Rations

[cprljohnivey]

Re: Essence of Coffee

Here is where I insert the good old "check out the search function of the forum"...

I believe (correct me if I am wrong people) that Essence of Coffee came around in 62 and was pretty much gone from the ranks by 63 as it was not all that popular with the troops. Check out Sullivan Press... I believe they have a good label.

[Parault]

Re: Essence of Coffee

Thank You for the information

[coastaltrash]

Re: Essence of Coffee

Brad,
Actually the stuff had a much earlier patent date to it than 1862. Also in doing research for "Life on the Line" Joe Lietchy of Mess #1 shared some information with me about Essence being issued to troops at Vicksburg. This clearly wasn't a "disappeared from the ranks" type situation as the product was a private purchased item, or in some cases, as explained earlier where it was issued in bulk. From a personal standpoint I prefer it over whole bean coffee in the field. The prep time is minimal and it comes sweetened as did the original stuff.

As far as a label, Sullivan Press offers a CD rom with labels, including Essence of Coffee.

[markj]

Re: Essence of Coffee

Brad,
Actually the stuff had a much earlier patent date to it than 1862. Also in doing research for "Life on the Line" Joe Lietchy of Mess #1 shared some information with me about Essence being issued to troops at Vicksburg. This clearly wasn't a "disappeared from the ranks" type situation as the product was a private purchased item, or in some cases, as explained earlier where it was issued in bulk. From a personal standpoint I prefer it over whole bean coffee in the field. The prep time is minimal and it comes sweetened as did the original stuff.

As far as a label, Sullivan Press offers a CD rom with labels, including Essence of Coffee.

Yup. I've seen ads for Hummel's Essence of Coffee extending back to at least 1853. The stuff was definitely around at least as early as 1852 since it was awarded a trade fair prize in that year. The firm of D. C. Bohler & Co., of Philadelphia, first advertised its "Essence of Coffee" product in the New York Times no later than 11 February 1852.

If anyone is interested, I have the entire Congressional report (dated January 1862) relating to purchases of "extracts of coffee." This is, conveniently, in Adobe pdf, which I pulled off the Lexis Nexis search engine for Congressional proceedings. The only downside is that the file is 2 megs.

Regards,

Mark Jaeger

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Essence of Coffee

From Scientific American, March 1847
"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
tea-spoon full into a cup of water containing the usual compliment of sugar and milk, and
you have a cup of superior coffee without further trouble."

I also have an original ad for Hummel's Extract of Coffee from 1851. It has a long testimony on one side and a advertising song on the other side sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."

From what I can tell, Hummel's was almost like what we would consider a coffee extender or maybe an instant coffee. The instructions, read, "To make a half gallon middling strong coffee, take one tablespoon full of ground coffee and half a tea-spoonful of this Essence, and boil the coffee as desired; more or less quanitity of coffee must be made after this proportion; for very strong coffee take some more of this Essence." Instructions were also in German. It stated that one box would equal 4# of coffee and cost 12 1/2 cents.

There were several types of concentrated coffee besides essence of coffee. Extract of coffee, which was a sweetened concentrated solution of coffee and this was sold commercially and also there were recipes in period magazines, such a Godey's. I have a period bottle for this type of extract of coffee. Borden, of condensed milk fame, also made a product of sweetened consdensed milk and coffee which he supplied to the Federal army. Borden's product was also called "Extract of Coffee."

There were articles in the July, 1994 issue and the Sept.1979 issues of Camp Chase Gazette on essence and extract of coffee and how to make your own.

We have made the a version with the sweetened condensed milk and coffee and there is still a commercial variety of sweetened concentrated coffee with no milk, called, "Camp Coffee" and it is usually available in British goods stores.

[JWNathan]

Re: Essence of Coffee

That "Camp" coffe sounds interestin. I've had the Mocha Java "Ryan's Coffee" which I thought was quite tasty.
-Jesse

[STFeryus]

Hard Soap

Hey Everybody,

I tried searching and couldn't find anything so here it goes:
I was reading through the wartime letters of John Garibaldi, he served in Company C of the 27th Virginia. In the letters, he asks his wife to send him "hard" soap. Now I was thinking that all of the soap of the time would have been hard, in bars or blocks. Does anyone know of "soft" soap, would it be comparable to liquid soap of today? Or was John just being descriptive for his wife?

The letters can be found at: http://www.vmi.edu/archives/Manuscri....html#fulltext . The letters I'm referring to are Jan. 18, 1863 and Jan. 27, 1863.

Thanks for the help

[Tom Ezell]

Re: Hard Soap

How hard the soap is depends on the skill of the soapmaker and the recipe used... A good source is Wiggington's The Foxfire Book, which documents several of the ways that homemade lye soap was produced, at least in the South...

[Hank Trent]

Re: Hard Soap

Soft soap was fairly common in the period. It was not quite liquid, more mushy, comparable to lard in texture.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[LindaTrent]

Re: Hard Soap

Back when Hank and I made soap for the Bradford Place we kept running across "soft soap" and seeing that it seemed to be quite common, especially in the country. Anyway, the soap we made turned out to be similar in texture to, as Hank said, lard. I made a website with soap receipts from period cookery books ranging from the 1820s through 1865, and soft soap was in all of them. Here are a few examples, the site is at
http://thebradfordplace1863.homestea...oapMaking.html

Employments of Women, p. 390, 1863
That sold in groceries is made mostly in towns or in the country. It is hardened by muriate of soda, and called bar soap. That used by people in the country is generally of their own make, and called soft soap. In New York, we observed in some groceries barrels of soft soap of a very light color, almost white... A machine has been invented for cutting soap into bars, which will doubtless in time do away with the primitive plan of cutting it with wires.

The Ladies' Repository Domestic Economy p. 567, 1860
Soft soap should be kept in a dry place in the cellar, and should not be used till three months old.
Bar soap should be cut into pieces of a convenient size, and laid where it will become dry. It is well to keep it several weeks before using it, as it spends fast when it is new.

The Modern Farmer, John Lauris Blake, 1854
Potash makes soft soap, with grease, and soda forms hard soap.

Oh, one more, in the Virginia Housewife 1860 it gives a receipt for [hard]soap and then says:

Soft soap is made in the same manner, only omitting the salt.

Linda.

[STFeryus]

Re: Hard Soap

Thanks for helping clear that up.

[Rob Weaver]

Re: Hard Soap

Soap made with tallow (beef fat) will turn out hard, with lard or pig fat (which is soft) it will turn out soft. There isn't much difference to the technique, mostly the fat base makes a big difference. And has been noted, soft isn't liquid but more like a mushy stuff. I told my wife John McElroy's story about stealing soap from a barrel while interned at Andersonville (Short version: he was sitting on a barrel of soft soap and now and then dipped a hand in it and secreted it in his pocket. He retreived about a quart this way. He blistered his thighs, which he attributed to having the sun beat mercilessly down on the soap in his pockets.). My wife's observation? "That soap wasn't cured right. The lye was still in it. That's what burned his legs."

[Hank Trent]

Re: Hard Soap

Just a bit more information on the chemical basis of soft soap, from the 1851 US Dispensatory.

Soft soap (Sapo Mollis) is prepared on the same general principles as hard soap; potash being employed as the alkali, and a fatty matter, rich in olein, as the oil. The French soft soap is made with the seed oils, such as rape seed, hemp seed, &c.; the Scotch and Irish, with fish oil and some tallow; and our own with refuse fat and grease. A lye of wood-ashes is the form of potash usually employed. In forming this soap it is necessary that it should continue dissolved in the alkaline solution, instead of being separated from it. Hence soft soap is a soap of potassa, competely dissolved in the solution of its alkali, which is consequently present in excess. A soap of potassa is sometimes made with a view to its conversion into a soda soap. This conversion is effected by the additon of common salt, which, by double decomposition, generates a soap of soda, and chloride of potassium in solution.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Essence of Coffee

That "Camp" coffe sounds interestin. I've had the Mocha Java "Ryan's Coffee" which I thought was quite tasty.
-Jesse

Here is a period recipe for a similar product.

COFFEE SYRUP.—This confection is exceedingly handy to travellers when proceeding on a long journey. Take half a pound of the best roasted ground coffee; boil the same in a saucepan containing three quarts of water until the quantity is reduced to one quart; strain the latter off, and, when fined of all impurities, introduce the liquor into another clean saucepan, and let it boil over again, adding as much Lisbon sugar to it as will constitute a thick syrup, like treacle; remove it from the fire, and, when cold, pour it into bottles, corking the same tight down for use. Two teaspoonfuls of the syrup introduced into a moderate-sized tea-cup, and fill up with boiling water, will be fit for immediate use. If milk is at hand, use it ad libitum.
- Godey's, October, 1862

[Charles Heath]

Re: Essence of Coffee

Virginia,

That receipt works rather well, and with a little care it won't scorch. Several methods exist to skin the proverbial cat.

Just loaded about seven pounds of Essense of Coffee into Old Whitey the Wundertruck, and soon it shall be Mississippi bound. That's a lot of axle grease.