A Gignilliat Letter Leads to Grits and Salt
by Elizabeth F. Gay, Director and Cheves Leland, Historian, The Huguenot Society of South Carolina
We are truly blessed in the Lowcountry this week. The shrimp are running and available from our local fleets, Marsh Hen Mill grits are in the store and we have Botany Bay salt. The combination just begs for a half hour in the kitchen to pull it all together. Oh, how delicious. As with so many things we enjoy, there is a Huguenot story behind the scenes just waiting to be shared.
If you grew up enjoying grits, you likely had shrimp and grits and perhaps made a grits casserole which easily feeds a large seating of family and is a perfect addition to any breakfast buffet. Receipts for the many ways to enjoy grits are very easy to find with an internet search. If you have not tried grits, well, we suggest you give it a whirl! For shrimp and grits at breakfast, we always look for the small, sweet creek shrimp. Not long ago we shared a story of Huguenot ancestor Jean François Gignilliat and his letter to relatives in Switzerland which we are studying to determine if it is the first receipt for corn grits recorded. So far, it is the earliest mention of the dish we can find.
After arriving in Carolina, Gignilliat settled in French Santee and also owned Lot 233 (located on the west side of modern day Legare Street between Tradd and Gibbes) in Charles Towne. On 8 Aug 1690, he wrote from Charles Towne that he had married “a young French woman named la Serrurier (sic) whose whole family is here.” She was Susanne Le Serrurier, born in Saint-Quentin to Jacques Le Serrurier and Elizabeth Leger. In the letter, he provided us with this description of the uses of corn. We will find his descriptions very familiar to today’s corn bread (galette) and grits (blatée). Gignilliat had spent time with the indigenous people of the area, where he observed their use of corn and enjoyed their sharing of the cooked dishes with him.
“It is what we call Lombardy corn; it is that which is most used in this country for food for the inhabitants, in part because it is easier to sow in new lands than wheat and it has more uses and is easier to mill in the iron mills, of which each planter must have one; and as these mills do not grind as fine as those of stone, in sifting in three the flour, we gather the bran below, and the fine flour passes through, from which one makes bread, which is a type of galette. And what is left in the sifter which is a little like groats or abremel, is cooked with water for two or three hours in iron pots, which is a very necessary item, and they call this blatée; it is a dish which is ordinary, in the morning and evening, which one eats warm with butter or with sugar, and cold with milk. Most people never tire of eating it and to tell the truth it is the principal manna of the countryside. People who are a little well off and who cannot get accustomed to this corn bread, buy flours at high prices, which is brought from New York; in mixing one with the other, it makes very good bread.” (p. 370, French Santee, Second Edition, Bates/Leland)
Did you know the Huguenot history with salt also stretches back many centuries? At the Society we recently met with a local producer of salt operating not far from the original location of the Mellichámp saltworks, to learn more about the current production of salt in our area and to discuss its roots in the Huguenot settlers. Bertha Booker is the owner of Botany Bay Sea Salt, established in 2010. She has salt ponds south of Charleston at Botany Bay and is producing delicious salt in the tradition of our Huguenot ancestors. Ms. Booker was recently featured in the Charleston Mercury magazine, and we look forward to her continued studies of salt production. During her visit with us, Ms. Booker was very kind to provide us with a sample of the smoked sea salt.
When recently preparing a pot of Edisto grits we added diced cooked bacon, some of the bacon grease, butter and a half teaspoon of the Botany Bay smoked salt and some black pepper. These flavors married so very well and made for a delicious side addition to eggs and sliced cantaloupe. We added the cantaloupe at the suggestion of Ms. Booker who recommended trying the salt on the fruit. It is very good! My father used to always use salt on his watermelon and cantaloupe which I found a little odd as a child. Now, I know he had the right idea all along.
Below I share a prior piece on William Mellichámp prepared by the Society a few years ago to provide some context to our salt discussion.
Mellichámp the Saunier
It begins at Île de Ré
It is hard to imagine southern cuisine without salt. In the early days of our colony, it was much more than a condiment. It was a highly valued commodity which was critical to food shipments and sales, as it was necessary for curing and preservation. Without salt preservation, food would have been scarce during the off seasons for hunting. To be able to develop salt domestically, without waiting for imports from England, was not only good business but also a necessity for the colonists.
The Huguenots had among their many skills the profession of a saunier which is a salt-maker or salt-merchant the word being an agent derivative of Old French “sal sel,” from the Latin salina (saline). In France, at Île de Ré, it is a tradition that dates back to the twelfth century when it was introduced by Cistercian monks who built the salt marshes. This prompted the island to be called Ré-La-Blanche due to the white mounds of salt, or “white gold,” which were sold across all of Europe. “The manufacture of salt was and still is an important branch of industry in France; in former centuries this branch was a monopoly of the government, and the officers under whose direction and supervision salt was made and sold were appointed by the king, who selected them from the wealthy and landed gentry of the salt districts. The position of saunier was a distinguished one and very much sought for.” (See p. 8, An Account of the Jaudon Family, by EJ Sellers.)
Early Lowcountry Salt Works
One of the early salt works in the Lowcountry was founded by the French Protestant (Huguenot) immigrant William Mellichámp. His history is quite interesting, as it takes us across the pond to Spitalfields near London and beyond to Switzerland. According to the author Hirsch, William Mellichámp began in Switzerland and emigrated to England where he worked with silk in St. Martin-in-the-Fields very near Spitalfields. He and his family later arrived in Carolina in 1710. (See Huguenots of Colonial South Carolina, Arthur Henry Hirsch, p 244.)
[Side note: The Society was in England in May and visited Spitalfields and St. Martin-in-the-Fields church, designed in the 1720s by James Gibbs. The church is very similar in architectural style to St. Michael’s Church, built in the 1750’s, in Charleston, SC.]
As a commodity, salt was scarce in the colonies. There are reports in early newspapers of colonists making annual trips to the shorelines to obtain salt. In 1724, William Mellichámp petitioned the Governor’s Council for the exclusive right to manufacture salt in South Carolina. There was some back and forth with amendments and then the Act passed in April 1725 granting Mellichámp a private monopoly for fourteen years as well as a monopoly on all salt handled in the province. “The act further grants that a bounty of twelve pence currency be given him for every bushel of salt he would produce as long as the price of salt did not exceed ten shillings per bushel.” (The Statutes at Large of South Carolina: Containing the acts from 1716, exclusive, to 1752, inclusive, arranged chronologically, p. 248.)
Defeated by supply chain and weather
After 1732, Mellichámp vanishes from the salt producing scene. This industrious Huguenot seems to have been plagued by the slow supply chain from England and the weather that we as Lowcountry residents know all too well - hurricanes. “In spite of the fact that the equipment that he ordered sent from England was greatly delayed in transit, and hurricanes and financial barriers hindered his work, he was able to report on July 8, 1731, that 14,000 bushels of salt had been manufactured.” (Hirsch). Many salt enterprises followed across the colonies, and it continued to be a valued commodity into the early 20th c. prior to the introduction of refrigeration.
Next time you sprinkle some salt, say “Merci!" Try using Botany Bay salt in remembrance of Mellichámp and to appreciate our local salt still available to us today. It is quite an opportunity to be able to taste local salt as our ancestors did and enjoy it in our daily cuisine.
When possible, we encourage everyone to support our local shrimp fleet and producers of fine grits and salt. There are numerous producers and outlets for all three.