Chapter 3: Escagraph Kinds: Sweet, Lawful, Moveable Type
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Chapter 3: Escagraph Kinds: Sweet, Lawful, Moveable Type |
We have learned that two elements must be present for an object to be an escagraph: writing and a food source to support the writing. Various kinds of food and writing have combined to form three kinds of escagraph: the SWEET escagraph which shares an heritage with sotelties, taking its power from the ancient, prohibitive cost of sugar, the LAWFUL escagraph which takes its strength from the concept of law, and MOVEABLE TYPE escagraphs, shaped as single letters of the alphabet, simultaneously commemorating and celebrating moveable type. N.W. Jerome (National Institute of Dental Research - Weiffenbch editor)[1] reports that there is no record of any group of people, unacquainted with sugar, who reject it when it is introduced into their midst, and that sucrose intolerant individuals, of whom there are typically a few in each culture where sugar is introduced, continue to use sugar regardless of any discomfort they experience. Jerome goes on to say that there is a consistent preference for sugar over the other three taste sensations, salt, sour and bitter available to the human palate and he declared this "preference innate since its presence is documented in neonates."
In his study of sugar, Sidney Mintz[2] tells us that sugar was first introduced in England in the 12th century as a rare and expensive condiment. We know that due to an entry in the pipe rolls of Henry II. Because of it's rarity and price, sugar was not only the sole property of the King at its introduction into England but it was thought to be a significant enough purchase to be recorded into the royal accounts. The royal accounts were called pipe rolls because they were made of sheepskin that were wound into rolls for storage. To use it copiously and frivolously, was the mark of one who was indeed a powerful figure economically, politically and socially.
In its early use, sugar was employed both as a medicine, in conjunction with powdered gems and gold, and as a spice. Sugar, as a medicine, was popular for some time until its far more practical use was found, "making the medicine go down." Its curative attributes lived on into the 20th century but as a corrective for clematis nematodes. Put sweetened bread pudding at the plant's base to correct the condition. That tidbit was shared between Katherine White and Elizabeth Lawrence, two accomplished gardeners of the period who carried on an epistolary friendship - reported in a publication of their letters, Two Gardeners: A Friendship in Letters[3].
It was a simple truth that people, then as now, struggled to maintain their status, acquired or hereditary, by every possible means. Henry II was a savvy and shrewd king; he recognized the impact of sugar as a public relations device. During the reign of Henry II's immediate successor, some realities surrounding sugar emerged and were combined with other, more organizational ones. Anyone with the most rudimentary culinary experience knows of the malleability of cooling, molten sugar. That quality did not escape the notice of the men who cooked the King's meals, the royal cooks. Likewise, everyone knew that large amounts of sugar could be afforded only by the very wealthy and thus politically important; the monarch most definitely matched those requirements.
One can almost imagine the "staff meeting" that might have been called to examine the merits of a proposal which would use the combined qualities, listed above, to introduce the King's next scheme or rally support for those underway. Whoever the originator of this PR plan was, it came tumbling through the ages as the soteltie (variation of spelling for subtlety). The plan:
Those scenes in sugar brought to the Monarch's tables at the end of a course were called sotelties. If they introduced a course, they were called warners. They were often of contrived scenes, sometimes fanciful sometimes architectural, but were never far from what the Monarch was thinking.
Sotelties nearly always carried paper banners with captions written on them. Sotelties were made of sugar, pounds of it, and carried messages, both literal and figurative, from a wealthy and influential person. If anyone had the temerity to disagree with the message captured on a soteltie, let him be prepared to pay the price.
Sotelties are described by Thomas Austin [4] editor of Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books.
Some of the designs, or Subtleties, exposed on the tables, as ornaments, were of rather and ambitious character... There were devices in sugar and paste, and apparently in jelly, and were, at any rate at times, made to be eaten. ...They seem both to have preceded the various courses, and also to have closed them.
The paste to which Austin refers was marzipan.
About eating the sotelties, Mintz tells us:
The highly privileged nature of such a display rested on the rarity of the substances used; almost no one except a king could afford such quantities. But to be able to provide one's guests with attractive food, which also embodied in display the host's wealth, power and status, must have been a strange pleasure for the sovereign. By eating these strange symbols of his power, his guests validated that power.
Meaning is not the natural possession of any substance. Meaning accrues to an object, including a word, as it is used by the people. No thing naturally stands for anything. Because of sugar's properties (in this case, its cost) it was understood to stand for something, and when that something was power, it was grasped quickly. And when, as we have seen, a preference for sweetness is innate, it will surely be destined for a noble history.
Spun sugar sotelties grew in popularity and, as soon as they could be afforded, became part of the banquet displays of institutions lesser than the monarch, like the Church, Universities or Peers of the realm. Richard Warner's Antiquitates Culinaria[5] documents the menus and service from significant banquet celebrations starting in 1403 with the nuptial banquet of Henry IV to Joanna of Navar to the enthroning of William Warham as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1504. Sotelties are mentioned as part of all the banquets he mentions, as well as warners. His work substantiates the "trickle down" effect which sugar was undergoing in the 15th and 16th centuries, that is from King's table to Church's table and so on. And he confirms that the "...splendid desert frames of our days... are the only remains of the Old English Sotelties." His work was published in the 18th century. Finally by the 19 century, every housewife was using sugar in her tea, as Mintz points out.
The cost of the sugar, nowadays. would not be the economic hurdle that stands in the way of presenting such a message to one's "employees" or "supplicants." But, the cost of a person or persons trained and capable of accomplishing the structure, including scene and appropriate message, would be costly indeed. A message or escagraph made entirely of sugar, of such detail today, would be commonplace.
Following is a description by Fabian[6], a 15th century English chronicler, of a soteltie escagraph from the coronation feast of Henry VI in 1429. Henry was 7 years old at the time. The following line is taken from the text below "... holding betwene them a figure like unto Kyng Hnry," and is better understood when you keep in mind that Henry was only a child. Fabian reports that:
A soteltie of Saint Edward and Saint Louis armed, and upon either his cote armour,
holdying betwene them a figure like unto Kynhg Henry standying also in his cote armour,
and a scripture passynge frome them both, saying behold, ii perfecte kynges under one cote armour
And under the fete of the saintes was written this balade.Holy Saintes, Edwarde and Saint Lowice, Conserve this braunche borne of your blessyd blode Live among Christen, most soveraigne of prince inheritour of the flowerdelice so good This sixt Henry, to reign and be wyse, God graunte he maye to bee your mode And that he maye resemble your knighthoode and vertue Praise ye hartely unto our Lord Jesu
Vyand barred with gold, gelie partie wrytten and noted with Te Deum Laudamus
Below the 8 line ballad is further detail of the escagraph spelled out.
Following is a description, from Henisch[7], of one such soteltie which was on the table for the coronation banquet of Henry V in 1413. Six cygnets (young swans) were arranged on the table in pairs around a larger swan. The larger swan represented the new King and each cygnet carried in its beak, half of a message alternately, "Eyex pete" (have pity) or "des communalte" (on this realm). Twenty four more swans later made their entrance also with scrolls in their beaks declaring Noble honor and glory. In all, thirty-one spun sugar swans were on the banquet table.
Impressive? You bet! And, they were supposed to be.
There is still an escagraph in use today which borrows the power of the sugar soteltie and, consequently, the socioeconomic status of the provider. They are scattered down the cookie aisle and clog the candy counter. It is the candy bars and the cookies, with the maker's name molded into the moderately flat top. acting as a subtle reminder from whom it was obtained, an address. They are stylistically called trademark-name escagraphs with either a trademark or a name molded into them. Hershey and Nabisco are prominent examples.
Typically, the printing of the most prominent trademark-name escagraphs (Hershey, Nabisco) are on a reasonably flat surface just as was the surface of the printing phenomenon in use in Europe prior to moveable type. Borrowed from the Chinese, it was called woodblock-print where an entire page was carved by hand on a block of wood and used as a negative to print a positive. A complete alphabet printed out on a flat surface with little attention to line detail or line registration bears striking resemblance to the product of the uneven block-print. Since individual, moveable type had not been invented yet, a single letter, standing alone, would contradict (stand apart from what was technically possible) the current block-print technology where an entire page of hand carved type typically was held. The young Columba would have been presented with a cake that looked very like it had been printed by block-print, its Chinese ancestor.
We will leave the sweet escagraph with its block-print resemblance and its
soteltie heritage for a moment and examine escagraphs and the law.
A call to the US Patent and Trademark office put me in touch with Paul E. Fahrenkopf, esq.[8], spokesperson for them, who told me that "...in 1266, England passed a law that all bakers must mark their bread." There was constant suspicion (but little evidence) that bakers from about the 12th century forward had added pulverized bone to their bread and if that did not satisfy the requirement for increased revenue, then the cry of "short weight" went up. The law stepped in and began to institute bread and beer laws.
The court which would try alleged infractions was known as the assize court and this group of laws are referred to as "the bread assizes." They were alive and active well into the American colonial period. The assize law required that each bakers mark his bread by putting a registered mark or his initials on it. John of the Lane was found guilty of short weight of his bread on July 3, 13l6 Riley[9]. The power behind these rulings was the system of justice itself, the law.
Another escagraph powered by the law is one you and I engage in whenever we eat a steak. Any meat, destined for the American table, must, by federal dictate, bear a stamp which testifies that it has been inspected by and has met with US Department of Agriculture (USDA) approval. "The inspection and grading of meat and poultry are two separate programs... Inspection for wholesomeness is mandatory and is paid for out of tax dollars. Grading for quality is voluntary, and the service is requested and paid for by meat and poultry producers/processors," USDA[10]. Meat, so graded, is marked "PRIME," "SELECT," OR "CHOICE" with a bluish-purple vegetable dye. The letters from the stamp of approval or rating are commonly seen on the meat packaged in stores and sometimes even when after it comes to table.
As the commodity sugar became more and more available to the working class, sotelties were reported less and less often as part of the banquet in the London memorials and chronicles. That was accomplished, Mintz affirms, around 1650. As sugar crossed class boundaries, it also began a withdrawal from the expensively laid tables where it had served a decorative and a minimal nutritive, but largely informative function.
If I read the following cluster of information correctly, it tells me that the escagraph turned from a sugar powered address for NECCO & Hershey (and several others not all of whom employed the ancestral power of sugar) to a simple un-sugared single letter of the alphabet.
1) In 1266, England required all its bakers to fix a registered mark or their initials on their loaves. A court found a suspect guilty of "underweight loaves" on 7-03-1300. That practice was carried over to the American colonies, the US Patent and Trademark office affirms.
See Lawful Escagraphs above.
2) In 1617, John Murell published a cookerey book for making sweet single letters the market for which was families of the working and lower class.
A considerable amount can be told from the title of John Murrel's[11] cookery book: A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentelwomen. This is a cookery book intended for the lower middle class (merchant families) and the working class. What woman, whom this book claims to address needs to be reminded by a title that nearly fills the cover, that she is a lady, which she is not, or that she is a gentlewoman, which is entirely doubtful. A lady or gentlewoman would hardly deign to hold such a book in her hand, let alone practice what it described. It was clearly misplaced by the cook. Furthermore the amount of sugar required to make one of these, in 1617 when the cost of sugar no longer made it a rare commodity, would just about fit the purse of the person who would be reading it. Following is an excerpt from the book:
To make Letters, Knotts or any other Jumball for a banquet quicklie You must take single mouldes carved inwared either in wood or stone, in the true forme of what you would have, lay them in cold water: then take double refined Sugar, and as much Rosewater as will dissolve it, boile it to a Candie height, then take the mouldes out of the water, shake out the water, but wipe them not, and fill your Letter or Knots with the hot sugar, and when they be colde and hard, turne them out, and wipe them with a faire cloath.
In a continuation of that recipe, Murrel gives directions for making capital letters with sugar paste and almond paste (marzipan) and in recipe number 89, gives instructions for making Cinnamon letters which follows here.
Take paste made as for Gemillissoes, colour it with Cinnamon, and rowl it in long roles, as neere as you can all of a bignesse, and thereof make faire capital Romane letters, according to some exact pattern, cut it thinne board or white plate gild them...
At 300 years removed, it is safe to say that the person about to employ Murrel's work was culturally transitional at best. Thinking that her guests would be impressed and awed by her use of sugar but not savvy enough to appreciate that sugar was leaving the fine laid table, made the faux pas of choosing sugar to impress her friends. But she was accidentally wise choosing a single letter or single letters, which was only to reach its full expression near the end of the 19th century. Though, she doubtless chose the single letter because the recipe writer had chosen them for her.
Why he chose them is conjectural. Perhaps as a collector of recipes and recipe book writer, he was in contact with people who talked about many things, the new technologies among them. Murrel listened to then and tucked single letters into his cookery book, single letters that looked for all the world like movable type.
The legend of Columba first found its way into recorded history, courtesy of the Egan family in 1411, thirty nine years ahead of the German moveable type invention. It was recorded in hand script and, not surprisingly, resembled a wood-block print.
3) The government makes attempts to lower illiteracy in people above the age of 14 at the end of the 19th century.
According to census material from the National Center for Education Statistics, the government was making an effort to increase literacy in people 14 years of age and older, measured during the1890 census. They were successful; illiteracy went from 20% to 10.7%, a nearly 10% drop [1].
4) Campbell's Soup introduced alphabet soup at the end of the 19th century.
1895 - While the government is striving to strike another 10% off illiteracy from people for over 14 years of age, what an auspicious time for Campbell's to introduce alphabet soup. Relayed via telephone call with PR rep from Ravarino and Freschi [12]
5) Borden produces alphabet pasta in 1938.
Borden started distributing alphabet pasta around 1938. Relayed via Ravarino and Freschi telephone call with their PR rep.
6) 1958 - Post cereals (now a division of Kraft) released a letterform breakfast cereal which was designed for children.
1958 - Alpha-Bits breakfast cereal was introduced to the market. Originally produced by Post and later bought by Kraft, the cereal contains alphabet shaped sweet cereal, sugar is the second ingredient.
This cluster of information above tells me that, while sugar sotelties were for a length of time governors of and the power behind the early escagraphs, their sugar power source dissipated in favor of one powered by government and law. They did, though, give rise to the form of escagraph used today as a critical component of branding and advertising, the trademark name stamped in candy bars and cookies. Ultimately, a law governed power source had a more conventionalized (culturally agreed upon) meaning; the meaning was delineated more precisely.
That dissipation resulted in an more straightforward understanding of what the escagraph meant. As the sponsor of an escagraph, one's personality (caring, jolly, mean-spirited) and personal behaviors become confused with its meaning, not to mention a generous amount of magic stirred in premised on the incomprehensible wealth involved. But, not any more. The law took care of that. Initials on a loaf of bread means one thing and one thing only - this bread was made by X.
One can see, then, that we have reserved the sweet escagraph for moments when "real work" has to be done (marketing and branding) or when we want a little magic in the mix (Birthday Cakes - Commemorative cakes).
It would be less frustrating for some if one word had only one meaning, but they don't. Law governed escagraphs are our closest approximation, in the language variety. But, they helped us and guided us along to the complex people/culture we are today
It was nearly as much a technological marvel to invent an isolated moveable typeface as it was to invent alphabet pasta and a way of shipping it. It is brittle and breaks easily. But those problems aside, it is just as easy to overlook that it was a toy version of moveable type as it was to argue over whether the original invention had caused the Renaissance or the Reformation.
Even an 8 oz. sack is compelling. One has to be distracted, indeed, to do anything but think of moveable type when one sees an 8 oz. sack of alphabet pasta strewn on tabletop. It was just such an experience that caused me to think of setting the Sunday edition of The St. Louis Post Dispatch in alphabet pasta. By hand count, I found that an ounce of the Ravarino & Freschi[12] alphabet pasta contains 31 complete alphabets and 36 sets of numerals (0 through 9). The number of complete alphabets in a ton of pasta would be 992,000. The number of complete alphabets that R&F makes in a year (using 70 tons as an average), then, would be 69,440,000. The number of single alphabet letters they make in a year is something like 1,805,440,000.
According to Don Cotter[13], the St. Louis Post-Dispatch marketing director, there are approximately 3,355,300 characters in the body of a single copy of a Sunday edition of that paper. Setting aside the fact that once you have used an /e/ in one of the 31 alphabets in an ounce, you would then need to go to another alphabet for another /e/, let us just look at the number of alphabet characters the R&F company makes in a year and divide that by the number of characters required to set the paper. The result is 541.3, or, enough pasta characters to set one copy of the Sunday edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch once a week for nearly 10 and one half years. For emphasis, R&F is but one of 71 companies who make such pasta in the U.S.
Whether or not I have convincing references or a compelling rationale, alphabet pasta looks like it should stand for moveable type. Too bad that Campbell waited until very late in the 19th century to bring its alphabet soup to market but it did literacy some good.
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