Still another school of pretzel historians claim the twisted bread originated among the peasants of the Black Forest. During Holy Week these people made and ate a bread called Bretzelin, the double knot representing the rope by which Christ's hands were tied.
Now it's alphabets, stars, and sticks— nothing is sacred!
Chinese green tea, so very scarce since the war, is still available by mail from Simpson and Vail, 89 Front Street, at $1.25 to $1.50 a pound, plus cost of mailing. Most concerns have been out of those teas for two years at least, but this company has had limited stocks right along through the war. They have also a very small supply of the greens of Japan. Green teas on hand are the gunpowder and the young hyson, also pan-fired. Something else offered are China's black teas, $1.25 to $1.50 a pound, these running from the regular China congou to the finest Keemun. Every bit as good, we think, as some teas in the market for which shoppers are paying up to $3.00 a pound. It is our understanding that Simpson and Vail have small lots of numerous choice teas which they are reluctant to mention, trying to hold these for their regular customers.
If you are ordering tea, you might like to try also the Simpson and Vail coffees; excellent blends of Medellin, aged Cucuta, and the Mexican Coatpec. No Brazil coffees are used, a boasting point with this firm. Why so smug? The market, it seems, is deluged with inexpensive Brazils of poor quality and these are being used heavily by many large concerns, because superior coffees are hard to get in any real volume. This house, being small and adept at working numerous channels, has been lucky enough to corner small stocks of top coffees. Anyhow, that's their story, and the coffee does have a rich, mellow flavor. But be your own judge. Order without hesitation, for there is a moneyback guarantee, if the brew doesn't give complete satisfaction.
Rosie makes the cheeses that bring the Jewish customers from all parts of the city to the Kaltman Dairy Store at 125 Delancey Street on New York's East Side. Here are cottage cheeses as they are made on the Continent, where Rosie (Mrs. Harry Kaltman, the boss's wife) learned cheese-making as a girl on her father's dairy farm near Mieletz, Austria. Even on Delancey Street far removed from green meadows, Rosie gives the cheeses a pleasantly pastoral touch.
The cottage cheese is purchased in thirty-pound tins, then Rosie takes over. She divides about one hundred pounds of the cheese five different ways, and each lot is mixed differently. The fresh vegetable cheese—that's the best seller —is a blend of five finely ground vegetables; scallions, carrots, peppers, radishes, celery.
Kummel cheese is scattered thick with the bewhiskered caraway. This cheese, enthroned on dark bread, is the one we like best. Second choice, a cheese mingled with coarsely ground green peppers, this to heap on slices of pumpernickel and enjoy with a beer.
Rosie makes her cheeses in a variety of shapes, heart-style, roly-poly butter balls, fat pats dimpled with her wooden paddle. If Rosie is in what she calls her “decorating mood,” she may top the cheeses with a flower trim. The sweet cheese may wear the Delancey Street rose made of maraschino cherries or of golden pineapple. The vegetable cheese gets a green pepper, radish, carrot bouquet.
Dry-baked farmer's cheese is made is the store's back kitchen, a much sought after item by those who knew this sort of thing on the Continent. Rosie takes the farmer's cheese and dries it under fans, then bakes the long rolls in a slow oven until their tops are raised in a rash of dark blisters. A cheese to serve as a savory, the price 85 cents a pound.
Plantation pecan rolls are six-inch lengths of chewy nougat logs, well mixed with chopped almonds, the whole rolled in almond halves. These logs are sold boxed, convenient for mailing to the young ones at school. They sell at B. Altman's Fifth Avenue at 34th, the White Turkey Restaurant, 220 Madison Avenue, the Woman's Exchange, 541 Madison Avenue, Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, the price around 84 cents for an eight-ounce stick. The product is made in Birmingham, Alabama, by Piper's Candies, made with fresh cream and fancy pecans. Tennessee Mountain honey sweetens the mixture.
“Sustancia de Chilan,” is the peddlers' call as your train puffs into one of Chile's coastal cities. Native women wait, laden with baskets of cornucopias which hold the snow-white cakes. Everyone is buying, you buy too. Why, it's like a marshmallow, but heavenly sweet. Each little cake is a temptation to indulge in one more.
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