1. "I'll have johnnycakes, please"
Posted by Harry on Mar-14th-04 at 7:19 AM

Hold the mutton soup!

Tomorrow at 1:30pm, Eastern time, the Food Channel will show "Places to Die For" which has a segment on the food served at the B&B.

It's been on before but still interesting.

One of these days I would like all the tapes ever done on Lizzie.  All snippets and bits and pieces of video and contemporary radio chats and film.
Ah, heaven!

I still wonder if some smart apple ever conned Lizzie into recording her voice for posterity... Would be neat to hear.

Oh now here's a piece of irony for you. We know Lizzie had some fondness for theatre types. It seems that two days after the start of her trial at New Bedford, one of the most renowned actors of the century died in New York City, aged 59. The actor? Edwin Booth!

I think it probably a good bet Lizzie used this soap.
After all, its icon was a contemporary actress.
And, it was manufactured by Swift & Company.

Beef and soap bubbles.  Nice combo.  LOL

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3666595804&category=13597

Awesome find Christina!!!

"SWIFT AND COMPANY. Swift and Company, headquartered in Fort Worth, was a major branch of the nation's leading nineteenth-century meat-packing firm and one of the nation's Big Four meat-packers of the early 1900s. The company was founded in Chicago in the 1880s by Gustavus Franklin Swift, inventor of the refrigerated railway car.

Contemporaneous with the growth and importance of the live stock market and the meat packing industry is the development of large soap manufacturing plants of which Swift & Company was one. They manufactured Wool Soap, Maxine Elliott Complexion Soap, and Vanity Fair Beauty Soap, to name a few."


The major philosophy of Swift and Company was to use every part of the animal with no waste left over. If you tour FRHS you will see (I think it is still there) a rocking horse covered with an actual animal skin. This was an attempt at creating a market for another by product of animal slaughter. Gustavus developed the refrigerated rail car so they did not have to ship live animals. There was too much loss with the animals dying on the way to their destination. By getting the processing close to the source there was less waste of valuable meat.
Meet Chicago's wonderman!

Gramma

Hi Christina!  Welcome to the forum.

The only other soap I can imagine Lizzie using from the era was Pears. 

That's sweet Susan! 

I saw Martha Stewart wearing animal fur to court.  I guess if you are reviled already you can do just about anything you want .

Martha wearing fur? Well, to get the right color scheme, it better have been skunk

Cheap shot! Wish I'd thought of it first. 

Welcome, Christina!  Great Fall River find--the perfect soap for Lizzie, one made at home but endorsed by a glamorous actress.  I bet she had a cake on every washstand!

--Lyddie

Clever one, Susan.

--Lyddie

Is she supposed to be an animal lover?

Just for trivia's sake: We learned at the B&B that "johnnycakes" took their name from "journey cakes"--cakes to be packed for consumption while on the road.  We had some for breakfast (they were white corn meal johnny cakes), in the Borden dining room.  They look like silver dollar pancakes, but thicker, are served with butter and syrup and are (in my opinion) absolutely tasteless--but they do have substance.  BTW, though the breakfast (apart from the johnnycakes) was delicious, I was disappointed that there were no bananas or pears or molasses cookies.

Since the terms were "Johnny Reb" and "Billy Yank", I wondered if johnnycakes were taken from Southern cooking? I guess not.

But if "hill-billy" doesn't come from "mountain william"?
I once read that northern Alabama was pro-Union, and Sherman raised a regiment from these counties.

(Message last edited Mar-16th-04  4:52 PM.)

i would think the use of the word "billy" in "hill billy" and "billy yank" are of the same origin, which is just picking a common name to signify association with something else.

johnnycakes -- not a southern american word.

i had no idea general sherman had anything to do with the word "hillbilly."  i hate to say it, but do you have a source for this?  i know some people think general hooker had something to do with the word "hooker" because he frequented the brothels, but i've never been able to ascertain this -- i doubt it, because the simple meaning of the word hooker explains it.

From www.merriamwebster.com

Main Entry: hill·bil·ly
Pronunciation: 'hil-"bi-lE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -lies
Etymology: 1hill + Billy, nickname for William
: a person from a backwoods area

<yeah, but what does it mean?>

Again from www.merriamwebster.com


Main Entry: 1hook·er
Pronunciation: 'hu-k&r
Function: noun
1 : one that hooks
2 : DRINK <a hooker of Scotch>
3 : PROSTITUTE



Main Entry: 1hook
Pronunciation: 'huk
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hOc; akin to Middle Dutch hoec fishhook, corner, Lithuanian kenge hook

9 : a selling point or marketing scheme
- by hook or by crook : by any means
- off the hook 1 : out of trouble 2 : free of responsibility or accountability
- on one's own hook : by oneself : INDEPENDENTLY

I NEVER said that Genl Sherman had anything to do with 'hillbilly' (a word I never heard in speech, only on broadcasts).

Some say the word "hooker" referred to the camp followers of Gen' Hooker's army, others that if referred to woman on the streets who hooked their arm around male passersby to solicit business. Both may be correct. Laws against solicitation prevented any overt action; they had to use a sign, like swinging a pocketbook or shiny patent leather shoes. Or selling something on the corner (matches, violets, etc). Or so I read.

These are also code words that can be used a euphemisms. A "johnny" was also used by the British (I think) in reference to the French: (Johnny Francois?). See also "john".

i didn't really understand what you were saying about hillbilly and gen. sherman -- or maybe you were not connecting them.  anyway, you're right about pro-union opinion in north alabama and also eastern tennessee -- just for the record.  it wouldn't surprise me if sherman raised a regiment there. the thing about sherman and the south is that he KNEW it -- the region and the people -- he ran some military school in louisiana when the war started.

but another "unknown origin" word from the era was "skedaddle" -- it was used to describe the union soldiers running back to washington after bull run - but i doubt the journalist or whoever it was actually "created" the word - -but some people think it was created then.