A Few Stray Facts About Drink in 18th Century France ©

Chocolate pot

Yet another in a series of research projects to document what would be most appropriate for Ft. Toulouse in the first half of the mid-18^th century. 

*  “As early as 1664 a tax was levied on sugar imported by France, but it was considerably lower than taxes on other crops and did not deter cane production.  In 1665 the French government placed a high import tariff on sugar from non-French areas, which benefited Guadeloupe.  For most of the eighteenth century the French market was protected from foreign sugar imports”.  Much of that sugar was used in drinks. 

*  In 1685, Sieur Monin, a celebrated doctor of Grenoble, France, first recommended café au lait as a medicine. 

*  In 1669, “coffee in France was a hot black decoction of muddy grounds thickened with syrup”.

*  In 1702, coffee in the American colonies was being used as a refreshment between meals, “like spirituous liquors”.  In 1711, the infusion idea in coffee making appeared in France.  It came in the form of a fustian [cloth] bag which contained the ground coffee in the coffee maker, and the boiling water was poured over it.  This was a decided French novelty, but it made slow headway in England and America, where some people were still boiling whole roasted beans…

*  By 1760, the decoction, or boiling, method in France had been generally replaced by the infusion, or steeping method.

*  In 1763, Donmartin, a tinsmith of St. Bendit, France, invented a coffee pot, the inside of which was “filled by a fine sack put in, in its entirety”, and which had a tap to draw the coffee.  The 1800, De Belloy’s original French drip method appeared.

*  “From the beginning, the French devoted more attention than any other people to coffee brewing”.  From the late 18^th century into the early 19^th, the French were granted a great many patents for brewing methods, most of which are still in use today.

*  In the 18^th century, both coffee and sugar were bought at the apothecary’s shop and the use of coffee is said to have caused an increase in sugar use because the ladies of Paris, “used to put so much sugar in the coffee that it was nothing but a syrup of blackened water”. 

*  “The best coffee, in the western part of the world, is made in France, where this beverage is in universal request”.

*  In 1822, the quantity of cocoa imported into French colonies was 314,829 kil. compared to 29,444 in England, and 5,705 in the U.S.

*  In 1753, the countries trading with France ranked in the following of importance:

Imports:  The Levant, Spain, Italy, Holland, England, Switzerland, Savoy, the Baltic, Germany, & Flanders.

Exports:  Spain, Holland, Italy, the Baltic, Germany, the Levant, England, Flanders, Portugal, Switzerland.

*  “About the middle of the last century [17^th century], the Dutch sold tea at Paris at thirty shillings a pound which they had bought in China for eight-pence a pound.”  (published July 1787)

*  “Formerly, the taste in this particular was improving and extending; and at one time tea found its best market in France”.  At the time of publication, 1832, the author predicted the use of tea in France would again rise.

*  “The bourgeois of Boulogne have commonly soup and bouillé at noon, and a roast, with a salad, for supper; and at all their meals there is a desert of fruit.  This indeed is the practice all over France.  On meager [meatless] days they eat fish, omelettes, fried beans, fricassees of eggs and onions, and burnt cream.  The tea which they drink in the afternoon is rather boiled than infused; it is sweetened all together with coarse sugar, and drank with an equal quantity of boiled milk.”  [published in 1766, these customs had probably changed little over the previous several years]

*  Smollett found the tea, chocolate, cured neats tongues, and Bologna sausages to be excellent in France.

*  “Each European race has chosen one special beverage of this class:  Spain and Italy delight in chocolate; France, Germany, Sweden, and Turkey in coffee; while Russia, Holland, and England drink tea”.  – The Friend.

*  “In 1720, the consumption was so much augmented, that the French, who had hitherto brought home only raw-silk, porcelain, and silken manufactures from China, began to import considerable quantities of tea into France…”  – Hanway.

*  In 1728, la plus ancienne chocolaterie de France in Paris was selling chocolate to patrons.

*  R. Brookes wrote The Natural History of Chocolate published in 1730.  He discussed its early use in Europe.

*  “The new drink [chocolate] was introduced by monks from Spain into Germany and France, and when in 1660 Maria Theresa, Infanta of Spain, married Louis XIV, she made chocolate well known at the Court of France”.  – Cocoa and Chocolate.

*  Chocolate was still being prepared in much the same way the Spaniards became aware of it in the New World during the 18^th century, and there are accounts describing the making of it in the mid-18^th century, including the French.  Napoleon was credited with inventing a chocolate mill to facilitate the preparation which he was very fond of.  “The mill is a round stick with a wheel on the end of it.  The stick passes through the lid of the chocolate pot.  Turning the protruding end of the stick between the palms of the hands turns the wheel within the pot while the chocolate is cooking and prevents any sediment from forming.  These mills are scarcely ever seen in this country except in antique shops.  Housewives use a cream whip for the same purpose, when they want an extra good cup of chocolate”.  [published history 1916]

SOURCES: 

Hoy, Don R.  Agricultural Land Use of Guadeloupe.

Clarendon, George William Frederick Villiers (Earl of).  First Report on the Commercial Relations Between France and Great Britain. 

The Country Magazine.  For the Years 1786 and 1787.  Vol. I.  1787.

Martin, Robert Montgomery.  The Past and Present State of the Tea Trade of England and of the Continents of Europe and America.  1832.  London. 

Smollett, Tobias George.  Travels Through France and Italy.  1766. 

The Friend.  Nov. 17,1867.  Philadelphia.

Hanway, Jonas.  A Journal of Eight Days Journey from Portsmouth to Kingston.  Vol. II. 

Knapp, Arthur.  Cocoa and Chocolate.  Their History from Plantation to Consumer. 

Boston Cooking School.  American Cookery.  Vol. 20.  Feb. 1916.

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Mid-18th Century Foods in France, As Seen by Smollett©

In 1766, Tobias Smollett published an account of his family’s time spent in France some few years earlier, and rather than give the reader a long interpretation of what he found, the author will, instead, pass it on in his words (and in his spelling) for the truest picture of what he experienced.  The article is a continuation of blog articles on influences of foods prepared in French Louisiana prior to the French and Indian war.

I have likewise two small gardens, well stocked with oranges, lemons, peaches, figs, grapes, corinths, salad, and pot-herbs…It is very difficult to find a tolerable cook at Nice.  The markets at Nice are tolerably well supplied.  Their beef, which comes from Piedmont, is pretty good, and we have it all the year.  In the winter, we have likewise excellent pork, and delicate lamb; but the mutton is indifferent.  Piedmont, also, affords us delicious capons, fed with maiz; and this country produces excellent turkeys, but very few geese.  Chickens and pullets are extremely meager.  I have tried to fatten them, without success.  In the summer they are subject to the pip, and die in great numbers.  Autumn and winter are the seasons for game; hares, partridges, quails, wild-pigeons, woodcocks, snipes, thrushes, beccasicas, and ortolans.  Wild boar is sometimes found in the mountains;  it has a delicious taste, not unlike that of the wild hog in Jamaica; and would make an excellent barbecue, about the beginning of winter, when it is in good case:  but, when meager, the head only is presented at tables.  Pheasants are very scarce.  As for the heath game, I never saw but one cock, which my servant bought in the market, and brought home; but the commandant’s cook came into my kitchin, and carried it off, after it was half plucked, saying, his master had company to dinner.  The hares are large, plump, and juicy.  The partridges are generally of the red sort; large as pullets, and of a good flavor:  there are also some grey partridges in the mountains; and another sort of a white colour, that weigh four or five pounds each.  Beccasicas are smaller than sparrows, but very fat, and they are generally eaten half raw.  The best way of dressing. Them, is to stuff them into a roll, scooped of its crum; to baste them well with butter, and roast them, until they are brown and crisp.  The ortolans are kept in cages, and crammed, until they die of fat, then eaten as dainties.  The thrush is presented with the trail [entrails], because the bird feeds on olives.  They may as well eat the trail of a sheep, because it feeds on the aromatic herbs of the mountain.  In the summer, we have beef, veal, and mutton, chicken, and ducks; which last are very fat and flabby.  All the meat is tough in this season, because the excessive heat and great number of flies, will not admit of its being kept any time after it is killed.  Butter, and milk, though not very delicate, we have all the year.  Our tea and fine sugar come from Marseilles, at a very reasonable price.

Nice is not without variety of fish; though they are not counted so good in their kinds as those of the ocean.  Soals, [soles, flounder] and flat-fish in general, are scarce.  Here are some mullets, both grey and red.We sometimes see the dory, which is called St. Pietro; with rock fish, bonita, and mackerel.  The gurnard appears pretty often; and there is plenty a kind of large whiting, which eats pretty well; but has not the delicacy of that which is caught on our [English] coast.  One of the best fish of this country, is called ‘le loup’, about two or three pounds in weight; white, firm, and well-flavoured.  Another, no-way inferior to it, is the ‘moustel’, about the same size, of a dark grey colour, and short, blunt snout, growing thinner and flatter from the shoulders downwards, so as to resemble a soal at the tail.  This cannot be the mustela of the antients, which is supposed to be the sea lamprey.  Here too are found the vyvre, or, as we call it, weaver; remarkable for its long sharp spines, so dangerous to the fingers of the fishermen.  We have abundance of ‘soepie’, or cuttle-fish, of which the people in this country make a delicate ragout; as also of the ‘polype de mer’, which is an ugly animal with long feelers, like tails, which they often wind about the legs of the fishermen.  They are stewed with onions, and eat something like cow heel.  The market sometimes affords the ‘ecriviesse de mer’, which is a lobster without claws, of a sweetish taste; and there are a few rock oysters, very small, and very rank.  Sometimes the fishermen find under water, pieces of hard cement, like plaster of Paris, which contain a kind of muscle, called ‘la datte’, from its resemblance to a date.  These petrefactions are commonly of a triangular form, and may weigh about twelve or fifteen pounds each; and one of them may contain a dozen of these muscles, which have nothing extraordinary in the taste or flavor, though extremely curious, as found alive and juicy, in the heart of a rock, almost as hard as marble, without any visible communication with the air or water.  I take it for granted, however, that the enclosing cement is porous, and admits the finer parts of the surrounding fluid.  In order to reach the muscles, this cement must be broke with large hammers; and it may be truly said, the kernel is not worth the trouble of cracking the shell.  Among the fish of this country, there is a very ugly animal of the eel species, which might pass for a serpent:  it is of a dusky black colour, marked with spots of yellow, about eighteen inches, or two feet long.  The Italians call it ‘murena’; but whether it is the fish which had the same name among the ancient Romans, I cannot pretend to determine.  The antient murena was counted a great delicacy, and was kept in ponds, for extraordinary occasions.  Julius Caesar borrowed six thousand for one entertainment:  but I imagined this was the river lamprey.  The murena of this country is in no esteem, and only eaten by the poor people.  Craw-fish and trout are rarely found in the rivers among the mountains.  The swordfish is much esteemed in Nice, and called ‘l’empereur’, about six or seven feet long:  but I have never seen it.  They are very scarce; and when taken, are generally concealed, because the head belongs to the commandant, who has likewise the privilege of buying the best fish at a very low price.  For which reason, the choice pieces are concealed by the fishermen, and sent privately to Piedmont or Genoa.  But, the chief fisheries on this coast, are of the sardines, anchovies, and tunny.  These are taken in small quantities all the year:  but spring and summer is the season when they mostly abound.  In June and July, a fleet of about fifty fishing boats put to sea every evening about eight o’clock, and catch anchovies in immense quantities.  One small boat sometimes takes in one night twenty-five rup, amounting to six hundred weight; but it must be observed that the pound here, as well as in other parts of Italy, consists but of twelve ounces.  Anchovies, besides their making a considerable article in the commerce of Nice, are a great resource in all families.  The noblesse and bourgeois sup on salad and anchovies, which are eaten on all their meager days.  The fishermen and mariners all along this coast have scarce any other food but dry bread and a few pickled anchovies; and when the fish is eaten, they rub their crusts with the brine.  Nothing can be more delicious than fresh anchovies fried in oil:  I prefer them to the smelts of the Thames.  I need not mention, that the sardines and anchovies are caught in nets; salted, barreled, and exported into all the different kingdoms and states of Europe.  The sardines, however, are largest and fattest in the month of September.  A company of adventurers have farmed the tunny-fishery of the king, for six years; a monopoly, for which they pay about three thousand pounds sterling.  They are at a very considerable expense for nets, boats, and attendance.  Their nets are disposed in a very curious manner across the small bay of St. Hospice, in this neighbourhood, where the fish chiefly resort.  They are never removed, except in the winter, and when they want repair:  but there are avenues for the fish to enter, and pass, from one inclosure to another.  There is a man in a boat, who constantly keeps watch.  When he perceives they are fairly entered, he has a method of shutting all the passes, and confining the fish to one apartment of the net, which is lifted up into the boat, until the prisoners are taken and secured.  The tunny fish generally runs from fifty to one hundred weight; but some of them are much larger.  They are immediately gutted, boiled, and cut in slices.  The guts and head afford oil:  the slices are partly dried, to be eaten occasionally with oil and vinegar, or barreled up in oil, to be exported.  It is counted a delicacy in Italy and Piedmont, and tastes not unlike sturgeon.  The famous pickle of the ancients called garum, was made of the gills and blood of the tunny, or thynnus…

Thehistoricfoodie.wordpress.com©

James W. Ennis, Company Cook, 14th Ala. Inf.©

Tags

army food, camp cook, Civil War, hard-tack

Recently I managed to track a large portion of my family who had previously eluded me, and one of the ancestors I “met” was the company cook for the 14^th Alabama Infantry during the Civil War.  James W. Ennis was born Feb. 16, 1833 in Georgia, and died in Sharpsburg, Maryland on Sept. 17, 1862 (age 29) where he lies yet today. 

I discovered other soldiers, some who were also killed, and some who returned home, but because of my interest in historic foodways I found James especially interesting and set out to document what his daily routine may have been like.

He was certainly plagued with food shortages as was all the Confederacy, and had to stretch available rations and supplies as far as they could go.  Did he have any previous cookery experience?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  As we’ll see toward the end of this article, the U.S. Army recognized the need for training for cooks by 1875, however, James may have been one of those individuals who knew more about food preparation than his counterparts, but not enough to be considered an actual cook.  On the other hand, maybe he’d been a passable or even an exceptional camp cook in the hunting or fishing camps of his youth and had at least some idea of how to replicate familiar dishes from whatever he could scrounge up for the cook pot.  Since no particulars are to be found in his military record and I’ve, as yet, not discovered extant personal letters with any details, I can only look at generalities.

Some units, usually U.S., were able to hire cooks such as the Eighth Pennsylvania Reserves, U.S. who hired a black gentleman as company cook or another that hired a rejected recruit as company cook.  Soldiers who through age or poor health were no longer considered fit for service sometimes continued on as company cooks.  – Hill, Alonzo F.  Our Boys.  1867.  Philadelphia; Van Alstyne, Lawrence.  Diary of an Enlisted Man.  1910.  New Haven, Conn.; & Leonard, Albert Charles.  The Boys in Blue of1861-1865.  1904.  Lancaster, PA. 

The position meant commencing duty two hours before reveille and frequently still toiling at tattoo.  Breakfast had to be ready when the troops rose and pots and pans had to be cleaned and put away before the cook could retire for the evening. 

James would have used hard-tack in a number of ways with whatever he could add to it to scare up a hearty soup, similar to that prepared by a union peer.  “Many a savory soup or stew could the company cook prepare, converting mere hard-tack remnants into a savory ‘lobscouse’; triumphant still more when haply a fresh chicken or a young pig came to his sacrificial knife,–not stolen, it was said, but ‘hived’ in the neighborhood.” 

He would have foraged for wild greens to add to such a stew – dandelions, purslain, buckhorn plantain, poke, dock, etc., and he probably sent men from the company out on foraging trips for him.  “Sallow, hatchet-faced, deprived of flour, the poor, pinched Southern conscript lived often for days upon corn meal alone, or stews of rank bacon and mouldy biscuit [hard-tack], and bad transportation furnished a not unfrequent excuse for a poor commissary.  Indeed, the Confederate ration was far inferior to that on the Union side, as actually provided”.  – Schouler, James.  History of the United States of America:  1861-1865.  The Civil War.  1899.  NY.

Indeed, even Union troops whose rations were supplemented by supplies sent from the Sanitary Commission used whatever wild foods and berries they found in the area to freshen soups and stews made from dried vegetables, dried beans, and salted meat.

Soldiers and sailors found the hard-tack impossible to eat without soaking to soften it, and usually it was pounded, soaked, and used to thicken and stretch a soup being entirely too hard to eat otherwise.  Given shortages, Confederates ate it as long as it lasted, weevils and mold or mildew being no deterrent to filling a hungry stomach.  “It would seem that but little could be said of the culinary art in camp without involving some mention of hard-tack at almost every turn”.  – Bircher, William.  A Drummer-boy’s Diary.  [2^nd Regt. Minnesota]  1889.  St. Paul.

A Union soldier documented an incident involving hard-tack in his diary which may be amusing to the reader.  He asked a passing chaplain what the initials “BC” meant to which the chaplain replied loudly, “it means before the birth of our Savior, previous to the beginning of the Christian era.”

He proceeded to give quite a profound theological exposition of the matter, and then inquired, ‘But, my man, why did you ask so unusual a question?’  ‘Oh, nothin’,’ answered the innocent Dick, ‘only we have seen it stamped on these sheets of hard-tack, and were curious to know why it was there.’  At this point the listeners all exploded with laughter, while the chaplain saw that he was sold, and walked rapidly away.  – Gerrish, Theodore, Rev.  Reminisces of the Civil War.  1882.  Portland. 

Although he wouldn’t have understood the medical explanation for it, James would have known that using such fresh greens, nuts, and berries as Nature provided helped prevent scurvy and keep fighting men in the field.

While records aren’t as plentiful for the Southern army, James’ cooking set-up probably differed little compared to his Union counterpart.  Lawrence Van Alstyne penned an excellent account of the domain of the company cook for the U.S. Army.

Some get mad and cuss the cooks, and the whole war department, but that is usually when our stomachs are full.  When we are hungry we swallow anything that comes and are thankful for it.  The cook house is simply a portion of the field we are in.  A couple of crotches [forked sticks] hold up a pole on which the camp kettles are hung, and under which a fire is built.  Each company has one, and as far as I know they are all alike.  The camp kettles are large sheet-iron pails, one larger than the other so one can be put inside the other when moving.  If we have meat and potatoes, meat is put in one, and potatoes in the other.  The one that gets cooked first is emptied into mess pans, which are large sheet-iron pans with flaring sides, so one can be packed in another.  Then the coffee is put in the empty kettle and boiled.  The bread is cut into thick slices, and the breakfast call sounds.  We grab our plates and cups, and wait for no second invitation.  We each get a piece of meat and a potato, a chunk of bread, and a cup of coffee with a spoonful of brown sugar in it.  Milk and butter we buy, or go without.  We settle down, generally in groups, and the meal is soon over.  Then we wash our dishes, and put them back in our haversacks.  We make quick work of washing dishes.  We save a piece of bread for the last, and which we wipe up everything, and then eat the dish rag.  Dinner and breakfast are alike, only sometimes the meat and potatoes are cut up and cooked together, which makes a really delicious stew.  Supper is the same, minus the meat and potatoes.  The cooks are men detailed from the ranks for that purpose…Boxes or barrels are used as kitchen tables, and are used for seats between meals.  The meat and bread are cut on them, and if a scrap is left on the table the flies go right at it and we have so many the less to crawl over us.  They are never washed, but are sometimes scraped off and made to look real clean.  I never yet saw the cooks wash their hands, but presume they do when they go to the brook for water”. 

That is rather a bleak picture, now consider the added difficulty with food shortages, with procuring horses and wagons for transporting supplies, shortages of soap which was the only cleaner available at the time, for the Confederate troops and we see that James’ stew or chowder made from hard-tack and its accompanying weevils, often rancid salt pork, and any wild greens one of the men pulled from the earth or a few vegetables offered by a citizen was life-sustaining and much appreciated fare.

Years after the Civil War, the U.S. Army took a critical look at the position of company cook and had this to say.

The position of company cook is not a specially desirable one, and it is recommended that extra-duty pay should be allowed to them.  Several officers of experience recommend that cooks should be specially enlisted for that duty, and good negro cooks could easily be thus obtained.  It is also recommended that at each recruiting depot there should be a school for the training of cooks as in the English service. 

The Cook’s Creed.

Cleanliness is next to godliness, both in persons and kettles.  Be ever industrious, then, in scouring your pots.  Much elbow-grease, a few ashes, and a little water, are capital aids to the careful cook.  Better wear out your pans with scouring than your stomachs with purging; and it is less dangerous to work your elbows than your comrade’s bowels.  Dirt and grease betray the poor cook, and destroy the poor soldier, while health, content, and good cheer should ever reward him who does his duty and keeps his kettles clean.  In military life punctuality is not only a duty, but a necessity, and the cook should always endeavor to be exact in time.  Be sparing with sugar and salt, as a deficiency can be better remedied than an overplus.

Remember that beans, badly boiled, kill more than bullets; and fat is more fatal than powder.  In cooking, more than in anything else in this world, always make haste slowly.  One hour too much is vastly better than five minutes too little, with rare exceptions.  A big fire scorches your soup, burns your face, and crisps your temper.  Skim, simmer, and scour, are the true secrets of good cooking.  – Surgeon-General’s Office.  A Report on the Hygiene of the United States Army:  with descriptions of Military Posts.  1875.  Washington.

Slumber peacefully, James, your toils are done.  I thank you for your service and for being a positive example for our family.  Though your parents, siblings, and even your aunt, my great great grandmother Sarah, missed you and mourned for you, they lie with you now, also at peace.  I regret that when I visited Sharpsburg I knew not of you, however, when next I journey north to Pennsylvania, I shall visit again and pay my respects.    – Your devoted cousin, Victoria.  thehistoricfoodie.wordpress.com©

For more on food preparation through the 18th and 19th centuries see my books outlined in the Store on this blog.  Orders welcome.