Pap generally consisted of animal milk or water thickened with bread (or some kind of cereal) with some additives for palatability - perhaps honey, then later - sugar. It was a popular complement to or substitute for human breast milk, notably in the 18th century. Panada was similar and generally referred to cereals cooked in broth with some additives to flavour the food.
Valerie Fildes reports a decline in the use of dairy produce in pap over the course of the 17th century, so that by the 18th century pap sometimes contained no dairy produce at all. If this was the sole food upon which infants were fed there could be catastrophic results. There was insufficient protein, calcium, vitamins (A and D) and fats to enable them to thrive.
17th century pap boat (British or Dutch), Metropolitan Museum of Art, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Pap boats and pap spoons
Pap boats were jug-like in shape, resembling a gravy boat. Like the 17th century example shown above, they were relatively simple in design. The ‘beauty’ (or so it was thought) of such a vessel was that larger quantities of thicker food (like pap) could be given quickly to the infant. Fred Weinberg notes how pap boats were made from a range of materials, such as china, but also pewter (as in the picture above), or - in the case of better off families - silver perhaps. Pap spoons differed from pap boats as they had a hole in them allowing food to be quite literally blown into an infant's mouth. They came into use in the late 18th and 19th centuries and were sometimes used to convey medicines too.
Why a pap boat or spoon might have been used
There were many reasons why infants were fed with a pap boat. Fildes notes that the prime reason was if a mother had died or was unable to breastfeed, making finding an alternative means of feeding the infant a necessity. A further reason might have been if the mother had developed mastitis, or if her milk had dried up early - during times of famine for instance. In some cases a baby may have had a malformed mouth or pharynx which impacted on their ability to suck in the usual way. Another reason for using a pap boat may have been if an infant was considered not to be thriving. Feeding it pap or panada from such a vessel might fatten the child up quickly - a practice we would frown on today, although the use of pap to feed infants has not gone away in entirety.
Problems with using a pap boat or pap spoon
Unlike other feeding vessels in history such as the bubby pot with its long spout, pap boats were relatively easy to keep clean as there were no awkward tubes or spouts to clean. But the water used to clean a pap boat may well have been contaminated, the liquid used in the pap may not have been boiled for sterility, and the pap mixture may have been kept uncovered for some time before used. The emphasis placed on scrupulous hygiene today was less evident in the past. Moreover, the use of lead in pewter in the past was problematic as milk acids may have reacted with the metal causing a toxic brew.
Beyond this, such vessels put the caregiver, not the baby, firmly in control of infant feeding. Crucially, the infant was not having to 'work' through sucking, as when breastfed, to get its nourishment and was unable to pace its desired flow of food. At worst, an infant may have been force-fed its food - literally having it poured or blown into its throat quickly.
References
Valerie A Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies: A History of Infant Feeding, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986).
Fred Weinberg, ‘Infant Feeding Through the Ages’, Canadian Family Physician, 39 (1993): 2016-2020.
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