Sugar & Spice--Condiments & Caffeine
There have always been certain foods, or accompaniments to food, so desirable or highly prized that the demand for them far outweighs whatever nutritional value they may have, if any, in the human diet. Whether they enhance (or hide) the flavor of staple foods, help preserve foods, or produce a narcotic effect on their consumers, luxury or semi-luxury foods and drinks figure prominently in the marketplace and subsequently in laws and legislation. Much of this legislation is what we might today call quality control, aimed at maintaining the purity of these products. One can only assume that tainted goods must have turned up regularly, judging from the legislation that appears. Other laws are primarily concerned with collecting tariffs and duties on these items. Displayed here are materials on spices, salt, vinegar, sugar, coffee and tea, from England, France and the United States, from ca. 1236 to 1821.
Grant by John de Brittewell to Geoffrey de Langley.
ca. 1236, 20 Henry III.
The value of spices is not to be underestimated. This grant of land stipulates that the yearly rent was a pair of spurs, a pair of gloves and a pound of cumin, or the equivalent value in cash. There is evidence that many spices were used much more liberally in the medieval period than they are today, so a pound of cumin was not necessarily an impractically large amount of this spice to have on hand.
England, statutes. An. Reg. Jacobi. London : Robert Barker, 1604.
1 James I, c. 19:
An act for the well garbling of spices.
This act calls for the "garbeling" of spices and drugs, that is sifting to sort out impurities. It begins:
...great deceits and abuses have bene committed in uttering, selling, and putting to sale sundry sorts of uncleane, corrupt and mingled spices, drugges, wares, and other merchandizes garbleable, to the jeopardie of his majesties person, and of his subjects using the same in their meats, drinks, and other needfull occasions...
Spices were to be cleaned, garbeled and sealed by an appointed "garbler" or his deputies. The act also granted garbelers authority to enter and search any suspect shops, warehouses or cellars during the daytime.
The spices listed here give an idea of the great variety available in early seventeenth century England, at least to those who could afford them. They include: several kinds of pepper, cloves, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cumin seeds, anise seeds, coriander seeds, tumeric, and carraway seeds.
Arrest de la cour des aydes de Clermont-Ferrand. Du deuxiéme avril 1692. [Paris : s.n., 1692?]
This decision prohibits all retail and wholesale sellers of salt from selling in bulk during the night, except to certified officials. Otherwise they were allowed to sell in quantity only between the hours of six a.m. to seven p.m. during the period March 1 through September 30, and between seven a.m. and four p.m. from October through February. Smaller amounts for personal consumption could be sold at any time.
Déclaration du roi, portant réglement pour la communauté des vinaigriers de la ville de Paris. Paris : P.G. Simon, 1773.
This royal declaration sought to limit the amount of vinegar made by the vinegar makers of Paris, who had been producing up to 7,800 hogsheads, when only 2,000 per year was deemed sufficient. The king also forbid them from mixing vinegar with wines and ciders and selling it to unscrupulous wine merchants, who then sold it to the public as wine. These vinegars were all made from wine and presumably were milder or softer than the distilled vinegars of today. Vinegar-makers found with ciders, perry or vinegar-wines in their storehouses or cellars would be fined and their stocks confiscated.
Recueils de reglemens, edit, declarations et arrêts, concernant le commerce et la police des colonies françaises de l'Amérique et les engagés. Paris : Libraires Associez, 1745.
This arrêt of 1690 is one of a series regulating sugar between the years 1671 and 1733 collected and published in this volume. Noting that large quantities of sugars had been coming into the kingdom from foreign countries, such as Brazil and St. Thomas, to the detriment of sugar growers in the French colonies of America and to French refiners, this act set a tariff on all sugars in various states of refinement. These are listed as loaf and granulated forms, rock sugar, white and brown sugars. Foreign sugars ultimately destined for other countries could be temporarily stored exempt from duties in warehouses in French seaports.
Letter from the secretary of the Treasury, in reply to a resolution of the House of Representatives upon the subject of the cultivation of the sugar cane, and the manufacture and refinement of sugar. 21st Congress, 2d session. Doc. No. 62, [Washington, D.C. : United States Printing Office, 1831]
In January 1830, at the request of the House of Representatives, the United States Treasury Department solicited information from sugar growers and others in the sugar industry, mostly from Louisiana, in order to "prepare a well digested manual containing the best practical information on the culture of sugar cane and the fabrication and refinement of sugar." This government document, consisting of detailed letters, tables and statistics from the growers themselves, is the result.
The statistics in these tables illustrate some of the costs of the sugar industry and reveal the perspective of the growers in terms which can be chilling to us now. For example, the cost of feeding slaves is listed in the same table with the cost of oxen and horses and repairs to boilers.
The statutes at large. v.15. Cambridge [England] : Joseph Bentham for Charles Bathurst, 1765.
11 George III, c.30
An act for more effectual preventing frauds and abuses in the publick revenues ...
This act lists a wide variety of items subject to excise tax, including brandy, rum, "spirits and strong waters," coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate and salt, which, "not withstanding the good many laws" passed over the years, had not always been taxed as intended.
Section 9 (page 265) prohibits the adulteration of coffee. Apparently, "divers and evil-disposed persons" had the habit of mixing butter, lard, grease or water with coffee at the time of roasting. This had the effect of increasing the weight of the coffee--not to mention what it might have done to the taste!--and thus the price. Offenders were subject to a fine of 100 pounds, as were traders or dealers who knowingly bought or sold such coffee.
The statutes at large. v.31. Cambridge [England] : John Archdeacon for Charles Bathurst, 1775.
17 George III, c.29:
An act for the more effectual prevention of the manufacturing of ash, elder, sloe and other leaves, in imitation of tea, and to prevent frauds in the revenue of excise with respect to tea.
By the eighteenth century, tea's popularity had surpassed that of coffee in England, so its purity was important to a good many people. This law begins with a quote from a similar act of 4 George II (1731) which prohibited dealers from selling sloe, licorice or the leaves of any other plant or shrub as tea. It also prohibited the coloring, staining or dyeing of these pseudo-teas, and listed as coloring agents terra japonica, sugar, molasses, clay and logwood (a tree native to Central America and grown for dye).
These practices had evidently not been eradicated by 1777 and this statute essentially reaffirms the earlier one. Excise officers were granted special warrants to search any suspect buildings or storage areas, day or night, and anyone convicted of dealing in such "tea" would be fined five pounds for every pound of false tea, or imprisoned for up to a year. Half of the fines would go to informers, half to the poor of the parish where the offense had been committed.