A Washington Artillery cannoneer by the name of David Pipes wrote in mid-February 1865 that "....a gallon [of] whiskey [costs] $400.00; 1 pair pants [costs] $900.00 and everything else in proportion....We have been getting ration supply and now receive 1 lb bacon and 3/4 lb corn meal per day. Sometimes little coffee and sugar but not often. If the meat and meal was always fresh we could get by, but occasionally meal is a bit old and meat no good - but it was only thing we had to grease a skillet and its use was a case of ‘haf’ter’ ...."

In Virginia in 1865, civilians were paying $20 a pound for bacon and butter while chickens went for $50 each. Bread riots broke out because of the high prices civilians were forced to pay for their food.

Desiccated vegetables were used as a substitute for fresh vegetables, put away in the summer and fall by civilians to allow them a varied winter diet; but the War forced desiccated vegetables into the Army, too. Desiccated vegetables could be dried beans, onions, turnips, carrots, and beets. They received the soldiers’ appellation "baled hay" because of the unfortunate tendency to find that the vegetables often included roots, stalks, and leaves.

Eating proved often during the War to be an on again / off again experience that ranged from the best food to be "borrowed" to days of little more than - and sometimes not as much as - coffee and hardtack, although it was far less often a problem or even a consideration for the Federal soldier than it was for the Confederate soldier. When on the march, non-spoiling items that could fit in your pack and eaten cold, or prepared with a minimal fuss, were the rule.

Hard tack, whose official designation was "hard bread" (another unofficial designation by troops on both sides who discovered that it could spoil was "worm castles", so-called because they often came complete with worms and weevils) was a dietary staple of the troops in the field and on the march, but food from home, sutler or commissary that was dried and light also went along. Jim Murphy in The Boys’ War described the food supply problem this way: "....An army of 100,000 soldiers required 2,500 supply wagons and at least 35,000 horses and mules (cavalry and wagons). Men and horses consumed 600 tons of supplies every day...."

Foodstuffs in the latter category included variations on pocket soup, instant coffee (coffee mixed with cream and sugar in a paste form to be dissolved in hot water), "desiccated potatoes" (sliced potatoes seasoned with pepper and dried - rather a thick version of the basis for things like Betty Crocker scalloped potatoes) which were issued to prevent scurvy (not a successful endeavor based on medical grounds and, due to the fact that the pepper gave them such an unappetizing look when cooked, that most would not eat them in any case); and, following the lead of Napoleon (with enthusiastic support of Chicago meat packers) provided canned beef which was cheerfully referred to as "embalmed beef".

Another dish often served to the troops during the War Between the States was "Panda", also known as "bully soup". A recipe from around 1800 calls for bread crumbs in a bowl with a glass of wine, rum or vinegar (to taste); to be stirred in with grated nutmeg, butter, sugar and spiced according to taste, to which boiling water was finally added. The military version used crushed and crumbled hardtack, wine, water and ginger.

White sugar was still an expensive and slowly produced commodity at the time of the War, so molasses and other less processed sweeteners were used as a matter of course. Among sutler-supplied foodstuffs, the most popular food appears to have been the lowly molasses cookie, commonly sold at 6 for a quarter.

Food became scarcer and scarcer in the South as War’s depredations made themselves known in harder and harsher ways. The absence of a large portion of the agricultural work force, the fractional replacement of that work force by less experienced, less able workers, inroads cut into Southron food supplies by the foraging armies of both sides, and the war against Southron civilians by the Northern invaders resulted in widespread hunger and paucity of foods. It is striking to read the memoirs of common Southron soldiers and common Southron folks in the civilian population of that time to see how many of their thoughts so many days were of getting food enough to eat, and of how much time was spent daily in seeking to have food enough to satisfy them for the moment.

Beat the eggs and add flour, mix until combined. Add seasoning and corn, mix together. Make the mixture into little balls and then flatten into small pancakes. Heat some oil in a fry pan (although bacon grease will add a better flavor), and fry until slightly brown on both sides. Makes about six.

This is not the Artilleryman's Punch served by the active 141st National Guard Field Artillery, Battalion Washington Artillery.  On that night so sacred to artillerymen, a measure of the beverages enjoyed or taken away from the battle regions for each battle in which they have served, from the Mexican War to the Gulf War, is mixed together to make a potent potable.  That recipe is not (no pun intended) for public consumption.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 fifths rye whiskey
1 1/2 fifths claret
6 cups strong black tea
1 1/2 pints dark Jamaican rum
3/4 pint gin
3/4 pint cognac
3 ounces Benedictine
3 cups of orange juice
1 1/2 cups of lemon juice

Another recipe forwarded to us by Major R. Houck of Douglas' Battery in Texas contains not only the ingredients for an Artilleryman's Punch, but also the ceremony and symbolism that must be identified with it.  Our gratitude to Major Houck is great indeed for this elegant ceremony that tells the story of Southern artillerymen so well in its composition.

- Scientific American, March 1847

The meat to be used is cut from the sirloin tip or top round. The meat should be as fat free as possible. Pare away any fat attached to the meat strips. This is highly important since the fat will not dry out, and it will eventually turn rancid, spoiling the jerky and possibly making you very sick.

Mix the hickory-smoked salt, the brown sugar, the black pepper, and the sage together. Distribute the mixture evenly around the plate. Take a strip of meat and bread it as you would bread chicken to fry it.  Rub the sugar-and-spice mixture well into the meat on both sides. Then cut the meat in half lengthwise, making the new strips roughly an inch-and-a-half wide.

Place the top rack of your oven at its highest level.  Insert a toothpick through one end of each strip of meat before placing it in the oven, suspending the meat by the toothpick inserts from the upper rack so that the meat strips hang freely.   Place a cookie sheet or aluminum foil beneath the meat strips to catch the drippings.

Set the bake temperature somewhere between 100° and 125° (or "warm" or many ovens). The exact temperature is not hyper-critical, but it should be warm enough that you make bread rise. Bake at that low temperature setting for about twelve hours, until the meat is dark and is stiff to the touch - until it's jerkified, in other words.

As long as you keep the jerky dry, clean, and out of the reach of bugs, it should keep for months and months. It will taste just as...just as...just as it did when it was fresh from the oven.

Another recipe is as follows:
Ingredients:
Soy sauce
Steak sauce
Salt
Sirloin tip roast

Cut the sirloin tip roast into fine, thinly sliced strips, making sure to trim off all of the fat you can, and lay them lengthwise in a cake pan, cross-hatching the strips. Mix equal parts of the soy sauce and steak sauce and approximately 1/8 teaspoon of salt per two ounces of sauce mixture, and marinate the strips of meat thoroughly.

Cover the meat and refrigerate it for twenty-four hours. After its period of refrigeration, remove it from the refrigerator and either place the meat in a dehydrator, following the instructions for the dehydrator as to the proper setting to make beef jerky. If you have no dehydrator, hang the meat from the top oven rack as indicated in the first beef jerky recipe. You may also lay the strips on a cookie sheet or sheets, setting the oven on bake, and fixing the temperature at approximately 100° to 125°, making sure to turn the pieces hourly until they are dry and stiff.

Should you store jerky for any length of time, don't use plastic bags or anything that could allow "sweating" inside the container.  When jerky gets wet in storage, it tends to spoil quickly.  Brown paper bags are an acceptable storage container.  Jerky can also be stored in the freezer to extend its usable life.  Whatever else you may do with it, don't let it sit out in the hot sun for any length of time because dried beef jerky will spoil, it's resemblance to old leather notwithstanding. Don't take a chance on being so authentic that you allow your food to make you sick.

No Louisiana re-enactor will want to be too far from her or his beignets on a Sunday morning.  If you portray a Louisiana soldier or civilian, you just have to learn how to make beignets - it won't take any effort at all to learn how to love them.

Pour boiling water over shortening, sugar and salt. Add the milk; let it stand until the mixture is just warm. Dissolve the yeast in warm water and add it to the pot along with a beaten egg. Stir in 2 cups of flour; beat the mixture until it's well-blended.

Add enough additional flour until the dough is just barely soft - not actually wet, but not really firm. Roll the dough out to a thickness of approximately 1/4", or slightly thinner.

These women pore over Southern cookbooks and follow advice from friends seeking to make biscuits "like grandma's", only to produce biscuits reminiscent of cured concrete - suitable as pilings and cornerstones, perhaps, but unlikely as a food. Many bake frustrating batch after frustrating batch of biscuits, even though they use the same recipe that grandma used. Why? It may well be the flour. Yankee flour.

In the North, most flour is milled from hard, red spring wheat which is high in protein and forms more gluten. Southron flour, on the other hand, is made from soft winter wheat which has less protein and therefore, less gluten. Gluten is necessary for yeast-raised goods such as bread, but biscuits use baking powder or soda to rise rather than yeast. Almost any national brand of flour will surely be Yankee flour. Southron brands such as Martha White or White Lilly are what are needed for good biscuits. Even if your biscuits are satisfactory, they will almost assuredly improve by switching to a soft flour. Here's a recipe for light biscuits from White Lilly:

Ingredients:
2 cups White Lily Self-Rising Flour
2/3 to 3/4 cup sweet milk or buttermilk
1/4 cup shortening
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 500°. Measure the flour into a bowl by spooning into the measuring cup and leveling it off and add the salt. Slowly add shortening until the flour and shortening are like coarse crumbs. Blend in just enough milk with a fork until the dough leaves the side of the bowl. Note that too much milk will make the dough too sticky to handle, while too little milk will make the biscuits dry.

If tender biscuits are desired, handle the dough gently and work it as little as possible, using as little extra flour for kneading and rolling as possible. Knead the dough gently on a lightly floured surface ten to twelve strokes. Roll the dough out until it’s about 1/2" thick. Cut out the individual biscuits without twisting the cutter. Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet, placing them one inch apart for crusty biscuits, and close enough that they almost touch sides for soft-sided biscuits. Bake at 500° for eight to ten minutes. Serve hot.

Another type of biscuit is the sour cream biscuit which can be made from this recipe dating to the 1850’s:

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
1 quart flour
1 pint sour cream
1 egg

"Sift a teaspoon of salt and one of soda with a quart of flour in the bread-pan; have ready a large pint of sour cream, beat one egg, add it to the cream, mix, roll, cut, and bake the biscuit as quickly as possible."

Some recipes omitted the egg. Others used sour milk and butter in place of the sour cream. The older method of using artificial leavening, popular into the 1850’s and beyond, was to dissolve it in a few spoonfuls of hot water and add it near the end. See Leavenings of the Period for more information on those leavenings.

Another biscuit recipe:

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
   (Note: If you prefer, a more authentic leavening than baking powder would be possible by mixing 2 teaspoons cream of tartar and 2 teaspoons baking
    soda)
3/4 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons shortening or lard
2/3 cup buttermilk
Flour

Get oven good and hot, 375°.  Mix all dry ingredients together. Put in shortening or lard a spoonful at a time and cut in half with two knives; cut in half again; and continue to cut it in half until all of the shortening or lard is cut into the flour, and it has the consistency of fine meal.   Stir in buttermilk to make a soft dough. Sprinkle flour over the tabletop and rolling pin (or your hands, if you choose not to use a rolling pin).  Roll or pat the dough down to a thickness of about   1/2".   Use edge of round cup or other implement about 3 inches across to cut out biscuits. Wad up leftover dough, roll again and repeat until most all dough is used. Bake 10-12 minutes, watching carefully that they get brown but not burned.

Ingredients:
Blackberries
3 pounds sugar per gallon of blackberry juice
1 quart spirits per gallon of blackberry juice (brandy was commonly used)
Cloves

Mash and strain the blackberries; put the juice on to boil in a brass or bell-metal kettle [Note: a glass or enameled pot will serve just as well]; skim it well, and to each gallon of juice put three pounds of sugar and a quart of spirits [brandy works well]; bruise some cloves and put in. This is valuable as a medicine for children in summer.

Note that there are other recipes for blackberry cordial. Those who imbibe it maintain that it is not only pleasant to taste, but also that it is very warming in cold weather. However, it should be mentioned that it is prudent to consume it in small quantities, as blackberry cordial was valued for its binding qualities.

Ingredients:
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1teaspoon salt
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup stirred whole wheat flour
3/4 cup dark molasses
2 cups buttermilk

Sift all-purpose flour with baking powder, soda, and salt. Stir in the cornmeal and whole wheat flour. Add the remaining ingredients and beat them well. Divide batter among 4 greased and floured 1-pound food cans. Cover tightly.

Place on rack in a deep kettle; pour in boiling water to a depth of 1". Cover the kettle and let it steam for three hours, adding more boiling water as needed. Uncover the cans. Place them in an oven pre-heated to 450° for five minutes. Remove the bread from the cans. Cool on a rack. Wrap them and store them overnight. This recipe makes four loaves.

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
3 cups flour (cake or pastry)
2 teaspoons baking powder (double-acting)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped blanched almonds
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 egg whites

Cream butter and sugar lightly. Sift flour and baking powder together, and add alternately with milk to the first mixture. Add well floured nuts, and then the vanilla. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites to which salt has been added. Bake at 350° in four pans, to be put together as four layers, using either 8" or 9" pans.

Ice the cake with boiled icing to which you will first add 1/2 cup candied pineapple and cherries, chopped finely.

Thin Syrup
Ingredients:
1/2 pound sugar
1 pint water

Make the thin syrup by mixing one-half pound of sugar and a pint of water.

Thick Syrup
Ingredients:
1/2 pound sugar
1/2 pint water

Make the thick syrup by mixing one-half pound of sugar with one-half pint of water.

Sugar Apricots
Ingredients:
1 pound of apricots (peeled, with pits removed)
1/2 pound sugar
1/2 pint water

Peel and pit the apricots, leaving them as whole as possible. Put them in a large pan, adding 1/2 pound of sugar and 1/2 pint of water for each pound of apricots. Stir them gently so as to not bruise the apricots, but stir them well to ensure that the apricots are well-coated with syrup. Let them stand for twenty-four hours, turning them occasionally.

The following day, place the pan on the oven, bringing the mixture to a boil. Cook them quite rapidly until the apricots are translucent. Remove from heat and cool them to room temperature. When they reach room temperature, refrigerate for four hours or more. Carefully take the apricots out of the cold syrup and place them on a cookie sheet or on plates, making sure to keep each one separate from the rest. Place them in a very low warming oven at less than 125°, turning them every half hour for the first two hours, and then every hour for the next four hours so that they will dry much more quickly.

Sugar Peaches
Ingredients:
3 pounds of peaches (peeled, with pits removed)
3 pounds sugar
3 pints water

Use firm, unblemished peaches. Peel and pit the peaches before placing them in a pan with 3 pints of water. Simmer the peaches until they are almost tender. Drain them well and cover them with their own weight in dry sugar. Allow the sugar-coated peaches to stand for two or three hours, turning them very gently every thirty minutes. Do not pour out the syrup in the pan yet.

Return them to the pan of syrup and cook them at a high heat until they are transparent and the syrup becomes thick. Cover and let them stand overnight. Do not pour out the syrup yet. The following day, boil them in the syrup once more, and allow them to cool once again. Repeat this process twice daily over the next three days or until the syrup reduces and the peaches have absorbed most of the syrup. At that point, place them out on a cookie sheet or plates, turning them daily as they dry at room temperature.

Sugar Pears
Ingredients:
3 pounds pears
3 pounds sugar
3 pints water

Make sugar pears according to the same recipe as sugar peaches. Do not core the pears, but peel them very thinly, leaving the stalk on if possible. Process the sugar peaches whole.

Sugar Plums
Ingredients:
1 pound of plums
1/2 pound sugar
1 pint water
2 pounds sugar (for day two)
1 pint water (for day two)

Make a thin syrup. Slit a pound of plums down their natural seams and immerse them in the syrup. Poach them gently until they are tender, being careful to keep them covered with the syrup. If they are not kept covered with syrup, they will lose their color. Cool them at room temperature. When they reach room temperature, cover them and refrigerate them overnight. Do not pour out the syrup yet.

The following day, using a separate bowl, make a thick syrup of two pounds of sugar and one pint of water, and set it aside. Boil until a little dropped in a bowl of cold water makes a thick but soft ball. Remove the peaches from the heat and allow to cool. When they are cool, drain the plums as completely as possible from the first syrup and place them gently in the second, thicker syrup.

Re-heat and scald only until the plums look clear, taking care that they are completely covered in the syrup. Allow to cool again. Then empty them into a shallow ceramic bowl, cover tightly and allow them to age for one week in the refrigerator. At the end of the week, remove them from the refrigerator and place them apart on dishes or plates. Cover loosely with baking paper and put them in a warm, dry place. Turn them once daily for three to four days until they are dry. A home fruit dryer may be used at this point. Lacking that, place them in a very low warming oven at less than 125°, turning them every half hour for the first two hours, and then every hour for the next four hours so that they will dry much more quickly.

Do not discard the thin syrup. Use it as a sauce to be poured over ice cream, either with or without nuts or candied fruit, or as the liquid in a cake recipe (being sure to reduce the amount of sugar to be used in the cake recipe accordingly, of course). The syrup can be frozen (although not in a period freezer that you’ll have access to in your tent). You can freeze it until your sugarplums are ready.

Imitation Sugarplums and Fruits
If you want the elegance, but really do not have the time to candy fruit in the traditional manner, you can cheat. It doesn't taste the same, but still an interesting improvement on plain old dried fruits.

Make a heavy syrup in the proportion of two pounds of sugar to half a pint of water. (If you only want to do a very small amount of fruit, reduce the amounts in proportion.) Heat until the sugar is dissolved, then boil rapidly until a little syrup dropped into a bowl of iced water forms a soft ball. (Remove the pan from the heat when you test it. Things can change very fast at this stage!) Dip an assortment of either home-dried, or store-bought dried fruits into the syrup, and then spread them on w ax-paper covered sheets to dry. Dry them either in a slightly warm oven, turning them frequently, or in a warm, dry place.

A short list of two dozen or so of the most common candies and confections is quite an eye-opener to those of us who think that candy is really a recent creation:

Anise Squares
Boston Baked Beans
Candy Canes
Chewing Gum
Circus Peanuts
Fondant Chocolate
Graham Crackers
Gumdrops
Horehound Drops
Ice Cream
Jelly Beans
Jordan Almonds
Jujyfruits
Licorice Sticks
Licorice Whips
Maple Sugar Candy
Marshmallows
Marzipan
Necco Wafers
Orange Slices
Peppermints
Red Hots
Rock Candy
Root Beer Barrels
Stick Candy

Hard candies, including rock candy, have been around since before the sixteenth century. Anise squares, horehound drops, peppermints, root beer barrels and other hard lozenges were popular forms of hard candy long before the War Between the States. Most hard candies began as stick candies, and of course it was stick candy that led to the creation of the candy cane (originally around 1670 as a reward to a church choir, in imitation of a shepherd’s crook). There is documentary evidence that candy canes were in use as ornaments on Christmas trees in the United States as early as 1847. The red-and-white stripes and the peppermint flavor that we identify so closely with candy canes did not constitute the "traditional" version of candy canes until around the beginning of the twentieth century.

Prehistoric graves have been found with bones, tools and other artifacts, and small lumps of tree gum resin - the same substance used for chewing by the ancient Greeks, Mayan and American Indians (among many other ancient people). White settlers in the Americas learned to chew spruce tree gum resin from their Indian neighbors, and came to add beeswax to the spruce gum to make it more palatable. It wasn’t until 1848 that the first commercial chewing gum was manufactured, and it was an American product. John B. Curtis and his brother manufactured "State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum", and they concocted it on top of a Franklin stove. Sales were slow at first until people learned about the new form of gum and the attendant benefits of chewing gum. When it was first made commercially available, one penny would buy two pieces of gum.

The Curtis’ gum became moderately successful by 1850, enabling them to move from Bangor, Maine to Portland, Maine where they began adding paraffin gums to their product line. Some of the paraffin flavors included "White Mountain", "Biggest and Best", "Four-in-Hand", "Sugar Cream", and "Licorice Lulu". Their product line of spruce gums expanded to include "American Flag", "200 Lump Spruce", "Trunk Spruce", and "Yankee Spruce". By the time of the War Between the States, the Curtis Chewing Gum Company had 200 employees working in a three-story facility to meet the demand of the nation for chewing gum. Spruce gums declined in popularity as paraffin gums increased enormously in popularity because of their variegation of flavors.

Jordan almonds, a French candy, have been around since at least the seventeenth century.

Ice cream was introduced to England in the seventeenth century, and to America in the eighteenth century. In fact, the first printed or written mention of ice cream occurred in a letter dated 1744. America’s first ice cream parlor was opened in 1775, and hardly a school child hasn’t learned that Dolly Madison created quite a sensation in 1812 when she served ice cream to the President’s - her husband’s - guests in the White House. Ice cream grew in popularity in the United States, and it became even more readily available to the masses after 1846 when Nancy Johnson of New Jersey invented a portable, hand-cranked ice cream maker. She couldn’t afford to produce the ice cream maker herself, so she sold the patent for $200. Finally, in 1851, the first wholesale ice cream manufactory opened for business in Baltimore, Maryland by Jacob Fussel. Fussel was a milk supplier who had a steady supply stream of milk but an erratic demand for the milk he bought for resale, so he began making ice cream as a way to reduce waste and level out, or even increase, sales.

Before the early 1800’s, chocolate was consumed almost exclusively as a drink, the chocolate being dissolved in hot water and drunk. The chocolate was bittersweet; milk chocolate wouldn’t come into being until 1875 when Henry Nestle, a maker of evaporated milk, hooked up with Daniel Peter, a chocolate maker, and created a new product for their respective markets. In 1847, an English company introduced solid "eating chocolate" through the development of fondant chocolate, a smoother and more velvety chocolate that almost totally supplanted the coarse-grained that had formerly owned the chocolate market. The first chocolate factory in America began production in 1765. For more information on chocolate of the period, see Chocolate.

Sylvester Graham, eccentric Utopian, inventor, father of the Graham Cracker and resident of Northampton, Massachusetts, stirred up the country with his lectures and books in the 1830’s and 40’s. He antagonized thousands by opposing such standard commodities as tea, coffee, tobacco, liquor, meat, corsets, and featherbeds. He also persuaded thousands to follow his diet, which included bread made of coarse flour, which has since that time become known as Graham flour. The cracker that came to bear his name was created for the purpose, or so he intended, of being an essential part of a diet that would quench the sexual appetites that led to the desire for non-procreative sex and / or Onanism. Graham believed that a rigorous regimen of exercise, coupled with good diet, would allow even married couples to escape the need for sexual expression more than once a month, if they required even that frequent an occurrence of the (to him) distasteful, loathsome act.  Sort of makes you wonder what he was doing wrong, doesn't it?  The number of Grahamites became so great that, to accommodate them, scores of Graham boarding houses were established and restaurants set apart special Graham tables.

The Necco Company hasn't changed the way they make their Necco Wafer candy since before the Civil War. The wafers are small round disks of sugar candy made with a recipe that taste similar to the heart-shaped candies that say "hug me", "true love", and so forth on them (the latter a candy that was about four times the size of the ones we’re so familiar with that came into being around 1855). A roll of wafers comes in a modern waxed paper wrapper, but the contents will fit in a small poke bag once you remove them. Necco wafers have been manufactured commercially since 1847.

By 1847, in Philadelphia alone there were more than a dozen factories manufacturing Red Hots, marshmallows, "Circus Peanuts", Jujyfruits, Boston Baked Beans, and gumdrops, along with a number of other candies. Maple candy was produced from New England down into the South (although the vast majority was produced in New England states) almost from the founding of the colonies.

Licorice sticks and licorice whips were popular before the War Between the States. The earliest recorded usage of licorice was well within civilization's dawn...generous supplies were discovered in King Tut's tomb, while Egyptian hieroglyphics record the use of licorice in a popular beverage by men in the days when the Bible was still being written. Alexander the Great, the Scythian armies, the Caesar of Rome, and even India's great prophet, Brahma, are on record endorsing the beneficial properties contained in Licorice. Warriors used it for its ability to quench thirst, while on the march: others (including Brahma and the venerable Chinese Buddhist sages), recognized licorice’s valuable tonic properties. But the most enduring quality of licorice continues to be its potential for sweetness. Its botanical name is "glycyrrhiza", from the Greek word meaning "sweet root." Did you know that its sweetness is detectable in water even when diluted to 1 part licorice to 20,000 parts water?

And jelly beans appeared in an 1861 advertisement for William Schrafft of Boston. Jelly beans had reached such a high degree of popularity that, by 1869, the Goelitz family, newly arrived from Germany, was able to make a terrific business of making what were then called "buttercream" candies, as well as the jelly candies called "jelly beans". Jelly candies have been around since almost the beginning of time. "Turkish delight", basically sugar and rosewater jelled and cut into cubes, has been putting smiles on kids' faces since Roman times. When the penny candy craze came along in the early to mid-1800's, candy makers began experimenting with more tricky sugar candies such as gumdrops, jelly beans and jawbreakers, made with a new process using panning equipment. That allowed for a more consistent taste, size, and increased production potential that made the candies far more affordable. The love that Americans had for those candies wouldn’t abate until chocolate bars were readily and affordably available.

While you may have to forego that Snickers bar or your Three Musketeers for the sake of authenticity, you needn’t do entirely without chocolate or other candy delight for the sake of period authenticity. There are authentic, empty calories awaiting you.

Cucumber Catsup
Ingredients:
Whole, large cucumbers
Vinegar / water solution (1 part vinegar to 9 parts water)
Pepper (to taste)
Salt (to taste)

Grate large cucumbers before they begin to turn yellow. Drain the juice and put the pulp through a sieve to remove the large seeds. Fill a bottle halfway with the cucumber pulp, discarding the juice, and replace the volume of cucumber juice with the ten percent vinegar. Cork the bottle tightly for storage. Do not add salt or pepper to the catsup until it is being used. Salt and pepper will destroy the efficacy of the vinegar while it is being stored. The flavor is almost like freshly sliced cucumber.

Peach Catsup
Ingredients:
4 quarts peaches, boiled
4 pounds loaf sugar
4 teaspoons mace, broken (not ground)
8 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons cloves
4 teaspoons peppercorns
1 pint vinegar

Boil ripe peaches over steam with the pits in them. Press out all of the juice. The peaches will be boiled a second time, but before boiling the second time, determine how much juice you have. For every quart of juice, allot one pound of loaf sugar to be used later.

Boil the peaches a second time without adding the sugar until the juice has been reduced by one-third. For every quart of juice that you had before the second cooking down, add: one teaspoon of mace; two teaspoons of cinnamon; one-half teaspoon of cloves; and one teaspoon of peppercorns. Boil them all together. When that mixture’s volume is reduced by half, remove the spices and add the sugar. Boil that mixture until it becomes quite thick, reduced to a convenient consistency for bottling with strong vinegar.

Cayenne pepper is also used as an insect repellant.  It has to be eaten the night before an event in order for the body to process it and let the pores emit the peculiar odor that lets insects know that you'll be a rather bad-tasting meal, and it must be eaten each evening prior to the day on which it will be needed.   Garlic is also used in the same way.

Chamomile is an antispasmodic which relaxes the digestive tract and other smooth muscles, and has been used to soothe menstrual cramps and lessen the possibility of premature labor (however, pregnant women are cautioned today to NOT use chamomile during the term of their pregnancy, as there has not been adequate testing to be sure that it is safe to use then). It was also used to stimulate menstruation because a substance in chamomile stimulates uterine contractions.

Chamomile may be easily grown around the home. Chamomile is familiar to us by the phrase "chamomile tea". The leaves are picked, crushed into a strainer, and boiling water poured over the crushed leaves and through the strainer to make chamomile tea. The resultant chamomile tea is drunk to help combat sleeplessness, as well as the digestive ills noted before.

This is a children’s favorite, and owes its origin to Ireland.

Peel the potatoes and steep them in cold water for one hour. Cover with cold salted water and boil until tender. Drain well and mash. Chop the onions very finely (including the green stems), put them into a bowl, and scald them by pouring boiling water over them (this keeps the tops bright green). Drain off the water, add the milk and bring it to a boil. Pour the milk and onions into the mashed potatoes. Add pepper and salt to taste while beating until they are light and fluffy. Traditionally this dish is served in little mounds with the middle cooped out and small pieces of butter dropped into the center. Serves 4-6.

Today, most folks think of the Swiss or the Dutch when they think of the best chocolate, but in the mid-19th century, Spain was the source of the best chocolate. That’s why in Tchaikovsky’s "The Nutcracker" in Act II where all of the goodies dance specialty numbers of their countries of origin, Chocolate is a vigorous jota. When the Spanish made a chocolate drink, they were more apt to use chicken broth than water, and a little hot pepper would be added to the mixture to give the chocolate a bit more life. Following is a recipe adapted from an early 1800’s cookbook detailing how to make a chocolate drink in the Spanish style.

Ingredients:
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon plain cocoa powder
Tabasco to taste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Combine the ingredients and heat them.

Before the early 1800’s, chocolate was consumed almost exclusively as a drink, the chocolate being dissolved in hot water so it could be consumed. The chocolate was bittersweet; milk chocolate wouldn’t come into being until 1875 when Henry Nestle, a maker of evaporated milk, hooked up with Daniel Peter, a chocolate maker, and created a new product for their respective markets. In 1847, an English company introduced solid "eating chocolate" through the development of fondant chocolate, a smoother and more velvety chocolate that almost totally supplanted the coarse-grained that had formerly owned the chocolate market. The first chocolate factory in America began production in 1765.

The Dutch process, called the "alkali treatment", didn't come along until the late 19th century. It was then that chocolate was made edible in bar form.

There is a multitude of period recipes for chocolate drinks. Some chocolate drinks were made from solid chocolate, not unlike the modern chocolate squares, Mexican chocolate bars, or round cakes (known then as "Spanish chocolate") that are commercially available. Other chocolate drinks were made with cocoa or cocoa nibs (chopped, roasted cocoa beans, unavailable now). In Directions for Cookery by Eliza Leslie, published by Carey & Hart in Philadelphia in 1848, there was a recipe for a chocolate drink that is very much typical of the period.

To Make Chocolate
To each square of chocolate cake allow three jills [two jills are equal to 1/2 pint] or a chocolate cup and a half of boiling water. Scrape down the chocolate with a knife, and mix it first to a paste with a small quantity of the hot water; just enough to melt it in. Then put it into a block tin pot with the remainder of the water; set it on hot coals; cover it, and let it boil (stirring it twice) till the liquid is one third reduced. Supply that third with cream or rich milk; stir it again, and take it off the fire. Serve it up as hot as possible, with dry toast, or dry rusk. It chills immediately. If you wish it frothed, pour it into the cup, and twirl in it the little wooden instrument called a chocolate mill till you have covered to the top with foam."

Chocolate was believed to have many restorative properties, and other recipes for chocolate drinks could be found in the "Sick Cookery" sections of cookbooks wherein remedies for whatever ailed you could be treated with a home-concocted medicine. Cocoa was one such chocolate drink, to be distinguished from "chocolate" for its then-perceived medicinal properties. Also from Elizabeth Leslie’s book Directions for Cookery is a recipe for "cocoa", as well as "cocoa shells".

Cocoa
Put into a large sauce-pan two ounces of good cocoa (the chocolate nut before it is ground) and one quart of water. Cover it, and as soon as it has come to a boil, set it on coals by the side of the fire, to simmer for an hour or more. Take it hot with dry toast.

Cocoa Shells
These can be procured by the principal grocers and confectioners, or at a chocolate manufactory. They are the thin shells that envelope the chocolate kernel, and are sold at a low price; a pound contains a very large quantity. Soak them in water for five or six hours or more, (it will be better to soak them all night), and then boil them in the same water. They should boil for two hours. Strain the liquid when done, and let it be taken warm.

Depending on how authentic you want to be, you could follow the original recipes from Elizabeth Leslie's book, or you could just use instant hot cocoa mix. In the end, the taste is not all that different, whether you follow the simpler recipes from Elizabeth Leslie’s book or follow the directions on the side of the Hershey’s Cocoa tin.

About 1700, Dutch traders managed to smuggle out some plants, sending the stolen botanica to the island of Java where the coffee plant became so prolific that the island’s name became synonymous with the brew.

The Dutch forbade taking coffee seedlings from their East Indian and South American plantations in an attempt to preserve their monopoly. Around 1740, a dashing young Brazilian officer won the heart of the wife of the governor of Dutch Guiana, a coffee-growing colony in South America. As a token of her affection, she gave him some of the precious beans and cuttings. With those beans and cuttings, he was able to help establish Brazil as a prominent coffee-producing nation.

Coffee was introduced to North America about 1670, but it became the staple American drink only after tea had been downgraded as a direct result of the Boston Tea Party.

In a list from the US Sanitary Commission, cornstarch was listed as one of the additives to be used with coffee. While it seems as if there must have been some sort of error in listing cornstarch with the coffee and sugar, there appears to be a sound reason of its being numbered among the supplies necessary for potable coffee.

Cornstarch forms a lump if it's not stirred. Since their coffee was not typically Instant Coffee (although they did have a recipe for Instant Coffee), and because their coffee often produced grounds that had to be strained out of the coffee - something difficult to do in the field - cornstarch was used to settle the grounds. If you try it, you’ll see that it works.

The conventional measurement for cornstarch to be used as a thickener is 1 tablespoon per cup of liquid. Since the purpose here is not to thicken the coffee, however, but to settle the grounds, use 1 teaspoon for every two cups of liquid.   Cornstarch will encase the coffee grounds and keep them on the bottom of the pot.   Add the cornstarch at the same time that you add the coffee to the water.  If you don't, then you will have to mix the cornstarch with a separate amount of cold water because cornstarch cannot be added and mixed to a hot liquid; it won't dissolve, but clumps and lumps together. After adding the coffee and the cornstarch to the cold water, bring the coffee to a gentle boil.  The grounds, along with the cornstarch, will remain on the bottom of the pot.  While there will be a small amount of foam on the surface of the brewed coffee, it will go away.  Don't stir the coffee in the pot, or you'll succeed in re-mixing the grounds with the liquid.

Other additives used to settle coffee grounds include broken egg shells, a part of a fish bladder, or even adding a half of a cup of cold water to a pot of coffee.

Here is a recipe from "The Southern Confederacy", dated November 7, 1861, for making coffee without coffee beans:
Ingredients:
Sweet potatoes

"In these war times it is quite an object to make economical investments in this article, but aside from this, the coffee that you can make from this recipe will be found far superior to the very best you can get anywhere, either North or South, and those who give it a fair trial will be unwilling to go back even to the best Java.

"Take sweet potatoes and after peeling them, cut them up into small pieces about the size of the joint of your little finger, dry them either in the sun or by the fire, (sun dried probably the best,) and then parch and grind the same as coffee. Take two thirds of this to one third of coffee to a making."

Another period work gives much the same recipe for "Sweet Potato Coffee":

"Peel sweet potatoes and cut to a size of coffee beans. Spread it in the sun until perfectly dry. Then parch the sweet potatoes in an oven or pan until thoroughly brown or "coffee-colored", before being ground. Grind the browned sweet potato pieces and put them into a cup, to which you will add boiling water. Mix well until it is settled like coffee."

Folks in the mid-nineteenth century apparently liked their coffee best when it was sweet. The sweet potato "coffee", unlike most of the other substitutes, does not require sweetening because the sweet potato pieces caramelize, sweetening the "coffee" with its own, natural sugar as it brews. Other substitutes may require sweetening to be palatable at all.

Dandelion coffee, depending on how it is prepared for use, may be one of those requiring an inordinate amount of sugar to make it acceptable to the taste buds. Use only the roots of the dandelion, washing and cleaning them thoroughly. Dry the roots at a temperature of no greater than 100°, whether sun-dried or oven-dried. Chop the roots into fine bits and roast them on a cookie sheet at 250° for approximately three to four hours until browned. If roasted to a light brown, the coffee you make from them will be quite bitter. Roast them to a dark, chocolate brown, and you’ll find that it makes a sweeter brew and eliminates the bitterness. When properly prepared and the roasted roots are ready to be removed from the oven, they should emit a coffee-like fragrance from the oven. The roasted roots are then ready to be ground into powder and used in place of coffee. Of course, some folks simply chop, dry, and grind the roots to make dandelion tea, once used as both a beverage and a "liver tonic".

Coffee may also be made from parched corn, parched peanuts, chicory, parched okra seeds, and roasted dandelion root. Some claimed to make passable coffee with ingredients such as rye, wheat, peas, beets, parched acorns, and even cotton seeds. While none of the coffee substitutes contain caffeine or taste just like coffee tastes, some of them have an acceptable taste. Remember, too, that these substitutes were created because they simply couldn’t get coffee, or couldn’t afford (thanks to War-time inflation and a devalued Confederate currency) the coffee that they could get. After tasting some of these brews, you may feel forced to conclude that they were only looking for a beverage that was hot, brown, and wet. That may be true in part, but not in whole. In the antebellum period, many magazines of the day discussed newly tried or newly discovered coffee substitutes, often explaining that they had concluded - correctly, as it turns out - that an excess of coffee was not good for folks.

Ultimately, chicory became the most popular replacement for coffee, and remained as a supplement in some brands of coffee and a replacement for coffee to others, as many folks became accustomed to the taste and missed drinking coffee without chicory.

Coffee - Instant
"The Essence of Coffee"
Among the new inventions and discoveries that are astonishing the world, we have heard of none that promises to be more useful and acceptable, at least to ladies, than "The Essence of Coffee" which is now offered to lovers of that beverage. It is the genuine stuff, put up in bottles, at a low price. You have only to put a teaspoon full into a cup of hot water containing the usual complement of sugar and milk, and you have a cup of superior coffee without further trouble.
                                                                                            - Scientific American, March 1847

Ingredients
4 ounces white wax
1 pound oil of almonds
12 ounces rose water

Melt the white wax in an earthen vessel, adding in the oil of almonds after the wax has melted completely.  When the mixture has cooled, gradually stir in the rose water to make cold cream.

Another recipe calls for:
Ingredients
1 ounce white beeswax
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup rose water

Melt the beeswax in a pan until it melts, and heat the rose water at the same time in a separate pan.  Blend the olive oil slowly in with the beeswax.  Pour the warm rose water into the beeswax and oil mixture.  Once blended together, remove the mixture from the heat and stir it until it cools.

Cookies - Ginger
Ginger cookies were made and served in Stafford Kitchen in Virginia, the home of Robert E. Lee. This is the recipe that was used.

Ingredients:
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) butter, melted
1/2 cup molasses
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoons cloves

To the melted butter, add 1/2 cup of molasses, two cups of sugar, and two eggs. Beat them together well. Sift four cups of flour, four teaspoons of baking soda, two teaspoons of cinnamon, 1 1/2 teaspoons of ginger, and one teaspoon of cloves together. Add them to the melted butter mixture and mix thoroughly into a dough. The dough will have the unfortunate appearance of a thick slime rather than a cookie dough prior to refrigeration.

Refrigerate the dough for three to four hours. Remove from the refrigerator and pinch off the dough, rolling it into small balls which will then be rolled in sugar. Bake at 350° until firm or brown, which should take between 8 and 10 minutes. The cookie, if not overcooked, should be chewy. If the cookies look slightly underdone in the middle when they’re removed from the oven, they will cool into a chewy cookie; but if the middle appears to be done, the coolies will tend to be hard or crisp when cool.

The cornbread we eat today only bears a passing resemblance to that eaten during the Civil War. The following recipe is very close to the original. Add a small amount of sugar to this recipe if you prefer your cornbread sweet. Some Southrons do.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour
Pinch of salt
4 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons butter, softened

Combine the cornmeal, flour and salt in a bowl. Add the eggs, milk and butter and mix well. Pour into a 9" X 9" buttered baking pan and bake at 375° for 15 to 20 minutes.

The next recipe is meant to guide you through making cornbread in a Dutch oven.

Ingredients:
2 cups cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the Dutch oven and its lid on the coals of your campfire. Once they have been adequately heated - usually between ten and fifteen minutes - carefully grease every interior surface of the Dutch oven with fat back (also known as salt pork; pork rind; even lard will do).

Prepare the batter by combining all of the ingredients. Sprinkle a handful of cornmeal on the bottom and sides of the interior of the Dutch oven to help prevent the cornbread from sticking to the Dutch oven. Pour the batter in, being sure that the Dutch oven is kept level. In that way, the cornbread will cook evenly and have the same thickness all around.

With a pair of tongs, place the lid on the Dutch oven and cover the Dutch oven completely with hot coals. Depending on how hot the coals are, the cornbread will be ready to remove from the coals within fifteen to twenty minutes. If the bread will be eaten fairly soon or immediately, it can be left in the Dutch oven while it’s cut and removed piece by piece. Cast iron retains heat well, and may result in overcooking the cornbread by leaving it in the Dutch oven. If it will be a while before the cornbread is eaten, it may be best to remove the cornbread from the oven by removing the lid and tipping the Dutch oven to one side so that the cornbread might slide out onto a plate.

Ingredients:
1 cucumber
1 pan water
1/2 cup boiled cream