Iced Coffee (1842); Sugar on Snow (1949); Chicken Pie Supper (1936)

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ICED COFFEE

SKETCHES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL AND LIFE AT SEA
by Charles Rockwell
In Two Volumes
Boston: Tappan and Dennet
1842

VOLUME ONE
Pg. 138:  We were soon on excellent terms, and, stopping at the first village we came to, he sent in his servant and ordered two tumblers of iced coffee, which was truly refreshing.  On reaching Naples...

(OED has 1879 for "iced coffee"...Forget paying the rent.  Antedating "espresso," "cappuccino," "caffe latte" and "iced coffee" doesn't even get me a single cup at Starbucks--ed.)

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CHICKENS/TERRAPINS A LA MARYLAND

   A NEW YORK TIMES check shows "Terrapins a la Maryland" on 21 July 1884, pg. 5.  "Chicken a la Maryland" is in the early 1900s.  I can check my TABLE TALK and AMERICAN COOKERY issues, but maybe later.

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SUGAR ON SNOW

   Sorry, but I left off the first citation page that I had copied.

   27 March 1949, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. BR26:
   Best of all was the "Sugar on Snow" party held in Mrs. Polly's kitchen in the month of March.  First she and the children tapped her maple trees, then she cooked the sap into syrup, and finally the children gathered bowls of "clean snow," over which Mrs. Polly poured hot syrup and "turned it into sweet, delicious, golden brown candy."
(From a review of the children's book MRS. POLLY'S PARTY--ed.)

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CHICKEN PIE SUPPER

   The NYPL has an index to THE VERMONTER.  There was nothing special for the "sugar on snow" item above, but it had this local dish.  There are about 100 web hits for "chicken pie supper" and "Vermont."  Maybe this gets me invited to David Mamet's place?
   From THE VERMONTER, August-September 1936, pg. 175, col. 2:

   _CHICKEN PIE SUPPERS_
   By J. R. WHIPPLE

THE season for chicken-pie suppers will soon be here and we look forward with a great deal of pleasure to that ancient and honorable rural institution which still maintains its well-deserved popularity in the smaller towns of Vermont in spite of the automobile, the movies and the radio.
   Chicken-pie suppers are one of the few old relics of by-gone days that still exist.  Our covered bridges and many of our fine old colonial mansions are disappearing so rapidly that photographers are busy recording the few survivors for posterity.  The oxen are few and the horse is fast becoming extinct as a draught animal.  Yet the good old chicken-pie suppers, praise be, still remain to give folk in the most remote sections of the country-side an opportunity to exercise their rights as gregarious beings.
   Every year, since my wife and I have lived in Vermont, we have become "chicken-pie supper attenders."  It has now become akin to a mania with us.  Any time after the middle of August we being to peruse the papers carefully to see if, by any chance, some village church within a radius of forty miles has become autumn-minded enough to put on the first chicken-pie supper.  When one is spotted, there is great joy in the household.  Dietary discretion is completely abandoned and we make haste to drive to that supper regardless of what other engagements for that particular evening we may have had.
   Why "supper" is used to designate this meal I never could understand.  One does not "sup" at a chicken-pie supper; one dines royally, in fact stuffs oneself shamefully with a variety of delicious country fare that would put the repast of an English squire to shame.  As soon speak of having "lunch" on Thanksgiving Day.
   I make a fervent plea for the immortality of the chicken-pie supper.