With Milk and Sugar Blest 205 



the family washing to the river, reminded her father of those 

 "five dear sons of thine, two married, but three lusty bachelors 

 who are always eager for new-washed garments wherein to go 

 to the dances/' 



In Europe, throughout the Middle Ages, men and women 

 wore leather and woolen and velvet garments against the 

 damp cold. Only in Spain the Moors moved in white, linen- 

 clad procession through the courts of Cordoba's mosque and 

 the halls of the Alhambra. From Spain came the vogue for 

 starched linens, and for ruffs which set off the dark velvet 

 doublets and gowns. Elizabeth welcomed the fashion. Her 

 long, scrawny neck carried a wide ruff gratefully. Her courtiers 

 copied the style; and shrewdly, the woman who said "I am 

 England" levied a state tax on the manufacture of starch. 



The high price of wheat started the search for some cheaper 

 source of starch. A French chemist derived it from potatoes, 

 and later from rice. The Louisiana colonists made starch from 

 the manioc roots, and undoubtedly many of the early settlers 

 in this country experimented with maize, as this was the 

 cheapest and most plentiful cereal in the land. Some time 

 after 1800, John Biddes in Pennsylvania made potato starch, 

 and this became so profitable an enterprise that he established 

 a factory in New Hampshire close to the cotton mills which 

 were his chief customer. It was nearly a quarter century later 

 that Thomas Kingsford, who was employed by the factory 

 of William Colgate and Company in Jersey City to separate 

 starch from wheat, worked out a process for the manufacture 

 of cornstarch. 



Kingsford's yellow paper-covered package has been an Amer- 

 ican household commodity for close to a century. From it 

 have come cornstarch puddings and fillings for pies. There 

 were cooks who held out for arrowroot to thicken gravies and 

 over-juicy berry pies, but Americans, generally, felt safe about 

 a product whose base was the American corn. New-born babies 

 were dusted with cornstarch in lieu of talcum powder and 

 started on their way through life. Commercially, starch became 



