The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1878-01-10
Confederate Coffee, Etc.


Confederate Coffee, Etc.
Rye coffee, with the coffee left out,
WAS the Confederate breakfast. drink,
and when sweetened with sorghum was
a dose to be remembered. Cane sugar.
though it brought high prices and was
regarded as luxury in the last days of
the Confederacy, was always to be had
in plenty for those who could buy il.
Sorghum, however, was the "sweet-
ening" best known and cheapest in Con-
federate times. Every planter cult
waited it; every owneE OF even few acres
had at least one of those acres set in
sorghum cane. Housekeepers rang the
changes on it in every possible form.
Sorghum cake, sorghum pudding with
sorghum sauce, sorghum pies-all these
and more were on their bills of fare.
Preserves We're put up with it, and the
sirup itself was standard article of
food on most Southern tables. Indeed
1t is scarcely too much to say that the
hardy Chinese sugar cane was one OF
the pillars OF the Confederacy, inasmuch
as it became staple article OF food at a
time when food was scarce and famine
seemed to draw near The hist of reci-
pes IN q Confederate cookery book reads
oddly enough: "Yeast from dried ap-
piles" "ditto from life everlasting, "
&C calves foot jelly without wine or lem
ons," brandy and vinegar being the SUBJ
stitutes; ''hard candles without wax, "
and Confederate gum arabic" which
last WAS cherry glue dissolved in vinegar,
are among those which J. remember
Juvenile Confederates had few sweet
meats or candies, and one Of our house.
hold trials was that we could never coax
sorghum into anything like taffy-a
thick jeiiy-like strip was the nearest ap-
proach thereto Of which il was suscepti-
BILE. Red pepper and mustard were
made at home in plenty from home
grown mustard seed and cayenne pep
pers. The mustard was beaten in q
mortar, or ground in spice-mill with
comparative ease; but the preparation Of
the pepper was trying time for the
household. First strung and dried in
the SUN; then, to make sure, dried again
IN the oven, the pods were rubbed into
powder with heavy wooden pestles in a
wooden trough, and run through a
sieve. This sufficed for ordinary pur-
poses, but for the castors the product
was again dried, pounded and sifted.
Ihe work was done in an clubhouse by
yelled women, but q general atmosphere
Of sneezing and weeping always accom-
panied the pepper-making. Black pep
per-to be had only in small quantities
rose steadily in price throughout the
war, until in April, 1865, it was sold for
$500 a pound, an amount equal, at the
scale afterward fixed for Confederate
money values, to more than ST in gold
-IZrs, AZ. p. Hardy, &aa Ph5IGdelph50
Weekly Times.
The Dead-Letter Office.
The Dead-Letter Office is an interest
ing place to visit; not at all like a living
letter office, but q large room containing
many tables at which sit clerks examin-
ing, sorting and arranging the piles of
correspondence shat have come to
naught. Some open letters, which are
then passed to others for examination,
when those containing money are passed
On to clerks whose duty it is to make a
memorandum Of the contents. Then the
whole is freshly reinclosed to return to
the sender; and, in case it does''t find
him, it comes back to Washington. It
is interesting to see the contents OF the
moneyed letters. Small pieces Of silver
and currency are plentiful, and some
times a bit of silver will have o piece of
currency wrapped around it. so careful
ly The bank-notes range from 81 to
500, and perhaps higher, but that was
the largest one we saw. Who would be
SO careless as to let 500 note go astray?
It must have been lovely woman; for the
direction on all the letters we glanced at
was in feminine chirography. The many
articles which have failed to find an own
er and have returned TO the Dead Letter
Office, such as jewelry, embroideries,
and all the little things that are sent by
mail, were until recently kept On exhibi-
ton, and formed quite 6 curious muse
UNI; but they are now packed away pre-
paratory to being sold at auction
Washington Cor. Of The Hartford
Times.