| Myrtaceae, or myrtle, is a tropical
family and most species occur in Asia and Australia. There are no native
members of the myrtle family in New York. The common running myrtle (Vinca
minor) found on nineteenth-century domestic sites is in the family Apocynaceae
and not Myrtaceae. But, spices such as cloves and allspice are members of
that family. Allspice, a widely used spice in the nineteenth century, is
a berry with little pollen, while cloves are dried flower buds containing
significant quantities of pollen. The Myrtaceae pollen in these archeological
deposits signals the use of cloves. Cloves are often used when making desserts,
such as plum pudding. That dessert appears on some of the
hotel menus from the early twentieth century. |
Pollen from Brassica, or the Cabbage family,
was found in the privy. It is probably from cauliflower or broccoli that
people ate. This pollen made up about 10% of the pollen from the samples
taken from both the privy and the privy clean-out deposit. The guests at
the Stanwix Hall Hotel were eating a lot of cauliflower or broccoli. These
members of the Cabbage family are actually flowers and so contain pollen.
Other members of the family, such as cabbage, brussel sprouts, collards,
or kale, do not have pollen in the parts that people eat. |
Honey is produced by bees from specific kinds of plants.
The pollen from these plants is not found in archeological sites unless
the flowers were there themselves, or a derivative such as honey was present.
There was a variety of insect-pollinated types of plants that could be
associated with honey.
Honey was one of many sweetners used in the nineteenth
century. Some are still known, such as sugar, honey, and molasses, but
they also used other sweeteners including sweet wine and capillaire, a
sugar syrup flavored with orange-flower water.
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