that were licensed, and the sharp punishments for baking short weight,
etc., it seems plain that New England housewives did little home baking
in early days. The bread was doubtless of many kinds, as in
England--simnels, cracknels, jannacks, cheat loaves, cocket-bread,
wastel-bread, manchet, and buns. Pure wheaten loaves were not largely
used as food--bread from corn meal dried quickly; hence rye meal was
mixed with the corn, and "rye 'n' Injun" bread was everywhere eaten.
To the other bountiful companion food of corn, pumpkins, the colonists
never turned very readily. Pompions they called them in "the times
wherein old Pompion was a saint." Johnson, in his "Wonder-Working
Providence," reproved them for making a jest of pumpkins, since they
were so good and unfailing a food--"a fruit which the Lord fed his
people with till corn and cattle increased."
"We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it were not for pumpkins we should be undone."
Pompions, and what Higginson called squantersquashes, Josselyn
squontersquoshes, Roger Williams askutasquashes, Wood isquoukersquashes,
and we clip to squashes, grew in vast plenty. The Indians dried the
pompions on strings for winter use, as is still done in New England farm
communities. Madam Knight had them frequently offered to her on her
journey--"pumpkin sause" and "pumpkin bred." "We would have eat a morsel
ourselves, but the Pumpkin & Indian-mixt bread had such an Aspect."
Pumpkin bread is made in Connecticut to this day. For pumpkin "sause" we
have a two-centuries-old receipt, which was given by Josselyn, in 1671,
in his "New England Rarities," and called by him even at that day "an
Ancient New England Standing-dish."
"The Housewives manner is to slice them when ripe and cut them into
Dice, and so fill a pot with them of two or three Gallons and stew
them upon a gentle fire the whole day. And as they sink they fill
again with fresh Pompions not putting any liquor to them and when
it is stir'd enough it will look like bak'd Apples, this Dish
putting Butter to it and a little Vinegar with some Spice as Ginger
which makes it tart like an Apple, and so serve it up to be eaten
with fish or flesh."
This must be a very good "sause," and a very good receipt when once it
is clear to your mind which of them--the housewives or the
pompions--sink and are to fill and be filled in a pot, and stirred and
stewed and put liquor to.
In an old book which I own, which was used by many generations of New
England cooks, I find this "singular good" rule to make a "Pumpion Pye:"
"Take about halfe a pound of Pumpion and slice it, a handful of
Tyme, a little Rosemary, Parsley and Sweet Marjoram slipped off the
stalkes, and chop them smal, then take Cinamon, Nutmeg, Pepper, and
six Cloves and beat them, take ten Eggs and beat them, then mix
them, and beat them altogether, and put in as much Sugar as you
think fit, then fry them like a froiz, after it is fryed, let it
stand til it be cold, then fill your Pye, take sliced Apples thinne
rounde-wayes, and lay a row of the Froiz and layer of Apples with
Currans betwixt the layer while your Pye is fitted, and put in a
good deal of sweet butter before you close it, when the pye is
baked take six yelks of Eggs, some White-wine or Vergis, and make a
Caudle of this, but not too thicke, cut up the Lid and put it in,
stir them wel together whilst the Eggs and Pompions be not
perceived and so serve it up."
I am sure there would be no trouble about the pompions being perceived,
and I can fancy the modest half-pound of country vegetable blushing a
deeper orange to find its name given to this ambitious and
compound-sentenced concoction which helped to form part of the "simple
diet of the good old times." I have found no modern cook bold enough to
"prove" (as the book says) this pumpion pie; but hope, if any one
understands it, she will attempt it.
Potatoes were on the list of seeds, fruits, and vegetables that were
furnished to the Massachusetts Bay colonists in 1628, and fifteen tons
(which were probably sweet potatoes) were imported from Bermuda in 1636
and sold in Boston at twopence a pound. Winthrop wrote of "potatose" in
1683. Their cultivation was rare. There is a tradition that the Irish
settlers at Londonderry, N. H., began the first systematic planting of
potatoes. At the Harvard Commencement dinner, in 1708, potatoes were on
the list of supplies. A crop of eight bushels, which one Hadley farmer
had in 1763, was large--too large, since "if a man ate them every day he
could not live beyond seven years." Indeed, the "gallant root of
potatoes" was regarded as a sort of forbidden fruit--a root more than
suspected of being an over-active aphrodisiac, and withal so wholly
abandoned as not to have been mentioned in the Bible; and when Parson
Jonathan Hubbard, of Sheffield, raised twenty bushels in one year, it is
said he came very near being dealt with by his church for his wicked
hardihood. In more than one town the settlers fancied the balls were the
edible portion, and "did not much desire them." Nor were fashionable
methods of cooking them much more to be desired. In "The Accomplisht
Cook," used about the year 1700, potatoes were ordered to be boiled and
blanched; seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, and pepper; mixed with eringo
roots, dates, lemon, and whole mace; covered with butter, sugar, and
grape verjuice, made with pastry; then iced with rose-water and sugar,
and yclept a "Secret Pye." Alas, poor, ill-used, be-sugared, secreted
potato, fit but for kissing-comfits! we can well understand your
unpopularity.
Other vegetables were produced in New England in abundance. Higginson
speaks of green peas, turnips, parsnips, carrots, and cucumbers, and a
dozen fruits and berries. Cranberries were plentiful and soon were
exported to England. Josselyn gives a very full list of fruits and
vegetables and pot-herbs, including beans, which were baked by the
Indians in earthen pots as they are now in Boston bake-shops.
There was a goodly supply of game. Bradford wrote of the year 1621,
"beside waterfoule ther was great store of wild Turkies." Wood said
these turkeys sometimes weighed forty pounds apiece, and sold for four
shillings each. Josselyn assigned to them the enormous weight of sixty
pounds. All agreed that they were far superior to the English domestic
turkeys. Morton said they came in flocks of a hundred; yet the Winthrops
had great difficulty in getting two to breed from in 1683, and by 1690
it was rare to see a wild turkey in New England. The beautiful great
bronze birds had flown away from the white man's civilization and guns.
Flocks of thousands of geese took their noisy, graceful V-shaped flight
over New England, and were shot in large numbers. Dudley wrote home
that doves were so plentiful that they obscured the light. Josselyn said
he had bought in Boston a dozen pigeons all dressed for threepence. It
is said they were sometimes sold as low as a penny a dozen. Roger Clap
said it would have been counted a strange thing in early days to see a
piece of roast veal, beef, or mutton, though it was not long ere there
was roast goat. By 1684 a French refugee said beef, mutton, and pork
were but twopence a pound in Boston. Clap says he ate his samp, or
hominy, without butter or milk, but Higginson wrote in 1630, and Morton
in 1624, that they had a quart of milk for a penny. John Cotton said
ministers and milk were the only things cheap in New England.
By Johnson's time New Englanders had "Apple, Pear and Quince Tarts
instead of their former Pumpkin Pies." They had besides apple-tarts,
apple mose, apple slump, mess apple-pies, buttered apple-pies, apple
crowdy and puff apple-pies--all differing.
Josselyn said the "Quinces, Cherries, & Damsins set the Dames a-work.
Marmalet & Preserved Damsins is to be met with in every house." Skill in
preserving was ever an English-woman's pride, and New-English women did
not forget the lessons learned in their "faire English homes." They made
preserves and conserves, marmalets and quiddonies, hypocras and
household wines, usquebarbs and cordials. They candied fruits and made
syrups. They preserved everything that would bear preserving. I have
seen old-time receipts for preserving quinces, "respasse," pippins,
"apricocks," plums, "damsins," peaches, oranges, lemons, artichokes,
green walnuts, elecampane roots, eringo roots, grapes, barberries,
cherries; receipts for syrup of clove gillyflower, wormwood, mint,
aniseed, clove, elder, lemons, marigolds, citron, hyssop, liquorice;
receipts for conserves of roses, violets, borage flowers, rosemary,
betony, sage, mint, lavender, marjoram, and "piony;" rules for candying
fruit, berries, and flowers, for poppy water, cordial, cherry water,
lemon water, thyme water, Angelica water, Aqua Mirabilis, Aqua
C[oe]lestis, clary water, mint water.
No wonder a profession of preserving sprung up. By 1731 we find
advertised in June in the _Boston News Letter_, "At Widow Bonyots All
Sorts of Fruits in Preserves Jellys and Surrups. Egg Cakes, All sorts of
Macaroons, Marchepane Crisp Almonds. All sorts Conserves, Also Meat
Jellys for the sick."
We can see plainly by these statements that New England was no
Nidderland. Even in Josselyn's day he wrote, "they have not forgotten
the English fashion of stirring up their appetites with variety of
cooking their food." The pages of Judge Sewall's diary give many hints
of his daily fare. He speaks of "boil'd Pork, boil'd Pigeons, boil'd
Bacon and boil'd Venison; rost Beef, rost Lamb, rost Fowls, rost Turkey,
pork and beans;" "Frigusee of Fowls," "Joll of Salmon," "Oysters, Fish
and Oyl, conners, Legg of Pork, hogs Cheek and souett; pasty, bread and
butter; Minc'd Pye, Aplepy, tarts, gingerbread, sugar'd almonds, glaz'd
almonds;" honey, curds and cream, sage cheese, green pease, barley,
"Yokhegg in milk, chockolett, figgs," oranges, shattucks, apples,
quinces, strawberries, cherries, and raspberries; a very fair list of
viands.
"Yokhegg" is probably "yeokheag," a name for Indian corn, parched and
pounded into meal, a name by which it was known for many years in
Eastern Connecticut.
Sewall was a very valiant trencher-man. He records with much zest going
down the Bay to an island, or riding to Roxbury for an outing and
dinner, and coming home in "brave moonshine." And, like his neighbor,
Cotton Mather, he drew many a spiritual lesson from the food set before
him; especially, however, at a scambling meal, or at any repast which he
ate alone, and hence had naught and no one to divert therefrom his
ever-religious thoughts.
From a curious account of Boston, written by a traveller named Bennet,
in the year 1740, we take the following statements of the cost of food
there:
"Their poultry of all sorts are as fine as can be desired, and they
have plenty of fine fish of various kinds, all of which are very
cheap. Take the butchers' meat all together, in every season of the
year, I believe it is about twopence per pound sterling; the best
beef and mutton, lamb and veal are often sold for sixpence per
pound of New England money, which is some small matter more than
one penny sterling.
"Poultry in their season are exceeding cheap. As good a turkey may
be bought for about two shillings sterling as we can buy in London
for six or seven, and as fine a goose for tenpence as would cost
three shillings and sixpence or four shillings in London. The
cheapest of all the several kinds of poultry are a sort of wild
pigeon, which are in season the latter end of June, and so continue
until September. They are large, and finer than those we have in
London, and are sold here for eighteenpence a dozen, and sometimes
for half of that.
"Fish, too, is exceeding cheap. They sell a fine fresh cod that
will weigh a dozen pounds or more, just taken out of the sea, for
about twopence sterling. They have smelts, too, which they sell as
cheap as sprats are in London. Salmon, too, they have in great
plenty, and those they sell for about a shilling apiece, which will
weigh fourteen or fifteen pounds.
"They have venison very plenty. They will sell as fine a haunch for
half a crown as would cost full thirty shillings in England. Bread
is much cheaper than we have in England, but is not near so good.
Butter is very fine and cheaper than ever I bought any in London;
the best is sold all summer for threepence a pound. But as for
cheese, it is neither cheap nor good."
I am somewhat surprised at Bennet's dictum with regard to cheese, and
can only feel that he had special ill fortune in choosing his
cheesemonger. For certainly the Rhode Island cheese, made from the rich
milk of the great herds of choice cows that dotted the fertile and sunny
fields of old Narragansett, was sent to England and the Barbadoes in
great quantity, and commanded special prices there. Brissot said it was
equal to the "best Cheshire of England or Rocfort of France." This
cheese was made from a receipt for Cheshire cheese which was brought to
Narragansett by Richard Smith's wife in the seventeenth century: and her
home is still standing, though built around, at Cocumcussett, where her
husband and Roger Williams founded a colony.
We have a very distinct rendering of the items of family expense,
chiefly of food, at about that time, given us by a contemporary
authority, and bequeathed to us in a letter to the _Boston News Letter_
of November 28, 1728. The writer refers to other "scheams of expence"
for a household which have been made public, one apparently being at the
rate of £250 a year for the entire outlay. This sum he thinks inadequate
and "disproves in a moment." He gives his own careful estimate of the
cost of keeping a family of eight persons. It is computed for "Families
of Midling Figure who bear the Character of being Genteel," and reads
thus:
"For Diet. For one Person a Day.
1 Breakfast 1_d._ a Pint of Milk 2d .03
2 Dinner. Pudding Bread Meat Roots Pickles Vinegar
Salt & Cheese .09
N.B. In this article of the Dinner I would include
all the Raisins Currants Suet Flour Eggs Cranberries
Apples & where there are children all their Intermeal
Eatings throughout the whole Year. And I think a Gentleman
cannot well Dine his family at a lower Rate than this.
3 Supper As the Breakfast .03
4 Small Beer for the Whole Day Winter & Summer. 1-1/2
N.B. In this article of the Beer I would likewise
include all the Molasses used in the Family not
only in Brewing but on other Occasions.
For one Person a Day in all 1_s._ 4-1/2_d._
For Whole Family 11_s._
For the Whole Family 365 days £200 15_s._
For Butter, 2 Firkins at 68 lb. apiece, 16_d._ £ 9 1_s._
a lb.
For Sugar. Cannot be less than 10_s._ a Month or
4 weeks especially when there are children. £ 6 10_s._
For Candles but 3 a Night Summer & Winter
for Ordinary & Extraordinary occasions at
15_d._ for 9 in the lb. £ 7 12_s._ .01
For Sand 20_s._ Soap 40_s._ Washing Once in 4
weeks at 3_s._ a time with 3 Meals a Day at
2_s._more £ 6 5_s._
For One Maids Wages £ 10
For Shoes after the Rate of each 3 Pair in a
year at 9_s._ a Pair for 7 Persons, the Maid
finding her own £ 9 09_s._
-----------------
In all £249 12_s._ 5_d._
No House Rents Mentioned Nor Buying Carting Pyling or Sawing Firewood
No Coffee Tea nor Chocolate
No Wine nor Cyder nor any other Spirituous Liquor
No Pipes Tobacco Spice nor Sweetmeats
No Hospitality or Occasional Entertaining either Gentlemen Strangers
Relatives or Friends
No Acts of Charity nor Contributions for Pious Uses
No Pocket Expenses either for Horse Hire Travelling or Convenient
Recreations
No Postage for Letters or Numberless other Occasions
No Charges of Nursing
No Schooling for Children
No Buying of Books of any Sort or Pens Ink & Paper
No Lyings In
No Sickness, Nothing to Apothecary or Doctor
No Buying Mending or Repairing Household Stuff or Utensils
Nothing to the Simstress nor to the Taylor nor to the Barber,
nor to the Hatter nor to the Shopkeeper & Therefore no Cloaths."
Certainly we gain from this "scheam" a very clear notion of the style of
living of this genteel Boston family.
There is, of course, no possibility of exactly picturing the serving of
a meal in early days; but one peculiarity is known of the dinner--the
pudding came first. Hence the old saying, "I came in season--in
pudding-time." In an account of a Sunday dinner given at the house of
John Adams, as late as 1817, the first course was a pudding of Indian
corn, molasses, and butter; the second, veal, bacon, neck of mutton, and
vegetables.
For many years the colonists "dined exact at noon," and on farms even
half an hour earlier. On Saturday all ate fish for dinner. Judge Sewall
frequently speaks of his Saturday dinner of fish. Fish days had been
prescribed by the King in England, in order that the fisheries might not
fail of support, as was feared on account of the increased consumption
of meat induced by the reformation in religion. New Englanders loyally
followed the mandate, but ate cod-fish on Saturdays, since the Papists
ate fish on Fridays.
One very pleasant and friendly custom that existed among these kindly
New England neighbors must be spoken of in passing. It is thus indicated
by Judge Sewall when he writes, in 1723, of Mr. and Mrs. Belcher, "my
wife sent them a taste of her Diner." It appeared to be a recompensing
fashion, if invited guests were unable to partake of the dinner
festivities, or if neighbors were ill, for the hostess to send a
"taste" of all her viands to console them for their deprivation. This
truly homely and neighborly custom lingered long in old New England
families under the very descriptive title of "cold party;" indeed it
lingers still in old-fashioned towns and in old-fashioned families.
In earlier days when a noble dinner seemed to be the form of domestic
pleasure next in enjoyment to a funeral, a "taste of the dinner" was
truly a most honorable attention, and a most pleasing one.
VII
OLD COLONIAL DRINKS AND DRINKERS
The English settlers who peopled our colonies were a beer-drinking and
ale-drinking race--as Shakespeare said, they were "potent in potting."
None of the hardships they had to endure in the first bitter years of
their new life caused them more annoyance than their deprivation of
their beloved malt liquors. This deprivation began even at the very
landing. They were forced to depend on the charity of the ship-masters
for a draught of beer on board ship, drinking nothing but water ashore.
Bradford, the Pilgrim Governor, complained loudly and frequently of his
distress, while Higginson, the Salem minister, accommodated himself more
readily and cheerfully to his changed circumstances, and boasted
quaintly in 1629, "Whereas my stomach could only digest and did require
such drink as was both strong and stale, I can and ofttimes do drink New
England water very well." As Higginson died in a short time, his boast
of his improved health and praise of the unwonted beverage does not
carry the force intended. Another early chronicler, Roger Clap, writes
that it was "not accounted a strange thing in those days to drink
water," and it was stated that Winthrop drank it ordinarily. Wood, in
his "New England Prospects," says of New England water, "I dare not
preferre it before good Beere as some have done, but any man would
choose it before Bad Beere, Wheay or Buttermilk." It was also praised as
being "farr different from the water of England, being not so sharp, but
of a fatter substance, and of a more jettie colour; it is thought there
can be no better water in the world."
But their beerless state did not long continue, for the first luxury to
be brought to the new country was beer, and the colonists soon imported
malt and learned to make beer from the despised Indian corn, and
established breweries and made laws governing and controlling the
manufacture of ale and beer; for the pious Puritans quickly learned to
cheat in their brewing, using molasses and coarse sugar. Molasses beer
is frequently mentioned by Josselyn.
By 1634, when sixpence was the legal charge for a meal, an ale-quart of
beer could be bought for a penny, and a landlord was liable to ten
shillings fine if he made a greater charge, or his liquor fell below a
certain standard of quality. Perhaps this low price was established by
the crafty Puritan magistrates in order to prevent the possibility of
profit by beer-selling, and thereby reduce the number of sellers. It was
also ordered that not more than an ale-quart of beer should be drunk out
of meal-times. This was to prevent "bye-drinking." Josselyn complained
of the petty interference of the law in drinking, saying:
"At the houses of entertainment called ordinaries into which a
stranger went, he was presently followed by one appointed to that
office who would thrust himself into his company uninvited, and if
he called for more drink than the officer thought, in his judgment,
he could soberly bear away, he would presently countermand it, and
appoint the proportion beyond which he could not get one drop."
The ministers, also, who chanced to live within sight of the tavern, had
a very virtuous custom of watching the tavern door and all who entered
therein, and going over and "chiding them" if they remained too long
within the cheerful portals. With constables, deacons, the parson, and
that lab-o'-the-tongue--the tithing-man--each on the alert to keep every
one from drinking but himself, the Puritan had little chance to be a
toper an he would.
The colonists were fiercely intolerant of intemperance among the
Indians. Laws were made as early as 1633 prohibiting the sale of strong
waters to the "inflamed devilish bloudy salvages," and persons selling
liquor to them were sharply prosecuted and punished. New Yorkers thought
these laws over-severe, saying, deprecatingly, "to prohibit all strong
liquor to them seems very hard and very turkish, rumm doth as little
hurt as the ffrenchmans Brandie, and in the whole is much more
wholesome." But the Puritans knew of the horrors to be dreaded from
drunken Indians.
So plentiful had the sale of ale and beer become in 1675 that Cotton
Mather said every other house in Boston was an ale-house, and a century
later Governor Pownall made the same assertion. The Puritan magistrates
in New England made at a very early date a decided stand not only
against excessive drinking by strangers, but against the habit of
drunkenness in their citizens. Drunkards were in 1636, in Massachusetts,
subject to fine and imprisonment in the stocks, and sellers were
forbidden to furnish the tippler with any liquor thereafter. An habitual
drunkard was punished by having a great D made of "Redd Cloth" hung
around his neck, or sewed on his clothing, and he was disfranchised. In
1630 Governor Winthrop abolished the "Vain Custom" of drinking healths
at his table, and in 1639 the Court publicly ordered the cessation of
the practice because "it was a thing of no use, it induced drunkenness
and quarrelling, it wasted wine and beer and it was troublesome to many,
forcing them to drink more than they wished." A fine of twelve shillings
was imposed on each health-drinker. Cotton Mather, however, thought
health-drinking a usage of common politeness. In Connecticut no man
could drink over half a pint of wine at a time, or tipple over half an
hour, or drink at all at an ordinary after nine o'clock at night.
All these rigid laws had their effect, and New Englanders throughout the
seventeenth century were sober and law-abiding save in a few
communities, such as that at Merrymount, where "good chear went forward
and strong liquors walked." Boston was an especially orderly town.
Several visiting and resident clergymen testified that they had not seen
a drunken man in the Massachusetts Colony in many years. The following
quotation will show how rare was drunkenness and how abhorred. Judge
Sewall wrote in 1686:
"Mr. Shrimpton and others came in a coach from Roxbury about nine
o'clock or past, singing as they came, being inflamed with drink.
At Justice Morgans they stop and drink healths and curse and swear
to the great disturbance of the town and grief of good people. Such
high handed wickedness has hardly before been heard of in Boston."