Hello.
I am reading a mystery I borrowed from my mother. It is called "Man's
Loving Family", by Keith Heller. It is set in 1727 London, and the sleuth
lives above
a bakeshop. The first few paragraphs in Chapter 5 describe the shop:
"The Kettilbys had come to Ironmonger Row some ten years ago, and their
business had prospered. Alice Kettilby was proud of their shop. They made
and sold only the finest manchet loaves, and those that were leavened were
made with the finest ale-barm she could find. Their spice breads and
cracknels were loudly appreciated by all, and some of the finer folk came
all the way from Westminster for their thick breakfast wigs, the small
spiced and sweetened cakes with the delicate sprinkling of caraway seeds.
It was a good shop, selling good wares. There were plenty of bakers in the
city - Alice could tell you their names - who whitened their breads with
alum or chalk or lead or even with ground bones from the charnel-house!
None of that for the Kettilbys. They took their wheat only from those
farmers they knew in their home county of Norfolk, and Walter Kettilby
ground it all himself with their old hand quern. And if it were a dough
that Alice Kettilby
wanted to take special care of, she would knead it herself with her own
feet through double layers of thick sacking. None of her loaves, she swore
could ever be said to have come close or sad, and the Assize would never be
dragging
her man off for a stand in the pillory for selling underweight breads."
Now come the questions:
What are the following:
manchet loaves, ale barm, cracknels, quern
Are the the baking references true? Kneading with feet?
Whitening with alum, chalk, lead (Yipe!) or (yuk) bones?
Could you really spend time in the pillory for selling
underweight loaves? Wow, talk about strict consumer laws.
Thanks in advance,
Michelle
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Steve & Michelle Plumb -- splumb@ic.net
Plymouth, Michigan USA
Microsoft: "Where do you want to go today?"
Reply (from one of their ads): "Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus
addictis."
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