Read Online 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jane Ziegelman
Tags: United States, General, Social Science, History, Cooking, New York, New York (State), State & Local, 19th century, Middle Atlantic, Nutrition, N.Y.), Immigrants, Social History, Emigration & Immigration, Agriculture & Food, History - U.S., History: American, United States - 19th Century, Food habits, United States - State & Local - Middle Atlantic, United States - State & Local - General, Lower East Side (New York, New York - Local History
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eating, drinking, dancing, shooting their rifles, and generally celebrating. In June of 1855, the Saengverein , one of the German singing societies, hosted a picnic at Elm Park on Staten Island. A New York journalist who was sent to cover the event returned with the following report:
We never saw the like before! Such a pouring down of lager bier, such swarms of Germans, such extravagantly jolly times, we should not have expected to see if we planned a year’s travel and tarry in Germany as we saw yesterday in Elm Park…Before 1 o’clock from twelve to fourteen thousand persons were already busily enjoying themselves, and still for a couple of hours longer they kept streaming in at both entrances. 34
Visitors were equally impressed by the spirit of orderliness that prevailed at the picnics, despite the size of the gathering and the amount of drinking that took place. Somewhere in that frolicsome but well-mannered mob were the Glockners, Wilhelmina sitting under a tree on the slightly damp earth. Her infant son nestled beside her, lying on his father’s out-spread handkerchief. The two of them are waiting for the return of Mr. Glockner, who has temporarily disappeared into the crowd in search of grilled bratwurst.
CHAPTER TWO
The Moore Family
Potatoes—! Kindly Root, most Cordial Friend,
That Ever Nature to this Isle did send!
Potatoes; oh hard Fate! all dead and gone?
And with them thousands of our selves anon!
’Twas you, deceas’d dear friends, kept us alive,
Vain, vain are all our Hopes long to survive!
—A NONYMOUS EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY I RISH POET 1
I t was the size of a boy’s fist, though not so well-formed. Its crackled skin was covered with sunken, purplish-black marks, splattered like paint. Sliced in half, the pale interior was marbled with thick, rust-colored veins. Poke it with your finger, and the spongy flesh oozed a foul-smelling liquid….
This lopsided, rotting form was a blighted Irish potato, victim of the fungus-like parasite Phytophthora infestans. The blight that struck Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, triggering the deadliest famine in the history of modern Europe, originated in central Mexico sometime around 1840. From there, it migrated to the United States in 1843, first detected by New England farmers who were mystified by its lethal handiwork. The following year, it was carried to Europe with a shipment of seed potatoes, spreading through Belgium, Germany, France, and England, then leaping over the sea to Ireland in 1845. Here, it found ideal growing conditions—cool temperatures and plenty of rain. According to Irish observers, the parasite worked on its host with such efficiency that entire fields, green and healthy one day, were black and withered within the week. The blight returned in 1846, this time causing a total failure of the Irish potato crop, the national staple, leaving most of the country with virtually nothing to eat. Incredibly, it endured for nearly a decade, hibernating over the winter then blooming to life each spring until it was finally killed off by a warmer, drier weather pattern.
In 1840, the population of Ireland was over eight million, and still quickly growing. Within fifteen years, more than a quarter of that number had vanished. One and a half million Irish had died of starvation, or of famine-related diseases, such as typhus or cholera. Approximately two million were lost to emigration, some to England and Scotland but most to America, producing another demographic shift, this one in New York.
When the nineteenth century began, New York was in many ways an English city. Most of its inhabitants were of English descent; they belonged to the Church of England, drank English-style ale, and paid for it with English-named coins. The great influx of Irish immigrants between 1845 and 1860 changed the city’s ethnic composition, so by 1860 it was a quarter Irish, and nearly a third Catholic. Included in that exodus were Bridget Meehan and Joseph Moore (her
We never saw the like before! Such a pouring down of lager bier, such swarms of Germans, such extravagantly jolly times, we should not have expected to see if we planned a year’s travel and tarry in Germany as we saw yesterday in Elm Park…Before 1 o’clock from twelve to fourteen thousand persons were already busily enjoying themselves, and still for a couple of hours longer they kept streaming in at both entrances. 34
Visitors were equally impressed by the spirit of orderliness that prevailed at the picnics, despite the size of the gathering and the amount of drinking that took place. Somewhere in that frolicsome but well-mannered mob were the Glockners, Wilhelmina sitting under a tree on the slightly damp earth. Her infant son nestled beside her, lying on his father’s out-spread handkerchief. The two of them are waiting for the return of Mr. Glockner, who has temporarily disappeared into the crowd in search of grilled bratwurst.
CHAPTER TWO
The Moore Family
Potatoes—! Kindly Root, most Cordial Friend,
That Ever Nature to this Isle did send!
Potatoes; oh hard Fate! all dead and gone?
And with them thousands of our selves anon!
’Twas you, deceas’d dear friends, kept us alive,
Vain, vain are all our Hopes long to survive!
—A NONYMOUS EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY I RISH POET 1
I t was the size of a boy’s fist, though not so well-formed. Its crackled skin was covered with sunken, purplish-black marks, splattered like paint. Sliced in half, the pale interior was marbled with thick, rust-colored veins. Poke it with your finger, and the spongy flesh oozed a foul-smelling liquid….
This lopsided, rotting form was a blighted Irish potato, victim of the fungus-like parasite Phytophthora infestans. The blight that struck Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, triggering the deadliest famine in the history of modern Europe, originated in central Mexico sometime around 1840. From there, it migrated to the United States in 1843, first detected by New England farmers who were mystified by its lethal handiwork. The following year, it was carried to Europe with a shipment of seed potatoes, spreading through Belgium, Germany, France, and England, then leaping over the sea to Ireland in 1845. Here, it found ideal growing conditions—cool temperatures and plenty of rain. According to Irish observers, the parasite worked on its host with such efficiency that entire fields, green and healthy one day, were black and withered within the week. The blight returned in 1846, this time causing a total failure of the Irish potato crop, the national staple, leaving most of the country with virtually nothing to eat. Incredibly, it endured for nearly a decade, hibernating over the winter then blooming to life each spring until it was finally killed off by a warmer, drier weather pattern.
In 1840, the population of Ireland was over eight million, and still quickly growing. Within fifteen years, more than a quarter of that number had vanished. One and a half million Irish had died of starvation, or of famine-related diseases, such as typhus or cholera. Approximately two million were lost to emigration, some to England and Scotland but most to America, producing another demographic shift, this one in New York.
When the nineteenth century began, New York was in many ways an English city. Most of its inhabitants were of English descent; they belonged to the Church of England, drank English-style ale, and paid for it with English-named coins. The great influx of Irish immigrants between 1845 and 1860 changed the city’s ethnic composition, so by 1860 it was a quarter Irish, and nearly a third Catholic. Included in that exodus were Bridget Meehan and Joseph Moore (her
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