OCR Text |
Show Starch Has a History ! Was First Made in Flanders and Invaded England ia Elizabeth's Time At First Unpopular With the Puritans. "A package of starch?" asked the intelligent and learned grocer, and as he wrapped the package u: he talked of the article. "Starch originated," he said, "in Flanders. It was introduced into England Eng-land with the big ruff in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was like our starch of today, except that it was made in colors red, yellow, green, blue. The effect of this was to tint delicately the white linen to which the starch might be applied. "Before Queen Elizabeth's time ruffles ruf-fles and ruffs were made of fine Holland, Hol-land, which required no stiffening. Then the ruffs of. cambric came and these must of necessity be starched." The grocer, consulting his memorandum memo-randum book, resumed: "It is recorded that 'when the queen had ruffs made of lawn and cambric for her own princely wearing there was none in England could tell how to starch them, but the queen made special means for some women that could starch and Mrs. Gullham, wife of the royal coachman, was the first starcher.' . J "In 1564 a Flanders woman, Frau ; Van Der Plasse, came to London and established there a school for the teaching of starching. The school succeeded. The Flanders frau got rich, she charged 5 a lesson and an j extra twenty shillings for a recipe for the making of starch of wheat flour, , , jran and roots. ' "Yellow was the most fashionabla color in starch among the nobility, The fast, racing set went in for greent The puritans used blue starch, thougB at first they had been against the stuff altogether, dubbing it 'A certaine kinde of liquide matter which they called starch, wherein the devill hath willed them to wash and dive their ruffes, which, when they be dry, will then stand stiffe and inflexible about their necks.' "Starch Is made from wheat, corn and potatoes and starving men have often subsisted on it, finding it nourishing, nour-ishing, though not tasty." |