Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1889-12-21
6. Pray to God and so to bed from Gin the
evening till 5o'clock the next morning.
Q. Practice righteousness at al times
10 Keep good company and avoid bad
company.-London Standard
FARE OF OUR ANCESTORS.
WHAT THEY ATE SOME TWO AND
THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

4
ures-Bread Was Staple and Made I'm
Many varieties-The English Pudding.
From Fingers to Forks.
| The most interesting part of history Il that
which the historians often omit to notice
The wars and the laws and who made them
we know. They are what the historian
| chiefly cares for; but while these are inn
portant, scarcely less so and far more inter
esting are the social customs, the dress and
| food and the every day life Of past centuries
| If in all eras the Englishmans appetite has
been famous, he has not always been able to
employ it upon the same material In Anglo
| Saxon times and long after the staple food Of
| the multitude was bread, butter and cheese.
| A few Of the coarser vegetables were added,
and it was only on occasions that this was
diversified by ''salted bacon and pancakes,
beef or fish," The meat, when 1t was to be
had, was usually boiled over a tripod. "The
kettle" in which this was done, says the
| author Of "Old Cookery Books" was "ths
universal vessel for boiling purposes, and the
bacon house, or larder, was the warehouse
for the winter stock Of provisions" In al
most all the foods strong condiments like
garlic and pepper were freely used. Phil
ology shows that the Saxon food was bread,
butter and cheese, for beef veal, mutton,
pork and bacon retain the names given by
the Normans.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE FORK.
SIN the Tenth century colloquy Of Arch
bishop Alfric," says Mr.. Carew Hazlett, ''the
boy is made to say that he Is too young to eat
meat, but subsists on cabbages, eggs, fish,
cheese, butter and BEANS" and the drink,
which was rarely ale, was usually water.
The nursery rhyme tells US of King Alfred's
Das pudding vi barley meal, with raisins
| and meat" The frying pan, Mr.. Hazlett
says, preceded the grill, ''just as the fork
| Jagged behind the spoon, from which it La q
seeming evolution" For centuries In Eng
land there was a prejudice against the fork,
which displaced the fingers, and forks at first
were the privilege only Of kings When
Coryat employed one after his visit to Italy,
where the instrument originated In the Elev-
enth century, he was nicknamed Furcifer. II
took six hundred years, or until the Seven
teenth century, to establish IL England, and
even then 1t did not attain general use. A
country boor ''still eats his bacon or his her
ring with his fingers, just as Charles XII Of
| Sweden buttered his bread with his royal
| thumb"
1t is said that the origin of washing the
hands before eating arose from the fact that
food at first was eaten wholly-al around the
table dipping into one dish-with the hands
Now, with the finger bowl, an ablution ends
DC well as precedes the meal. Carving knives,
like the fork, were at first q luxury, and as
late as the close of the Fifteenth centuryswere
confined to kings tables and those Of the no
bility. Butter was not much used In England
! before the Norman conquest, although the
10 IL o..
| q substitute. OF the introduction of sugar
there is no certain date given. Mr. Haxlitt
| thinks 1t must have been scarce and dear In
| 1926, "when Henry III asked the mayor Of
| Winchester to procure him three pounds Of
| Alexandria sugar, If 50 much could be got,
| and also some rose and violet colored sugar !;
nor had 1t grown more plentiful when the
| same prince ordered the sherins OF London to
| send him four loaves of sugar to Woodstock.
| Before the end OF the Thirteenth century,
however, 1t gained ground and could gener-
| ally be produced. 1t was then sold by the
| loaf or pound at what would be 37J< to IS
cents pound in American currency.
There were several kinds of bread used In
| the Fifteenth century Palm main was bread
made of very white flour. In addition to
| this, there was to be had coarser wheat
bread, also barley meal bread, bran bread,
| pea bread oat bread or oat cakes, hard bread
and unleavened bread" Rye lentils and oat-
| meal were sometimes mixed for bread for the
| poor. Certain coarse fish were once eaten
| which have not been in modern times much
| esteemed. Porpoise pie, once eaten, was
| finally ridiculed In the time of James as "a
dish which not even a dog would eat" al
though in our own times ON the Hudson river
1t is the sturgeon, Every like porpoise," that
4 - Ilo,tG n
called because the early Dutch may have
| gone to that city's market to get 1t.
COOKERY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
| In the Seventeenth century English cookery
began to improve and took hints from the
continental nations Travel increased and
tourists brought home recipes like the follow
ing: "To make a Portugal dish" $40 make
Virginia dish, IA Persian dish, "a Span
ish Olio," etc. The following also were prob
ably by travellers: ITO make the Lady
ceipt for amber puddings,n ITO make O
posset, the Earl Of Arundel's way" When
the fame Of foreign dishes was well estab-
lished French and Italian cooks came to
England and entered service But the oppo-
sition to French cookery was heard from
more than one voice. Mr.. Hazlitt says Charles
Lamb In more modern times did not like 1t.
The critics of the time said It disguised the
| real favor Of the meat. 1t might do for a
hot climate, but lit is here" says the author
Of "Antiquitates Culinarie," ''the art Of
| spelling good meat"
Addison says that living In in the days Of
| Queen Anne was plain and plentiful. A din
ner was only two courses. 1.-TWO plain
dishes" he says, with two or three good
natured, cheerful, ingenious friends, would
make me more pleased and vain than all that
pomp and luxury can bestow.n Dinner then,
as later, was the main meal Nilsson says:
THE English eat great deal at dinner.
They rest a while and to it again till they
have quite stuffed their paunch. Then sup