Maggi Smith-Dalton: History Articles (most published by the Salem Gazette)

Maggi Dalton: If music be the food of love, give us another holiday helping
By Maggi Smith-Dalton/ Naumkeag Notations
Fri Dec 05, 2008, 02:44 PM EST



Salem - (Editor's note: This is part one of a three-part series on the holidays in 19th-century New England. Learn about the upcoming "Victorian Christmas" event and see a 1796 recipe by clicking on "Related Stories" at the bottom of this article.)

“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had.... now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides water fowl, there was great store of wild Turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison ... Besides they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn...”

— From William Bradford’s “History of Plimoth Plantation” c. 1650 (spelling modernized)
***

Braving the awesome terrors of the sea, or rattling flesh and bones in a wagon across endless open country, many an immigrant has made that fearful journey with naught but a few material possessions; or, perhaps, with nothing but hope and faith, to make the unknown their home. But even if the newcomer arrives with a community of travelers, and with everything of a material nature needed to set up a household, two elements are truly needed to make any house, any town, any community truly feel like “a haven.”
Music — and familiar food

The music and the food of one’s land of origin are essential to any gathering at which the concept of “being home” is central. Sanctuary without song and supper can hardly be imagined.

Music and food also provide gateways into understanding the ways others feel “at home,” as well, helping to surmount barriers of language or appearance. This, too, builds community in a place of exile.

The sound of a beloved song from the past, and the aroma of familiar food, soon to be set on the table ... these treasures of human civilization make even the most difficult times seem somehow easier to bear, and ensure that joyful times will be memorable and complete. Human beings have used food and music throughout history to furnish that feeling of well-being and security so essential to facing the future with courage and confidence.

And never is that more important than at times of celebration and holiday, especially in a country so rich in newcomers as the United States. Eventually, imported customs, music, and foodways form the “new traditions” of each holiday as immigrant groups settle into and weave their threads into the fabric of the community.

With this in mind, let’s take an historical peek in the next few weeks at some 19th-century New England winter holiday-times.

During that century, when the United States truly began to define and embrace its own distinct identity, the legacies of many a previous adopted “new tradition” were discernible, and sometimes were even self-consciously adopted as a way to “reclaim” so-called “old-time American virtues.”

To look fruitfully at Salem and local New England of the 19th century, however, requires, first of all, understanding glance at the the earliest European settlers on these rocky shores.

Those mostly English immigrants brought with them a long, shared cultural heritage of secular music, and here it is good to remember that much of this music grew out of and honored the cycles and feasts of the natural and agricultural year.

As do most cultures of the world, the English colonists enjoyed frequent feasts of “thanksgiving,” particularly at the multiple harvest times of late summer and fall (i.e., Lammas Day, Harvest Home) — a tradition which our own Thanksgiving Day celebrations echo to this day, albeit now condensed to an “official” once-a-year holiday. Song always accompanied these celebrations.

The Puritan settlers, of course, also employed a natural — yet dogmatic and very carefully prescribed — expression of faith through song as prayer. It is highly significant that the first book printed in the New World was, “The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre,” commonly known as “The Bay Psalm Book” — and that that book was printed in Massachusetts. The cultural legacy of this early book remained influential for more than a hundred years.

Consider one facet of that legacy: while designed to be affordable to most, and making individual participation in cultural activity accessible (not just in religious services, but as shared musical expression) it is also important to note that the authoritative nature of this book and other early guides solidified which texts and behavioral expressions were sanctioned. Deviance from this established “norm” became highly risky behavior, easily discerned.

Colonists also brought with them deeply-ingrained expectations, preferences and prejudices in the matter of food. Those early Massachusetts colonists also shared a mostly middle-class background, and a worldview shaped not only by their faith but by the inherited customs and techniques of English husbandry. Englishmen turned Puritan are yet Englishmen — first and foremost.

Confronted with the “wilderness” of the new land, they set about attempting to recreate the agricultural landscapes of their homeland, to “tame” the new land and institute the familiar foodways of England no matter the challenge. This mindset, much more so in the New England colonies than other colonies of North America, shaped much of the development of a determined self-sufficiency and a marked tendency to insularity in New England’s culture.
A culinary legacy

What were they used to? Colonists brought with them a medieval culinary heritage that relied heavily on seasonings in foods and a pronounced preference for meat, bread, and ale. The “best bread” was made from refined wheat flour — and was white. The darker the bread, the less desirable, and considered plebian fare; so rye, oats, and barley represented “settling for less.” Beer was a favored drink, enjoyed night and day. It was made from a wide variety of ingredients, but barley and hops were standard. Such plants and other herbs would grow in the all-important kitchen gardens of each homemaker.

They enjoyed, if not all, then most, fish and seafood. The new land proved hospitable in supplying them with abundance in this regard.

The natives not only gave examples of harvesting and preparing such bounty, but taught other uses of fish in cultivation, which the settlers learned. The Europeans were also accustomed to making porridge from peas and beans and enjoyed root vegetables like parsnips, carrots, and cabbage. A long heritage of folkways attended the cultivation of beloved orchard fruits. Cider was consumed throughout the day. English settlers proudly transplanted a legacy of dairying, cheese- and butter-making to their new home as well.

As the observations of William Bradford, Salem’s first minister, Francis Higginson, and others made clear, the land was beneficent indeed, and those back in England to whom they reported could scarcely believe the accounts of variety and abundance of food in the New World.

Whatever the fruitful potential of the land, however, most of the English settlers did not necessarily admire, nor did they wish to emulate, the migratory life led by the natives, who followed the bounty of the seasons and moved their habitat accordingly. A moveable feast did not signify “home” to the Europeans; no, the settlement must be permanent.

“When we came first to Nehum-kek, we found about half a score houses, and a faire house newly built for the Governor, we found also aboundance of corne planted by them, very good and well liking … We that are settled at Salem make what haste we can to build houses, so that within a short time we shall have a faire towne...” Higginson wrote in his “New-Englands Plantation,” 1630.

Natives combined hunting, gathering, and an agricultural system that centered around growing beans, squash (pumpkin) and maize (the “Three Sisters”) in a companion-planting arrangement which benefited the health of all three food staples. However, though they did adopt such methods at first, such planting was unlike the furrowed rows and lines of seedlings the English were familiar with and trusted. And they preferred to plant seeds from overseas rather than utilize indigenous varieties.

Some dietary staples, however, continued elusive. Europeans missed having salt, and sugar; but most of all, they missed their “best” bread. The colonists would find, despite their hunger to recreate the English farm and foodways, the resistance of the land to some of their desires, especially in the matter of growing wheat, compelled them to adopt some native foods and foodways.

One can hardly overestimate the importance, in this regard, of corn (maize). It was the adoption of “Indian corn” into European foodways that would affect the establishment of a truly “American way” of cooking, lead to the first American cookbook, and ironically engender some of the first “traditional” New England foods. “Receipts” (recipes) for the common English meal of “pudding” using “Indian” achieved the marriage of Old World and New in a tangible, edible way.

Later generations of New Englanders would hark back to these foods made with corn (maize) when, in the face rapidly-changing demographics due to sustained and increased immigration, they would try to self-consciously reclaim the “good solid food of our grandmothers” as an assertion of cultural continuity.
To this theme, we shall return.

Next installment: Some Salem feasts and festivities, 19th-century style.
***
Musician and historian Maggi Smith-Dalton, with partner and husband Jim, is a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century music from parlor and stage. Maggi and Jim have performed and taught American and Celtic music and history, in concert and by giving public history courses, nationwide. Published authors and recording artists, Jim and Maggi are preparing a book and a recording on music in Salem’s history. They are founders of the American History and Music Festival and founding officers of the Salem History Society.


A 1796 recipe for 'Nice Indian Pudding'
By Staff reports
Fri Dec 05, 2008, 02:37 PM EST


Salem - A 1796 recipe for ‘Nice Indian Pudding’:

Maggi Smith-Dalton has been garnering strange looks from her husband as she muttered to herself, studying some of the earliest American cookbooks these past few weeks. Strange, because she is not known for her culinary prowess — in fact, in family lore she is known as the “girl who fried water,” dropped a cake and watched it skitter across the floor like a solid wood hockey puck before shattering, and similar kitchen misadventures. But devotion to history (in this case, preparing a recent lecture on foodways and festivals in New England history) made her brave. Here then is the first of three tried-out-and-eaten, yet-we-survived-’em meals you can make too — drawn from ancient and sundry cookbooks. Let us know how they work for you!

A Nice Indian Pudding (1796) No. 2. 3 pints scalded milk to one pint meal salted; cool, add 2 eggs, 4 ounces butter, sugar or molasses and spice q. f. it will require two and half hours baking.

(Modern folks: Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees Celsius) and lightly grease a 9 by 9-inch baking dish. We stirred 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal slowly into the scalded milk, which was placed in a double boiler. We used less butter (2 oz) and 1 egg. We then put in 2/3 cup blackstrap molasses, 1 teaspoon salt; mixed it all together; poured it into the baking dish, and stirred 2 cups cold milk into that mixture. We baked it for about three hours. If we were to make this again, we probably would lighten up on the molasses a bit.

This makes a dark, sweet, very dense pudding. Serve with some whipped cream...and try not to count any calories!)

Original “receipt” from “American Cookery, or The art of dressing viands, fish, poultry and vegetables, and the best modes of making pastes, puffs, pies, tarts, puddings, custards and preserves, and all kinds of cakes, from the imperial plumb to plain cake: Adapted to this country, and all grades of life.” Written by Amelia Simmons, “an American orphan.” Published according to act of Congress. Hartford, 1796, printed by Hudson & Goodwin, for the author.




Maggi Dalton: If music be the food of love ... Part Two
By Maggi Smith-Dalton/ Naumkeag Notations
Thu Dec 11, 2008, 05:15 PM EST


Salem - Part two of a three-part series on the holidays in 19th-century New England
Gentle reader, take my hand, and let’s take a jaunt around town this winter eve in 19th-century Salem. Ladies, be sure to take your shawls of Indian cashmere — and you might wear wear your chinchilla cap or pumpkin hood. Gentlemen, perhaps you might kindly hand us up into a sleigh as it goes collecting us, door to door this cold winter evening; then jump in yourselves. We’re bound for peek into some Salem homes, and then on to a night of music, dancing, and, of course, a festive shared supper.

Hearken to the musical sounds of a joyous Salem, feasting and making merry in winter holidays past. The melodic voices of the past echo still. Since imagination laughs at boundaries, and we are but silent observers of these scenes, we’ll wander at will between the years.
***
Thanksgiving ball

“MR. MAURICE most respectfully informs the LADIES & GENTLEMEN of SALEM, and its vicinity, that his BALL will be on THANKSGIVING EVENING, (Thursday next) when he will be supremely happy to wait on them.

TICKETS may be had of HIM, at Mrs. BALDWIN’S and at Mr. CARLTON’s Printing-Office”
— The Salem Imperial Register, November 24, 1800

Music, music, music ...

“Mr. HOLYOKE, President of the Essex Musical Society, has just published some ORIGINAL MUSIC, suitable for Thanksgiving. It consists of an ANTHEM, a LYRIC POEM, and a DOXOLOGY; composed in a familiar style. They may be had by dozen, or single one, of CUSHING & APPLETON.”
— The Salem Gazette, Friday, September 17, 1802

Shall we dance (and eat?)

In 1859 the Salem Assemblies were revived at Hamilton Hall, with a modest simplicity suited to the short reign of economy following in the wake of ‘57. At the close of the season a “Lady’s Ball” was given, on which occasion Mr. John Remond, the ancient caterer of 1805, sent a large glass bowl used at the parties of that remote period, asking to have it placed on the supper table … The first assembly took place the Thursday after Christmas, in 1805 … Everything was order and decorum, from the managers down to the waiting-maids. The numbers were called at half past six ; supper at ten ; music dismissed at twelve …

Mrs. Remond, the wife of the caterer, will be remembered for her charming manners and good cooking. Her mock-turtle soup, venison or alamode beef, and roast chickens, with perhaps ducks, and light, not flaky pastry, made an ample feast for a dozen gentlemen at the fashionable hour of two o’clock. Dinners then had one advantage over dinners now, — the guests knew what they were eating.
The courtly minuet
And long-lined country dance
(For beaux and belles as yet
Had no quadrilles from France)
Were seen upon the floor.
As the dancers swam or flew,
With graces hovering o’er,
When this old bowl was new.

— Marianne Cabot (Devereux) Silsbee, “A Half Century in Salem” (1887)

Come to tea ...bring your appetite

“The richer style of cooking was chiefly used on festive occasions.... At that early date we still used the ponderous methods which had come down to us from our English ancestors, and the lighter, more wholesome French treatment of materials was not known...

Salem was more famous in those early days for its delightful and cosy tea parties than for any great literary interests ... as everybody had dined in the middle of the day, the guests brought good appetites to the feast ... silver tea-pots for both green and black tea and the coffee or chocolate pot ... sugar bowl, cream pitcher and slop bowl belonging to the tea service …

It was the custom of the day to cool your tea before drinking it by pouring it into your saucer.... cooked oysters, and chickens or game dressed in different ways.... a noble chicken pie … silver cake baskets with pound, sponge, and fruit cake ... different kinds of bread and hot cakes, olives, tongue, and ham cut after Judge Story’s formula, who used to say that the only proper way to serve ham was to cut it so thin that one could see to read a newspaper between the slices … preserves, whole quinces floating in their rich clear juice being always present and damsons and preserved ginger. Does this sound messy and horrid?”

— Caroline Howard King, “When I Lived in Salem, 1822-1866” (published 1937)

Oh, my aching stomach...and, er, yeah, that other stuff too...
“DYSPEPSIA, OR … INDIGESTION

THIS prevalent disorder, as it exhibits itself in its customary symptoms of want of appetite, distressing flatulencies, heartburn, pain in the stomach, sick headache, nausea, vomiting, and restiveness, is now found to yield to the tried efficacy of
DR RELFE’S VEGETABLE SPECIFIC, AND ANTI BILIOUS PILLS

These two preparations combined ...an efficacious remedy for the Dyspepsia even after it has acquired the most obstinate character and resisted every effort of professional skill...Price 50 cents each box. For sale at retail, for public convenience, at the Druggists generally, in Salem and Vicinity, viz.
James R. Buffam
Whipple & Lawrence
J.D. Chandler
E. Porter … (Salem) …
... A large discount made to dealers.”
— Advertisement, Salem Gazette, Oct. 21,1828

“BROWN OR DYSPEPSIA BREAD — This bread is now best known as “Graham bread” — not that Doctor Graham invented or discovered the manner of its preparation, but that he has been unwearied and successful in recommending it to the public. It is an excellent article of diet for the dyspeptic and the costive, and for most persons of sedentary habits, would be beneficial …

— Sarah Josepha Hale, “Early American Cookery: The Good Housekeeper,” 1841

More of us may have wanted to celebrate Christmas ... but ...

“[Thanksgiving] was a happy time, and it was happily kept ... Old family jokes were laughed over, healths were drunk and toasts given, old songs sung ... In the evening games were played and there were music and dances and charades … Auld Lang Syne being sometimes sung before parting for the night …

There was no observance of Christmas in those days in Salem … There was still too strong a Puritan element in New England to admit of a celebration of the chief festival of the Episcopal Church, so we rather inconsistently substituted the pagan New Year … in our family, we had a small celebration on Christmas Eve, when my father always read to us the Christmas Canto in Marmion, and Milton’s Hymn of the Nativity …”
— Caroline Howard King, “When I Lived in Salem, 1822-1866”

And some of us always had ... with song
“NEW MUSICK.

Just published, and ready for sale … THE ‘AMERICAN HARMONY’ containing a select number of Odes, Anthems, and plain Tunes, composed for performance on Thanksgivings, Ordinations, Christmas, Fasts, Funeral and other occasions: The whole entirely new: — By OLIVER HOLDEN — Teacher of Musick, in Charlestown.
Books may be had of W. CARLETON, the Bible and Heart, Salem.
Subscribers are requested to call for their Books.
Charlestown, Oct. 10, 1792
— Advertisement, Salem Gazette, Oct. 23, 1792

PS: Puddings, made from a variety of foodstuffs, were most often bag-boiled, and were not always sweet. Interestingly, Federalist Salemites ate their puddings as the first course or early in the meal; Jeffersonian Democrats ate theirs as the last course. Hmmm. Puddings as the decisive word in political contests ... now there’s a concept!
***

Musician and historian Maggi Smith-Dalton, with partner and husband Jim, is a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century music from parlor and stage. Maggi and Jim have performed and taught American and Celtic music and history, in concert and by giving public history courses, nationwide. Published authors and recording artists, Jim and Maggi are preparing a book and a recording on music in Salem’s history. They are founders of the American History and Music Festival and founding officers of the Salem History Society.
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'Cold is the Nightwind: A Victorian Christmas' 19th-century eats: dyspepsia bread and blancmange

19th-century eats: dyspepsia bread and blancmange
By Maggi Smith-Dalton
Thu Dec 11, 2008, 05:09 PM EST



Salem - The other night, over dinner (which was cooked by a real chef — in a restaurant) I fretted over the next set of recipes to share with you from our little collection of historical cookbooks.

One decision I already had made: to try dyspepsia bread, since wailing about this ubiquitous ailment was such a widespread and continuous activity throughout the 19th century (and no wonder: the lengthy menus for most New England feasts, plus the copious use of butter, sugar (molasses), salt, and heavy meats gives me indigestion just reading them!)

The other became almost as easy: just as many girls do, ever since reading “Little Women” as a child, I have wondered how “blancmange” would taste. And of course, in that book, the character who made it “very nicely,” (Meg) shares my own name. Good karma there.

What wasn’t so nice was my completely befuddled wandering in the grocery baking-supplies aisle exploring what was, for me, as exotic a land as the frozen tundra is to a hula dancer. Jim finally had to rescue me from my frozen contemplation of the endless stretches of flours, mixes, spices and gadgets the use of which — well, I have no earthly clue.

But I made these recipes, and once again, lived to tell you about them. Enjoy! And if you make them too, please let me know how it worked out.

* Dyspepsia bread: “‘The American Farmer’ publishes the following receipt for making bread, which has proved highly salutary to persons afflicted with that complaint, viz: —Three quarts unbolted wheat meal; one quart soft water, warm, but not hot; one gill of fresh yeast; one gill of molasses, or not, as may suit the taste; one tea-spoonful of saleratus.

This will make two loaves, and should remain in the oven at least one hour; and when taken out, placed where they will cool gradually. Dyspepsia crackers can be made with unbolted flour, water and saleratus.”
— Lydia M. Child, “The American Frugal Housewife,” 1833

Modern cooks: A gill is 8 large tablespoonfuls. We simply used a pre-measured 1/4 oz. package of yeast. Saleratus is baking soda. Baked for one hour in a 400-degree oven. Comes out dense, dark, bland, crusty.

* Rice blancmange: “Simmer a teacupful of whole rice in the least water possible, till it almost bursts, then add half a pint of good milk or thin cream, and boil it until it is quite a mash, stirring it the whole time it is on the fire, that it may not burn. Dip a mould in cold water, and pour the hot rice in and let it stand till cold, when it will come easily out.

This dish may be eaten with cream and sugar, or custard and preserved fruits; raspberries are best. It should be made the day before it is wanted.

It can be flavored with spices, lemon-peel, & etc., and sweetened with a little loaf sugar; it is then very excellent.”

— Sarah Josepha Hale, Early American Cookery “The Good Housekeeper,” 1841




Maggi Dalton: If music be the food of love ... Part 3
By Maggi Smith-Dalton/ Naumkeag Notations
Sun Dec 21, 2008, 01:53 PM EST


Salem - (Author’s note: The word “Native” is capitalized in my article because I read that this is the preferred way to refer to the indigenous people of North America, according to Plimouth Plantation — and is therefore capitalized just as the moniker “English” would be. Also please, just a head’s up, note the term “Gentle Reader” (a 19th-century phrase, commonly used by authors) it is conventionally capitalized, also; keeping the caps conveys the “historical flavor” of the usage, which is what I strive for when I use it.)

After the Civil War, American society underwent accelerated change. An enlarging middle and upper class structure based on economic success, (albeit success subject to cycles of “panic” or recession) characterized the era. Industrialization and commerce boomed, particularly in the North. For Salem, though the town was slower to industrialize, commerce no longer meant exclusively maritime adventures.

Throughout the land, a flood of immigration resumed and intensified, which, of course, saw an expansion of ethnic groups already well-represented in the established American populace. However, quite significantly, the postbellum years also saw a new tide of non-English-speaking, more religiously-diverse peoples.

Urban centers diffused into newly-developed suburbs, and those who achieved a middle-class and higher economic status began to seek the amenities such transfers bestowed. This included an increased specialization of rooms within a home; by the mid-century, the growing importance of a separate space for tasteful, civil, and socialized dining experiences was evident in all accounts, informal, private or public, made by many observers of the conventions of the day.

The effect of the multiple and rapid changes in society led to an interesting mélange: the conscious adoption of the new and “modern,” and abrogation of certain restraints as the full-blown pursuit of wealth preoccupied postbellum America. Yet, palpable anxiety surfaced as social status fluctuated, and coupled with this, a nagging sense of moral decay.

How to deal with this social anxiety? Well, many of those coping mechanisms won’t surprise you. How you dressed, where you lived, what kind of occupation you had (or didn’t have) — these are all familiar ways of establishing, or maintaining, a social identity. Despite Thoreau’s dictum not to trust enterprises which require new clothes, many a person anxious about their social “standing” did just that — no matter what era you examine — and the nineteenth century was replete with authoritative guides on just what to wear, when and where to wear it, and how to wear it.

Such books also touted the desirability of musical activity in the home as a mark of gentility and culture; and the conduct of the “informal” after-dinner musical evening was also carefully outlined.

“2581. If you can sing or play, do so at once when requested, without requiring to be pressed, or make a fuss.

2582. On the other hand, let your performance be brief, or, if ever so good, it will be tiresome.

2583. When a lady sits down to the pianoforte, some gentleman should attend her, arrange the music-stool, and turn over the leaves.
2584. Do not make yourself too conspicuous in those attentions …

2616. Never converse while a person is singing; it is an insult not only to the singer, but to the company.

2617. The essential part of good breeding is the practical desire to afford pleasure, and to avoid giving pain. Any man possessing this desire, requires only opportunity and observation to make him a gentleman …”

— Sarah Josepha Hale, “Mrs. Hale’s Receipts For The Million: Containing Four Thousand Five Hundred And Forty-Five Receipts, Facts, Directions, Etc. In The Useful, Ornamental, And Domestic Arts, And In The Conduct Of Life … “ (1857)

If one followed all these guides religiously, the results not only indicated your class and good breeding, but were as indicative of a worldview as surely as singing tunes from the Bay Psalm Book did in colonial days.

It might surprise you to realize that what you ate, Gentle Reader, also mattered a great deal in this arena; where you ate it, who prepared it, and how you presented it was a hallmark of social identity, too.

Countless guides for the American housekeeper (always female, often accompanied by other females — the much-discussed “help”) present the kitchen and dining table as the altars of exhibiting respectability and virtue. Excess was deplored as indicative of moral laxity. These books and magazine articles were often couched in language worthy of any Sunday-morning preacher.

Even the food-related furniture reflected this. Late-nineteenth century sideboards in dining rooms became elaborate icons of culinary domesticity, echoing, in appearance, actual church altars.

And, by the turn of the century, the music you enjoyed (or, more to the point, publicly patronized) also became absorbed into these prescriptive social-identity mechanisms. For the new American, for the upwardly mobile, here were guides to achieving integration.

However, these two areas of life — food and music — also grew into some of the most obvious tools “old stock” Americans utilized to declare and emphasize their social identity in the face of changing demographics. The reactive dissonance of stressing “good old American virtues” to the “new” immigrants in a modern democracy is particularly noteworthy to a historian.

What is fascinating here is that preparing and eating certain “traditional foods,” in the context of a “revival” of an idealized Old New England became somewhat of a fetish. It is almost amusing to note the preponderance of 19th-century “receipts” which utilized those humble colonial adoptions of Native foodways — dishes utilizing “Indian” (cornmeal), or dishes using pumpkin and beans among them.

Other dishes designated as sober “solid old-time American” food were baked apples, meat potpies and puddings, chowder, hoecake or johnnycake, pandowdy, doughnuts, and, in general, usage of molasses in a variety of ways.

Cooking these dishes, some once denigrated as “foreign,” now became emblematic of the struggle by some against distressing change. Of course, these meals originated in a time when colonists adopted Native foodways as mere stopgaps on the way to replicating traditional English farms and culture in the New World. But clinging to them in the 19th century became a hallmark of old-school values for these folk.

We could explore the nooks and crannies of this phenomenon endlessly. And I haven’t even touched on the adoption of French cooking as a marker of class and status.

However, I’ll end this discussion with a quick glance at a parlor we visited last time. Since coffee and tea was so central to the rituals of socialized dining, and nearly everyone, including children, drank these beverages, it seems fitting to drop you off at a Salem tea-party.

If you’ll recall from our last installment, “Salem was more famous in those early days for its delightful and cosy tea parties than for any great literary interests ... It was the custom of the day to cool your tea before drinking it by pouring it into your saucer …” — Caroline Howard King, “When I Lived in Salem,” 1822-1866 (published 1937)

This custom, which originated in China, was considered “old-fashioned” by the middle of the 19th century. The Chinese method employed the teacup for brewing the leaves; the dish was used as a lid while the tea brewed. When finished, the tea was then rather naturally poured into the dish for drinking — hence the references found throughout memoirs and literature to “a dish of tea.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in Salem, with its strong material, emotional, and historical ties to the overseas trade, the custom continued to charm long after sufficient chiding by etiquette books labeled the practice inappropriate to those who wished to be considered sophisticated. Judging by the mass-production of cup-plates in the mid-nineteenth century, however, it would seem that this once-exotic, now old-school custom persisted in the popular taste well beyond the borders of this city renamed for “peace,” remaining in everyday use to the end of the century.
“The cook I had for my sweetheart,
I’ll tell you the reason why,
At Christmas times she baked plum pudding,
And likewise made mince pie;
She said in the cupboard she had good store
And she did keep the keys,
One pocket I should fill with butter,
And the other should fill with cheese,
And the other should fill with cheese....”

— From a song in broadside form; The cook I had for my sweet heart. Andrews, Printer, 38 Chatham Street, N. Y. [n. d.]
***

Musician and historian Maggi Smith-Dalton, with partner and husband Jim, is a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century music from parlor and stage. Maggi and Jim have performed and taught American and Celtic music and history, in concert and by giving public history courses, nationwide. Published authors and recording artists, Jim and Maggi are preparing a book and a recording on music in Salem’s history. They are founders of the American History and Music Festival and founding officers of the Salem History Society. E-mail Maggi directly at Maggi@singingstring.org.


***
Christmas pudding recipe

One pound of grated or chopped bread, one pound of stoned raisins, one pound of currants, half a pound of citron, cut in small bits, half a pound of suet, chopped fine, quarter of a pound of sugar, one teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of clove, two teaspoonfuls of cinnamon, half a teaspoonful of mace, one nutmeg, the juice and grated peel of a lemon. Mix all these ingredients together and then add the yolks of six eggs, beaten, and mixed in a large cup of milk. Last of all, add the beaten whites of the eggs. Boil in a buttered mold six hours. Serve with “Foaming Sauce” or “Madeira Sauce.”
— Susan Anna Brown, “The Book of Forty Puddings,” 1882




http://www.wickedlocal.com/salem/news/lifestyle/columnists/x1135114204/Maggi-Dalton-If-music-be-the-food-of-love-Part-3