the name of tiles-beer went to the
tile-setters. The special completion of the winding staircase demanded
five guilders’ worth of liquor. When the house was finished, a _kraeg_,
or housewarming, of both food and drink to all the workmen and their
wives was demanded and refused. Well it might be refused, when the
liquor bill without it amounted to seven hundred and sixteen guilders.
The amount of liquor required to help in conducting an election was
very great. In 1738 James Alexander and Eventhus Van Horne paid over
seventy-two pounds for one election bill. Liquor then was cheap. This
sum purchased sixty-two gallons of Jamaica rum, several gallons of
brandy, eight gallons of lime-juice, a “pyd” of wine which cost sixteen
pounds (I don’t know what a “pyd” could have been), a large amount of
shrub, and mugs and “gugs” and “bottels.” There were also two bagpipes
and a fiddler.
Let me give, as a feeble excuse for the large consumption of beer,
cider, etc., that the water was poor in many of the towns. Kalm wrote
of the Albany water:--
“The water of several of the wells was very cool about this time, but
had a kind of acid taste which was not very agreeable. I think this
water is not very wholesome for people who are not used to it. Nearly
every house in Albany has its well, the water of which is applied to
common use; but for tea, brewing, and washing they commonly take the
water of the river.”
What can be the other “common use” to which well-water was applied,
except putting out fires,--which is an infrequent use?
In New York City the water was equally poor. The famous Tea-water Pump
supplied in barrels for many years the more fastidious portion of the
community. Perhaps we could scarcely expect them to drink much water
when they had to buy it.
Our notions of life in New Netherland have been so thoroughly shaped
by Diedrich Knickerbocker’s tergiversating account thereof, that it
would be difficult for us to make any marked change in the picture
he has painted. Nor do we need to do so. For though the details of
public and official life and characters in that day have been wilfully
distorted by Irving’s keen humor, still the atmosphere of his picture
is undeniably correct, and the domestic life he has shown us was the
life of that colony. I find nothing, after much illumination through
careful examination of old records and the contemporary accounts given
by early travellers, to change in any considerable degree the estimate
of every-day life in New Netherland which I gained from Irving, save in
one respect,--the account of Dutch table manners, and the attributing
to the Dutch burghers of lax hospitality at dinner-time, which I cannot
believe. Madam Knight wrote of her New York hosts in 1704:--
“They are sociable to one another, and Curteos and Civill to
Strangers, and fare well in their houses.... They are sociable to a
degree, their tables being as free to their Naybours as themselves.”
Mrs. Grant, writing of Albanians half a century later, gives a
detailed description of their manners as hosts, which might serve as
an explanation of apparent inhospitality in the time of Walter the
Doubter:--
“They were exceedingly social, and visited each other very frequently,
beside the regular assembling together in porches every fine evening.
Of the more substantial luxuries of the table they knew little, and of
the formal and ceremonious parts of good breeding still less.
“If you went to spend a day anywhere, you were received in a manner we
should think very cold. No one rose to welcome you; no one wondered
you had not come sooner, or apologized for any deficiency in your
entertainment. Dinner, which was very early, was served exactly in the
same manner as if there were only the family. The house, indeed, was
so exquisitely neat and well regulated, that you could not surprise
them; and they saw each other so often and so easily that intimates
made no difference. Of strangers they were shy; not by any means from
want of hospitality, but from a consciousness that people who had
little to value themselves on but their knowledge of the modes and
ceremonies of polished life disliked their sincerity and despised
their simplicity. If you showed no insolent wonder, but easily and
quietly adopted their manners, you would receive from them not only
very great civility, but much essential kindness.... After sharing
this plain and unceremonious dinner, which might, by the bye, chance
to be a very good one, but was invariably that which was meant for
the family, tea was served in at a very early hour. And here it was
that the distinction shown to strangers commenced. Tea here was a
perfect ‘regale,’ accompanied by various sorts of cake unknown to us,
cold pastry, and great quantities of sweetmeats and preserved fruits
of various kinds, and plates of hickory and other nuts ready cracked.
In all manner of confectionery and pastry these people excelled; and
having fruit in great abundance, which cost them nothing, and getting
sugar home at an easy rate, in return for their exports to the West
Indies, the quantity of these articles used in families, otherwise
plain and frugal, was astonishing. Tea was never unaccompanied with
some of these petty articles; but for strangers a great display was
made. If you stayed supper, you were sure of a most substantial
though plain one. In this meal they departed, out of compliment to
the strangers, from their usual simplicity. Having dined between
twelve and one, you were quite prepared for it. You had either game
or poultry roasted, and always shell-fish in the season; you had
also fruit in abundance. All this with much neatness, but no form.
The seeming coldness with which you were first received wore off by
degrees.”
It may be noted that Mrs. Grant gives a very different notion of
Albany fare than does Kalm, already quoted; and she wrote scarce a
score of years after his account. She tells--in this extract--not
of wealthy folk, though they were truly gentle-folk, if simplicity
of living, kindliness, and good sense added in many cases to good
birth could make these plain Albanians gentle-folk. And in truth it
seems to me a cheerful picture,--one of true though shy hospitality;
pleasant of contemplation in our days of formality and extravagance of
entertaining, of scant knowledge of the true home life even of those we
call our friends.