# 1920s white thing put in coffee? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 24, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577 "2013-09-24T13:07:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/1 "2013-09-24T13:07:22Z")
In a recent episode of Boardwalk Empire, set I believe in 1924, the character Harrow pours a cup of coffee. He then proceeds to put a white thing in it, slightly smaller but the same shape as a cigarette. I assumed at first it was sugar, but as the scene progresses the stick doesn’t appear to dissolve into the coffee, nor does he stir it. Anybody know what it was? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/2 "2013-09-24T13:15:31Z")
It used to be common to put an eggshell in boiled coffee, to make the grounds settle. There might have been some kind of small ceramic object meant to do the same - or to cool the coffee slightly. Or, being BE, it could have been meant to be some fashionable drug of the era? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/3 "2013-09-24T13:16:10Z")
It wouldn’t be the shape of a cigarette, but could it be a cube of sugar? That’s a small, white thing often used in coffee or tea. I think they were more common before we went to individually wrapped packages. Something the same shape as a cigarette, but not white, might be a stick of cinnamon. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/4 "2013-09-24T13:22:24Z")
A death-ray? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/5 "2013-09-24T13:36:01Z")
Sugar cubes are still a common sight here, definitely wasn’t one of them. He took this thing out of a box that contained lots of them. I don’t know if you ever saw a candy cigarette but that’s what it looked like (I think they’ve been banned since the 1980s, only remember them from when I was a kid). ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/6 "2013-09-24T13:44:35Z")
I googled “sugar sticks”, and it auto-filled with “for tea/coffee”. Product sample: [http://www.sugartshop.us/our-guarantee/](http://www.sugartshop.us/our-guarantee/) ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/7 "2013-09-24T13:45:09Z")
From, the comments on a blog about the show it seems it was a straw. The Harrow character apparently needs to use a straw when drinking. I’m not sure if that was ever shown before but if it was I missed it. I thought it was a solid white object, not a straw. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/8 "2013-09-24T13:54:12Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > From, the comments on a blog about the show it seems it was a straw. The Harrow character apparently needs to use a straw when drinking. I’m not sure if that was ever shown before but if it was I missed it. I thought it was a solid white object, not a straw. That sounds about right–I kind of have a vague recollection of someone giving him a straw in a speakeasy in some earlier-season episode. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/9 "2013-09-24T14:55:17Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > I googled “sugar sticks”, and it auto-filled with “for tea/coffee”. > > Product sample: [http://www.sugartshop.us/our-guarantee/](http://www.sugartshop.us/our-guarantee/) If you do this with Google image search, however, what you see does not seem to be what the OP is asking about. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/10 "2013-09-24T16:33:25Z")
I took some screen shots. The top shot is taking the stick out of the box of sticks, and the bottom shot is the stick sitting in the coffee. [![Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/MfUGWhq.jpeg "Richard Harrow") ](https://imgur.com/MfUGWhq) It does very much look like a candy cigarette. I was wondering if it was some sort of drug delivery method. Seems like they kept it a little bit on the down-low. ---
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/11 "2013-09-24T16:39:59Z")
I think it was a straw, too but that doesn’t make much sense. With half of his face missing behind that mask I don’t see how he could get the necessary suction to make a straw work. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/12 "2013-09-24T16:45:46Z")
It’s a straw, folks. The guy has half his mouth blown off. Straws weren’t as available then as now, so he carries a stash. He gets suction by using the working corner of his mouth. It wouldn’t be perfect or easy, but it beats Ted Striker’s drinking problem. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/13 "2013-09-24T16:49:20Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I took some screen shots. The top shot is taking the stick out of the box of sticks, and the bottom shot is the stick sitting in the coffee. > > [Richard Harrow's Stick - Imgur](http://imgur.com/MfUGWhq) > > It does very much look like a candy cigarette. I was wondering if it was some sort of drug delivery method. Seems like they kept it a little bit on the down-low. Yes, it’s a paper straw. You can see from the end-on view that it is hollow. I haven’t seen those white paper straws for a while, but we used to have them at home when I was a kid. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/14 "2013-09-24T18:04:15Z")
Yep, I agree, from the picture in post #10, that looks like a straw, and not a sugar stick. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/15 "2013-09-24T20:42:14Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > (I think they’ve been banned since the 1980s, only remember them from when I was a kid). You can still get them in the States. The convenience store I worked at right after high school had them in the mid-90’s, and I bought some in a faux-old-timey general store a couple years ago. > [@MikeF](#): > > I think it was a straw, too but that doesn’t make much sense. With half of his face missing behind that mask I don’t see how he could get the necessary suction to make a straw work. I had my entire lower lip cut off in a car wreck, and took all my meals through a straw for almost two weeks until they could do the reconstruction. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/16 "2013-09-25T02:27:33Z")
As we were watching the episod, Pepper Mill immediately recognized the item “Sugar Stick!” she said. She knew about them from reading (Pepper reads a lot of historical novels), but she couldn’t tell me what it was that she read that informed her about them. In any event, she knew it from the description. Possibly the show producers know about them the same way. That might explain why what they showed doesn’t match the historical images and examples that have been dug up for this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2013, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/17 "2013-09-25T05:57:02Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > That might explain why what they showed doesn’t match the historical images and examples that have been dug up for this thread. Or, you know, the fact that it’s been established to have been a straw. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2013, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/18 "2013-09-25T08:27:08Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > A death-ray? You win. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/19 "2013-09-25T13:43:55Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Or, you know, the fact that it’s been established to have been a straw. I’ll have to re-watch. But it’s not established to be a straw. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2013, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1920s-white-thing-put-in-coffee/669577/20 "2013-09-25T16:23:52Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’ll have to re-watch. But it’s not established to be a straw. Check out the bottom image in ZipperJJ’s link. It is a straw. I ruled out a sugar stick as the stick wasn’t seen to dissolve.