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Hot, non-alcoholic
Coffee, tea and chocolate were popular non-alcaholic hot beverages during American Colonial times. These imports were expensive, but not beyond the reach of
the average person. Folks too poor to afford the *real thing* brewed hot beverages from herbs, flowers, bark, roots, and woody stems. Alas, there was no ready
substitute for chocolate! Presumably, cider could have been served warm too.
"The slave labor system and the expansion of international trade that brought sugar, molasses, and rum into prominence also led to the rise of three new
nonalcoholic drinks: chocolate, tea, and coffee. "Groceries" was the term used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for newly imported consumable
commodities from distant places."
---America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking, Keith Stavely & Kathleen Fitzgerald [University of North
Carolina Press:Chapel Hill NC] 2004 (p. 266)
"...chocolate was a popular drink for all ages. The beverage was simple to proapre for the imported cocoa beans were merely ground and then brewed for the
desired thickness with water or milk. As Americans moved further into the eighteenth century, chocolate and coffeehouses became popular in seaport towns such as
Boston, New York, and Phildelphia...The taste of coffees, teas, and chocolates was unpredictable at best. Today's beverages are a smooth blend of leaves or
beans of many types. However, in colonial times, a ship's carge usually included not a mixture of several strong and mild beans, but only the products of a single
plantation. Past experiences with the crop of a particular producer were of little value in judging later shipments, for changing climatic and soil conditions altered the
tastes of a particular grower's crop from year to year...When coffee was not available or was beyond the means of the poor farmer, parched rye, chestnuts, or
grape sedds were substituted for coffee beans and brewed into hot drinks...Tea substitutes were also popular, particularly on the frontier wehre imported
merchandise was difficult to purchase. Sassafras tea was considered particularly pleasing..."
What did patriot drinks instead of tea after the famous Boston party?
"Colonial tea addicts were sorely tested when the nationwide tea strike
began about ten years before the Revolutionary War. Supporters of the boycott against British tea published numerous testimonials by patriotic doctors who
claimed that tea-drinking not only shortened the life of a drinker, but weaked his spleen and stomach...High prices as well as patriotism discouraged many from
drinking tea...Rhubarb, goldenrod, strawberry, and blackberry leaves were also collected for brewing into tea during the long show of solidarity against the British.
The later revolution saw a great decreas in the amount of American tea-drinking, and in the first years of the new republic, coffee became the overwhelming favorite
drink. Though never to regain its prewar popualrity as a general beverage, tea remained popular as a medicinal home remedy for various illnesses, a turnabout from
the boycott claims to the opposit effect."
"The young ladies of Boston signed a pledge, 'We the daughters of those patriots who have, and do now appear for the
public intrest, and in that principally regard their posterity, as do with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves
the drinking of foreign tea, in hope to frustrate a plan that tends to deprive a whole community of all that is valuable
to life.' They were joined by others around the country, drinking instead 'Balsamic hyperion' made from dried raspberry
leaves, or infusions of other herbs. The Boston Tea Party did not destroy the American taste for tea, although few
retailers in Boston dared to offer it for sale for a number of years. George and Martha Washington continued
to serve the best quality tea"
About drinking chocolate
"...any collected manuscript from the last quarter of the seventeenth century will surely have recipes involving chocolate; chocolate became the rage among the
ladies and those who would be."
"To make Chocolate. Scrape four ounces of chocolate and pour a quart of boiling water upon it, mill it well with a chocolate mill and sweeten it to your taste. Give it a boil
and let it stand all night, then mill it again very well. Boil it two minutes, then mill it till it will leave a froth upon the top of your cups." Cold, non-alcoholic : apple cider
Alcoholic:
SOURCES: The New Art of Cookery According to Present Practice, Richard Briggs [1792], Martha Washington's Booke of
Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess
What types of beverages were readily available to pioneer-era Americans?
Non-Alcoholic (Hot)
Non-Alcoholic (Cold)
Alcoholic
SOURCES:
"Cider, a term with two meanings. In N. America since Prohibition it refers to unfermented, unpasteurized, and usually unfiltered
apple juice...Alcoholic cider is now described as 'hard'cider...In Britain, cider is an alcoholic drink, for which special
cider apples are used."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2nd edition, 2007(p. 186)
"Cider-making in England is already a consequence of 1066. No doubt apple juice had been fermented to make an alcoholic drink
in Anglo-Saxon times, but it was the Normans who introduced it in a big way. At first much of it was imported from Normandy...but
soon cider-apple orchards were being planted in Kent and Sussex, and it was not long before the apples, the technology, and the
taste of the dirnk spread throughout the more southerly parts of England...The Normans brought the word with them too: cider (or cyder, as
it is sometimes spelled in Britain) comes from Old French sidre, which was adapted from medieval Latin sicera. This in trun came
from Greek sikera, an approximation used in the Septuagint for Hebrew shekar 'strong drink', a derivative of the verb shakar
'drink heavily'. As this potted history suggests, cider denotes etymologically any intoxicating beverage, and indeed that meaning
survived in English as late as the fifteenth century...A drink made by watering and repressing the pulp from with the original
apple-juice for cider was pressed was known in former times as ciderkin or water-cider."
"The Anglo-Saxons had had some knowledge of 'apple-wine', but there is nothing to suggest that it was either made or drunk to any
extent in England before the Norman Conquest. Cider making was introduced from Normandy about the middle of the twelfth century, and
was at first confined mainly to Kent and Sussex. Sometimes Normandy cider itself was imported...The new beverage soon spread to
other parts of the country...Cider could be made from apples mixed with pears, but if the drink was prepared largely or entirely
of pears, it was usually called perry...Both cider and perry helped to save the grain for brewing, as did other country drinks.">
"Fruit juice was not really an option for the Tudors. Unfermented grape juice, 'must', was importd but would surely have been
a luxury as it cannot have lasted long...Citrus fruits were also expensive, and even though apples and pears were widely grown,
preserving the juice was impossible. The only option was to turn it into cider and perry so that the alcohol would act as a
preservative. Cider and perry were still only widely drunk in certain areas of England, and...tended to be a special
occasion drink."
"Home-brewed ale, beer, cider and mead remained the English staples although there was already, by the end of the sixteenth century,
a brisk trade in imported wines."
"[in the 17th century] Cider and perry...maintained their popularity...In the later seventeenth century a specially constructed
cider mill came into use with a wooden cylinder that was rotated by hand...The apple pulp mixed with boiled water and pressed a
second time yielded [non-alcoholic] water-cider. It was ready for consumption in a within a few days, was drunk at family tables in place
of small beer...Or royal cider could be made, a potent liquor comprising...
Selected American cider recipes
According to the food historans, coffee was highly prized for its taste and perceived medicinal qualities. Pioneers improvised
creative methods for achieving drinkable pot of coffee. Success varied according to supplies and the exprience of the
cook. A person who could brew a delicious pot of coffee was highly respected. When *real* coffee was unavailable,
substitutes
were employed. Chicory, acorns, and a variety of other items were pressed into service when necessary.
"In the predominantly rural United States of the mid-nineteenth century, people bought green coffee
beans (primarily from the West or East Indies) in bulk at the local general store, then roasted and
ground them at home. Roasting the beans in a frying pan on the wood stove required twenty minutes of
constant stirring and often produced uneven roasts. For the affluent there were a variety of home
roasters that turned by crank or steam, but none worked very well. The beans were ground in a
manufactured coffee mill or a mortar and pestle. Housewives usually brewed coffee just by boiling the
grounds in water. In order to clarify the drink, or "settle" the grounds to the bottom, brewers employed
various questionable additives, including eggs, fish, and eel skins...The routine American ruination of
coffee must have surprised sophisticated European visitors. During the first half of the nineteenth
century there was a veritable explosion of European coffee-making patents and ingenious devices for
combining hot water and ground coffee, including a popular two-tier drip pot invented around the time
of the French Revolution by Jean Baptiste de Belloy, the Archbishop of Paris. In 1809 a brilliant,
eccentric expatriot named Benjamin Thompson--who preferred to be known as Count Rumford--modified the de Belloy pot to create his own drip version. Rumford also made a corred brewing
pronouncement: Water for coffee should be fresh and near boiling, but coffee and water should never
be boiled together, and brewed coffee should never be reheated. Unfortunately for American
consumers, however, Rumford's pot and opinions did not travel back across the Atlantic. Nor did the
numerous, elegant brewers from France and England...Typical North American coffee of the period
was boiled until it was a bitter brew badly in need of mik and sugar to make it palatable."
"Virtues of Coffee: Coffee accelerates digestion corrects crudites, removes colic and flatulencies. It mitigates headaches,
cherishes the animal spirits, takes away listlessness and languor, and is serviceable in all obstructions arising from languid
circulation. It is a wonderful restorative to emaciated constitutions, and highly refereshing to the studious and sedentary.
The habitual use of coffee would greatly promote sobriety being in itself a cordial stimulant; it is a most powerful antidote to the
temptation of spiritous liquors. It will be found a welcome beverage to the robust labourer, who would despise a lighter
drink.---Family Receipt Book, 1819."
"For Improving Coffee: To valetudinarians and others, the following method of making coffee for breakfast is earnestly recommended as
a most wholesome and pleasant jentacular beverage, first ordered by an able physician. Let one ounce of fresh ground coffee be
put into a clean coffee-pot, or other proper vessel well thinned: pour a pint and a quart of boiling water upon it, set it on
the fire, let it boil thoroughly, and afterwards put by to settle: this should be done on the preceding night, and on the
following morning pour off the clear liquor; add to it one pint of new milk; set it again over the fire, but do not let it
boil, Sweetened to every person's taste, coffee thus made is a most wholesome and agreeable breakfast, summer, or winter, with
toast, bread and butter, rusks, biscuits, &c. This process takes off that raw, acidous, and astringent quality of the coffee,
which makes it often disagree with weak stomachs. It should not be drank too warm. A gentleman of the first fortune in the
kingdom, after a variety of medical applications in vain, was restored to health by applying to the above beverage morning
and afternoon.---Family Receipt Book, 1819"
"Coffee Milk: Boil a dessert spoonful of ground coffee in about a pint of milk, a quarter of an hour; then put into it a
shaving or two of isinglass, and clear it; let it boil a few minutes, and set it on the side of the fire to fine. This is a very
fine breakfast, and should be sweetened with real Lisbon sugar. Those of a spare habit, and disposed towards affections of the lunghs,
would do well to make this their breakfast.---Mackenzie's 5000 Recipes."
A sampler of early American coffee instructions:
I,
II,
III,
IV,
V &
VI
ABOUT PIONEER COFFEE
"Although Peter Burnett advised his family, "If you are heavily loaded let the quantity of sugar and coffee be small, as milk
is preferable and does not have to be hauled," his counsel was the exception. Most emigrants took the advice of Anna Maria
King: "Fetch what coffee, sugar and such things you like, if you should be sick you need them." By the time the travelers were nearing
either Oregon of California, coffee was sometimes the only provision left. Catharine Amanda Scott Coburn, and Oregon pioneer,
recalled those times: 'We still had coffees, and, making huge pot of this fragrant beverage, we gathered round the crackling
camp fire--our last in the Cascade Mountains--and, sipping the nectar from rusty cups and eating salal berries gathered during
the day, pitied folks who had no coffee.' A story about coffee illustrates the relationship between Ellen Tootle and her husband,
newlyweds on their way to Colorado to look over the possibilities of expanding their dry-goods business to Denver: 'Mr. Tootle says I
cannot do anything but talk, so would not trust me to make the coffee. Boasted very much of his experience. He decided to make it
himself, but came to ask me how much coffee to take, for information, I know, but he insisted, only out of respect. The coffee pot
holds over 1 qt.; I told him the quantity of coffee to 1 qt. He took that, filled the coffee pot with water then set it near, but not
on the fire. I noticed it did not boil, but said nothing. When they drank it, they both looked rather solemn and only took one
or two sips. I thought it was time to have an opinion upon it. As Mr. Tootle would not volunteer one, I inquired how the coffee
tasted. He acknowledged it was flat and weak, but insisted I did not give him proper directions. He consented to let me try it
at supper time.' Later that evening Ellen Tootle had her chance to prove her culinary skills: 'I was all impatience to try my s
skill in making coffee. I watched it anxiously until it was boiling and waited with the greatest solicitude and I must
acknowledge some misgiving, for them to taste it. Oh, but I was rejoiced and relieved when they pronounced it very good.'
Before making a cup of coffee, the green coffee beans had to be roasted in a skillet and then ground in a grinder. The names of
the beans indicated their place or origin, and we find Rio, Havana, and Java coffee beans listed for sale in the mid-
nineteenth century. If tea was preferred, the buyers chose from a list of brands that featured Gunpowder, Imperial, Young Hyson,
Souchong, and Poushchongre. Not until after the Civil War did manuracturers devise good way of preserving the flavor of preroasted
or ground coffee, sometiems referred to as essence of coffee. But from March 30, 1850, St. Louis Missouri Republican this
ad suggests that they certainly tried. 'California Outfits. Ground Coffee--Put up in water-proof and air-tight packages and
guaranteed to retain its strength and flavor for years.' The credit for a good roasted coffee goes to Arbuckle Brothers, whos
offices were in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company patented a method of sealing in the raosted flavor by coating the
beans with a mixture of egg white and sugar. Roasted coffee beans in paper bags were then shipped throughout the West, and
Arbuckle coffee was the most popular brand."
How much did coffee cost? Pioneer provisions list.
ABOUT CIVIL WAR SOLDIER COFFEE
"Coffee wes issued to Yankees rather steadily, in the form of raw beans that the men first had to roast without burning and
then crack with their rifle butts or somehow grind before boiling with water. At every meal the coffee came out, and if there
was a halt of more than a few minutes on a march, some men were bound to start a fire and begin making the brew, often mmerely
to be told to throw it out unfinished as they resumed the march. While the coffee's caffeine may have been stiumulating to their
spirits, the boiling also providentially killed much of what inhabited the poor water usually to be had. Confederates, by
comparison, cut off from sources of importation, usually had to substitute chicory, burnt corn and peas, and even potatoes and
peanuts, with far less statisfactory results. "Our coffee when we first went out was issued to us green, so taht we had to roast
and grind it, which was not always a success, some of it being burnt, while some would be almost green," said Bellard. "In roasting
it we put a quantity of it in a mess man, and placing the pan over the fire would have to keep stirring it round with a stick in
order to have it roasted as evenly as possible." They could never properly grind the beans, cracking them instead, and
inadequate roasting could turn the beverage awful."
"In 1861, the standard daily ration in the Union army was based on the assumption that not all required ingredients would be
available at all times and places. As a result, it operated on an equivalent or what some called the "lieu therof" or the "or" system...
Each day a soldier ought to be issued three-fourths of a pound of pork "or" bacon "or" one and one quarter pounds of fresh "or"
salt beef...His bread ration was to be eighteen ounces of fresh bread or flour or theree-fourths of a pound of hardtack or one and one
quarter pounds of cornmeal. Additionally, each 100-man company was to share eight quarts of peas or beans or ten pounds of rice,
ten pounds of coffee or one and a half pounds of tea, fifteen pounds of sugar, four quarts of vinegar, and two quarts of salt. In 1861
the Confederate War Department adopted precisely the same ration allowance as the old United States prewar, execpting that it
recognized the scarcity of coffee and sugar by reducing those from ten pounds of coffee to six and from fifteen pounds of sugar
to twelve. In any event the Southern commissary was rarely able to provide either of those items or those quantities after 1861, ar
at any distance from principal commissary and transport centers...In 1863, responding to the rigors of campaigning, the Union War
Department revised the ration to...[for every 100 rations] ten pounds of green coffee beans or eight pounds of roasted beans,
or one and one half pounds of tea..."
"Finally there was coffee. Soldiers could go for days without food, if only they ahd their coffee. In the Confederacy it became as
highly prized as shoes, and commanded outrageous prices in times of scarcity. Substitutes were tried using chicory or
parched corn, but nothing approaced the real article. As a result, coffee was the item most often requested when Rebs informally
met Yanks between the lines for illict trading. Virginia tobacco being the commodity exchanged. In the North, by contrast, there
was rarely any shortage of coffee beans, and many regiments were actually issued special rifles, one per 100-man company, with a
coffee grinder built into the butt stock. The best coffee was slow roasted over a low fire, "until of a chestnut brown color and not burnt, as
is so commonly done." It was to be boiled briskly for two minutes, then take from the fire at once, a little cold water thrown in, then the
boiler's contents poured through a piece of flannel after it had settled for five minuutes."
"The manner in which each man disposed of his coffee and sugar ration after receiving it worth noting. Every soldier of a month's
experience in campaigning was provided with some sort of bag into which he spooned his coffee; but the some sort of bag he used indicated pretty
accurately, in a general way, the length of time he had been in the service. For example, a raw recruit just arrived would take it up in a
paper, and stow it away in that well known receptacle for all eatables, the soldier's haversack, only to find it a part of a general
mixture of hardtack, salt pork, pepper, salt, knife, fork, spoon, sugar and coffee by the time the next halt was made. A
recruit of longer standing, who had been through this experience and had begun to feel his wisdom-teeth coming, would take his up
in a bag made of a scrap of rubber blanket or poncho; but after a few days carrying the rubber would peel off or the paint of the
poncho would rub off from contact with the greasy pork or boiled meat ration which was his travelling companion, and make a black,
dirty mess, besides leaving he coffee-bag unfit for further use. Now and then some young soldier, a little starchier than his fellows,
would bring out an oil-silk bag lined with cloth, which his mother had made and sent him; but even oil-silk couldn't stand everything,
certainly not the peculiar inside furnishing of the average soldier's haversack, so it too was not long in yielding. But your plain,
straightforward old veteran, who had shed all his poetry and romance, if he had ever possessed any, who had roughted it up and down had ever
possessed any, who would roughed it up and down "Old Virginny," man and boy, for many months, and who had tried all plans under
all circumstances, took out an oblong plain cloth bag, which looked as immaculate as the every-day shirt of a coal-heaver, and into
it scooped without ceremony both his sugar and coffee, and stirred them thoroughly together. There was method in this plan. He had
learned from hard experience that his sugar was a better investment thus disposed of than in any other way; for on several occasions
he had eaten it with his hardtack a little at a time, had got it wet and melted in a rain, or what happened fully as often, had
sweetened his coffee to his taste when the sugar was kept separate, and in consequence had several messes of coffee to drink without
sweetening, which was not to his taste. There was one and then a man who could keep the two separate, sometimes in different ends of the
same bag, and serve them up proportionally. The reader already knows that milk was a luxury in the army. It was a new experience for
for all soldier to drink coffee without milk, But they soon learned to make a virtue of necessity, and I doubt whether one man in
ten, before the war closed, would have used the lactic fluid in his coffee from choice. Condensed milk of two brands, the Lewis and
Borden, was to be had at the sutler's when sutlers were handy, and occassionally milk was brought in from the udders of
stray cows, the men milking them into their canteens; but this was early in the war."
ABOUT COFFEE SUBSTITUTES
"Coffee Substitutes: As substitutes for coffee, some use dry brown bread crusts, and roast them; other soak rye grain in rum, and
roast it; other roast peas in the same way as coffee. None of these are very good; and peas so used are considered
unhealthy. Where there is a large family of apprentices and workmen, the coffee is very dear, it may be worth while to use the
substitutes, or to mix them half and with coffee; but, after all, the best economy is to go without. French coffee is so
celebrated, that it may be worth while to tell how it is made; though no prudent housekeeper will make it, unless she has
boarders, who are willing to pay for expensive cooking. The coffee should be roasted more than is common with us; it should not hang
drying over the fire, but should be roasted quic; it should be ground soon after roasting, and used as soon as it is ground. Those
who pride themselves on first-rate coffee, burn it and grind it every morning. The powder should be placed in the coffee-pot in
the proportions of an ounce to less than a pint of water. The water should be poured upon the coffee boiling hot. The coffee
should be kept at the boiling point; but should not boil. Coffee made in this way must be made in a biggin. It sould not be clear
in a common coffee-pot. A bit of fish-skin as big as a ninepiece, thrown into coffee while it is boiling, tends to make it
clear. If you use it just as it comes from the salt-fish, it will be apt to give an unpleasant taste to the coffee: it should
be washed clean as a bit of cloth, and hung up till perfectly dry. The whites of eggs, and even egg shells are good to settle
coffee. Rind of salt pork is excellent. Some people think coffee is richer and clearer for having a bit of sweet butter, or a
whole egg, dropped in and stirred, just before it is done roasting, and ground up, shell and all, with the coffee. But these
things are not economical, except on a farm, where butter and eggs are plenty. A half a gill of cold water, poured in after yo
take your coffee-pot off the fire, will usually settle the coffee. If you have not cream for coffee, it is a very great
improvement to boil your milk, and use it while hot.---Amercian Frugal Housewife, 1830."
"Acorn Coffee: Take sound a ripe acorns, peel off the shell or husk, divide the kernels, dry them gradually, and then roast them in
a close vessel or roaster, keeping them continually stirring; in doing which special care must be taken that they be not burnt
or roasted too much, both which would be hurtful. Take of these roasted acorns ground like other coffee) half an ounce every
other morning and evening, alone mixed with a dram of other coffee, and sweetened with sugar, or with or without milk. This receipt
is recommended by a famous German physician, as a much esteemed, wholesome nourishing, strengthening nutriment for mankind;
which, by its medicinal qualities, had been found to cure slimy obstructions in the viscera, and to remove nervous complaints
when other medicines have failed. Remark: Since they duty was taken off, West India coffees is so cheap that substitutes are not
worth making. On the continent the roasted roots of the wild chicory, a common weed, have been used with advantaged. ---Family
Receipt Book, 1819."
Food historians generally agree Irish coffee is a relatively new invention. The exact date when the first brew was concocted
is fuzzy. The introduction to the USA well is documented, thanks to the journalist who took the task upon himself.
"Irish coffee, also known as Gaelic coffee, is a beverage concocted from black coffee, sugar, and Irish whiskey, with a layer of cream carefully floated on the top.
Despite its traditional-sounding name, it does not appear to be of any great antiquity, the first recorded references to it being from around 1950. It is said to have
been invented at Shannon airport, near Limerick. Marketing managers of middle-brow restaurant chains seized on the concept in the 1970s, producing an array
of variants based on other spirits (such as Caribbean coffee, with rum)."
"Irish coffee...According to a plaque outside the Buena Vista Bar in San Francisco, "America's first Irish coffee was made here in 1952. It was inspirationally
invented at Shannon Airport [Ireland] by [chef] Joe Sheridan. it was fortuitously introduced by [newspaper writer] Stan Delaplane. It was nurtured to a national
institution by [the bar's owner] Jack Koeppler." Sheridan actually created the drink in 1942 at Foynes Dock, where flying boats docked in World War II. it was
promoted as of 1947 at Shannon Airport as an official welcoming beverage."
"Although people have been lacing coffee with alcohol for years, Irish coffee...was supposedly invented in the winter of 1943 by Joe Sheridan, chef at Foynes
Airport in Limerick, Ireland. The story goes that Sheridan, after hearing that a flight bound for New York had turned back owing to bad weather, mixed up a
special drink to warm the exhausted passengers. Among the travelers was the writer Stanton Delaplane, who liked the concoction so much that he brought the
recipe back to Jack Koeppler, bartender at the Buena Vista Hotel in San Fransico. Koeppler and Delaplane tried to recreate the drink, but the whipped cream
kept sinking to the bottom. Koeppler eventually visited Sheridan in Ireland and learned the threefold secret of floating the cream--the coffee must be lightly
sweetened, the cream must be not fresh and softly whipped, and the cream must be poured into the hot coffee over the back of the spoon. Irish coffee became a
staple after-dinner drink in the United States in the 1950s. its popularity peaked it the 1970s..."
The Irish Coffee Story, as told by The Buena Vista Cafe, San Francisco
The first reference in the New York Times was published in 1955:
"A drive to promote Irish coffee as a widely used drink is being pushed in this country. The effort was started yesterday at a reception at the Irish Products Center,
33 East Fiftieth Street, attended by a number of theatrical celebrities. Carmel Quinn, who sings Irish songs on the television, explained that Irish coffee consists of
hot coffee, with sugar and Irish whiskey, topped by whipped cream. A special guest at the reception was Patrick Brady of Dublin, representing five big distillers
who produce eight well known brands of Irish whiskey. After a few day here Mr. Brady will got to the West Coast, where he will spend about six months. The
drink, originally served to Americans at Shannon Airport, first gained prominence in the West."
Lemonade is
(along with several other popular food innovations) sometimes touted as having been
"introduced" at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904. This is not true. Culinary evidence confirms it
was known long before then. Lemonade's rise to popularity in our country is generally attributed
to the Temperance (anti-alcohol) Movement of the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Pink lemonade
also surfaced at this time.
Food historians tell us hunter-gatherers inhabiting northern regions used ice for storage and food
preservation. This was a matter of practicality, not choice. Cooled drinks and frozen desserts,
such as lemonade, iced tea & granita/sherbet were enjoyed by upper-class ancient
civilizations.
They were also sometimes prescribed as medicinals. Lemons are "Old World"
foods.
Early records place the origins of this drink in the Mediterranean region.
This beverage was introduced to America by European settlers. Economics of the ice trade
expanded the markets for cold drinks in the mid-nineteenth century.
The "prehistory" of lemonade:
Early history/Clifford A.
Wright
About modern lemonade
"From its simple seventeenth-century beginnings as a drink made from lemon juice and water,
usually with sugar, lemonade has diverisfied widely...The term is an adapation of French
limonade, a derivative of limon...It was the first example in English of a word for a fruit drink
ending in -ade (orangeade followed in the eighteenth century), but it was not really until the late
nineteenth century that the suffix took on a life of its own with new formations such as cherryade,
gingerade, and limeade."
"Lemonade, which in its simplest form is a drink made with lemon juice, sugar, and water, has a
history dating back at least to the thirteenth century, when Arab cookery books offered recipes
for drinks made from lemon syrup. The Mongols enjoyed a sweetened lemon drink preserved with
alcohol, and the Persians enjoyed sharbia, from which English "sherbet" derives. By the
mid-seventeeeth century the drink was popular in Europe when limoadiers, street vendors in
France,
sold lemonade at modest prices. A lemonade recipe appeares in the 1653 English translation of La
Varenne's The French Cook. Lemonade arrived in America no later than the eighteenth
century,
imported from the various European cultures of immigrants...lemonade's image underwent a
transformation engendered by the temperance movement, which turned lemonade into a genteel
Victorian drink...Modern technology also helped the juice flow...Lemonade's popularity rose
unabated, prompting the 1901 New Orleans Times-Picayune's Creole Cook Book to
proclaim, "Lemonade is among the most delightful and most commonly used of all Fruit Waters."
Lemonade was also considered a tonic, served to those suffering from colds...or to invalids."
Grocer's notes, circa 1883:
[1653]
[1769]
[late 1700s]
[1845]
"Excellent Portable Lemonade. Rasp, with a quarter-pound of sugar, the rind of a very
fine juicy lemon, reduce it to powder, and pour on it the strained juice of the fruit. Press the
mixture into a jar, and when wanted for use dissolve a tablespoonful of it in a glass of water. It
will keep a considerable time. If too sweet for the taste of the drinker, a very small portion of
citric acid may be added when it is taken."
[1869]
[1877]
[1884]
[1891]
[1892]
[1906]
[1913]
[1920]
[1936]
[1944]
[1956]
[1963]
[1973]
Newspaper articles reporting Mr. Allott's death (1912) mention he invented the drink when he was 14 of 15. They do not, however, reveal his birth year or tell us
how old he was when he died. Federal census records list two Henry Allotts. By process of elmination, our Henry was born in Wisconsin, 1858. He was 54 when
he died in 1912. That would place his invention around 1872-1873.
THE LEGEND
"Henry E. Allott, known all through the Middle West as 'Bunk' Allen, member of the old Chicago gambling syndicate, saloonkeeper, theatrical promoter, circus
man, and inventor of pink lemonade, died here today. At 15 he ran away with the circus and obtained a lemonade concession. One day while mixing a tub full of the
orthodox yellow kind he dropped some red cinnamon canides in by mistake. The resulting rose-tinted mixture sold so surprisingly well that he continuted to
dispense his chance discovery."
"The man who invented pink lemonade crossed over the river last week and now rests with the departed souls...He was Henry E. Allott, a circus man, who was
brought up in the Middle West--of course he was a circus man, for pink lemonade and the circus were as closely linked, say, as galluses and overalls. But Allott,
besides being a child of the three-ringed tent and the animal side show, was a child of Fortune, too. For the discovery of the dink which gave him fame was sheer
accident--perhaps it was...Fortune's wings that brushed the cinnamon red candies off the box into Allott's tub of lemonade and changed the color to a
flowing pink--and pink lemonade had arrived. This is just how it happened. Allott was 14 years old at the time, and running the candy and lemonade "concession,"
following a circus around the country...After the cinnamon candies had accidentally dropped in and suffused the lemonade on the instance we are speaking of, the
new drink sold better than the old, and it was plain to Henry Allott that if the people who attended circuses had not been crying in divine high Pehlevi for lemonade,
red lemonade, they had, in their own language, been hankering for it. Tub after tub was emptied, while the old yellow drink remained untouched. Thereafter the
circus marked pink lemonade for its own...And the pink lemonade was there...It was there just as sure as the lady bareback rider came in gracefully balancing herself
on her toes on the back of a white Chippendale horse...In your pocket you had 10 cents or maybe a quarter. Soon the men in red coats come up the aisles with the
baskets of popcorn done up in red and blue and white oiled paper, with a prize in each, and peanuts, and--pink lemonade in glasses set in trays, with a straw in
each and a piece of lemon floating on top--they myrmidons of Henry Allott... 25 years ago every boy and man...would have said that if pink lemonade went the
circus must fall with it...It is a comfort to observe how sternly this institution kept to its early traditions; and never lost its colors even in its battle with the hosts of
the pure-food forces. Pink it was when the cinnamon drops of Henry Allott first dissolved themselves in the wassail bowl he was mixing, and pink it remained--
faded, perhaps, in the once-cent-a-glass grade which Allott never knew--but still a tint of the original color. And it would have been easy for an innovator in this age
of change, you might think, to have mixed his wares with a little copperas, or carbide, or paris green, or whatver it is that one person says makes a food product
one color and another fellow says it doesn't--easy, you would think, to put green lemonade on the market, or purple, and wean a portion of the public away from
the original brand...But not, Pink it remained, ranging in the better grades to red...But the people, as a whole, which is the only way to speak of the pink-lemonade-
drinking public, kept to their first love, and there has been much quiet satisfaction on this score among those who otherwise might have been prone to see in this
country a tendency to lapse from the older thinking which have made the nation stable, even though times of unrest--times when pink lemonade itself might not have
brooked the assaults against its bastions."
The earliest print reference we find in an American source does indeed link pink lemnade with the circus:
The earliest reference we find for making lemonade pink are:
[1892]
Our research indicates low calorie carbonated beverages were first marketed to the American public shortly after World War
II. The earliest products were promoted to
diabetics understandably searching for sugar-free alternatives to popular quaffables. In 1953 several major beverage
companies penetrated the the sugar-free carbonated drink market. By the early 1960s dozens of
companies were competing for shelf-space. Coca Cola and Pepsi were not leaders, but followers. There is no truth to the rumor that diet drinks were
invented to alleviate a sugar shortage. Chemical
companies developing artifical sweeteners (calcium cyclamate, saccharin, aspartame, etc.) played a key role cashing in on
their discoveries.
[1952]
NO-CAL (KIRSCH)
According to the records of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, No-Cal brand beverages were introduced to the American public
March 3, 1952:
Word Mark NO-CAL Goods and Services (EXPIRED) IC 032. US 045. G & S: GINGER FLAVORED CARBONATED WATER. FIRST USE:
19520109. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19520303 Mark Drawing Code (5) WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM Serial
Number 71626798 Filing Date March 21, 1952 Current Filing Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Registration Number 0597764 Registration Date
November 2, 1954 Owner (REGISTRANT) KIRSCH'S BEVERAGES, INC. CORPORATION NEW YORK 921 FLUSHING AVE. BROOKLYN NEW
YORK Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register SUPPLEMENTAL Renewal 1ST RENEWAL
19741102 Live/Dead Indicator DEAD"
"To Hyman Kirsch, Simferopol in Russia's Crimea seems no further from Brooklyn than No-Cal is from the soft drink syrups he compounded there before the turn of the
century. No-Cal is a soft drink brand which is described as the fastest growing in its field...No-Cal is made in a half-dozen flavors, none of which contains sugar...Devising
No-Cal came from a kindly thought. When Hyman Kirsch came from Simferopol to Brooklyn in 1903 he prospered in the manufacture of ginger ale and soda opo. By the time
he became a vice president of the Jewish Sanitarium for Chronic Disease is on Morris had joined him in the business in 1923 and became later a director of the
sanitarium. Both of them were worried about the number of diabetics in the home who could find no sugar-free, non-alcoholic beverage. They got together in their own
laboratories with Dr. S.S. Epstein, their research man, and explored the field of synthetic sweeteners. Saccharin and other chemical sweeteners left a metallic aftertasted.
Then, from a commercial laboratory, they got cyclamate calcium, and No-Cal was accepted by the diabetic and those with cardio-vascular illnesses who could not
tolerate salts in the sanitarium. The drink was introduced modestly in the New York market, chiefly on dietict counters. But there were more sales than there were
dieters. A survey by Grey Advertising Agency, Inc., which has the account, revealed that only half the buyers of No-Cal were on a diet. So the campaign was aimed
at the girth-conscious emn and wome: the budget was quintupled...and No-Cal was off."
[1953]
DIET-RITE (NEHI/ROYAL CROWN) & COTT SUGAR FREE BEVERAGES
According to the records of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Diet-Rite low calorie beverage was introduced to the
American public by Nehi, December 22, 1953:
"Word Mark DIET-RITE Goods and Services IC 005. US 045. G & S: DIETETIC SOFT DRINKS AND CONCENTRATES FOR MAKING THE
SAME. FIRST USE: 19531222. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19531222 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 71659080
Filing Date January 6, 1954 Current Filing Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Change In Registration CHANGE IN REGISTRATION HAS
OCCURRED Registration Number 0600085 Registration Date December 28, 1954 Owner (REGISTRANT) NEHI CORPORATION
CORPORATION DELAWARE 10TH STREET AND 9TH AVE. COLUMBUS GEORGIA (LAST LISTED OWNER) ROYAL CROWN COMPANY,
INC. CORPORATION BY CHANGE OF NAME FROM DELAWARE 900 King Street Rye Brook NEW YORK 10573 Assignment Recorded
ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record Daniel Chung, Esq. Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15.
SECTION 8(10-YR) 20050110. Renewal 3RD RENEWAL 20050110 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE"
"Nehi Corp., a widely diversified soft drink maker...has entrenched its Royal Crown Cola in several key markets, particularly in the South. It has also developed
low calorie drinks under the label Diet Rite,"
"Refreshing Royal Crown Beverages in handy cans...Diet Cola...3 12 oz cans, 29 cents."
"The popularity of Diet-Rite Cola, which was introduced in Chicago more than a hear ago, has inspired Nehi Royal Crown corporation to increase its line of
sugar-free carbonated drinks by adding three delicious new flavors--Diet-Rite Lime-Lemon, Diet-Rite Orange, and Diet-Rite Strawberry. As is the case with
Diet-Rite Cola, each large half-quart bottle of the newcomers contains less than three calories, the Royal Crown people tell us. Ths certainly should be welcome
news for weight watchers and dieters. Besides, the new drinks are so delightful in taste, full of zest, and naturally good that they should appeal to children as well as
adults...The economically-priced Diet-Rite drinks, which come in tall, slim returnable bottles, are available in a rainbow Pak of six bottles, two of each flavor.
Or, if you prefer, you can mix and match to make up a carton of your own selection."
"Drink gingerale without adding pounds. And root beer, cream soda and cola too, for that matter, That's the beauty of a new line of
sugar-free beverages, introduced on the market this week by Cott Co. Absolutely non-fattening, the six different flavors
taste just like the calorie-heavy kind. At supermarkets and chain stores."
"Now available...non-fattening in six naturally wonderful flavors. Not one bit fattening! Yet delicios flavor-quality, in all 6 popular flavors. That's Cott Sugar-Free
beverages! You know Cott quality, from Cott beverages with sugar...Now you can enjoy this same famous quality, but ALL FLAVOR...NO SUGAR!...No fear
of adding weight, or breaking your diet. Cott quality may cost a little more, but you know why at first TASTE. Now--enjoy yourslef, with these delicious new
dietetic treats."
[1963]
PATIO DIET COLA (PEPSI) & TAB (COCA-COLA)
"The nation's calorie-counting citizens have suddenly seemed to capture the attention of the major soft drink producers. Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola this week
have put two major new low-calorie soft drink products into test markets, and the other new products are in the offing. Pepsi-Cola Company is testing its new
drink, Patio Diet Cola, in Greenville, S.C., and seems to be beaming its campaign mainly at the feminine market...If all goes well, Pepsi-Cola will move its new
product into Philadelphia and Pennsauken, N.J., early in March for additional testing. Meanwhile, Pepsi's arch rival, Coca-Cola, has low calorie plans of its own.
The company has started testing a sugarless soft drink called Tab in Springfield, Mass. Tab taste very much like Coca-Cola, officials say, it contains only 2 calories
in each 12-ounce bottle...J. Paul Austin, president of Coca-Cola, notes that low-calorie soft drinks have not as yet proved popular among the steady consumers
of soft drinks. But, in his view, introduction of Tab might open the way to a new market that has not as yet been fully exploited by soft drink companies."
LO LO (HOFFMAN BEVERAGE)
According to the records of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Lo Lo brand diet soda was introduced by the Hoffman Beverage Company Feburary 11, 1963/
"...[Hoffman Beverage Company] was independetly owned until December, 1945, wehn the Pabst Brewing Company acquired it . Pabst sold it in 1961 to a group
headed by Mr. Sealfon...While a subsidiary of Pabst, the company in 1954 introduced "Tap-A-Cola" in a 12-ounce flat-top can. It was the second company to
can a cola but the first to bring it out in a flat-top container. A year before, C & C Super Cola Corporation packaged cola in a conical-top can. In 1963, while
under the direction of the Sealfon group, Hoffman introduced Lo-Lo Cola, a dietitic drink. It is best known for club soda, ginger ale and a complete line of flavored
sodas sold in bottles or cans."
"Sweet Nothing, the Triumph of Diet Soda",
Benjamin Seigel, [American Heritage].
Iced tea was mass marketed to the general public at the 1904 Exposition in St. Louis (as were
many other foods we now consider popular) but it was not invented there. Food history of full of
lore and interesting stories that upon closer examination are not always supported by facts. This is
the jist of the 1904 story (note the word debuted' is used rather than ' invented'):
"Iced tea debuted in 1904 at the Louisiana State Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Mo. According
to the Tea Council, "The temperature was soaring and the staff in the Far East Tea House
couldn't get any fair-goers to even look their way, let alone sample their tea. So they poured the
hot tea over ice cubes and the drink quickly became the exposition's most popular beverage."
--- Tea: a story of serendipity/U.
S. Food & Drug Administration
Iced tea is mentioned in cook books, articles and traveler's diaries at least forty years before the
Exposition that is credited for making it popular. It is possible that this beverage was first
introduced as a medicinal drink, as suggested here:
"Iced tea appeared in the United States, the creation of some anonymous individual, prior to the
Civil War. In 1860 a writer for Horace Greely's Tribune, Solon Robinson, published a
small
volume How to Live. In this appeared the sentence Last summer we got in the habit of
taking the
tea iced, and really thought it better than when hot. By 1871 the new beverage competed with
iced milk, and iced water on hot summer days at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. In New York...By 1878,
travelers found iced tea for sale on the Rock Island Railroad and a popular beverage in Sidney,
Nebraska. Cookbooks began to offer recipes for iced tea and in 1886 Senators in their
Washington offices were said to have had large coolers of it to mitigate the force of the
weather.'"
"By the 1860s American were enjoying "iced tea," which was popularized at the 1903 St. Louis
World's Fair by Richard Blechynden after finding he couldn't sell much hot tea in the summer's
heat....Instant iced tea was introduced in 1953 under the label "White Rose Redi-Tea" by the
Seeman Brothers of New York City."
"Exactly when the custom of drinking iced tea began is unknown, but it dates back at least to the
1860s, if not long before. A hot drink in vogue in the 1870s, tea a la Russe, made with sugar and
sliced lemons, was also enjoyed cold. Iced tea was also available in the 1870s in hotels and on
railroads."
A survey of iced tea recipes through time
[1884]
[1887]
[1908]
The history of milk is a complicated and interesting topic. Mother's milk has nurtured the human race from the dawn of
time to present day. Generally, the emergence of milk as an
industry traces back to the agricultural revolution, 10,000BC. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers captured
animals but did not domesticate them. Once people had the wherewithall to settle down, they
domesticated animals and learned to utilize their byproducts. Dairy foods (milk, cheese, yogurt)
flourished. Pasteurization [1861]
played a significant role in the history milk production. The lowfat & skim
varieties health-conscious Americans consume today were not generally accepted until the late 20th century.
"Throughout the history and prehistory of the human species, breast milk provided the major sustenance for a person's first
year of life...It was also widely used in somen's healing remedies. In other words...[it] represented a significant part of the
human food economy."
"The milks of other species of mammal is one of humankind's most ancient foods--it was in fact
the most
significant single contribution of the Neolithic peoples' domestication of animals to the human
diet. Over the
millennia most speciaes of livestock have been milked, including in various parts of the world
horses,
donkeys, camels, buffaloes, and yaks (the only major exception is the pig...), but today in the
West the
term milk, unless further qualified, is generally taken to refer to cow's milk...The word milk is
ancient too. It
can be traced back to our Indo-European ancestors, who used a verb something like *melf- for
wiping' or
stroking'. Since the action of milking involved the pulling the hand down the animal's teat, this
verb
eventually came to mean milk'. But it was the Germanic languages that picked it up, in the form
*meluks,
as a noun."
"The oldest known record of animals being kept in herds and milked is a series of cave paintings
in the
Libyan Dahara, showing milking and perhaps cheese-making too, and possibly older than 5,000
BC. The
Sumerians, around 3500 BC, and the Egyptians a few centuries later used milk and have left
reliefs and
records showing that they prepared curdled milk products."
"Domestication of cattle probably started because wild cattle were attracted to the fields of grain
grown by
early farmers and robbed these abundant supplies of food...Exactly when domestication took
place is
uncertain, but by 3000BC there is evidence for several well-defined breed in representations of
cattle form
both Mesopotamia and Egypt..."
"Although cattle have been domesticated for less than 10,000 years, they are the world's most
important
animal, as judged by their multiple contributions of draft power, meat, milk, hides, and
dung...Evidence for
the domestication of cattle dates from between 8,000 and 7,000 years ago in southwestern Asia.
Such
dating suggests that cattle were not domesticated until cereal domestication had taken place,
whereas
sheep and goats entered the barnyard of humans with the beginning of agriculture...As with sheep
and
goats, the process of domesticating cattle resulted in animals smaller than the wild progenitor.
Dated
osteological material from Neolithic sites establishes the transition from wild to
domesticated...The Fertile
Crescent has long been considered the place of initial cattle domestication, but that view tends to
reflect the
large number of excavations made there. Early signs of Neolithic cattle keeping have also been
found in
Anatolia (Turkey), where the osteological material at Catal Huyuk provides evidence of the
transition from
the auruchs of 8,400 years ago to cattle by 7,800 years ago. In short, it is still premature to
specify where
the first cattle were domesticated...Westward diffusion of cattle throughout Europe was tied to
the invention
of the wooden plow. The harnessing of a powerful animal to that device made it possible to
greatly extend
cultivation without a corresponding increase in human population..."
"The second unlooked-for benefit of animal domestication...was milk. The fact that animals
suckled their
young...must have been known from the earliest times, but the full value (and volume) of the milk
that
animals could be induced to supply to their new masters must have come as a revelation. Milk
being highly
perishable...a few hours would be enough to start it fermenting in the climate of the Near East.
Depending
upon the temperature and the kind of bacteria in the air, the curds might develop into something
pleasant
and refreshing, or something quite uneatable even by Neolithic peoples...Throughout much of
history, and
especially in hot climates, milk has always been most used in one or other of its soured or
fermented
forms."
"Archeologists excavating lake dwellings on the banks of Lake Neuchatel have found potsherds
pierced
with holes which date back to at least six thousand years BC. They conclude that these vessels
could have
been drainers for separating curds from whey...What kind of milk might the ancient lake-dwellers
have
been processing in this way?...Although domestication of goats and sheep was beginning to
change the
way of life of the Mediterranean peoples at this period, we do not yet know if they had reached
the stage of
milking the animals and making dairy produce to keep. Cows did not appear on the Alpine scene
until after
the Roman conquest of the Valais 53 centuries later...Noah's descendant Abraham, very rich in
cattle'
presented to him by Pharaoh, gave butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed' to the
three angels
who came to visit him (Genesis 18, viii). We can roughly situate that possible existing of the
father of the
Jewish nation in the second millennium BC...A kind of strip cartoon depiction on a polychrome
Sumerian
fresco of 2500BC....gives some idea of the methods used. It shows cows with their calves, still
not very far
from the primitive aurochs cattle, being milked by peasants on both sides of the gates of a
corral...The milk
is put into large, carefully cleaned jars...Goats and sheep will adapt easily to any climate and
browse on any
kind of weed; goats will eat most prickly plants as well. They long supplied most of the milk that
was drunk
or made in to butter and cheese. Cattle, worked to the bone as draught animals, provided hardly
any. We
may assume that the Babylonian cows gave milk only at calving time, whent they were enjoying a
repite
from work. Virgil does not seem very keen on cow's milk, at least, he recommends its use only for
rearing
calves."
"Milk had an unusual status as a food item in the classical world, because milk, as such, will not
keep (without the use of refrigeration or other modern techniques). So the drinking of fresh milk
was a luxury shared by farmers and nomadic shepherds with those in cities and royal courts who
were rich enough to pay for express delivery...Aristotle observes that sheep, goats and cows all
produce more milk than is needed for their own offspring. These were the sources of most of the
milk that Greeks and Romans used; mare's milk and ass's milk were also sometimes used. The
milk of any of these five animals might be used as an ingredient in kykeon [a magical and
medicinal drink]. Aristotle also refers to the drinking of camel's milk. Much of the milk that
domestic animals produced was turned into cheese, a far more stable substance and an excellent
food. Both milk and cheese were typical foods of shepherds."
"Neither milk nor butter occurs among the lists of ingredients required by cooks in classical Greek
comedy scenes. Milk is called for, incidentally, in only three of the Roman recipes of Apicius. In a
pre-technological age milk, gala, was available as a beverage only to those who lived close to the
land. Hence, in Greek literature, milk-drinking is a mark of the pastoral peoples who did not, like
the Greeks themselves, live in towns."
"Sheep and goats were introduced into Britain by the first farmers. They may have brought cows
and pigs
with them as well, and in any case they must soon have begun to tame the native wild stock.
Cattle were
the most important animals in neolithic Britain, as their bones are far more numerous than those
of other
livestock on contemporary habitation sites...About 250 BC Britain's climate became drier and
warmer, and
animals could survivie more easily in the open...Cows supplied milk as well a meat, though the
lactation
period was much shorter than now."
"Milk played a part in the diet of the people of Britain from the time when the first neolithic
farmers brought
their domestic cows, sheep and goats into the coutnry. At that period cow milk was the kind most
often
drunk; for cows, which could live off the leaves of the forest that covered almost the whole
country, far
outnumbered the grazing animals. Over several hundreds of years some parts of the woodland
were
gradually cleared, and by Bronze Age times there was more open terrain in which sheep and goats
could
be kept. Ewes, like cows, were milked; so also were she-goats."
"The pattern of animal husbandry changed only very slowly through the years following the
Norman
Conquest. But eventually the number of cattle on the manors rose as cow's milk came to be
preferred to
ewe's milk."
"The milking of ewes was abandon altogether by some farmers in the sixteenth century on the
grounds that
it took too much of the animal's strength...Ewe's milk was given up reluctantly, for it was thought,
at least by
some people, to be fulsome, sweet and such in taste that no man will gladly yield to live and feed
withal'...Milk and milk products were useful adjuncts to the cuisine of the gentry, and enriched
certain of
their dishes...The peasant's cow was his commonwealth', providing him and his family with
butter, cheese,
whey, curds, cream, sod (boiled) milk, raw-milk, sour-milk, sweet-milk, and butter-milk'...The
well-to-do
rarely consumed milk in its raw state, for it was known to curdle in the stomach, and was though
to
engender wind there..."
Lowfat milk
"The cholesterol wars arrived several generations after three strategic developments that don't do much for cause of good plain milk but would enable the industry to
reinvent itself under fire. In the end, these bits of technical progress would give dairy processors the tools for taking Nature's Perfect Food apart-the really decisive
factor-putting it back together with selling points that nature hadn't thought of. The first break through, in the 1880s, was the mechanical separation of cream by
centrifuge, far more thorough than any hand skimming. The next came in 1890, when a University of Wisconsin dairy chemist invented the eponymous Babcock
test for measuring the precise fat content in milk-at the time, the chief indicator of quality. These two advances led to intense growth in the butter industry, which
became the most lucrative destination for milk.The third crucial achievement was homogenization, or the technique of crushing milkfat globules into droplets too
small to rise to the surface in a cream layer. Homogenization had to overcome several obstacles before it could be coupled with the first two advances. It disrupted
the chemical structure of the milkfat so drastically as to release a torrent of enzymes that promptly turned raw milk rancid. Even when dairy chemists learned to
sidestep rancidity by combining the steps of pasteurizing (which inactivated the enzymes) and homogenizing, there remained the age-old consumer habit of judging
milk by its richness-i.e. the thickness of the cream layer on top. When packaging in glass bottles came in toward the start of the twentieth century, one of its
advantages from a buyer's point of view was the plainly visible 'creamline.' The fact that homogenized milk in glass tended to acquire an unpleasant oxidized flavor
on exposure to light more rapidly than creamline milk was another strike against it. As a result, until shortly after World War II few people saw any reason to want
homogenized milk. Milk for drinking was almost without exception available in only two degrees of richness: with or without all the original fat. Skim milk, or what
was left when the cream was separated for other purposes, was the ugly sister. Health experts warned mothers that it was paltry stuff, deficient in crucial nutrients.
(Most state required that it be fortified with vitamin A to replace the fat-soluble beta-carotene that disappeared along with the cream; this step is still mandatory for
fat-free and most reduced-fat milk.) At the nation's creameries skim milk was an unvalued by-product, often dumped for lack of any profitable use. As early as the
late 1930s a few dairy processors had been trying to win people over to homogenized milk. The turning point came with a postwar shift to opaque paper or
cardboard containers in place of returnable milk bottles. This in turn accompanied another shift away from home delivery and toward supermarket purchases of
milk..."From the '60s or '70s on, hasty public health re-education campaigns sought to convert consumers to 'the less, the better' attitudes regarding fat percentages
in milk, with zero being the new ideal. Zero was easily attainable through centrifuging, but centrifuged skim milk lacked the flavor-saving smidgin of cream that
remained in the milk after hand skimming. Some people uncomplainingly adopted zero-fat milk; many more balked. The milk-processing industry eventually arrived
at a spectrum of products starting with 0 percent milkfat milk and progressing through various homogenized gradations of fat content: .05 percent (officially
'low-fat'), 1 percent, 1.5 percent, and 2 percent (these last three 'reduced fat').All quickly acquired fan clubs that are now an entrenched part of American culture.
For a long time the hardest sell remained skim milk, and for good reason: The usual commercial versions are a singularly thin, vapid travesty of decent
hand-skimmed milk. But eventually processors hit on the stratagem of using dried skim milk solids to add body and selling the result under names like 'Skim Milk
Plus.'.""
"Milk, that all-American food, is taking on some all-American names--like "fat free," "reduced fat" and "light." Starting Jan. 1, 1998, the labeling of fat-reduced
milk products will have to follow the same requirements the Food and Drug Administration established almost five years ago for the labeling of just about every other
food reduced in fat. From now on:
2 percent milk will become known, for example, as "reduced fat" or "less fat" instead of "low fat"
1 percent milk will remain "low fat" or become, for example, "little fat"
skim will retain its name or be called, for example, fat-free, zero-fat, or no-fat milk.
Also, the regulations that implement the labeling changes give dairy processors more leeway to devise new formulations. As a result, consumers may see a broader
range of milk and other dairy products, including "light" milk with at least 50 percent less fat than whole, or full-fat, milk and other reformulated milks with reduced
fat contents but greater consumer appeal."
SKIM MILK
During WWII skim milk flooded the American market in both liquid and dried forms. For obvious reasons. For the first time, commercial dairies & government
agencies combined forces by actively promoted this particular dairy option as healthy and "all American." Folks farming Victory Gardens gladly gulped skim milk.
Once the War was over, middle-class suburban baby-boomers fed their babies gallon after gallon of whole milk. In the 1960s-1970s the skim milk phoenix rose
again. This time the product was marketed as a healthy alternative to the regular fat-filled variety. Thus initiating the long parade of low-fat grades we encounter
today. In sum? If you're looking for an example of how a particular food has been used to promote political agenda, you'd be hard pressed to find a better
specimen than skim milk.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EVIDENCE The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) traces the first print evidence connecting the verb skim with the noun milk to the 15th century:
The OED dates the print term "skim milk" in our language to 1596:
[1875]
"A construction of the Butter and Cheese law of Illinois, passed in 1869, has been given by the State Supreme Court. The Chicago Tribune says that it settles the
legal status of 'skim-milk,' as the housewives called it. There are a great many uses to which this article of dairy refuse may be put, as milk consumer in large cities
can testify to their sorrow, but there is a point where the watery stuff ceases to be legal tender. While a farmer, accroding to the decision, may skim the milk on the
top, bottom, and edge, and strip it of the last globule of cream when he sells it to a cheese manufacturer who does business on his own account, he must deliver
the square article just as the cow yields it when it goes to a co-operative factory. The law was evidently enacted more for the benefit of the milk-producer than of
the manufacturer, as, but the decision of the Supreme Court, its penalties operate only to prevent dairymen from swindling each other, leaving the rest of the
commmunity to look out for themselves."
[1881]
"Milkmen have suffered more annoyance and trouble from the [New York City] Board of Health than all other classes in the community put together. The action of
the Board of Health has caused the milkmen to lose their self-resepct and the respect of the community at large...We have been searched, as though we were
common criminals, and our propert [skim-milk] confiscated and destroyed. For ever child that has died in the city, unless it was struck by lightning or a lager-beer
wagon, we are in some way held responsible...We don't claim..that skim-milk contains as much nourishment as full cream milk, nor do we ask that we may obtain
the same price for it. But...we do claim the right to sell it as skim-milk. Skim -milk is preferable to cream or full-cream milk as a drink. Thousands of children are
born in this City every year of inexperienced mothers. Such children are often sickly and need bracing up in order to rear them to manhood and womanhood. A
child is given milk, and in the weak condition of its stomache it throws off the curd that forms. The mother rushes for the doctor, and he at once attacks the milkman
as the cause of the trouble...We have cheap groceries, cheap dry goods, cheap labor, and each has its place in our community. Why not, then, have cheap
milk?..the existing Sanitoary Code resulted in the loss of 100,000 quarts of milk daily to the dairyman..."
[1942]
"Greater production of dried milk will help win the war...The report...says that 61,000,000 quarts daily of separated milk, now of limited commercial vlaue, could
be turned into an asset...'No other single food of comparable cost can match dried skim milk in the quantities of calcium, protein and phosphorus found in a quart
of this powdered milk.'...'The many demands at present for casein temporarily complicate the problem and, if the American peopel whould awaken to the value of
dried separated or skimmed milk, production would have to be stepped up very materially."
[1948]
"Though dry skim milk may not sound particularly enticing, it has been the outstanding news in this column in 1948. Directions for using it in a whipped topping and
frozen desserts were the most popular offered this year...The idea of making a creamless 'ice cream' with dried sim milk was conceived by Mrs. Ruth P.
Casa-Emellos, the Times' home economist. High in nutrients, especially calcium, and low in calories and cost, this is a smooth-textured dessert that tastes just as
rich as standard ice cream."
[1954]
"There is magic in milk these days. A powder has appeared that, when combined with water, gives a liquid-mik instantly in a kind of presto-chango process. This
immediately soluble powder is the latest edition of that famiiar product, dry skim milk, or as it is technically termed, non-fat dry milk soluble. Up until now, home
cooks could only reconstitute dehydrated milk with water by vigorous agitation. The fact that dry skim milk now dissolves as readily as soluble coffee obviously
makes it easier to use and thus stengthens its appeal. The wider and stronger the appeal the better, say those concerned with family health, because dry skim milk is
high in nutrients, low in cost--the thriftiest form available of a food that is indispensable in th American diet. Three manufacturers, now turning out instantly soluble
dry skim milk, are trying with all speed to achieve national distrubution. They are the Borden Comapany, the Carnation Company and the Pet Milk Company...The
new milk, like the older product, is one of the most economical sources of protein on the market; its protein is of the same high quality as that found in meat, poultry
and fisn...Skim milk is such a stock part of any reducing diet that it may seem a bit obvious to insert, by way of reminder, that the dry product is very low in
calories...How does the liquified milk taste? If chilled, it is comparable to fresh skim milk. Those accustomed to whole milk find the skim product, whether or not it
was derived from a dehydrated powder, a little sweet."
[1964]
"Consumer use of skim milk continues to increase at a much sharper rate than that of whole milk. The Agriculture Department reports that sales of skim milk in 83
major fluid markets of the country in the first six months of this year were 12 percent above those of a year earlier.'"
[1991]
"All that the scientists at the Electric Power Research Institute were trying to do was find a way to conserve power in the dairy industry. But, inadvertantly, they may
have developed a process that makes skim milk taste like whole milk. Instead of heating milk to drive off water to produce concentrate or powder, as is usually
done, institute researchers and representatives of the Dairy Research Foundation called it. Some of the water formed ice crystals, which were filtered out. The
resulting concentrate was reconstituted by adding water. The researchers were surprised to find that the resulting skim milk tasted better than normal skim milk.
'We put the water back in, and it tasted like whole milk.'...According to officials of the institute, freezing is a more energy-efficient means of concentrating milk and
other dairy products than heat evaporation."
ABOUT MILK
RECOMMENDED READING:
Related food? Yogurt!
The history of root beer begins with small beer (low alcohol content). These products, often
brewed with roots of medicinal plants, contained small amounts of alcohol. They were considered
health beverages in centuries past. In the 18th and early 19th century, home-made beer composed
of roots (spruce, most notably) commonly appeared in American cook books. Ginger beer was
also popular. By the second half of the 19th century, soft drinks (seltzer, flavored seltzer, soda)
were introduced and marketed as health food products. Root beer was a perfect fit. Food
historians tell us root beer was produced in quantity for public sale in 1876.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition), the earliest print reference to
"root beer"was published in 1843. Nathaniel Hawthorne mentions both "root beer"and "ginger
beer" in his House of Seven Gables" [1851].
"Now a sweet soft drink flavored with a mixture of herbal essences, root beer was originally a real
beer and a tonic health drink. Small beers, or low-alcohol beers carbonated by the action of
yeasts, have been traditional and nutritious drinks for children, women, and the elderly in England
and Europe for centuries. Although many of these small beers were flavored with ginger or
lemon, another common flavoring and one popular for its antiscurvey properties was that of the
bark of spruce or birch trees. When colonists arrived in North America, they found new varieties
of the traditional spruce and birch for their beers, but discovered Native Americans using such
novel flavorings as the roots of sarsaparilla (Smilax ornata) and sassafras (Sassafras albidum) as
well. Both of these were similar to spruce and birch in taste, and the colonists soon learned to use
them in their small beer, often with molasses as a sweetener and fermenting agent. Exactly when
sweetened small beer made with various roots was first called "root beer" is unknown. One of the
earliest mentions is in Dr. Chase's Recipes from 1869...In 1876, Charles E. Hires, who claimed to
have invented root beer, began marketing packets of the herbal ingredients necessary to make "the
Greatest Health-Giving Beverage in the World" at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. This
kit for making root beer was supposed to contain sixteen roots, herbs, barks, and berries,
including sassafras, the dominant flavoring, and required home fermentation with yeast. In 1884
Hires decided consumers would be more interested in an easier-to-use product and began selling a
liquid concentrate and soda fountain syrup, as well as bottled root beer."
"By 1819 a patent was issued for "carbonated mead," and in 1824 one for sarsaprilla..."Birch
beer" came along in the 1880s to compete with Philadelphian druggist Charles E. Hires's "Herb
Tea," later changed to "Root Beer" (a previously common term for soda flavored with various
roots and herbs). Hires had first made the beverage in 1875, advertised it as "the National
Temperance Drink" and first served it at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition."
A sampler of American root beer recipes
[1831]
[1838]
[1869]
[1925]
Hires Root Beer claims to be the oldest brand in the United States.
Although fruit and ice/ice cream/milk/sorbet/yogurt blended combinations have been around for
hundreds of years, culinary historians generally agree that smoothies are a product of the 20th
century, though they can't quite agree which decade. There is no single person or
company credited for inventing the smoothie. In fact? There is no single recipe for it either. In
many places smoothies are promoted as health foods. Are they really? They can be. It all depends
upon the indgredients.
According to the smoothie experts (cookbooks, articles, industry Web sites) a true smoothie is
usually a milk-based product. This is part (calcium/protein) of what is supposed to make this drink
healthy. In Mexico and Latin America *Licuado* is the popular local word for smoothie (milk &
fruit based health drink). It does seem to imply a milk-base. According to the Cassell's Spanish
Dictionary, the word *licuado* (in its purest sense) simply means *liquefy,* as is put in the
blender. It does not imply specific ingredients or a particular recipe.
"Old world fruits were introduced in America by European settlers in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries...Apples, lemons, and oranges were the main juice fruits, but currants,
grapes, peaches, pinapples, plums, raspberries, and strawberries were also used for juice.
Beginning
in the nineteenth century, the most common way of serving fruit juice was with added sugar and
water in the form of "ades," such as appleade, lemonade, orangeade, and strawberryade. These
juices were sometimes served ice-cold and called "sherbet." For a lighter drink, a few spoonfuls of
these sweetened juices were stirred into cold water. By the nineteenth century, a wide range of
fruit juices were used to flavor ice cream and soda fountain drinks...In the home, fruit was juiced
by hand until 1930, when the first commercial juicing machine was marketed by Norman
Walker, who encouraged a diet of raw food and juices. Juicing became popular in America during
the 1970s. Smoothies, thick drinks consisting of fresh fruit blended with milk, yogurt, or ice
cream, became popular in the 1980s. Juice bars, which frequently serve smoothies, were launched
in the early 1990s in health food stores and quickly evolved into major independent
businesses."
"Juice bars, a billion-dollar business, began modestly in 1926 in Los Angeles when Julius Freed
opened a shop selling fresh orange juice. His real estate agent, Bill Hamlin, a former chemist,
suggested an all-natural mixture that gave the orange juice a creamy, foamy consistency. It
contained orange juice, water, egg whites, vanilla extract, sugar and ice. When Freed and Hamlin
started selling the new beverage, sales soared from twenty dollars to one hundred dollars a day,
and then name for the product arose from the way customers asked for the drink: "Give me an
orange, Julius." By 1929 Orange Julius had grown into a chain with one hundred stores in the
United States. The macrobiotic vegetarianism fad of the mid-1960s stirred up the juice-bar
business with the creation of smoothies, originally a mixture of fruit, fruit juice, and ice cold in the
back of health-food restaurants and stores. Steve Kuhnau started a health-food store in 1973,
offering nutritious energy-packed smoothies as an alternative to the ubiquitious high-fat food of
New Orleans and to help resolve his own health problems. In 1987 Kuhnau and his wife Cindy,
co-founded one fo the major smoothie companies, Smoothie King Franchises Inc. A competitor,
Jamba Juice Company, bagan in 1990 in California as a store that offered fresh-fruit
smoothies...Bt the end of the twentieth century, regional and independent juice bars had sprouted
up across the country...Mobile smoothie stations in carts and kiosks make the drinks even more
available and less expensive to purvey...Many dessert-style smoothies contain milk; ice cream or
ice milk; yogurt or frozen yogurt; sorbet; or soy, rice, or nut milk. Nutritional supplements may be
added."
"Though Kuhnau created Smoothie King and the 20 trademarked drinks sold at Smoothie King
stores, he didn't actually invent the smoothie, a generic name for a non-alcoholic blended fruit
drink. It was born in the counterculture health food stores of southern Califomia in the 1950s and
exists in a variety of forms at different health food stores around the country today."
"The smoothie has been around since the 1960s, though its resurgence has been just since the 80s
when the modern sports and fitness craze began to catch on. Today, it is common to drink a
smoothie as a power drink or as a meal replacement. In doing so, it's important to remember that
adding supplements can give your smoothie that extra punch for energy. Jamison Starbuck,
herbalist for Better Nutrition and practicing naturopathic physician says, "As a physician, I think
smoothies with soy protein are a great energy alternative to high-fat traditional breakfasts like
bacon and eggs." Whether you drink yours for breakfast or have it as a snack, the following five
supplements are good choices for giving your smoothie an extra energy boost. They're readily
available at your local health food store and will blend well into your favorite homemade smoothie
recipes."
"Smoothie. A drink with a thick, smooth consistency made from pureeing fruit with yogurt, ice
cream, or milk. The term dates to the 1970s."
"A lot of things are being sold as smoothies today, but generally, they're loaded with fresh fruit,
nonfat frozen yogurt, vitamins, minerals, fibers, active cultures, immune-system boosters and
sometimes protein powder. And they can be blended to order in less than a minute. Actually,
smoothies have been around since the early 1970s. They were created on the West Coast as a
refreshment at health clubs and juice bars. If you've ever had an Orange Julius, you've had a
smoothie."
About Orange Julius & Smoothie King.
If you are researching the smoothie industry for business class, ask your librarian how to access
consumer & trade magazine databases such as EBSCO's MasterFile, Business Source,
ProQuest's Research II, Gale's Business and Company Resource and DIALOG's Business &
Industry. Here you will find articles on companies, market data, consumer trends and pricing
strategy. Ask your librarian about access...many of these databases may be available to you from
your own home computer. All you need is a library card! The Juice and Smoothie Association may also be
useful.
Food historians tell us hunter-gatherers inhabiting northern regions used ice for storage and food
preservation. This was a matter of practicality, not choice. Cooled drinks and frozen desserts,
such as lemonade, iced tea, and flavored ices, were enjoyed by upper-class ancient civilizations.
Both lemons and tea are "Old World" foods. Early records of consumption place the origins of
these drinks in the Mediterranean regions and Asia, respectively. These beverages were
introduced to America by European settlers. Economics of the Ice trade expanded the markets for
cold drinks in the mid-nineteenth century. Lemonade and iced tea (along with several other
popular food innovations) are sometimes touted as having been "invented" at the St. Louis
Exposition in 1904. This is not true. Culinary evidence confirms both were known long before
that year. Their rise to popularity in our country is sometimes attributed to the Temperance
(anti-alcohol) Movement of the late 19th/early 20th centuries.
"Storing food and drink in low temperatures is an ancient practice The cold air of a natural cave
or the cool environment of a well-insulated underground pit or chamber worked as natural
refrigerators for grains and root crops. Furthermore, just as hunters on the arid plains found their
kill would dry out in the sun, so hunters of the icebound regions must have discovered that meat
left in the snow or freezing, icy winds would also keep, at least until it thawed. Keeping food cool
slows down the bacterial action in food, thereby helping the food stored safely for longer, a
process now known as refrigeration. Microoganisms do not like the cold. It slows down their
metabolism and makes them sluggish, unable to reproduce...freezing does not actually destroy the
organism; it merely puts them into a chilling limbo until they and the food they inhabit are
defrosted. While the hunter may have temporarily lost some meat in the freezing snow, he might
also have buried some "overkill" of meat or fish in the ground to hide it from predators or rival
hunting parties....Sometimes, where the right conditions were available, the technique developed
of freezing food to preserve it....In...northern regions, food became frozen unavoidably, and the
fact that the food was preserved was a fortunate by unsought side effect...
"In warmer regions, ice was only used for cooling, although people have enjoyed chilled
drinks and cooled food in the most unlikely places. Ice pits and icehouses were known to have
been built in Mesopotamia almost four thousand years ago, and the powerful and wealthy men
and women of Persia, Egypt, Rome, and Greece were accustomed to being served cold drinks and
chilled fruits even in the hottest weather. Alexander the Great ordered trenches to be dug at Petra,
filled with winter snow, and covered with oak branches so that his soldiers could drink cooled
wine in summertime. As well as chilling drinks, snow and ice were also used by physicians to treat
patients with fever, inflammation, and stomach complaints. So all around the Mediterranean, snow
was collected from the mountains and carried down to the cities, where it was sold daily or stored
in ice houses. The snow was packed hard into pits and covered with branches, straw, leaf mats, or
coarse cloth. The Chinese...were harvesting and storing ice by at least 1100 B.C....Sometimes the
ice had to travel many miles. Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Egyptian royalty had their ice
shipped from the mountains of Lebanon all the way to Cairo...Like sugar, ice became a part of the
fabulous sparkling jewelery of banquets, with centerpieces of elaborate ice sculptures, sugar
trifoni, chilly jellies, iced sherberts, and glass or silver bowls of ice-encrusted fruits...By the
sixteenth century numerous palaces, estates, chateaux, abbeys, and monestaries throughout
Europe, the Middle east, and China had their own icehouses. Soon, anyone with aspirations to
elegant living had ice or snow houses built, and by the eighteenth century many of these had
acquired architectural pretentions, with Gothic arches or Grecian pillars...The basic
construction...changed little up to the nineteenth century...But ice was not just the preserve of the
rich; in some parts of Europe the peasants erected simple ice stacks made from branches, heather,
and pete near ponds, flooded meadows, lakes, and slow-moving rivers that froze in winterime.
Although icehouses were principally used for storing ice rather than for preserving food, they
gradually came to be seen as useful refrigerators for food...The increasing demand for clean,
good-quality ice opened an important new market. In Europe, when a mild winter failed to
produce ice, people had to look north, to Greenland and Norway...In nineteenth-century Paris and
London, cooks, confectioners, butchers, fishmongers, and wine merchants all rushed to buy from
ship bringing cargoes of ice form the "Greenland seas." Ice harvesting was a dangerous
business...competition...soon began flooding the market..."
"Ice has been used to preserve food and cool beverages for thousands of years. Wealthy
Europeans brought their appreciation of icy desserts and iced drinks with them to the New World.
Archaeolgists at Jamestown, Virginia, found ice pits dating from as early as the seventeenth
century. The colonists cut ice from ponds, lakes, and rivers during the winter and stored it in
caves and underground cellars to last through the hot summer months. In the eighteenth century,
icehouse, which are more efficient than cellars, provided cold storage, as well as preserving ice for
chilling food and drink and making ice cream. Ice was advertised for sale in Philadelphia
newspapers as early as 1784, and Europeans visiting Philadelphia and Baltimore in the 1790s
reported that Americans drank water with ice and that containers of ice were used to cool hotel
rooms. The first recorded cargo of ice was shipped from New York to Charleston, South
Carolina, in 1799, and between 1805 and 1860 Frederick Tudor, a Boston merchant, grew rich
shipping harvested ice from Massachusetts ponds overseas. Tudor, known as the Ice King,
promoted the construction and use of ice chests, sent agents to help establish businesses selling
ice cream , extolled the virtues of ice for preserving food, and promoted the sale of carbonated
water, which he thought tasted better cold. He even offered bar owners free ice for a year if they
agreed to sell iced drinks at the same price as warm ones."
About ice houses
RECOMMENDED READING:
About culinary research & about copyright.
---Hung, Strung, (p. 202)
---A Social History of Tea, Jane Pettigrew [National Trust Enterprises:London] 2001 (p. 48-51)
---Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia University Press: New York] 1981 (p. 451)
Colonial-era chocolate recipe
---The Experienced English Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, facsimile 1769 edition with an introduction by Roy Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997 (p. 163)
Distilled spirits: Whiskey, Rum, Madeira, Sherry, Brandy
Brewed: beer, mead & metheglin, (both made with honey)
Wines & wine mixes: raisin, elderberry, orange, gooseberry, currant, cherry, birch, quince, clary or cowslip, turnep, raspberry,
blackberry, damson, grape, apricot, balm, lemon,), hippocras (wine & spice mix), Stepony, shrub, punch
Cream drinks (served warm or cold): caudle, sack posset, syllabub
Medicinal waters (some with, some without alcohol): Cordials, plague water, heart water, hysterical water, fever
water
Spirits(also medicinal): cinnamon, clary, mint,saffron, rosemary flowers, beazor.
19th century American beverages
Coffee & coffee substitutes
Cream Coffee (whipped cream)
Chocolate (made with scraped, unsweetened chocolate)
Cocoa
Tea
Cold Coffee
Ice Tea (with or without lemon)
Lemonade
Milk Lemonade
Cider
Raspberry Vinegar
Harvest drink (sugar, ginger & vinegar, aka Switchel)
Carbonated water (soda water, with or without flavored syrups)
Mineral water
Distilled spirits: rum, whiskey, gin, bourbon, rye
Wines: black currant, blackberry, currant, grape, gooseberry
Brandies: blackberry, cherry
Punch: claret, champagne
Egg nog
Sack Posset
Shrub
Beer
Small beer: ginger beer, Ginger pop, spruce beer
Mead (honey beer)
Champagne
Recommended reading: Early American Beverages, John Hull Brown [Bonanza Books:New York] 1966
Cider
---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Atyo [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 77-78)
---Food and Drink in Britain From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Broadway:Chicago] 1991 (p. 382-383)
---Food and Feast in Tudor England, Alison Sim [Sutton Publishing:Phoenix Mill UK] 1997(p. 46)
---Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book: Elizabethan Country House Cooking, Hilary Spurling [Elisabeth Sifton Books:New York] 1986 (p. 216)
---Food and Drink in Britain (p. 404)
Coffee in 18th & 19th century America
---Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, Mark
Prendergrast [Basic Books:New York] 1999 (p. 46-7)
---Early American Beverages, John Hull Brown [Bonanza Books:New York] 1966 (p. 100)
---ibid (p. 100)
---ibid (p. 100-101)
[Click title of book for complete citation]
According to primary documents pioneer (aka "cowboy") coffee was a hit or miss affair. Same as today,
everyone had their own idea as to correct proportions and cooking time. Filters ranged from fine
cloth to non-existent. Coffee grinders were often carried, and beans were ground on site. Ground
coffee was also available for purchase (in towns, packed in tins), but would probably not have
produced as fresh a brew.
---Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail, Jacqueline Williams [University of Kansas Press:Lawrence KS] 1993 (p. 38-41)
Coffee was on the list of rations for both North and South. When it was available, it was highly prized.
---A Taste for War: The Culinary History of the Blue and the Gray, William C. Davis [Stackpole Books:Mechanicsburg PA] 2003 (p. 27)
---ibid (p. 45-6)
---Civil War Cookbook, William C. Davis [Courage Books:Philadelphia:PA] 2003 (p. 16)
---Hardtack and Coffee: or The Unwritten Story of Army Life, John D. Billings, facsimile 1887 edition [Univeristy of
Nebraska Press:Lincoln NE] 1993 (p. 123-5)
When *real* coffee was unavailable, a variety of natural substitutes were employed. The final brew varied from somewhat
acceptable to downright poor.
---Early American Beverages (p. 88-89)
---Early American Beverages (p. 100)
Irish coffee
---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford Univeristy Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 169-9)
---The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 168)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 714-5)
Additonal historic citings, courtesy of Barry Popik:
"You'll love Irish Coffee with magical Power's Irish Whiskey (7 years old-86 proof). Thousands of travel-weary passenger have tried and loved Irsih Coffee at the
famous Shannon Airport. Now you can enjoy it right in your own home...Place one teaspoon of sugar in 6-oz Hot Toddy glass-or coffee cup. Pour in hot coffee.
Add jigger Power's Irish Whiskey. Top with whipped cream. You'll love it!"
---Advertisement placed by Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Inc., New York Times, March 5, 1955 (p. 8)
---"News of the Advertising and Marketing Fields," New York Times, October 2, 1956 (p. 53)
Lemonade
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p.
188)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 30-1)
"Lemonade. A beverage made from the juice of the lemon, for the purpose of allaying thirst. It is also used for medicinal purposes, when it is made either hot or
cold, according to the complaint. The vendors of lemonade use citric or tartaric acid, or even a few drops of sulfuric acid, to make their mixture, and only slice a
few lemons to float on the surface and please the eye. Most of the lemonade powders declared to be pure, are made in a similar way. Reliable brands of lime-juice
are preferable, unless the fresh fruit is at hand."
---The Grocer's Companion and Merchant's Hand-Book [New England Grocer Office:Boston] 1883 (p. 74-5)
, Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping
"How to make Lemonade
It is made several waies, according to the diversity of the ingredients. For to make it with Jasmin,
you must take of it about two handfull, infuse it in two or three quarts of water the space of eight
or ten houres; then to one quart of water you shall put six ounces of sugar. Those of orange
flowers, of muscade roses, and of gelliflowers, are made after the same way. For to make that of
lemon, take some lemons, cut them, and take out the juice, cut it into slices, put it among this
juice, and some sugar proportionately. That of orange is made the same way."
---The French Cook, Francoise Pierre, La Varenne, Englished by I.D.G. 1653, introduced
by Philip and Mary Hyman [Southover Press:East Sussex] 2001 (p. 238-9)
"Lemonade for the same use. To one quart of boiled water add the juice of six lemons, rub
the rinds of the lemons with sugar to your own taste. When the water is near cold mix the juice
and sugar with it, then bottle it for use."
---The Experienced English Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, (1769), with an introduction
by Roy Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997 (p. 172)
"To Make Sirrup of Leamons. First cut your leamons in 2 & pick out ye [the] stones & prick
them well with a knife, & ye Juice will come out ye better. Then wring them as long as you can
get out any Juice, & to every pinte of it take a pound of sugar. Set them on ye fire together &
make them boyle as fast as you can, to a thin sirrup, for If you boyle it too much, it will candy
presently. It will require a great many leamons to make a pound."
---Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia
University Press:New York] 1995 (p. 370-1)
[NOTE: Karen Hess adds this note: "On the medicinal virtues of lemons, Gerard says: "Two
poundes of the juyce of Limons, mixed with the like quantity of the spririt of wine...and drunk at
the first approach of the fit of an ague, taketh away the shaking presently." He cautions, however,
taht "the Patient be covered warme in a bed, and caused to sweat."
"Delicious Milk Lemonade. Dissolve six ounces of loaf sugar in a pint of boiling water, and
mix with them a quarter of a pint of lemon-juice, and the same quantity of sherry; then add
three-quarters of a pint of cold milk, stir the whole well together, and pass it thorugh a jelly-bag
till
clear."
---Modern Cookery for Private Families, Eliza Acton (1845) with an introduction by
Elizabeth Ray [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1993 (p. 481)
"Lemonade. Steep the peel of 6 lemons in 1 quart of syrup at 35 degrees F.; Press out the
juice of the lemons; add 2 quarts of water, and filter the whole through a jelly-bag with some
paper; Strain the syrup through a silk sieve; mix it with the filtered juice, and pour the Lemonade
into glass jugs."
---Royal Cookery Book, Jules Gouffre, translated from the French and adapted for
English use by Alphonse Gouffe [Sampson Low, Son, and Marston:London] 1869 (p. 567)
Lemonade
"Lemonade.--Squeeze the juice from one lemon and add one tablespoonful of sugar. Pour on
one cup of boiling water, and cool. Or take hot for a cold, after retiring."
---Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs. D.A. Lincoln (facsimile 1884 reprint) [Dover
Publications:Mineola NY] 1996 (p. 420)
"Effervescing Lemonade.--Boil two pounds of white sugar with one pint of lemon juice;
bottle and cork. Put a tablespoonful of syrup into a tumbler about three parts of cold water, add
twenty grains of carbonate of soda, and drink quickly."
---Modern Home Cook Book: With Helps and Hints for the Household [Hurst &
Company:New York] 1891 (p. 72)
"Lemonade.--Use three large or four medium-sized lemons for each quart of water and from
six to eight tablespoonfuls of sugar. Rub or squeeze the lemons till soft. Cut a slice or two from
each, and extract the juice with a lemon drill; strain the juice through a fine wire strainer to
remove the seeds of the pulp, and pour it over the sugar. Add the slices lemon, pour over all a
very little boiling water to thoroughly dissolve the sugar; let it stand ten or fifteen minutes, then
add the necessary quantity of cold water, and serve. Or rub the sugar over the outside of the
lemons to flavor it, and make it into a syrup by adding sufficient boiling water to dissolve it.
Extract and strain the lemon juice, add the prepared syrup and the requisite quantity of cold
water, and serve."
---Science in the Kitchen, Mrs. E.E. Kellogg [Modern Medicine Publishing Co.:Battle
Creek, MI] 1892 (p. 362)
"Lemonade. Lemonade whould be made in the proportion of one lemon to each large goblet.
Squeeze the lemons and take out any seeds. If you do not like the pulp strain the juice. Sweeten
the drink well though that is a matter of taste. The pleasant tart taste should be preserved. Add
water to the juice and when serving put cracked ice and a thin slice of lemon into each glass.
E.J.C."
---The Blue Ribbon Cook Book, Annie R. Gregory [Monarch Book Company:Chicago
IL] 1906 (p. 344)
"Lemonade.
4 lemons
4 tablespoonfuls sugar
1 qt. Water, or a bottle of Apollinaris
Four lemons, rolled, peeled, and sliced; four large spoonfuls of sugar; one quart of water. Put
lemons (sliced) and sugar into a pitcher and let them stand for an hour, then add water and ice. If
you substitute Apollinaris for plain water you have a most refereshing drink."
---The American Home Cook Book, Grace E. Denison [Barse & Hopkins:New York]
1913 (p. 454)
"Lemonade. Lemonade is entitled to the first place on the list of fruit beverags, refreshing as
it is in itslef, and capable as it is of numerous variations. Proportions for mixing are 3 times as
much sugar as lemon juice, and 6 times as much water, but it may be wise to hold back part of the
sugar until after mixing, in case it should be too sweet. It is quite easy to add more sugar, but not
so easy to add more lemon juice and water. In hot weather it is most convenient to have lemonade
syrup "on tap." It will keep in the refrigerator for a week."
---What and How: A Practical Cook Book for Every Day Living [Greenwood Book
Shop:Wilmington DE] 1920 (p. 27)
"Lemonade or Orangeade.
2 tablespoons sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon or orange
1 cup water
Mix and stir until dissolved. Or boil sugar and water to a syrup, cool, add to juice. Serve hot or
cold."
---The Settlement Cook Book, Mrs. Simon Kander [Settlement Cook Book
Co.:Milwaukee WI] 1936 (p. 36)
"Lemonade (Basic Recipe)
3/4-1 c. Granulated sugar
5 c. Water
3/4 c. Lemon juice
Skins 3 lemons
Combine sugar, 1 c. water and skins left after squeezing lemon juice. Simmer, covered, 6 min.
Cool. Squeeze out skins and discard. Add lemon juice and remaining 4 c. Water. Carbonated
water may be substituted for this water. Serve well iced with lemon slice garnish. Serves 4-5. Crn
Syrup may replace half the sugar."
---The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, New edition, completely revised [Farrar,
Rinehart:New York] 1944 (p. 81)
"Lemonade. Combine in saucepan 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, rind of 2 lemons, cut into pieces.
Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Boil about 1 min. Strain; discard rind. Cool. Add...1
cup fresh or frozen lemon juice (45 6o 6 lemons), 4 cups water (1 qt.). Pour over ice in pitcher or
tall glasses. Amount: 6 to 8 servings."
---Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, revised and enlarged, Second edtion [McGraw
Hill:New York] 1956 (p. 74)
"Lemonade
HOMEMADE: Combine 2 cups lemon juice, 4 teasp. Grated lemon rind, 1 1/2 cups granulated
sugar. Pour into glass jar; cover. Keep on hand in refrigerator.
To serve: Allow 1/4 cup syrup for each glass. Fill with ice cubes and water. (Nice tinted
pink with grenadine.) Makes 2 2/3 cups syrup.
JIFFY:Just open a can of frozen or canned lemonade or pink lemonade concentrate; add water
and ice as label directs; enjoy a pitcherful of luscious lemonade in no time at all."
---The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, Dorothy B. Marsh [Good Housekeeping:New
York] 1963(p. 684)
"Fresh Lemonade.
3 lemons, 3/4 cup sugar, Ice cubes, Maraschino cherries with stems, drained.
1. With a sharp knife, very thinly slice lemons crosswise. Discard end slices and seeds.
2. Put lemon slices into a large bowl or sturdy pitcher. Add the sugar.
3. With a wooden spoon or potato masher, pound until the sugar is dissolved and slices are
broken.
4. Add 1 tray of ice cubes and 2 cups cold water. Stir until very cold.
5. To serve: Pour lemonade, along with lemon slices, into glasses. Garnish each glass with a
cherry.
Makes 5 cups, or 4 tall glasses."
---The New McCall's Cookbook, Mary Eckly, food editor of McCall's [Random
House:New York] 1973 (p. 72)
About Pink Lemonade
The origins of pink lemonade is a curious thing. Legendary concensus credits Henry E. Allott, a circus vendor, for accidentally inventing this drink. Our survey of
American newspapers and cookbooks reveals several period references for coloring lemonade with pink or red fruit. Most notably watermelon, raspberries,
cherries, currants, and strawberries. Which came first? It's hard to say.
---"Inventor of Pink Lemonade Dead," New York Times, September 18, 1912 (p. 11)
---"When Lemonade Was Pink," Washington Post, September 29, 1912 (p. M3)
[1879]
"That man selling pink "lemonade" at a stand in front of the bear's cage, was the "bar" keeper."
---"Five Minutes With the News," Wheeling Register [West Virginia], May 16, 1879 (p. 4)
[1863]
"Lemonade or Orangeade
Put two ounces of loaf sugar in a quart of water, also the rind of an orange or of one lemon. Half an hour after strain the whole, and press into it the juice of the
orange, and a few drops of lemon juice. If ound too strong, add water and sugar. It is a very good drink in summer, or for evening parties. A little currant jelly may
be added to make a variety."
---What to Eat and how to Cook It, Pierre Blot [D. Appleton and Company:New York] 1863 (p. 18)
[NOTE: currants are red or black berries. When crushed, as in for jelly, the resulting color varies from deep red to pink.]
[1887]
"...we might cut a watermelon and stir up a tubful of pink lemonade."
---"The Glorious Fourth," Atlanta Constitution, June 13, 1887 (p. 4)
"Pink Lemonade. Add to a pint of Lemonade prepared in the usual manner half a cup of fresh or canned strawberry, red raspberry, currant or cranberry
juice. It gives a pretty color besides adding a pleasing flavor."
---Science in the Kitchen, Mrs. E.E. Kellogg [Modern Medicine Publishing Co.:Battle Creek, MI] 1892 (p. 362)
Diet soda
---"Abreast of the Market," Wall Street Journal, August 3, 1956 (p. 15)
---display ad, Chicago Tribune, August 9, 1956 (p. N7)
---"'Round the Food Stores: For a Look at the Latest Ideas,"
Lois Baker, Chicago Daily Tribune, February 8, 1963 (p. B8)
---"Out, Pesky Tarnish...," Dorothea Pattee, Washington Post, May 10, 1953 (p. S11)
---display ad,Washington Post, May 22, 1953 (p. 17).
[NOTE: flavors listed in this ad are: Pale Dry Ginger, Concord Delite, Root Beer, Cola,
Cream Soda & Raspberry.]
---"Advertising: Low-Calorie Soft Drinks," Peter Bart, New York Times, Feburary 20, 1963 (p. 18).
---"Beverage Maker Seeks Court Help: Hoffman Asks Arrangement Under Bankruptcy Act," Clare M. Reckert,
New York Times, September 22, 1964 (p. 55)
Ice tea
[1861]
"Balm and Burrage Tea
These, as well as all other medicinal herbs, may easliy be cultivated in a corner of your
garden...Take a balm and burrage a small handful each, put this into a jug, pour in upon the herbs
a quart of boiling water, allow the tea to stand for ten minutes, and then strain it off into another
jug, and let it become cold. This cooling drink is recommended as a beverage for persons whose
system has become heated for any cause."
---A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes, Charles Elme Francatelli, London
[1861] (p. 92)
[Note: Mr. Francatelli was the head chef for Queen Victoria. He is often credited for introducing
many popular Victorian food dishes and trends.]
---Craig Claiborne's The New York Times Food Encyclopedia, compiled by Joan Whitman
[Times Books:New York] 1985 (p. 223)
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New
York] 1999 (p. 323)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 530)
[1877]
Iced tea and Lemon iced tea, Buckeye Cookery and Practical
Housekeeping
Iced Tea, or Russian Tea, The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs.
D.A. Lincoln
"Iced tea...Is now served to a considerable extent during the summer months. It is of course
used without milk, and the addition of sugar serves only to destroy the finer tea flavor. It may be
prepared some hours in advance, and should be made stronger than when served hot. It is bottled
and placed in the ice-chest till required. Use the black or green teas, or both, mixed, as
fancied."
---White House Cook Book, Mrs. F. L. Gillette, [L.P. Miller:Chicago] 1887 (p. 410)
"Iced tea. The tea that is to be used for the day's conumption should be made in the early
morning and in just the same way that it is made to be served hot. The quantity depends upon the
number of persons to be served, and in hot weather this might well be multiplied by three. The
best blend of tea for serving cold is equal parts orange Pekoe and English breakfast. This blend
does not lose strenght in standing but ripens and softens in flavor. Tea must never be boiled. To
make it as it should be, take fresh cold water, bring quickly to the "bubbling" boil, and let it
continue several minutes. Scald out the teapot, which should be clean and dry, and measure into it
as many level teaspoonfuls tea as cups will be required. Pour the furiously boiling water over the
tea leaves and let steep on the back of the range four or five minutes, then strain off into a pitcher
to cool. When quite cold set in the ice box. By drawing the tea off the eaves when just the proper
strength it will be fresh and sweet, without the bitter taste of tannin it gets if allowed to stand too
long on the leaves. Keep the pitcher set close to the ice or pour the tea in bottles and lay directly
on the ice, thus offering more surface for cooling. When ready to serve, if the ice is above
suspicion, break into pieces about the size of horse chestnuts, put in the glasses and pour the tea
over them. If dependent upon the ordinary unsanitary ice, rinse the glasses out in cold water to
make them cold, then fill with the culled tea but no ice. Slices of lemon, a whole clove dripped in
each cup of tea as poured, a bit of pineapple, a sprig of mint or a peppermint cream are among the
popular additions to iced tea."
---The Evening Telegram Cook Book, Emma Paddock Telford [Cupples & Leon:New
York] 1908 (p. 188)
Milk
---Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink, E. Melanie DuPuis [New York University Press:New York] 2002 (p. 46)
---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 212)
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p.
503)
---Oxford Companion to Food (p. 145)
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas
[Cambridge
University Press:Cambridge], Volume One, 2000 (p. 490-2)
---Food in History, Reay Tannahill [Three Rivers Press:New York] 1988 (p. 27-8)
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes &
Noble
Books:New York] 1992 (p. 113-4)
---Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, Andrew Dalby [Routledge:London] 2003 (p.
217-8)
---Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece, Andrew Dalby
[Routledge:London] 1996 (p. 65-6)
---Food and Drink in Britain: From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson
[Academy
Chicago: Chicago] 1991 (p. 62-3)
---Food and Drink in Britain (p. 149)
---Food and Drink in Britain (p. 78)
---Food and Drink in Britain (p. 156-7)
Milk containing various levels of fat has been sold from ancient times forward. Traditional grades carried descriptive
names: heavy cream, new milk, skimmed milk. Regulated milk fat grading expressed in percents, as we
Americans know it today, was promulgated by the US Dept. of Agriculture in 1977. These regulations can be found in the
Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations, part 131: Milk and Cream. Original notice can be found in the
Federal Register, March 15, 1977 (42 FR 14360).
---Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, Anne Mendelson [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 2008 (p. 45-47)
---"Skimming the Milk Label," FDA Consumer, January-February
1998.
Our research indicates people have been skimming fat off milk from the beginning of time forwards. The skimmed rich fatty substance was traditionally churned into
butter or transformed into creamy cheeses. The leftover [skimmed] milk was traditionally regarded as inferior and discarded or consumed by the desperate poor.
Into the late 19th century, skim milk continued to be regarded as questionable dairy by-product: devoid of nutritional content, desirable taste, and economic
promise. Laws were passed to protect unsuspecting consumers against this chalky travesty being sold as "whole milk." Honest dairymen battled popular perception
for economic survival. Health officials successfully lobbied Congress to enact the first Food and Drug laws [1906] to ensure proper labeling and public health.
Impure milk was indeed a documented public health problem. The problem was not, however, connected with fat content.
I. 1. a. trans. To clear (a liquid or a liquid mass) from matter floating upon the surface, usually by means of a special utensil; to deprive (milk) of cream by this method; to deal with (a pot, etc.) in this way. Also absol. (Cf. SCUM v. 1.) c1420 Liber Cocorum (1862) 50 ou shalt hit frye, In buttur wele skymmet wyturly. c1430 Two Cookery-bks. 22 Caste alle on a potte, & skym yt. c1450 M.E. Med. Bk. (Heinrich) 71 e ridde part of hony, boiled and skemed. 1548 ELYOT, Despumo, to skimme or clarifie any licour. 1570 LEVINS Manip. 131 To Skimme, despumare. 1590 SHAKES. Mids. N. II. i. 36 Are you not hee That..Skim milke, and sometimes labour in the querne? 1611 COTGR., Escumer,..to skimme, or clarifie, liquor. 1744 BERKELEY Siris §1 The clear water, having been first carefully skimmed. 1771 E. HAYWOOD New Present for Maid 32 When it boils, skim it clean. 1826 Art Brewing (ed. 2) 114 Boil the first mash one hour... Then skim and cleanse. c1850 Arab. Nts. (Rtldg.) 643 Morgiana..put the pot on the fire to make the broth, but while she was skimming it the lamp went out. 1879 Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 49/1 When the lead is all melted it is skimmed, and then drawn off into the mould.
"[f. SKIM v. + MILK n.] 1. Milk with the cream skimmed off or otherwise removed. Also in fig. context. 1596 SHAKES. 1 Hen. IV, II. iii. 36 (Qq.), I could
deuide my selfe, and go to buffets, for mouing such a dish of skim milke [1623 folio skim'd Milk] with so honorable an action. a1712 W. KING Misc. Poems,
The Old Cheese, This is Skim-milk, and therefore it shall go. 1799 A. YOUNG Agric. Linc. 297 He..gives first new, then skim milk. 1808 CURWEN Econ.
Feeding Stock 63 The skim-milk was included in the butter account. 1851 MAYHEW Lond. Lab. I. 382/1 He lived principally upon ‘parritch’ and skim milk.
1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. III. 132 If fat be removed from the milk as in ‘skim’ milk, rickets follows. fig. 1778 The Love Feast 11 Craft's blue skim-Milk is best
for Tools to lap. 1872 Punch 4 May 180/2 The genuine outpouring of the milk and cream, and none of the skim-milk of human kindness. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 14
Nov. 7/1 The idea prevailed that the cream had been extracted from the..revelations, leaving little but skim milk behind."
---"Skim-Milk in Illinois," New York Times, July 11, 1875 (p. 7)
---"Wonders of Skim-Milk," New York Times, September 14, 1881 (p. 8)
---"Dried Skim MIlk Seen As A Big War Asset," New York Times, March 10, 1942 (p. 14)
---"News of Food: Dry Skim Milk Recipes Prove So Popular Many Appearing in 1948 are Repeated," New York Times, December 31, 1948 (p. 18)
---"Powdered Milk Magic," Jane Nickerson, New York Times, October 17, 1954 (p. SM50)
---"Skim-Milk Sales Increases," New York Times, September 22, 1964 (p. 33)
---"Can Skim Milk Taste Like Whole Milk," New York Times, August 14, 1991 (p. D5)
Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink, E. Melanie DuPuis
root beer
---Oxford Encyclopedial of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 2 (p. 372-3)
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani
[Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 300)
[1798]
, The Grocer's Encyclopedia
"For Brewing Spruce Beer," American Cookery, Amelia Simmons
"Beer," American Frugal Housewife, Lydia Maria Child [NOTE: Mrs. Child offers
considers
beer a healthy family drink.]
"Spruce Beer," The Virginia House-wife, Mary Randolph [also includes ginger beer and
molasses
beer]
"Root Beer: For each gallon of water to be used, take hops, burdock, yellow dock,
sarsaparilla, dandelion, and spikenard roots, bruised, of each 1/2 oz.; boil about 20 minutes, and
strain while hot, add 8 or 10 drops of oils of spruce and sassafras mixed in equal proportions,
when cool enough not to scald your hand, put in 2 or 3 table-spoons of yeast; molasses two-thirds
of a pint, or white sugar 1/2 lb. Gives it about the right sweetness. Keep these proportions for as
many gallons as yo wish to make. You can use more or less of the roots to suit our taste after
trying it; it is best to get the dry roots, or dig them and let them get dry, and of course you can
add any other root known to possess medicinal properties desired in the beer. After all is mixed,
let it stand in a jar with a cloth thrown over it, to work about two hours, then bottle and set in a
cool place. This is a nice way to take alteratives, without taking medicine. And families ought to
make it every Spring, and drink freely of it for several weeks, and thereby save, perhaps, several
dollars in doctors' bills."---Dr. Chase's Recipes, 1869"
---Early American Beverages, John Hull Brown [Bonanza Books:New York]1966 (p.
101)
"Root Beer.--A non-alcoholic drink made from extracts of various roots and prepared for the
fountain by the addition of syrup and carbonated water. This class includes Ottawa beer,
sarsaprilla, and similar beverages which do not require the addition of cream and are mixed from
syrup and carbonated water. It is the common practice to carbonate such beverages in tanks and
draw them from the draught arm of the fountain, or from a special dispenser."
---The Dispenser's Formualry, compiled by The Soda Fountain Trade Magazine, [Soda
Fountain Publications:New York] 1925, 4th edition (p. 29)
smoothies
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004 (p. 534)
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004 (p. 750-1)
---"Health-Conscious Consumers Propel Local Sales of Smoothies," Stephanie Riegel, New
Orleans City Business, March 25, 1991, Vol 11; No 19; Sec 1; pg 17
---"Smart Smoothies!" Deanna Efird, Better Nutrition, April 2000 (p. 34)
---"Smooth shakes," Alan J. Wax, Newsday (New York, NY), July 29, 1998
(p.B14)
Ice
---Pickled, Potted and Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Preserving Changed the
World,
Sue Shepard [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2000 (p. 280-5)
[NOTE: This book contains far more information than can be paraphrased here. Your librarian
will be happy to help you obtain a copy.]
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford
University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 700-1)
The Frozen-Water Trade/Gavin Weightman
...details about Frederic Tudor's ice business, early 19th century
About these notes: Food history can be a complicated topic. These notes are not meant
to be a
comprehensive treatment of the subject, but a summary of salient points supported with culinary
evidence. If you
need more information we suggest you start by asking your librarian to help you find the books
and articles cited in these notes. Article databases are good for locating current recipes, consumer
trends, and new products.
Have questions? Ask!
Research conducted by Lynne
Olver, editor The Food
Timeline. About this site.