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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:
> > > Good try, but I have yet to see anyone but you, James, jump from
> > > an e-mail
> > talking about flour to trying to imply that folks are talking about
> > exotics.
>
> The Southern Appalachians is definately not what you'd call wheat
> country for a variety of reasons.  Yet in the times we are talking
> about, no one bought flour.  They raised wheat, took it to the local
> gristmill (and there were scores of them at the time still tesitified
> to by the large number of  avenues called "XXX Mill Road" we still
> have) and miller took out a toll of the flour for his cut.

I've asked locals (people whose family has been here for generations)
and they say that eating wheat is kind of modern, that in the old days,
most folks just had corn, hence cornbread instead of wheat bread, grits
instead of cream of wheat, etc.  I'm not sure how much 'trading' went on
for wheat.  Just how popular was a sandwich in the Southern
Appalachians, or the South in general?  I know biscuits were/are a big
thing, but somehow I see biscuit eating in more coastal areas, like New
Orleans, ports where wheat can come in, or at least in city areas where
wheat would more like be sold.  I just wonder how common it was (and how
expensive it was) for a rural Southerner to have wheat, something they
can't grow themselves and something that would have to be
'imported'...either by rail or river.   Certainly it would be seemingly
tough for early colonists to have wheat flour in their kitchens?  On
second thought, most people in colonial times did live fairly close to a
port/the coast..I dunno.  I suppose my question to you historians out
there is this:  How common was the use of wheat flour in the inland 
South(colonial to Civil War times)?

Bev



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"The world is my country, all mankind are my
 brethren, and to do good is my religion."
 Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809)