Customs and Fashions in Old New England — John Shaqi
Customs and Fashions in Old New EnglandEarle, Alice Morse
History
Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Earle, Alice Morse
New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
Of the dazzling and beautiful array in our modern confectioners' shops
little Priscilla and Hate-Evil could never have dreamed, even in
visions. A few comfit-makers made "Lemon Pil Candy, Angelica Candy,
Candy'd Eryngo Root & Carroway Comfits;" and a few sweetmeats came to
port in foreign vessels, "Sugar'd Corrinder Seeds," "Glaz'd Almonds,"
and strings of rock-candy. Whole jars of the latter adamantine,
crystalline, saccharine delight graced the shelves of many a colonial
cupboard. And I suppose favored Salem children, the happy sons and
daughters of opulent epicurean Salem shipowners, had even in colonial
days Black Jacks and Salem Gibraltars. The first-named dainties, though
dearly loved by Salem lads and lasses, always bore--indeed, do still
bear--too strong a flavor of liquorice, too haunting a medicinal
suggestion to be loved by other children of the Puritans. As an
instance, on a large scale, of the retributive fate that always pursues
the candy-eating wight, I state that the good ship Ann and Hope brought
into Providence one hundred years ago, as part of her cargo, eight boxes
of sweetmeats and twenty tubs of sugar candy, and on the succeeding
voyage sternly fetched no sweets, but brought instead forty-eight boxes
of rhubarb.
The children doubtless had prunes, figs, "courance," and I know they had
"Raisins of the Sun" and "Bloom Raisins" galore. Advertisements of all
these fruits appear in the earliest newspapers. Though "China Oranges"
were frequently given to and by Judge Sewall, I have not found them
advertised for sale till Revolutionary times, and I fancy few children
had then tasted them. The native and domestic fruits were plentiful, but
many of them were poor. The apples and pears and Kentish cherries were
better than the peaches and grapes. The children gathered the summer
berries in season, and the autumn's plentiful and spicy store of
boxberries, checkerberries, teaberries or gingerbread berries with
October's brown nuts. There were gingerbread and "cacks" even in the
earliest days; but they were not sold in unlimited numbers. The
omnipotent hand of Puritan law laid its firm hold on their manufacture.
Judge Sewall often speaks, however, of Banbury cakes and Meers cakes;
Meer was a celebrated Boston baker and confectioner. The colonists had
also egg cakes and marchepanes and maccaroons.
There were children's books in those early days; not numerous, however,
nor varied was the assortment from which Puritan youth in New England
could choose. Here is the advertisement of one:
"Small book in easey verse Very Suitable for children, entitled The
Prodigal Daughter or the Disobedient Lady Reclaimed: adorned with
curious cuts, Price Sixpence."
Somehow, from the suggestion of the title we should hardly fancy this to
be an edifying book for children. John Cotton supplied them with
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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