Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/214

 cakes in the pan, was equally as popular; it was most probably the only bread eaten by the servants and slaves. As early as 1621, it was generally recognized by the people of the Colony that Indian corn bread was more nourishing than wheat in the arduous life which at that time they were compelled to lead, and the same fact had been observed at a later period in the case of men who had been required to work with their hands.

Twenty years after the foundation of the Colony it was asserted, it would seem with considerable exaggeration, by a woman of prominence who had resided there, that from her own ground of a few acres in Virginia, she could provide for her household more abundantly than in London by an expenditure of three or four hundred pounds sterling, which in that age was equal to several thousand dollars in our modern currency. The ease with which a subsistence was secured, the combined result of a fertile soil and a genial climate, was the principal explanation of the hospitality for which the people were distinguished before the country had been settled half a century. Colonel Norwood, in describing his sojourn on the Eastern Shore after his shipwreck, relates that he was feasted not only by the host whom he happened to be visiting for the time being, but also by all the planters in the neighborhood. There seems to have been some rivalry as to who should be able to set before their guest the greatest variety of dishes. Norwood, who was not unfamiliar with the manner of life of the English court, commended the cooking in Virginia. The gentry seem to have felt much pride in their tables, taking pains, we