Foodways

[mary]

My husband is always cautioning me about assuming practices from earlier time periods (the colonial period, for example) automatically translates into 1820s-1830s America. Clothing styles certainly changed, however I am fascinated at some of the practices and customs that remained--even after more than 50 years!

One such example is the use of salt cellars at table-- small, open containers that held salt, often sprinkled on food via use of a small spoon. Salt cellars or "salts" were sometimes ornate and made of silver. Others were far more practical, being simply another cup or similar container.

In this thread, Susan's inventory of the late Mr. Jones included one such celler. Likewise, Mrs. Christiana Holmes Tillson mentioned the use of a humble salt cellar during her travels in Illinois:

The table was covered with a coarse cloth, five were plates set around, the sixth bearing the burden of Peggy's heavy buscuits; a teacup and iron spoon beside each plate, the sixth cup holding some salt, and the sixth saucer was for the butter...

[mary]

Mr. Harry Ellsworth Cole, in his Stagecoach and Tavern Tales of the Old Northwest recorded the use of a communal salt cellar at table in a Wisconsin "tavern."

Also, he recorded the use of a communal sugar bowl at table in the taverns-- but no spoon. Mr. Cole wrote that guests were expected to use their own spoons!

[Robert Braun]

The Frontier Archaeological Museum www.undertheprairie.com/index.htm has at least three salt cellars on display, two of them, I believe, were undamaged.

r.

[Robert Braun]

Sorry, it's not THAT kind of posting!

Rather, another look at processed sugar-- the following authored by Mr. Hank Trent:

Let's see if we can figure out how each of the four types of sugar mentioned... is made.

1) brown or muscovado
2) clayed
3) refined or loaf
4) sugar candy

The Emerson quote said that sugar candy is loaf sugar 'dissolved in water and allowed to evaporate and harden.' So let's look at the other three.

1) brown or muscovado
After the cane is crushed and boiled... 'When cool, the contents, now a dark brown mixture of sugar and molasses, are put into casks with perforated bottoms, through which the molasses drains away. After thirty days of this discipline the sugar is considered as sufficiently pure for shipment, and the casks are closed up. Sugar thus prepared is known to the trade as 'muscovado ("The Cultivation and Manufacture of Sugar," Debow's Review, 1867.)'

So that sounds like the darkest brown sugar could be sold wholesale in casks, not necessarily molded.

2) Clayed
The same article continues to describe a further process that creates clayed sugar. But note the sizes of cones it's produced in--80 to 120 lbs each. These are clearly bigger than the 10"-12" tall household-size loaves of refined white sugar.

"Another and better class is known by the name of 'clayed,' and with this a different process is adopted in the latter stages of the manufacture. Instead of being put into the cooling trough , the juice is at once turned into cone-shaped moulds of metal or earthenware, holding from eighty to a hundred and twenty pounds each. These are turned upside down, and a mixture of clay and mortar spread over the base of each. The molasses drains away through the apex, and the water dripping from the clay percolates through the sugar and helps to carry away much of the impure and colored matter, which is considerably more soluble than sugar itself. The object of mixing clay with the water is to make the passage of the latter more gradual, and so diminish the otherwise enormous waste."

As someone in a previous thread said, this would produce a sugar that was lighter in color than muscovado, but still raw and not refined.

3) Refined or Loaf
The article quoted above is talking about sugar that's imported from the West Indies into England, rather than the U.S., but says that most of the sugar is imported as muscovado or clayed, and that refining is usually done after it arrives. "The process commences on the top story of the refinery, where the raw sugar is first collected in heaps and then shovelled into a rectangular iron vessel capable of holding a thousand or more gallons, called the 'blow-up cistern.' Water is turned on at the same time, and the whole rapidly heated to boiling point by the passage of a current of steam. 'Blowing up' causes a great deal of scum to rise to the surface, especially when, as is the case with all but the very purest sugars, bullock's blood, or as the refiners term it, 'spice,' is added to the mixture. This scum is removed by filtration, the liquid being turned from the cistern into a shallow tank, whence it passes through a series of canvas bags, and when perfectly bright, is allowed to flow on a bed of animal charcoal. It is now of the colour of old port wine, but some hours later, when, it reappears below the charcoal, it has become as colourless as water. It is then ready for boiling, which takes place by means of a vacuum pan at a lower degree of heat, and consequently with less injury to the sugar, than would be necessary under ordinary atmospheric pressure. When the boiling has gone on long enough, a valve in the lower part of the pan is opened, and the whole mass falls into a heated vessel on the floor below, where it remains 'until the crystals have become large enough and hard enough to please the operator.' The concluding processes closely resemble those in the corresponding stage of the raw materials. The sugar is poured into moulds , and all the moisture allowed to drain away. Even then, however, it is still colored, and the last trace of impurity is not removed until the cones have been 'clayed,' the clay, in this instance, however, consisting only of a solution of sugar and water, which sinks through the sugar-loaf and leaves it in that state of whiteness with which we are familiar in the sugar-basin. The drippings of this final purification are saved to be made into an inferior sugar; 'THEIR drippings, boiled, drained and cleared, become pieces; the drippings of pieces similarly treated are bastards; and the drippings of bastards are treacle.'"

Another article describing the same process, "Manufacture of Sugar," 1851, mentions that at the end of the process, the cone is smoothed, the "small amount of dark-colored sugar" at the tip of the cone is removed, and the cones are dried and wrapped for shipment. "If, instead of loaves, the manufacturer desired to obtain the material known as crushed lump, the contents of the moulds would never be stoved at all; but when sufficiently dry, they would be taken out, and struck with a mallet, until reduced to a mass of disaggregated crystals."

Are these processes consistant with sugar refinement known in the 1820s-1830s?

Regards,

Bob.

[Robert Braun]

Manner of preserving eggs perfectly fresh for 12 months

Having provided small casks like oyster barrels, fill them with fresh laid eggs, then pour into each cask, the head of which is supposed to have been first taken out, as much cold thick lime water as will fill up all the void space between the eggs, and likewise completely cover,- them, the thicker the lime water is the better, provided it will fill up all the interstices and be liquid at the top of the cask, this done, lay on the head of the cask lightly. No farther care is necessary, than merely to prevent the lime from growing too hard, by adding occasionally a little common water on the surface, should it seem so disposed, and keeping the casks from heat and frost.



The eggs when taken out for use are to be washed from the adhering lime in a little cold water, when they will have both the appearance and qualities of fresh laid eggs, the lime preserving them from shrinking or putridity.


Another Method

The most simple and easy mode of preserving eggs is to rub the outside of the shell, as soon as gathered from the nest with a little butter or any other grease that is not foetid filling up the pores of the shell, the evaporation of the liquid part of the egg is prevented and either by that means or by excluding the external air, which Fourcroy supposes destroys the milkiness, which most people are fond of in new laid eggs, that milkiness will be preserved for months, as perfect as when the egg was taken from the nest. [/i]

---American Farmer, Volume II, p. 267, 1820.