Chapter 5. Around the Neighborhood
For other supplies, we went to the old Hester Market, about three blocks down The Alameda. It was so different from today’s supermarkets. It would be called a little store today, but then it was quite adequate to serve that whole district.
The canned goods occupied only a small shelf space: there were mainly canned fruits, tomatoes, peas and corn, usually one brand of each. There were very few packaged products. The roasted coffee was scooped from a big bag, weighed and then ground. The delightful smell of the fresh ground coffee beans filled the store. Molasses was still sold by the pint and poured into the customer’s demijohn.
Cheese was always cut from a cheese wheel or round, either with a big knife or a cheese wheel cutter — a circular board with a cleaver-like knife attached to it. He’d put a round of cheese in the cutter and by manipulating a lever, turn the cheese to position it, then pull down the huge knife and cut off a wedge of the approximate weight desired.
That was just one of the many new inventions that was just coming about. Up until that time, a boiled ham would be cut with a big butcher knife. About that time the store got in a cutter that actually had a revolving blade and it would slice the boiled ham in any thickness desired.
Soda crackers were packed in big barrels, and if you wanted soda crackers, he took a paper sack over to the barrel and he would take out as many dozen soda crackers as you wanted. They were sold by the pound. There was no such thing as packages of soda crackers. Sugar did not come in packages in those days. It came out of a sack, as a rule, that was dumped into a bin and again scooped out into paper sacks and sold by the pound.
Rolled oats, a principal breakfast food, were scooped from a big burlap bag. Bacon was by the piece, never sliced. Potatoes usually by the sack; cookies came in large boxes and you purchased as many as you wished. Pickles and olives were in big barrels. Corned beef was kept in a barrel of brine. Newspapers were often used to wrap such things as smoked salmon, dried herring or dried cod fish. Lima beans and lentils, white and red beans and rice were all in bins. We used to buy dried corn, and sometimes they’d grind the corn for us and we’d use the corn for chicken feed. Tea and spices were either in bins or large ornate tins from the Orient.
Kerosene was an important item and the shops often had a gallon can that had a spout. In order to keep the contents from spilling, the grocer skewered a small potato on the spout.
The grocer had a big basket of fresh hens’ eggs but did not carry fresh milk. The dairy store down the street carried milk, cream, buttermilk, cottage cheese and eggs, while the bakery took care of the bread, etc., not the grocer.
Canning supplies were an essential item. You could buy paraffin and rubber seals for Mason jars. There was a jar with a heavy glass top that was held fast by a stiff wire that was snapped in place which was much in use at the time. Many used one-quart tin cans similar to today’s one-quart paint cans. And then there were jelly glasses of various sizes as well as different sized Mason jars.