Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1867-12-18
NfarCil.

but very few have more than the merest
outline of knowledge as to its source, ma
ture, or history \ writer in Once a
Week enters fully into all of these subjects,
but our space permits us to follow him but
partially That starch must play an i'm
portant part in the animal as well as veg
etable economy Is evident in the fact that
it is the chief ingredient in most vegetable
substances employed as food
Although generally associated with
stiff collars and cravats, starch is Of vital
importance TO US as an alimentary sub
stance 1t is largely taken into the sys-
TEN in the common culinary vegetables, in
fruit and especially in bread. In these.
however, it is compounded with other nu-
tritive principles in arrowroot, and sago,
it Is taken in its purity. Strictly speak
ing. pure starch is not a nutritious substance
together with sugar and butter it belongs
to the carbonaceous group of aGmentary
substances, which mainly serves to keep up
the animal heat of the body After swal-
lowing any OF the members of this group.
the blood assimilates them, and Is, in the
lungs, brought into contact with the oxygen
taken in at every inspiration. Thus the
carbon and hydrogen the starches 50 large
ly contain, unite with the oxygen; inter-
nal combustion, so TO speak, attended with
animal heat, ensues, and the carbonic
acid gas which is evolved is given off at
each expiration Carbonaceous food then
is the fuel by which the body maintains its
animal heat; it has need of nitrogenous
substances such as butcher meat, to form
the tissues.
" Following our subject into Its domes-
tie torms-arrOwroot, tapioca, and sago-
weneed only remind our readers that the for
mer is procured in the East and West In
dies, from the root-stocks of several plants
belonging to the Ndrantacee family 1t
is sold of many qualities, ranging from
threepence to two shillings per pound, ac-
cording to its quality and purity, and Is
frequently adulterated with cheaper forms
Of starch, such as potato and sago. Pota-
to starch being easily procured and sold at
fourpence per pound is common ingredi-
ent of arrOwroot.
"Tapioca Is prepared from a poisonous
plant, called the Janipha Nanitot The
juice of this is used by the Indians for
HOiSpblllI iuOII dlIOnS utUtt lut UdiQS
arrowroot. The noxious principle Is driy-
en- off from the starch by marceration in
the same way that the acridity of our
Aruni maculatUm (the common hedge-weed
called by children Jack in the-pulpit0 is
banshed when the starch of its root is ex-
tracted.
" At Oswego, starch Is now made on a
large scale from maize. Two hundred
thousand bushels of maize yield forty thou
sand pounds of starch
The question has often been mooted.
when starch was first employed for the
homely but ornamental purpose of stitfen-
ing linen. Queen Elizabeth used it for
the portentous ruffs she loved to wear, and
in which painters have made her potrait so
familiar to US. Gerard, who was garden
er to Cecil Lord Burleigh, speaks of
starch and tells US that the most pure
and white starch is made of the roots of
cuckoo-pints, but is most hurtful TO the
hands of the laundresse, that hath the ham
ding of it, for it choppcth. blistereth, and
maketh the hands rough and rugged, and
withal smarting.'
" \ writer in Notes and Queries opines
that starch was introduced at the beginning
of Queen Elizabeth'S reign, when the wear
ing of lawn and cambric rufs came into
fashion; these becoming articles of attire
having previously been made of fine hol-
land, and, therefore, required no compound
to stiffen them. 1t is recorded that when
the Queen had ruffs made thereof llawn
and cambric) for her own princely wearing
I hero in E'nnlanI bn Ill
how to starch them; but the Queen made
special means for some woman that could
starch : and a Mrs. Guilham, wife of
the royal coachman, was the first starch
er.
. In the year 1864, we read, Frow Van
den Plasse condescended TO leave her ma
tive marshes in Flanders, and settling in
London gave lessons in the gentle art of
clear-starching, at the moderate price of
FIVE pounds per lesson, with the additional
fee of twenty shillings for instruction in
the mystery of converting the 'wheat-tour
bran and sometimes roots into that liquid
matter they call starch Most likely five
pounds means Flemish money, as English
church livings at that period were not un-
frequently worth but ten pounds year of
our money.
Starch was made of ali hues in the
reign of James [. yellow was the fashiona-
BILE color. Our ancestors were indebted to
the notorious Mrs. Turner, said to have
been the widow ola physician, the willing
tool of that infamous clique who poisoned
Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower, for the
introduction from France of that graceful
tincture; and she was at once alpha and
omega of the custom; for on its becoming
known to the world of fashion that she was
executed in yellow starched tiffing ruff