Waffles: A History © [Part Two]

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chicken and waffles, waffle iron

“Peasants by the Hearth”, ca. 1560’s.  Aertsen, Pieter, (b. 1508, d. 1575).  The bowl sitting on the stool to the right is filled with freshly baked waffles.

Chicken and waffles is a trendy meal now, but the concept is not a new one.  “In the evening both convention parties again met at the Pines, a resort outside of Pittsburgh, where a chicken and waffle dinner was served” [1919].  – The Heating and Ventilating Magazine.  Vol. 16.  July 1919.

Another writer left an account of being served chicken and waffles as hotel fare earlier in 1904.  – Furniture World and Furniture Buyer and Decorator.  Vol. 71.  Jan. 21, 1905. 

For those who possessed a waffle-iron, waffles were sometimes party fare.  To invite friends or family to a waffle frolic or waffle party, was to invite them to a gathering with entertainment at which the food served would be waffles, usually with each person baking his or her own. 

There were usually other foods served at waffle frolics, probably because baking the waffles was somewhat of a slow process and having other food insured everyone was well fed without waiting in line for a turn at the waffle iron.  As we will see from William Livingston’s account, written in 1744, some hostesses served such a lavish array of other foods the waffles were only a portion of what guests were served.

We had the wafel-frolic at Miss Walton’s talked of before your departure.  The feast as usual was preceded by cards, the company so numerous that they filled two tables; after a few games, a magnificent supper appeared in grand order and decorum, but for my own part I was not a little grieved that so luxurious a feast should come under the name of a wafel-frolic, because if this be the case I expect but a few wafel-frolics for the future; the frolic was closed up with ten sunburnt virgins lately come from Columbus’s Newfoundland, besides a play of my own invention which I have not room enough to describe at present.  However, kissing constitutes a great part of its entertainment.  – Earle, Alice Morse.  Colonial Days in Old New York.  1896.  NY.

The previous passage was penned in a letter by William Livingston, a young man of privilege and great social standing in New Jersey in 1744 while attending college at Yale.  See:  Appleton’s Journal.  July 4, 1874.

Waffle parties were still the rage in the mid-19^th century as first one hostess and then another invited a circle of friends to her home.  In the North where goods were more easily obtained, even the Civil War didn’t discourage women from hosting such gatherings.  – Gould, Edward Sherman.  John Doe and Richard Roe.  1862.  NY.

By the turn of the 19^th century, books were being published instructing the hostess in the art of entertaining, and the waffle party was included in the types of gatherings people enjoyed attending. 

Invitations made to resemble waffles were suggested reading, “Come and eat me” with the time, date, and address.  To make the invitations, cream white satin was fashioned in the size and shape of a waffle, padded with white cotton wadding, and tacked so as to simulate the marks from the waffle-iron.  They were “scorched to the right color” with a hot iron. 

A card with the recipe for the waffles was placed at each table and groups went into the kitchen and made their batter according to the recipe card.  As a Master of Ceremonies called out names or numbers, each guest would have a turn at baking his or her own waffle.  – Pierce, Paul.  Suppers:  Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions.  1907.  [No location of publishing]

Before the days of structured bakeries, a woman sometimes set about making waffles, muffins, great loaves of bread, cakes, etc. in her home to sell within the community in which she lived.    – Foster, Emily.  Teddy and his Friends.  1876.  NY.

Waffle-women sold their wares from market stalls along with egg-women, poultry-women, and others.  Any number of factors could have influenced the location of their venture, not the least of which was the distance from the home to the main thoroughfares of the nearest village.  – Atlantic Educational Journal.  Vol. 8.  Oct. 1912. 

It wasn’t uncommon for men or women to carry a waffle-laden basket or a large tray which hung from the shoulders and sell waffles in the street, much the same as street vendors do today.  – Ballou’s Dollar Monthly Magazine.  Vol. 2.  Dec. 1860.  

Waffles were still common street fare in New Orleans in the 1940’s, sold from a horse-drawn wagon on high wheels, and usually painted white and yellow.  “Children eagerly thrust their nickels forward to purchase one of his delicious hot waffles sprinkled liberally with powdered sugar”. 

One can’t help but wonder if the light and airy square puffs of perfectly cooked dough liberally sprinkled with powdered sugar and sold under the name beignets evolved from the traditional waffles sold by vendors in earlier days.

The New Orleans waffle-sellers announced their presence with a shrill blast on a bugle and sometimes by reciting a verse reminiscent of street criers from earlier centuries. Close your eyes, gentle reader, and imagine a vendor strolling down a cobblestone street calling out to hungry patrons enticing them to purchase his tender golden brown waffles. 

The Waffle Man is a fine old man.  He washes his face in a frying-pan, He makes his waffles with his hand, Everybody loves the waffle man.       – Gumbo Yaya.  Houghton-Mifflin.  1945.

Waffles: A History© [Part One]

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waffles

Peasants Eating Waffles in a Tavern on a Fast Day, 1693.  Jan Brueqhel the Elder, b. 1568, d. 1625.  Brueghel, referred to as, “the elder because his son carried on his style of painting after his death, had an eye for detail and a painting style that takes us back into the 16^th century.  Because of his desire for accuracy, historians can zero in on a single topic, waffles, in this case, and know how they looked at the time he painted them.   Each person in the setting has a rectangle-shaped waffle. 

Discovering how waffles were made and eaten and what they looked like in the 18^th century requires enough patience to compare accounts, paintings, and receipts published before, during, and after a target date.  Fortunately, there are enough accounts surviving to enable us to form a good opinion of this article.

Some accounts from the early 19^th century claim waffles date back to ancient Greece, and they well may have, however, the first account I can quote dates from 14^th century France. 

Waffles are made in four ways. In the first, beat eggs in a bowl, then salt and wine, and add flour, and moisten the one with the other, and then put in two irons little by little, each time using as much batter as a slice of cheese is wide, and clap between two irons, and cook one side and then the other; and if the iron does not easily release the batter, anoint with a little cloth soaked in oil or fat. – The second way is like the first, but add cheese, that is, spread the batter as though making a tart or pie, then put slices of cheese in the middle, and cover the edges (with batter: JH); thus the cheese stays within the batter and thus you put it between two irons. – The third method, is for dropped waffles, called dropped only because the batter is thinner like clear soup, made as above; and throw in with it fine cheese grated; and mix it all together. – The fourth method is with flour mixed with water, salt and wine, without eggs or cheese.

Item, waffles can be used when one speaks of the “large sticks” which are made of flour mixed with eggs and powdered ginger beaten together, and made as big as and shaped like sausages; cook between two irons. – Le Menagier de Paris.  1393.  Paris.  Trans. Janet Hinson. 

Waffles and wafers are similar, and made using similar irons; however, a wafer was generally flatter, thinner, and crispier.  The two words were used somewhat interchangeably.  For example, similar receipts are used to make flat wafers and what are obviously waffles in William Jarrin’s 1826 book.  The latter, which he called Flemish Wafers, were made in, “square irons engraved half an inch in depth, with the two halves to correspond”, and due to the depth of the “engraving” is obviously a waffle.  – Jarrin, William Alexis.  The Italian Confectioner.  1827.  London.

A wafer iron opens and closes like a waffle iron, but its two circular plates close almost together to produce a flat wafer.  The plates have a decorative design which transfers to the wafer during baking.  [It is possible the translator erred and the Menagier’s account should read wafers instead of waffles.]

The French ate Gaufrettes which were, “a kind of waffle”, sometimes dispatched by boys in white caps and aprons.  They were sometimes waffled, but not always.  The term was not uncommon through the 19^th century.  – Peixotto, Ernest C.  Through the French Provinces.  1909.  NY.

 The next comparison is a Dutch receipt from ca. 1683.

For each pound [one English pound] of Wheat-flour take a pint of sweet milk, a little tin bow[l], of melted butter with 3 or 4 eggs, a spoonful of Yeast well stirred together.  De Verstandige Kock.  Translated and edited by Peter G. Rose.  1989.  Syracuse. 

The thickness of the batter varied from a thin pourable batter to one stiff enough that a piece of dough could be cut off and put into the hot irons.  There was no consistency with regard to the thickness of the batter even in comparing multiple receipts published within the same book. 

The receipt below tells us the batter from which some waffles were made was perhaps best called dough since the writer tells us to lay a small piece of it on the hot iron rather than pouring, or dropping it on as one would do with pancake batter.

DUTCH WAFFLES.  These form a delicious article in the shape of puff cakes, which are instantly prepared and exhibited for sale in stalls or tents, in the fairs of Holland, where they are eaten hot as they come from the plate or baking pan, with fine sugar strewed over them.  Mix together three pounds of fine flour, a dozen eggs, a pound of melted butter, half a pint of ale, some milk, and a little yeast.  Beat it well, till it forms a thick paste, and let it stand three or four hours before the fire to rise.  Lay it in small pieces on a hot iron or frying pan, with a pair of buttered tongs, till it is lightly browned.  Eat the waffles with fine sugar sifted over, or a little sack and melted butter.  – Eaton, Mary.  The Cook and Housekeeper’s Complete and Universal Dictionary.  1822.  Bungay.

A writer [1818] described waffles as, “a soft hot cake, of German extraction, covered with butter”.  No mention was made of syrup in the earliest located receipts.  They were eaten with butter and sugar instead.  – Birkbeck, Morris.  Notes on a Journey in America:  From the Coast of Virginia to the Territory.  1818.  London.

Robert Smith did not specify the thickness of his batter when his receipt was published in 1725.  The dough still contains wine, as did Le Menagier’s. 

Take flower, cream, sack, nutmeg, sugar, eggs, yest, of what quantity you will, mix these to a batter and let them stand to rise; then add a little melted butter, and bake one to try.  If they burn, add more butter:  Melt Butter, with sack, refin’d sugar, and orange-flower water, for the sauce.  – Smith, Robert. Court Cookery.  1725.  London.

Cooks who added sugar to their batter could be in no hurry to have the waffles bake as the sugar caused them to burn unless baked at lower temperatures.  When waffles did not brown as well as wanted adding syrup or sugar to the batter remedied the situation.  – Whitehead, Jessup.  The Chicago Herald Cooking School:  A Professional Cook’s Book For Household Use.  1883.  Chicago.

This receipt published in 1821, is a little more specific as to the amount of ingredients.

Take four eggs beat well with half a pound of flour; melt a quarter of a pound of butter in a pint of milk; let the milk and butter stand till they are almost cold, then mix them with the flour and eggs with one spoonful of yeast and a little salt; be sure to beat them well; let it stand three or four hours to rise before you put it in the waffle iron, and bake them on a quick fire. – Hudson & Donat, Mrs.  The New Practice of Cookery, Pastry, Baking, and Preserving.  1804.  Edinburgh.

Mary Randolph’s receipt published in 1838 contained cooked rice to bolster the batter.  The addition of cooked rice may sound odd but it was not terribly unique.  Two gills of rice, boiled until quite soft, were mixed with three gills of flour, a little salt, and a couple of ounces of melted butter.  Two well beaten eggs were added with enough milk to make a “thick” batter.  It was then beaten until very light and baked in the hot irons.  – Randolph, Mary.  The Virginia Housewife.  1838.  Baltimore.

Englishman, Philip H. Gosse left an excellent description of the early waffle iron.  Woffles he was served in Alabama in the 1850’s were, “square thin cakes, like pancakes, divided on both sides into square cells by intersecting ridges…at the end of a pair of handles, moving on a pivot like a pair of scissors, or still more like the net forceps of an entomologist, are fixed two square plates of iron like shallow dishes, with cross furrows, corresponding to the ridges in the cakes; this apparatus called a woffle-iron, is made hot in the fire; then being opened, a flat piece of dough is laid on one, and they are closed and pressed together; the heat of the iron does the rest, and in a minute the woffle is cooked, and the iron is ready for another.  They are very good, eaten with butter; sometimes they are made of the meal of Indian corn (as so little wheat is grown here as to make wheat-flour be considered almost a luxury), but these are not nearly so nice, at least to an English palate”.   – Gosse, Philip Henry.  Letters from Alabama.  1859.  London.

Again, the writer instructs putting a piece of dough in the iron instead of pouring batter into the iron.  Gosse’s account, penned in 1838, still makes no mention of topping the waffles with syrup, only butter.

Eliza Leslie instructed us in the use of a thick, but pourable batter made from six eggs, a pint of milk, a quarter of a pound of butter, a quarter of a pound of white sugar, a pound and a half of sifted flour, and a teaspoon of powdered cinnamon.  The milk was warmed and the butter cut up into it.  The eggs were beaten and poured into the milk and butter mixture.  Half the flour was gradually stirred in with the powdered cinnamon and sugar.  The other half of the flour was added in increments, as needed, until it became a, “thick batter”. 

Heat your waffle-iron; then grease it well, and pour in some of the batter.  Shut the iron tight, and bake the waffle on both sides, by turning the iron.  – Leslie, Eliza.  Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats.  1830.  Boston.

As early as the French version from 1393 writers instructed in greasing the irons well with lard, or butter tied in a piece of cloth, and heating the irons “very” hot before putting in the batter to prevent the waffles from sticking to the irons. 

The only remedy for waffles sticking to the irons is to keep the irons in constant use with scraping and rubbing out with lard while hot, and avoid letting them burn with nothing in them.  To bake waffles, pour in one side a spoonful of melted lard, shut up and turn over the iron two or three times then place a spoonful of batter in each compartment.  Shut and turn over to the fire frequently till both sides are brown.  – Whitehead, Jessup.  The Chicago Herald Cooking School:  A Professional Cook’s Book for Household Use.  1883.  Chicago.

Sarah Hale left us with an idea of how long it should take a waffle to bake.  “Bake on a bed of coals.  When they have been on the fire between 2 and 3 minutes, turn the waffle-irons over-when brown on both sides they are sufficiently baked”.  – Hale, Sarah Josepha.  The Ladies New Book of Cookery.  1852.  NY. 

The heavy irons described by Gosse, and others even earlier, remained in use into the 20^th century. 

Waffle irons, with long handles, that bake one big, square waffle, at a time; waffle irons of Colonial times were they, and still in use in many parts of the South and old states.  – Halleck, Charles.  Forest and Stream.  Jan., 1915.  

Dozens of accounts from various locations in the U.S. specified serving waffles with butter and sugar through the mid-19^th century, and almost as many advised spreading the waffles with butter and powdered cinnamon.  A receipt in Peterson’s 1858, suggested serving them with butter and honey. 

Mrs. Haskell’s cookbook instructed putting maple syrup on the waffles in 1861, but cookbooks continued to suggest the accompaniments of butter and sugar.  – Haskell, E.F.  The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia of Useful Information.  1861.  NY.

Sarah Annie Frost still gave her readers a choice between eating the waffles with maple syrup or cream and sugar in 1870.  – The Godey’s Ladies Book of Receipts and Household Hints.  1870, Philadelphia. 

American ladies were eating waffles with molasses at least by the 1890’s. That is about the time when syrup seems to have become the expected accompaniment.  – Cobbe, Francis Power.  The Life of Frances Power Cobbe.  1894.  London.

Continued………………

The Homes of Pleasant Hill, Mississippi Territory

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Belvoir

This post will further describe the homes of the planter class in the area known as Pleasant Hill, Mississippi Territory, later Alabama.  The area is still rural and one can imagine it as Phillip Henry Gosse saw it in 1838.  There are two white frame churches, one of which would have been there at the time, the other built in the 1840’s after Gosse had returned to England. 

The home Gosse’s employer built in the late 1840’s still had the same set-up for preparing meals and the brick bake oven, minus the doors, is preserved in the cellar.  Due to it being partially underground, and because of the thick concrete floor, the cellar would have stayed relatively comfortable in the oppressive heat of South Central Alabama.  Let’s listen to a description of the village in Gosse’s own words.

Very many of the houses, even of the wealthy and respectable planters, are built of rough and unhewn logs, and to an English taste are destitute of comfort to a surprising degree.  There is one about a mile distant, belonging to a very worthy man whom I have often visited, which is of this character…It is a ground-floor house of two rooms.  Fancy the walls full of crevices an inch or more in width, some of them running the whole length of the rooms, caused by the warping of the logs, the decay of the bark, or the dropping out of the clay which had been put in to fill up.  There is no window in the whole house; in one room there is a square hole about two feet wide, which a shutter professes to close, but as it is made of boards that have never felt either saw or plane, being merely riven by the aid of the broad-axe out of an oak log, you may guess how accurately it fits.  A door formed of similar boards, rarely shut, at least from dawn till night, gives light and air to each room, though the crevices of the logs, and those of the roof, would afford ample light when both door and shutter were closed…the boards [of the door] have never been made straight by the plane; the fact is, the boards are not laid edge to edge, but the edges lap over each other, as board-fences are sometimes made in England.

A bed-room has been added since the original erection; unbarked poles were set in the ground, and these riven boards nailed outside, edge over edge, by the way of clapboard; there is nothing of lathing, or boarding, or papering within, nothing between the lodger and the weather, but these rough, crooked, and uneven boards, through which, of course, the sun plays at bopeep, and the wind and rain also.  It forms a lean-to, the roof being continued from that of the house.  The lowest tier of logs composing the house, rest on stout blocks about two feet from the ground; beams go across from these logs, on which the floor is laid; the planks are certainly sawed, but they are not pinned to the beams, being moveable at pleasure; and as the distance between the lowest logs and the ground is perfectly open, the wind has full liberty of ingress through the seams of the floor, as well as in every other part.

The roof is of a piece with the rest; no ceiling meets the eye; the gaze goes up beyond the smoke-burnt rafters up to the very shingles; nay, beyond them, for in the bright night the radiance of many a star gleams upon the upturned eye of the recumbent watcher, and during the day many a moving spot of light upon the floor shows the progress which the sun makes towards the west.  But it is during the brief, but terrific rain-storms, which often occur in this climate, that one becomes painfully conscious of the permeability of the roof; the floor soon streams; one knows not where to run to escape the thousand and one trickling cascades…

There is a fireplace at each end of the house, a large open chimney, the fire being on the hearth, which is raised to a level with the floor; the chimney itself is curiously constructed; simply enough however, for the skeleton of it is merely a series of flat slips of wood, laid one upon another in the form of a square, the ends crossing at the corners, where they are slightly pinned together, the square contracting from five feet at the bottom to little more than one at the top.  As this frame-work proceeds, it is plastered within and without with well-beaten clay, to the thickness of two or three inches.  This is a sufficient protection against the fire; for though, on account of the clay here and there dropping off, the slips of wood often ignite, and holes are burnt through, yet the clay around prevents the fire from spreading, and these holes are regarded with a very exemplary philosophy.  I should have observed, however, that at the bottom of the chimney, and more particularly at the fire-back, the clay is increased in thickness to more than a foot. ..Now poor and mean houses may be found in every country, but this is but one of the many; it is not inhabited by poor persons, nor is it considered as at all remarkable for discomfort; it is according to the average, a very decent house.  There are some, certainly, much superior; but these are frame-houses, regularly clapboarded, and ceiled, and two, or even three stories high, including the ground floor.  They are mostly of recent erection, and are inhabited by planters of large property; these have comforts and elegancies in them which would do no dishonor to an English gentleman. 

Having described this home belonging to a neighbor, Gosse proceeded to describe the property of his employer, Judge Reuben Saffold:

The house in which I am residing stands in the middle of a large yard, formed partly by a fence of rails and posts, and partly by the offices and out-buildings, such as the pantry, kitchen, spinning-house, dairy, &c.; these are distinct buildings, formed of logs, and always more or less distant from the house. ..Shade is a luxury in this hot climate, and therefore trees are in much request around the house; the oaks, and the sycamore, seem to be generally preferred, doubtless on account of their dense and massy foliage.

 

Finding Phillip Henry Gosse

Tags

Alabama, Pleasant Hill

Cabins such as this log dog-trot were home to South Central Alabama’s residents.

At age 17, Phillip H. Gosse left his native England for the wilds of Canada, after which he made his way to what is now Dallas County, Alabama in 1838, where he taught school.  His observations on everything from the terrible summer heat to the minutest details of natural history were written in a journal and later published in 1859. 

Before returning to England, where he became a celebrated scientist, no doubt due to the wide circulation of his book outlining the various flora and fauna of America, he left a detailed account of life in the Mississippi Territory. 

The area remains quite picturesque with antebellum churches, cemeteries, green pastures, and when we set out to track Gosse’s adventures, the countryside was awash in colorful blooms from a wide array of plants, vines, flowers, and trees. 

Gosse did not find even the well-to-do planters living in mansion houses in 1838; instead he described the log dog-trots common to the South.  While we did locate the home of Judge Reuben Saffold, who was Gosse’s employer, the present palatial home was not built until some 10 years after Gosse returned to England.   

He found the heat here every bit as insufferable and oppressive as I do.

…and by the time the sun is two hours high, his rays are oppressively hot, scorching one’s back and head like a fire…”

Gosse confirmed the scarcity of wholesome water on the frontier similar to what I described in an earlier article. 

I have heard sad accounts of the privations undergone by planters on these, ‘dry and thirsty lands’…Not very far from this neighbourhood there was a family, whose dependence was a large pond of this kind.  The weather was excessively hot, and they were panting with thirst all day long, yet dared not use the water but in the most parsimonious [i.e. miserly, frugal] manner. 

That family was reduced to traveling quite a distance almost daily to haul water back to the house for drinking, cooking, and cleaning, “until the weather broke up, and the rains afforded them a fresh supply”.  Laundry was hauled to the water source where it was washed after the barrels were filled to carry home.  He noted prairies not far distant where residents suffered greatly during the dry season for want of water, depending chiefly on rain-water which accumulated in hollows. 

His primary interest was describing the natural history of Alabama, but he was a consummate writer, and left an excellent account of the foods the planter class ate.  For breakfast, served about 6 o’clock, he found grilled chicken, fried pork, boiled rice and hominy on the table.  Being English and unfamiliar with it, he saw fit to describe hominy.

Homminy then, be informed, is an indispensable dish at the table of a southern planter, morning, noon, and night.  Indian corn is broken into pieces by pounding it in a mortar to a greater or less degree of fineness, as coarse or fine homminy is preferred, and this is boiled soft like rice, and eaten with meat.

Here is another article of southern cookery with which I presume you are unacquainted, – woffles. You see they are square thin cakes, like pancakes, divided on both sides into square cells by intersecting ridges:  but how shall I describe to you the mode in which they are cooked?  At the end of a pair of handles, moving on a pivot like a pair of scissors, or still more like the net forceps of an entomologist are fixed two square plates of iron like shallow dishes, with cross furrows, corresponding to the ridges in the cakes; this apparatus, called a woffle-iron is made hot in the fire; then, being opened, a flat piece of dough is laid on one and they are closed and pressed together; the heat of the iron does the rest, and in a minute the woffle is cooked, and the iron is ready for another.  They are very good eaten with butter, sometimes they are made of the meal of Indian corn (as so little wheat is grown here as to make wheat-flour be considered almost a luxury), but these are not nearly so nice, at least to an English palate. Neither is ‘Indian bread’ which you will see at every table; this, too, is made of corn meal; it is coarse and gritty, does not hold together, having so little gluten; yet this is eaten with avidity by the natives, rich and poor, and even preferred to the finest wheaten bread…For drink, here is coffee, new milk, sour milk, and buttermilk—the last two are great favourites, but I dare say you, like myself, will decline them both:  the sour milk is thick, and eaten with a spoon, so that perhaps I was wrong in calling it a drink.  Tea is almost unknown; coffee is the staple for morning and evening meals.  Here, too is honey, fresh taken from the ‘gum’. , and here are various kinds of preserves.

Gosse found the fruit ripened in the Southern sun more delicious and refreshing than anything produced in England where summers were cooler and the growing season shorter. 

So highly is this fruit [peaches] esteemed, that every farm has large tracts planted with it, as orchards…The Musk-melon, the species chiefly used in England, is grown rather extensively with us, but is not so general a favourite as the Water Melon, the peculiar odour being to some persons rather disagreeable.  The Water-melon is deservedly esteemed; as I know not a more cooling or delicious fruit in the heat of summer. 

Gosse wrote of watermelons being grown in Dallas County for markets as far North as Maine, and even shipped into Canada, with plenty kept for home use.  Cart-loads were brought from the fields daily and put into an underground cellar for at least a night to cool before cutting them.

If a guest call, the first offering of friendship is a glass of cold water as soon as seated; then there is an immediate shout for water-melons, and each taking his own, several are destroyed before the knife is laid down.  The ladies cut the hard part, near the rind into stars and other pretty shapes which they candy for winter use. 

While he made no mention of eating blackberries, he saw them harvested, probably made into preserves, because he compared pokeberries to them. 

The Chinquapin tree offered up nuts the size of small marbles at about the same time figs ripened.  Gosse wrote a note in later years when his journal was to be published saying he’d traveled extensively and never found a fruit he enjoyed more than a fresh fig from the tree in Alabama.

Bears were commonly seen in Dallas County during the time Gosse lived there, and he discussed the periodic loss of a well-fed hog previously intended for the dinner table.  Gosse made no mention of bear bacon, bear lard, etc., however, given the planters’ propensity for hunting they may have made their way into their diet. 

The woods provided,” large and handsome to the eye”, fox-grapes which Gosse found, “somewhat sweet”, scarlet haws, “of several species of thorn, some of which are fleshy and grateful to the taste”, and three sorts of wild plums, some of which he found more to his taste than others. Chestnuts were found in great profusion.

Gosse was amazed at the number of deer hunted by the Alabamians, as many as 70 in a single day, but left no indication of how the meat was cooked.  He found the wild hogs had little fat and to his English taste, had a peculiar gamey flavor.  The opossum found its way onto the dinner table in the fall when it had feasted on ripe persimmons, “its flesh, through feeding on this and other fruits, becomes very good at this season, and it is brought to table, though rejected in summer”. 

The Towhe Bunting (Fringilla erythrophthalma) was hunted extensively and, “this little bird is considered a delicacy; and several are spitted together and roasted like larks with us [English].  Wild turkeys were abundant and Gosse left various descriptions of harvesting them for the table. 

Gosse spoke of ducks raised for the table almost as big as a goose and of robbing honey from, “bee trees”.  The Queen Anne Pocket Melon was found in the gardens of the planters although he says it was grown for its delightful smell rather than as food.  [See blog post on these curious fruits]. 

It may surprise the descendents of the Florida Cracker, to know that Florida was not the only area in the South where wild cattle were hunted and rounded up for food and profit. 

A neighbouring overseer, an enthusiastic old sun-dried backwoodsman, talks of feral cattle existing in some of the more inaccessible swamps between these parts and the Florida border.  He has been engaged in parties to hunt them, shooting the cows for their beef…

Persimmons, “sweetened and mellowed by frosty nights”, were noted in Gosse’s journal not long before he left Alabama.  Once they were fully ripened he compared them to the size and form of a green gauge plum and found them, “to my taste superior to any plum”.

Gosse claimed maize was grown primarily for home-use, cotton being the only crop cultivated for market.  He found the Southern corn far superior to the Northern.  “The full-ripe ears are often nearly a foot in length”.  Judge Saffold’s household and those of neighbors were delighted when “roasting-ears” were ready to harvest. 

Some now go into field and gather the ears, and bite off the grains while raw, when they have a sugary taste; but they are more commonly used as a culinary vegetable, roasted at the fire, or boiled and shelled like peas, and eaten with melted butter.  It is considered a delicacy; but as the ripening corn rapidly hardens, it lasts only a few days…Corn is almost the only bread-stuff raised here, the wheaten flour used being imported chiefly from the north.

Given that most of his time was spent in the log school house or gathering specimens of the native flora and fauna to take back to England, I’m curious about how closely Gosse actually observed the gathering of vegetables, given the universal practice of planting at successive intervals (usually a week to two weeks apart) to prolong the harvesting of fresh vegetables.  Such planting methods would certainly have been used to some extent in Alabama given their prevalence throughout America.

The home of Judge Reuben Saffold, Gosse’s employer, built some ten years after Gosse returned to England.  Little changed with regard to the way food was prepared between 1838 and the building of this home in the late 1840’s.  The bake oven can still be seen in the cellar kitchen, although the doors are no longer in place.

Source:  Gosse, Phillip Henry.  Letters From Alabama.  1859.  London.  [See:  The Houses of Pleasant Hill blog post]

SQUASHES and Native Culture©

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Squashes are native to the Americas and Columbus supposedly carried seed back to Europe, but if all squash is native to the Americas, they spread quickly in some cultures, because some of the oldest surviving cookbooks have recipes for winter squash/pumpkin type vegetables.  There must have been varieties native to parts of Europe as well as the Americas.  Pliny, Galen (ca. 131-200), Dioscorides (ca. 40-90 AD), and others describe vegetables thought to be winter squashes well before Columbus.

 

The squash plant is indigenous to America and was cultivated to a large extent by the Iroquois and other eastern stocks.  The word ‘squash’ is derived from the Algonquin ‘akuta squash’ or ‘isquoter squash (Colonial spelling).  Roger Williams writing on the agriculture of the New England Indians says:  ‘Askuta squash, their vine apples, which the English from them call squahes, are about the bigness of apples of several colours, a sweet light wholesome refreshing’. 

 Van Curler…wrote in his journal:  ‘We had a good many pumpkins cooked and baked that they called anansira’.  This was in December which of course shows the use of squashes in winter…A woman came to meet us bringing us baked pumpkins to eat’. 

The squash was one of the principal foods of the Iroquois who even yet regard it as a favorite.  The records of early travelers abound in references to the uses of squashes and pumpkins.  Some of them praised ‘pompions’ for their goodness while others affirmed that the ‘citrules’ were hard tasteless things.  Hunger and mood largely govern descriptions of food. 

Lahontan records that the citruls (pumpkins) of this country are sweet and of a different nature from those of Europe [possibly explaining the native/non-native origins].  They are as big as our melons; and their pulp is as yellow as saffron.  Commonly they are bak’d in Ovens, but the better way is to roast ‘em under the Embers as the Savages do.  Their taste is much the same with that of the marmalade of Apples, only they are sweeter.  One may eat as much of ‘em as he pleases without feeling disorder’.  – New York State Museum.  Museum Bulletin, Issue 144. 

Charles Hawley’s Early Chapters of Cayuga History quoted Dr. Shea’s translation of de Casson’s Historie de Montreal which gives an account of the journey of Trouvè and the Catholic fathers to Kentè.

Having arrived at Kentè we were regaled there as well as it was possible by the Indians of the place.  It is true that the feast consisted only of some citrouilles (squashes) fricasseed with grease and which we found good; they are indeed excellent in this country and can not enter the comparison with those of Europe.  It may even be said that it is wronging them to give them the name citroilles.  They are of a great variety of shapes and scarcely one has any resemblance to those in France.  They are some so hard as to require a hatchet if you wish to split them open before cooking.  All have different names.

Various tribes cut the pumpkins and squash into rings, or spirals, and strung them to dry for winter use.  As late as the 1910’s and 1920’s they were still using that preservation method.

 

Documented varieties included:  Crook Neck, Hubbard, Scalloped, Winter, and Hard pumpkin, each with its native name which can be found in the source listed below.

Preparation methods included the following:

Baked squash:  Squashes were baked in ashes and the whole squash eaten, the shell and seeds included.

Boiled squash:  Squashes were split and cleaned and boiled in water salted to taste.

Boiled squash flower:  The infertile flowers of the squash were boiled with meat and the sauce used as a flavoring for meats and vegetables.  (1)

Buffalo Bird Woman described boiling squash in a clay pot with very little water, continuously adding more squash as the ones in the pot cooked down.  Sunflower leaves folded over the simmering squash served as a lid for the pot.  Squash blooms were sometimes added. 

She left detailed descriptions of slicing and drying the squash by cutting rings and threading them onto willow branches which were then placed in racks and left to dry.  Knives made from the green bones of cow buffalo were used for this purpose, then eventually metal butcher knives became commonly used.  – Waheenee.  Wilson, Gilbert.  Goodbird, Edward.  Agriculture of the Hidatsa.   1917.

Winter Squash: A Staple Through the Cold Months

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      Winter Squash harvest, various sorts including Hubbard, Berlin, CT, 1939.  LOC.

An article published in 1871, quoted Dalechamps (1586) saying the C. verrucosa was a sort of winter squash, and, “in the small warted pumpkin of Nantucket Dr. Harris was inclined to suspect that he had found the true species.  From this peculiar variety, so universally raised on that island, and supposed to have come from the Indians, may have originated our present field pumpkins, frequently planted among the hills of Indian corn, and considered a part of the crop.” – The New American Cyclopedia.  1871.  NY.   

The Valparaiso was supposedly introduced by Commodore Porter of the U.S. Navy, and was said to come from that family of winter squash. Through hybridization the writer thought the marrow and autumnal marrow also descended from it. “The marrow squash, which is really a pumpkin”, can be kept for winter use.  It was compared to the Hubbard and said to keep as well. 

 The true winter squash is represented in the bell-shaped species, the base being very broad and the neck very short.  From this have come the crook-neck and the Canada crook-neck, the latter is a small sub-variety…Champlain found the bell-shaped winter squash among the northern Indians in 1605.   – The New American Cyclopedia.  1871.  NY.   

In April 1856, a request was published asking for advice on the winter squash which kept the best and the longest over winter to which the editor advised the Canada Crook-Neck.  The following month, a reader replied that the Hubbard kept much longer.

       1908, vegetable market in Richmond, VA, melons, winter squash, corn, etc.

This squash is a hard shelled variety, the shell of pure specimens being nearly one-eighth of an inch in thickness.  In size it is about one-third heavier than the pure marrow, weighing about nine lbs. when fully grown.  Its color is greenish black, and when grown under favorable circumstances, lead color.  It is a fine grained, of excellent flavor, very sweet and very “mealy.”  The only objections I have ever heard made against it, were on the part of some that it was too sweet, and by others, that it was too dry.  A first-rate specimen tastes much like a boiled chestnut, and will make a very fair pie without sweetening.  They are driest late in the fall, and sweetest towards spring.

Respecting their keeping qualities, I have kept specimens in a cool dry place, till May.  The last sound specimen of last season’s crop, I brought to the table towards the close of April…A farmer, who for the past two years has raised this variety for the market, informs me that he has sold it at double the price per lb. of the pure marrow, to customers who have once tested its quality.  – Cole, Samuel.  The New England Farmer.  May 1856.

In Jan. 1856, in the same publication, the marrow, custard, and acorn were also recommended, “but they are not usually raised extensively for market”. 

Baked pumpkin and milk, pumpkin sauce, and dried pumpkin for winter use have had their day, and gone out of fashion and pumpkin pies are now mostly made of the autumnal marrow and crook-necked winter squashes, except by some of the old folks, who still prefer the pumpkin, baked in a milk-pan and without any pastry.  The New England “crook-neck squash”, as it is commonly but incorrectly called is a kind of pumpkin, perhaps a genuine species, for it has preserved its identity to our certain knowledge ever since the year 1686, when it was described by Ray.  It has the form and color of the Cashaw, but is easily distinguished there from by the want of a persistent stile, and by its clavated and furrowed fruit stem.  Before the introduction of the Autumnal Marrow, it was raised in large quantities for table use during the winter, in preference to pumpkins…The best kinds are those which are very much curved, nearly as large at the stem as at the blossom end, and of a rich cream color.  Some are green, variegated with cream colored stripes and spots.  Some are bell-shaped, or with a very short and straight neck, and are less esteemed than the others; for the neck being solid and of fine texture, is the best part of the fruit…It is said to degenerate in the Middle and Southern States, where probably Commodore Porter’s Valparaizo or some kindred variety may be better adapted to the climate. – The Farm Journal and Progressive Farmer.  May 1855.

The Early Canada was a dark and dirty buff color externally, and much esteemed as a table vegetable.  The custard squash was oblong, deeply furrowed, and prominently ten-ribbed with a pale buff and very hard rind, and fine, light yellow flesh, much esteemed for making pies and puddings.  The Boston marrowfat, “when properly baked”, was compared favorably to the sweet potato in 1845. 

A farmer reported in the Ohio Cultivator he’d grown 30 types of squash and found only five equal to, or superior to, the Boston Marrow, or King Marrow, so popular in the eastern markets.  Those were the Hubbard, the Mexican Cushaw, (a very large long squash with rough netted surface…remarkably sweet, pleasant flavor…a profuse bearer and a good keeper), the Sweet-potato squash (small, round, green colored; it is very dry and sweet, a good keeper and fair bearer), the Pineapple Squash (one of the best summer and a first rate winter squash, small weighing from two to eight pounds, color light yellow).  He also recommended the cheese pumpkin, cocoanut, acorn, California and Valparaiso varieties.  – Jan. 1860.

In Illinois, (1863) the most desirable winter squash were listed as the Hubbard and the Boston marrow.  – Transactions of the Illinois State Horticultural Society. 

The Yokohama from Japan was said to have been brought to this country about 1860, and there were both American and French turbans.  – Gregory, James.  Squashes:  How to Grow Them; A Practical Treatise on Squash Culture. 

Another source said the French turban was actually the acorn of America, and the Valparaiso cushaw was cultivated in Louisiana more than 100 years earlier.  It was mentioned by Le Page du Pratz in his Historie de la Louisiane, Vol. ii, p. 11.  – Pennsylvania Farm Journal.  Vol. 3 & 4.  1853. 

Farmers commonly notified magazines and newspapers that a variety had originated with them when two established varieties inadvertently crossed and usually when such happenings were reported it was with a variety they found promising, the failures discarded as just that.  Farmers were cautioned against planting varieties too close together to prevent such cross-polination.

After establishing the most appreciated varieties in various locales, let’s take a look at how the squash were being prepared for table.  Beginning with Sarah J. Hale in 1857, she instructed to, “Pare it, cut it in pieces, take out the seeds and strings, boil it in a very little water till it is quite soft.  Then press out the water, mash it, and add butter, salt and pepper to your taste”.  Mrs. Hale’s New Cook Book.

Because winter squash is difficult to peel, it’s not surprising that some writers began to instruct that it need not be peeled before boiling as it could easily be removed from the rind after it was cooked using a spoon to scoop the flesh.  – St. Paul’s Church.  A New Daily Food.  Morrisania, NY.

It is amusing to read the various ways women found to open up a winter squash.  It, “has to be broken with a hatchet, by dropping on a plank floor, or by sawing with the meat saw”.  – Kingsley Methodist Church.  The Milwaukee Cook Book. Milwaukee, Wis.  1907.

Mary Randolph advised in 1838 the best variety was the crooked neck and it should be cut in slices an inch thick then take off the rind.  It was to boil in salted water, drain, and before serving piping hot, the cook was to hit it with a shot of melted butter.  The Virginia Housewife.  1838.  Baltimore.

Variations included steaming the squash so that it didn’t take on the water as when it was boiled in water, or baking it.  Lettice Bryan split the peeled neck of the squash and placed a piece of pork on top to roast, “The essence of the meat, that exudes from it while baking, will season the squash sufficiently”.  Another version was to stuff the cavity of the squash with sausage and bake it until very tender, sending it to table in the pan in which it was baked.  – The Kentucky Housewife.  1839.

Beating Eggs, Then and Now©

                                                   1899 advertisement  

Beating eggs, especially beating egg whites to a stiff peak, was a labor intensive process prior to the universal use of the patented egg-beater.  To lessen the strain on the arm, the cook was told to acquire the habit of beating eggs from the elbow, not using the whole arm.  – The American Domestic Cyclopaedia.  1890.  NY.

Persons who do not know the right way, complain much of the fatigue of beating eggs, and therefore leave off too soon.  There will be no fatigue, if they are beaten with the proper stroke, and with wooden rods, and in a shallow, flat-bottomed earthen pan…In beating them do not move your elbow but keep it close to your side.  Move only your hand at the wrist and let the stroke be quick, short, and horizontal; putting the egg-beater always down to the bottom of the pan, which should therefore be shallow.  Do not leave off as soon as you have got the eggs into a foam; they are then only beginning to be light.  But persist till after the foaming has ceased, and the bubbles have all disappeared.  Continue till the surface is smooth as a mirror, and the beaten egg as thick as a rich boiled custard; for till then it will not be really light.  It is seldom necessary to beat the whites and yolks separately, if they are afterwards to be put together…When white of egg is to be used without any yolk…it should be beaten till it stands alone on the rods; not falling when held up.

Hickory rods for egg-beating are to be had at the wooden-ware shops, or at the turner’s.  For stirring butter and sugar together, nothing is equal to a wooden spaddle.  It should be about a foot long, and flattened at the end like that of a mush-stick, only broader. – Leslie, Eliza.  Miss Leslie’s Lady’s New Receipt-Book.  1847 and 1850.  Philadelphia.

There were other authors who disagreed with not separating the whites and yolks although that meant more work in beating them a separately.

Instructions were also to always beat eggs in only one direction.  – Archaeological Institute of America, Southwest Society.  Out West.  May 1911.

This is best done with rods of wood in a shallow, flat-bottomed pan; bestow the beating with short, quick, downward strokes, without moving the elbow, which should be kept close to the side.  When the foaming and bubbles disappear, and the beaten eggs assume the appearance which has been well described as that of a rich boiled custard, your task will have been very well accomplished.  Kent’s egg-beater is an excellent little instrument which greatly facilitates this process.  – Cassell’s Household Guide.  1869.  London & NY.

Beginning in the 1850’s, a string of patents were granted for various improvements to the egg-beater, continuing into the 20^th century, yet every household did not have one even into the 1920’s, as evidenced by the number of cookbooks which instructed the cook to use a fork to whip eggs when no egg-beater was available.  – U.S. Congress.  House Documents Otherwise Published as Executive Documents, 13^th Congress. 

An earthen basin is best for beating eggs, or cake mixture…Eggs should be beaten with rods, or a broad fork…- Jewry, Mary.  Warnes Model Cookery and Housekeeping Book.  1868. 

Louis-Eustache Audot recommended a tinned beater over rods claiming that the wooden rods broke and sometimes left splinters in the eggs or other matter being beaten.  The model he illustrated had several wires coming out of a round tin handle, the wires all being fixed in a flat row.   – Audot, Louis-Eustache.  French Domestic Cookery.  1846.  NY.

The Dover egg-beater cost ten cents in 1886 and, “answers to all purpose of a more expensive cream-whipper, besides being a standard egg-beater for all purposes.”  The Dover egg-beater [1870] was a patented improvement (adding a second rotating whisk) to an existing beater that had only one rotating whisk.  – The Cottage Hearth.  April 1886.

Whipping cream or beating egg whites without a rotary beater is a hard slow job.  I’ve often passed the bowl around the table asking each person present to spend a few minutes operating the whisk in order to have whipped cream for a dessert.  What great grandma wouldn’t have given for my electric stick blender!

Good Water and How to Get It©

(Soldiers, Army of the Potomac, 1864, drawing water from a well in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  LOC.)

Children stare at me with big disbelieving eyes when I tell them that if they lived in the Colonial era, or even any decade of the Nineteenth Century, their contribution to the running of the household would have been carrying in water along with a host of other chores.  Clean water, and plenty of it, is taken for granted today, but in times past having it was quite a different matter.

Pre-1850 sources discuss water from rain, springs, rivers, wells (also called pump-water), lakes, and marshes.  Rain was considered the purest form of water, declining in quality to marshes at the lowest end of the spectrum.  “Spring water is rain water, which having strained through the earth, reappears at the surface.” 

In those days, the only contaminants one usually needed to be concerned with were vegetable or animal matter and lead which leached out from leaded pipes or lead-lined cisterns.  Both were known to cause illness. 

The earliest settlers chose sites for homesteads where creeks or springs would provide water and cisterns, wells, and rain barrels worked for others, but no water source was guaranteed to provide water during draughts.  Creeks and springs dried up, wells went dry, and cisterns and barrels were soon emptied when settlers had no means of keeping them replenished.

The quantity of spring water yielded by any given district varies materially, not only according to the amount of rain which falls, but also according to its geological matter.  – British Association of Science.  Report of the Annual Meeting.  1855.  London.

It wasn’t always possible to situate a cabin or house in close proximity to the water.  Perhaps the ground was too marshy or hilly close to the water source, or someone already owned all the land through which the stream ran.  In such cases, water was carried in buckets, sometimes a mile or more distant. 

Spring water was sometimes fed into homes via pipes by means of gravity-flow before pumps became common.  Those pipes were first made by hollowing out wooden poles and attaching them together, end to end.  Wooden pipes rotted quickly and gave way to leaden ones when available.

Citizens were cautioned about the harmful effects of lead-lined cisterns, and of cisterns in which the only the underside of the lids were lead-lined.  While the water might have rarely ever come in contact with the lid, it was still unhealthy to have the lid lined in lead because condensation formed on the underside of the lid and fell back down contaminating the water supply. 

Wells fell into three classifications, surface water, deep wells, and artesian wells.  They were initially dug by hand and it was not uncommon to sink two or three holes before one found adequate water.  The same precautions with the use of lead applied to well water.  – Greenwell, Allan.  Rural Water Supply:  A Practical Handbook.  1899.  London.

Hauling water was steady employment for some men, Indians, and “Chinamen”, ethnicity of the hauler often depending on location.  It was certainly not a learned skill to fill a container and haul it in a cart or wagon and deliver it, so wages earned usually weren’t very good. 

The quality of water was as important as the quantity.  As early as the 1760’s physicians had questioned impure water as the cause of typhus and cholera, and by the 1840’s it was an established cause of the disease.  – Royal Society of Arts.  National Water Supply.  1899.  London.

I would adduce the fact that drinking water is one of the greatest agents for the spread of two of the most fatal and acute diseases of the present time –namely cholera and typhoid fever.  In the ten years ending 1866, twenty-one thousand, three hundred and forty-eight persons died from cholera in England and Wales, and one hundred and ninety-two thousand, five hundred and sixty-two from fever. – Parvin, Theophilus.  Western Journal of Medicine.  Sept. 1869.  Indianapolis.

It was extremely important to keep the area around and above an open spring, stream, or well clean and cleared of any fecal matter, dead animals, or offal that could be washed into the water by heavy rains to prevent contamination and disease.  Likewise, physicians instructed on being vigilant in not allowing water stored in cisterns, tanks, or other holding devices to become stagnant with extended storage as doing so was also likely to cause disease.  The water supply for villages and towns and on sailing ships was known to suffer in this manner.  – Chambers, W. & R.  Chambers’s Papers for the People.  1851.  Edinburgh.

Books and reports published through the end of the nineteenth century outlined water sources that were barely less primitive than when areas were first settled.  In the rural South, wells were still being dug by hand well into the twentieth century.  My grandfather supported a family with four children during the Great Depression by digging wells by hand and hauling the dirt out by buckets attached to ropes. 

(April 1939, Coffee County, Alabama, a boy draws water from a well for home use.  LOC)

The next time you turn on a faucet stop a moment and consider what a blessing it is to have plenty of clean water at your fingertips.