Postum

Once a common sight in kitchens, Postum has nearly vanished from store shelves.

    Yesterday, a jar of Postum helped boost my faith in human nature. Postum, for the younger crowd, is a blend of wheat, bran and molasses. It dates to 1895 and was a favorite beverage during the days of coffee rationing in WWII. 
    ​Being born in the 1940s, when Postum was a standard in every store shelf, I was given the sweetish-tasting beverage as a youth  and just 

the name brings back happy memories. But then as the years rolled on, Postum became less popular and eventually the company went out of business. I didn’t know it, but another company recently began manufacturing Postum once again, after all that time. 
    Every so often over the years, something would trigger my memory and thoughts of Postum would pass through my mind. And so when I spied a jar of Postum on the shelf at Hope General Store in Hope, Maine, I was delighted. 

​    Picking up the jar, though, put an end to my delight. The asking  price was far more than I could afford and I put the jar back on the shelf. Just then, the lady behind the counter, one of the owners, told me to just take the jar and enjoy it. 
    It seems that a customer, who really wasn’t much of a customer, had asked the store to special-order some Postum, which they did. But the customer never returned to pick up the Postum. 

At the Hope General Store, customers can find kindness and, if they're lucky, some Postum.

​    And so there it sat, viewed by many who in all likelihood had no idea what the stuff was. Until I saw it. 
    For this lady to do something so kind, for a stranger, was beyond belief. What’s more, she was very pleased to find someone who enjoyed Postum. I told her about how, as a youngster in the very early 1950s, my grandma would make two cups of Postum, one for me and one for her, and we would sit around the table and discuss matters of the day. 
    And because of that kindly lady at Hope General Store, it all came back, those Halcyon days of youth. 
    Back home the next morning, it was time to see if Postum still tasted the same. Had my perhaps, overactive memory filled in blanks that were never there? Did the stuff still taste as I remembered? 
    One sip said it all. Mildly sweetish and with no trace of bitterness, I was transported back 60-some years in time. 
    So hold on to hope, hope that somewhere out there is a person you don’t even know, who will bolster your faith in the goodness of people. 
    By the way, most stores have yet to stock Postum. Health-food stores, though, may have some on hand. Postum is also available online, from the company. Just type in “Postum” on your search engine.

Tom Seymour, Maine writer and naturalist, has written over a dozen titles including: Getting Your Big Fish: Trolling Maine Waters, Wild Plants of Maine: A Useful Guide, Forager’s Notebook, Wild Critters of Maine: Everyday Encounters, and Hidden World Revealed: Musings of a Maine Naturalist from Just Write Books LLC, Topsham, Maine. Seymour has also written a multitude of monthly features including his popular “Maine Wildlife” for The Maine Sportsman Magazine.