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Excerpt from a book, with questions

"Steve & Michelle Plumb" <splumb@ic.net>
Wed, 19 Jul 2000 14:10:13 -0400
v100.n052.20
Hello.

I am reading a mystery I borrowed from my mother. It is called "Man's 
Loving Family", by Keith Heller. It is set in 1727 London, and the sleuth 
lives above
a bakeshop.  The first few paragraphs in Chapter 5 describe the shop:

"The Kettilbys had come to Ironmonger Row some ten years ago, and their 
business had prospered.  Alice Kettilby was proud of their shop.  They made 
and sold only the finest manchet loaves, and those that were leavened were 
made with the finest ale-barm she could find.  Their spice breads and 
cracknels were loudly appreciated by all, and some of the finer folk came 
all the way from Westminster for their thick breakfast wigs, the small 
spiced and sweetened cakes with the delicate sprinkling of caraway seeds.

It was a good shop, selling good wares.  There were plenty of bakers in the 
city - Alice could tell you their names - who whitened their breads with 
alum or chalk or lead or even with ground bones from the charnel-house! 
None of that for the Kettilbys.  They took their wheat only from those 
farmers they knew in their home county of Norfolk, and Walter Kettilby 
ground it all himself with their old hand quern.  And if it were a dough 
that Alice Kettilby
wanted to take special care of, she would knead it herself with her own 
feet through double layers of thick sacking. None of her loaves, she swore 
could ever be said to have come close or sad, and the Assize would never be 
dragging
her man off for a stand in the pillory for selling underweight breads."

Now come the questions:

What are the following:
manchet loaves, ale barm, cracknels, quern

Are the the baking references true?  Kneading with feet?
Whitening with alum, chalk, lead (Yipe!) or (yuk) bones?

Could you really spend time in the pillory for selling
underweight loaves?  Wow, talk about strict consumer laws.

Thanks in advance,
Michelle
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                       Steve & Michelle Plumb   --    splumb@ic.net
                                      Plymouth, Michigan  USA

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