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.Excessive alcohol consumption was not perceived as a problem on thefrontier and by the best of families in cities and villages.It was notunusual after a dinner party to find one or more of the guests sleepingoff the effects of over-imbibing (Woodward, 177).The anecdote that fol-lows, from Senator George F.Hoar s Autobiography, succinctly sums upthe American apathy toward excessive drinking.The habit of excessive drinking was then universal in this country.Even theclergyman staggered home from his round of pastoral calls, and the bearerspartook of brandy, gin, and rum at funerals.It was not uncommon to see farmers,highly respected in the town, lying drunk by the roadside on a summer after-noon, or staggering along the streets.I have heard Nathan Brooks, who deliveredthe first temperance lecture in Concord at the request of the selectmen, say that Food 111Illustration of a drunken man, circa 1800.Courtesy of the Library of Congress.after it was over he and some of the principal citizens went over to the tavernand each took a drink of flip.(qtd.in ibid., 178)The republican propensity for drinking eventually led to politicalproblems.During the war whiskey production had risen significantly.Because whiskey making had seriously depleted grain stores (corn,wheat, and rye), the wartime governments had to curtail the amounts ofgrain distilleries could use in liquor production.Also, there was no taxon liquor or licensing of distilleries.Anyone and everyone could makeand sell whiskey.For many, distilling was a lucrative sideline.In 1791 Congress enacted a nine-cent-per-gallon excise tax on whiskey.The whiskey tax had been proposed as a viable means to raise moneyfor the national debt.Irate backwoods distillers reacted very violently to 112 Popular Culture of the New Nationthe federal revenue officers who came to collect the tax.By 1794, wellorganized farmers in western Pennsylvania led an armed rebellion (theWhiskey Rebellion).Fortunately, no battle ensued between the army andthe insurgents, partially because the farmers had no desire to bear armsagainst the militia.Some were brought to trial; two were convicted fortreason but pardoned by Washington.The end result was that Congresseventually repealed the whiskey tax.Whiskey, in fact, was not taxed inthe United States from 1792 to 1862.Obviously, Americans guarded theirright to distill and consume whiskey as a fundamental right (as well astheir right to resist taxation).VEGETABLESAlthough pork and grains were the basis of American food and drink,vegetables provided some variety in the republican diet.Farmers grewthe usual English vegetables: peas, beans, vegetable marrow (a large,green squash found in the British Isles), and cabbage.To that they addedvegetables indigenous to the American continent: yams, pumpkins, andthe American variety of squash.Americans also grew root vegetablessuch as potatoes and turnips.Early American cultivation did not, how-ever, include cauliflower, eggplant, and rhubarb since these were un-known at this time (Train, 239).The tomato, today a mainstay in the American diet, was not particu-larly popular with Americans during this time.Called love apples, tomatoes were primarily grown alongside other plants in American gar-dens for their color, not necessarily because of their tastiness.3 TheFrench, on the other hand, had become adept at using love apples intheir cuisine.American gentry, many enamored with all things French,introduced French cooking in their households and with it the tomatointo their diets.(Jefferson was particularly fond of tomatoes.) But thesewere the exceptions, not the rule.Americans also resisted eating leafy vegetables, somehow equatingthem to being less nutritious than other vegetables.Unlike root vegeta-bles, squash and leafy vegetables were difficult to preserve.(Most po-tatoes and beans could be either stored in bins or dried.) Though farmfamilies enjoyed wild greens such as dandelions, turnip tops, and wildplants (cowslips and pigweed), these were handily picked from the wild.No labor-intensive cultivation was involved.If a family chose to grow green vegetables, that chore was usually leftto the farmer s wife.Farmers saw little reason to invest their efforts andtime in growing vegetables that were less substantial (that is, less filling)than the usual staples of the American meals (meat, grain, and root veg-etables).Many times the farmer would not even allow his wife to pur-chase seeds to start a garden since farmers generally regarded gardening Food 113as a waste of time.In one documented instance, a Maryland farmer re-fused his wife s request for money to buy seeds, mainly because hethought it more prudent that money be spent on whiskey and tobaccoinstead (Cummings, 21).FRUITSAlthough many Americans did not eat fruits regularly, there werehuge varieties available to American palates.Berries grew wildly andabundantly.American orchards yielded pears, cherries, peaches, plums,and apples.Most fruits were, however, extremely perishable.The excep-tion was the apple, which could be kept for months after the growingseason had ended.As prized as the apple may have been, it was notavailable to all.Apple trees took many years to mature and so there was a scarcity ofthem, especially on the frontier.Prior to the settlement of the NorthAmerican continent, there were hundreds of apple varieties available inEurope.The original settlers had brought the apple to North Americawhere it quickly adapted to the American climate.In the initial stagesof the westward movement, trappers and Native Americans carried ap-ple seedlings into the frontier, but apple trees were still relatively un-common on the frontier
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