It's About Time : Food & Drink

Showing posts with label Food & Drink. Show all posts

Saturday, December 31, 2016

10-Year-Old Nova Scotia Girl Learning about Proper Tea Ettiquite at Finishing School in Early America

Anna Green Winslow (1759-1779) was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the daughter of Joshua Winslow & his wife Anna Green. In 1770, at the age of 10, she was sent south to a finishing school in Boston, where she lived with her aunt & uncle, Sarah & John Deming. During her separation from her family, she kept a diary sporadically from November 1771 to May 1773. Her aunt encouraged the diary as a penmanship exercise & as a running letter to her parents. Most entries detail her daily routine. She writes of sermons; weather; entertainments; current fashions; & family matters. And this 10-year-old girl writes of taking tea with friends & family of all ages. Winslow was reunited with her parents in 1773, when Joshua Winslow moved them to Marshfield, Massachusetts. In 1775, he was exiled as a Tory; but his family remained behind. Before the end of the Revolution, Anna Green Winslow died of tuberculosis in Hingham, Massachusetts. Anna was 20, when she died.

Some excerpts from Anna's diary:

Nov'r 18, 1771 ...Mr. Beacon ask'd a question. What is beauty--or, wherein does true beauty consist? He answer'd, in holiness--and said a great deal about it that I can't remember, & as aunt says she hasnt leisure now to help me any further--so I may just tell you a little that I remember without her assistance, and that I repeated to her yesterday at tea

Jan'y 31, 1772 ... I was at Aunt Sukey's with Mrs Barrett dress'd in a white brocade, & cousin Betsey dress'd in a red lutestring, both adorn'd with past, perlsmarquesett &c. They were after tea escorted by Mr. Newton & Mr Barrett to ye assembly at Concert Hall...

Feb. 18, 1772 ...Saterday I din'd at Unkle Storer's, drank tea at Cousin Barrel's, was entertain'd in the afternoon with scating...

March 9, 1772 ...It's now tea time--as soon as that is over, I shall spend the rest of the evening in reading to my aunt. It is near candle lighting...

April 14, 1772 ...I went a visiting yesterday to Col. Gridley's with my aunt. After tea Miss Becky Gridley sung a minuet. Miss Polly Deming & I danced to her musick...

April 16, 1772 ...I dined with Aunt Storer yesterday & spent the afternoon very agreeably at Aunt Suky's. Aunt Storer is not very well, but she drank tea with us...

April 24, 1772 ...I drank tea at Aunt Suky's. Aunt Storer was there, she seemed to be in charming good health & spirits...

May 11, 1772 ...I had the pleasure of drinking tea with aunt Thomas the same day, the family all well, but Mr G who seems to be near the end of the journey of life...

May 16, 1772 ...Thursday I danc'd a minuet & country dances at school, after which I drank tea with aunt Storer...

May 31, 1772 ...I spent the afternoon at unkle Joshua's. yesterday, after tea, I went to see how aunt Storer did...

Source: Diary of Anna Green Winslow, A Boston School Girl of 1771 (edited by A. M. Earle 1894).

Saturday, November 19, 2016

All about the Wine & Spirits - 1600s

1600s David Teniers the Younger (Flemish artist, 1610–1690) Vintner

1690 Studio of David Teniers the Younger (Flemish artist, 1610–1690) Autumn

David Teniers II (Flemish, 1610 - 1690) & workshop, Allegory of Autumn 1644

David Teniers III (1638-1685), and workshop, Allegory of Autumn

The Toper, but may be intended as a personification of Autumn, copy of Teniers's Autumn of about 1644.

Paar dat wijn drinkt, Anonymous, Crispijn van de Passe (I), Maerten de Vos, 1574 - 1687

Liquor seller by David Teniers II (Flemish, 1610 - 1690) ca. 1640

Liquor seller by David Teniers (II), ca. 1640

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

One of my favorite turkey paintings

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Turkeys 1946

Saturday, June 4, 2016

History of Tea in England & Her Colonies

Dirk Stoop (England, c 1610-1685) Catherine of Braganza c 1610

The first recorded drinking of tea is in China, where the earliest records of tea consumption date back to the 10th century BC. It was a common drink during Qin Dynasty (around 200 BC) & became widely popular during Tang Dynasty, when it was spread to nearby Korea & Japan.

Pieter Gerrits van Roestraten (1630-1700) Detail of an early Tea Service - A Yixing Teapot and a Chinese Porcelain Tete-a-Tete on a Partly Draped Ledge

Tea, then called cha, was imported to Europe during the Portuguese expansion of the 16th century. Portugese Catherine of Braganza, wife of England's Charles II, took the tea habit to the court of Great Britain around 1660.

Charles II by Adriaen Hanneman (England, 1603-1671)

London coffee houses also were responsible for introducing tea to everyday England. One of the 1st coffee house merchants to offer tea was Thomas Garway, who owned an establishment in Exchange Alley in London. He sold both prepared & dry tea to the public as early as 1657. Three years later he issued a broadsheet advertising tea at £6 and £10 per pound touting its virtues at "making the body active and lusty" & "preserving perfect health until extreme old age."

1715 Two English Ladies & an Officer at Tea

Tea gained popularity quickly in England's coffee houses, & by 1700, over 500 coffee houses sold it. This distressed the British tavern owners, as tea cut their sales of ale & gin, & it was bad news for the government, who depended upon a steady stream of revenue from taxes on liquor sales. By 1750, tea had become the favored drink of Britain's lower classes.

1720 English Family at Tea by Joseph Van Akien

Charles II tried to counter the loss of tax income from spirits arising from the growth of tea, with several acts forbidding its sale in private houses. This measure was designed to counter sedition; but it was so unpopular, that it was impossible to enforce.

1720 Man and Child Drinking Tea possibly by Richard Collins, England, d. 1732

A 1676 act taxed tea & required coffee house operators to apply for a license. Failing to curb the popularity of tea, the British government decided to profit from tea. By the mid 18th-century, the duty on tea had reached an absurd 119%. This heavy taxation had the effect of creating a whole new industry - tea smuggling.

1725 English Family at Tea possibly by Richard Collins, England, d. 1732

Ships from Holland & Scandinavia brought tea to the British coast, then stood offshore, while smugglers met them unloading their precious cargo in small vessels. The smugglers, often local fishermen, brought the tea inland through underground passages & hidden paths to special hiding places. One of the favorite hiding places was in the local parish church.

1727 English Family of Three at Tea by Richard Collins, England, d. 1732

Even smuggled tea remained expensive for the common man; however, and therefore extremely profitable. Many smugglers began to adulterate the tea with other substances, such as willow, licorice, & sloe leaves. Used tea leaves were also re-dried & added to fresh leaves.

1730 Tea Party at Lord Harrington's House, St. James's by Charles Philips

During the 18C, tea drinking was as popular in Britain’s American colonies as it was in Britain itself. Legally, all tea imported into America had to be shipped from Britain, & all tea imported into Britain had to be shipped in by the East India Company.

1740 Ladies Having Tea Unknown Artist

However, for most of the 18C, the East India Company was not allowed to export directly to America. But during the 1770s, the East India Company ran into financial problems: illegal tea smuggling into Britain was vastly reducing the amount of tea being bought from the Company.

A British Family Served with Tea 1745 Unknown artist

This led to a downturn in its profits, as well as an increase in its stockpile of unsold tea. In an attempt to revive its flagging fortunes & avoid bankruptcy, the Company asked the British government for permission to export tea directly to America, a move that would enable it to get rid of its surplus stock of tea.

Unknown 18C British Artist, A Tea Party

The Company actually owed the government £1 million, so the government had no desire to let the Company go bankrupt. Thus in 1773, the Tea Act was passed, granting the Company’s wish, and allowing a duty of 3d per lb to be levied on the exports to America. The colonials were growing increasingly resentful of "taxation without representation."

Jean-Etienne Liotard (Swiss artist, 1702-1789) Still Life Tea Set, 1781-83

The British government did not anticipate this being a problem for the colonials. By being exported directly to America, the cost of tea there would actually become cheaper, & 3d per lb was considerably less duty than was paid on tea destined for the British market. But it had underestimated the strength of the American resistance to being taxed at all by Britain.

Drinking tea in the British American colonies, the John Potter Overmantle at the Newport Historical Society in Rhode Island

The issue of the taxation in America had been hotly debated for some years. Many Americans objected on principle to being taxed by a Parliament which did not represent them. Instead, they wanted to raise taxes themselves to fund their own administration. But successive British governments reserved the right to tax the colonies, & various bungled attempts to impose taxation had hardened American opposition. In the later 1760s, opposition took the form of boycotts of taxed goods. As a replacement for them, the Americans either bought smuggled goods or attempted to find substitutes for tea made from native products.

Drinking tea in the British American colonies, Gansevoort Limner, possibly Pieter Vanderlyn 1687-1778 Susanna Truax.

Finally at the end of the resulting war with America, in 1784, William Pitt the Younger introduced the Commutation Act, which dropped the tax on tea from 119% to 12.5%, effectively ending smuggling. Adulteration of tea both at home & that headed for foreign markets remained a problem, though, until Britain's Food & Drug Act of 1875 brought in stiff penalties for the practice.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Off to the fair with Camille Pissarro 1830-1903

Camille Pissarro (French artist, 1830-1903) The Fair Goers

Sunday, November 1, 2015

The earliest Picnics occured after the Hunt in the 18C

Food historians tell us picnics evolved from the elaborate traditions of outdoor feasts enjoyed by the wealthy. Medieval hunting feasts & Renaissance-era country banquets probably were the earliest picnics.

1737 Carle or Charles-André van Loo (1705-1765) After the Hunt

"Picnic. Originally, A fashionable social entertainment in which each person present contributed a share of the provisions." The OED traces the oldest print evidence of the word picnic in the English language to 1748. The word was known in France, Germany, and Sweden prior to becoming an English institution.
---Oxford English Dictionary [Clarendon Press:Oxford], 2nd edition, Volume XI (p. 779)

1738 Carle or Charles-André van Loo (1705-1765) The Picnic after the Hunt

"The earliest picnics in England were medieval hunting feasts. Hunting conventions were established in the 14C, and the feast before the chase assumed a special importance. Gaston de Foiz, in a work entitled Le Livre de chasse (1387), gives a detailed description of such an event in France. As social habits in 14C England were similar to those in medieval France, it is safe to assume that picnics were more or less the same."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 602)

1737 Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743) The Hunting Party Meal

"The French might have invented the word "picnic," pique nique being found earlier than "pic nic." It originally referred to a dinner, usually eaten indoors, to which everyone present had contributed some food, and possible also a fee to attend. The ancient Greek "eranos," the French "moungetade" described earlier, or modern "pot luck" suppers are versions of this type of mealtime organization. ...Picnics derive, also, from the decorous yet comparatively informal 16C "banquets"...whichh frequently took place out of doors."
---The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolutions, Eccentricities and Meaning of Table Manners, Margaret Visser [Penguin:New York] 1991 (p. 150-1)

1740 Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743) Picnic after the hunt

"Picnic. An informal meal in which everyone pays his share or brings his own dish,' according to the Littre dictionary. That was probably the original meaning of the word, which is probably of French origin (the French piquer means to pick at food; nique means something small of no value.) The word was accepted by the Academie francaise in 1740 and thereafter became a universally accepted word in many languages. From the informal picnic, the outdoor feast developed...Weekend shooting parties and sporting events were occasions for grand picnics, with extensive menus and elaborate presentation."
---Larousse Gastronomique, completely updated and revised edition [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 883)

Friday, October 16, 2015

1935 Picnic in California

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

1910-1925 American Picnic

1910-1925 American Picnic. Photo by John Johnson. Johnson was born in Lincoln in 1879 to Harrison Johnson, an escaped slave and Civil War veteran, & his wife, Margaret. After graduating from high school & briefly attending the University of Nebraska (where he played football), Johnson found work in one of the few realms open to African-Americans at the time: manual labor. He was a janitor & a drayman, but also a very prolific & talented community photographer. From roughly 1910 to 1925, he took as many as 500 photographs using a bulky view camera and flash powder.