One year, two years, and the orange slice sales built into as a thriving home-kitchen business, the Kettle Cove Industries. During the war when Mr. Coolidge was in service as a commander in the Navy, Mrs. Coolidge went to work in earnest to make the slices pay. She brought in neighbor women to work by the hour, she turned salesman and began selling processed oranges to city stores. Big business was brewing when her husband returned. Mr. Coolidge, seeing the orange slice sales leaping ahead, asked to join with his wife as a full-fledged partner. A factory was opened, and today the slices are selling in numerous cities.
More products, too: the mint, lime, and orange syrups to use as a base and sweetener for drinks. There is an orange-and-apricot butter sold only in New England. There is a marmalade reeking of whiskey and a processed or-range rind called the orange crescent. New an orange-nut party made of the processed ground rind, sugar, and nuts. These are but by-products of the slice business which Mrs. Coolidge refers to as the “pig's squeal.” Orange slices cured in rye remain the main dish, retailing 12 ounces for around 60 cents, enough slices and syrup for 16 to 18 cocktails. the 1-pint putup is ＄1.05 to ＄1.15, handled in Manhattan by Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, and Lewis and Conger, Sixth Avenue and 45th Street.
Travel down to New Orleans, to the heart of the Vieux Carré, directly across the street from Antoine's “over-a-hundred-year-old” restaurant, to sample Cook's Old Southern Confections. This firm was established in 1930 doing business retail as well as mail order. In less than a decade Cook's meant pralines to New Orleans Stores in various cities asked to buy the brown-sugar patties and wholesaling started, but it was soon discontinued due to sugar shortage and tin scarcity. These pralines were vacuum-packed to preserve their fresh tenderness. Now with tin and sugar in the ascendancy again, Cook's sweets travel the country, selling both by mail and through retail stores. In new York City the vacuum-packed pralines are seen at B. Altman's, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street; R. H. Macy's, Broadway and 34th Street; Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue. The maple pecan pralines, filled with crisp Louisiana nuts, come 12 big ones to a tin, each individually packed in glassine envelopes, ＄1.75. A candy medium soft, of good pecan flavor. Smaller pralines, the Pralettes, individually packaged, rich and flavorful, the 12-ounce tin ＄1.35.
A third item in national distribution is Cook's pecan flakes, light golden bits of brittle with scads of pecans, of burnt-sugar-nut flavor. The same flakes are being made with cashew nuts, almonds, black walnuts, and peanuts to sell direct from Cook's Southern Confections, 714 St. Louis Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. The pralines are shipped prepaid any where in the United States to arrive fresh as those hawked in the old French Quarter by the mammy street vendors.
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