Topic: Food
On 26 February 1703 Colonel Joachim Cronman, commander of Neumünde (Dünamünde) fortress wrote to Governor Frölich in Riga about a problem. Old flour which had arrived from Mitau in March 1702 was still in storage and some of it was beginning to taste "terribly". Cronman was thinking about distributing the sacks that appeared to be OK among his own soldiers and then mixing the rest in the flour which was given to the Russian prisoners.
In his reply to Cronman's suggestion Frölich seems to have disregarded the idea and instead concluded that this showed how urgent it was to complete the bakery at Neumünde. If for some reason some flour was unsuitable for baking bread it could be used for producing snaps.
Frölich was (as I have noted before) a man with many ideas. The following year he started a great baking experiment at Neumünde, in the course of which he took it upon himself to teach the bakers of Riga their profession.
Sources:
Uppsala University Library, Riga-Tartu collection, Box 3, Joachim Cronman to Carl Gustaf Frölich 26 February 1703
LVVA, Fond 7349, op. 1, vol. 75, Carl Gustaf Frölich to Joachim Cronman 28 February 1703
