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Abstract

This article explores the importance of exotic foods in addition to the abundance of regional produce available through Newport’s extensive colonial commerce. An examination of the account books of wealthy merchant John Banister’s family reveals food consumption patterns influenced by Newport’s prodigious overseas trade. Commerce not only brought wealth to Newport, it brought an abundance of foods, drinks, and spices that were found more frequently on the tables of New England families in the mid-eighteenth-century.

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