Shimmy like my sister Kate- the word is lost on young ones here. Originally it was shimmyshake, (possibly derived from chemise says Webster's). Shimmyshake, of course, immediately brings up Kate as a rhyme. Really popular in early jazz dance(about 1915-1920) although the word goes back to the early 19th c.

Anne, Surprised to see "shortening is an ond-fashioned word for fat." In my cookbooks, shortening is the general term for fats, including butter, lard, vegetable fats like Crisco (many years ago Crisco was lard, but it was transformed by the manufacturer). Of course, my cookbooks are not English (except for an old Beeton's we picked up as a curiosity). The "artery-hardening" foods that Anne mentions were a large part of the 19th c. diet in North America as well as in the British Isles. Hard work burnt calories, but poverty and ignorance led to poor diets and illness among the populace in both regions.

On the plantations where sugar cane could be grown, the slaves generally had molasses but not sugar. Corn, molasses, lard, bacon and dried peas (term includes beans) were important parts of the slave diet; "shortnin' bread" filled the belly because better foods were lacking.
Vegetables often were raised in small patches by the slaves but they never had the variety raised by them for the benefit of the owners and overseers. Peas, beans and potatoes were grown and provided on some plantations, but actual quantities and how widespread? Don't know.
There are few studies such as Rosengarten's "Tombee," which examines the actual conduct of a planter's domain. Detailed records are not popular with historians, but they exist and should be better known.
Skilled slaves were valued, and often loaned out. One of many diary entries from the 1850s- "Major's Jack came here and did some work on my boat, paid him in corn and bacon." Many trips by the slaves are listed in the "Tombee" journals; to deliver and pick up materials, to fish on the river, to collect oysters in season, cut timber, etc. (This planter near Beaufort, SC).

Real doctors, as suggested above, generally did not visit the slaves, although the health of the slaves was important to productivity (seldom used by the planters themselves except in real emergencies- at that time, probably just as well). Most plantations maintained a "sickhouse." Nursing was provided by special slaves or by someone from the master's or overseers families. Illness a constant problem. Journal entry, Feb. 1850. "Isaac and Moll still sick. God knows when I will get all of my small force at work. So many mouths to feed & so few to work that it is impossible for me to get along" (Thinks about how to get more Negroes in the field and fewer in the yard). "Out of 30 head to feed, only nine work and make feed for them, then they expect clothes and shoes regularly..."