A good friend of mine is donating his collection of early trade cards to a Cornell's library and is curating the collection. He was totally puzzled by a phrase on one trade card dating from the 1870s or 1880s, almost certainly American. The caption reads as follows:
Some of Barnard’s
Beans & Brown-bread
Wouldn’t go bad today, said the Pro-
fessor, as he rose from his Horse hair
couch, and I think I’ll also bring home
The Infant Moses
said this thoughtful man.
He gives it away with
BROWN-BREAD
Sunday, July 25th.
132 Cambridge St.
IT’S A GOOD ONE.
The puzzling phrase is "The Infant Moses."
I tried googling but I came up dry on "The Infant Moses" except as a subject for paintings by various hands (Poussin, Reynolds, Gustave Moreau, etc etc). Online slang dictionaries were no help. The OED has "infant Moses" only in reference to "Moses basket" (a child carrier, made of wicker, etc).
In this specific food context, as something to eat that might be given away with Boston brown bread, which is traditionally served with Boston baked beans, it seemed conceivable to me that "The Infant Moses" might refer to a homemade cream cheese made by putting wet curds into a basket sieve and letting it drain and set overnight; the soft cheese would retain the striations from the basket. But that's just a wild guess--from "Moses basket."
"The Infant Moses" is on a trade card, so whatever it means, it's not just a family expression, it's something that would be meaningful to the targets of early advertising (for Barnard's Beans).
Can anyone help with this?
I never heard of anything called The Infant Moses. I have heard of Moses bread. Is it possible that Moses bread was once called The Infant Moses? Right now, this would have to be classified as a wild guess.
I immediately thought of "boiled baby", which in the 1800s and before was one of the suet puddings along with Spotted Dick and a few others. Dunno whether there's any connection.
FWIW, July 25 fell on Sunday in 1869, 1875, 1880, 1886, and 1897. This site lets you build a calendar for any reasonable month and one can jump from year-to-year watching for a particular date landing on a day of the week.
I wonder if searching some New England newspaper archives near those dates and with the address might answer some questions.
Barnard's Bakery 132 Cambridge Street, was built in 1865 and was a store of 18x25 feet, with a bakery to the rear, employing 3, manufacturing all kinds of breads, rolls, tea biscuits, cakes, etc, according to Illustrated Boston, the metropolis of New England.
The book was published in 1889, and says that Mr. Barnard took over 8 years ago, so 1886 or 1897 is the most probable date, I suppose..
Food.com has a recipe for Baby Moses In A Blanket which is a baked date-based dessert. So if the bakery is baking beans, and it's surely baking bread, it's offering a baked dessert with the brown bread on special, on Sunday.
But take a look at the recipe. Doesn't sound like it would go well with beans and brown bread, but then, it doesn't sound to me like it would be good with anything. Might be that my "taster" is off; I'm down with the flu. Then again, I've never been crazy about dates.