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Today is the birthday (1903) of Eric Arthur Blair, usually known by his pen name George Orwell. I covered some aspects of his life 7 years ago when I celebrated the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four (www.bookofdaystales.com/big-brother-is-watching/ ). By all means go there first for my initial appraisal of Orwell whose writing I consider some of the finest in the English language, both in terms of style and content. Between the ages of roughly 15 and 35 I read all of his books and a great many of his essays, and I still hunt down lesser-known works. In my early years as a college professor in New York I also assigned a few of his works, the most important (by my lights) being "Politics and the English Language," although my very first freshman group were the class of 1984, and petitioned for you-know-what. Nineteen Eighty-Four is, indeed, startlingly insightful and prescient, and I have read it cover to cover many times – including as a set book when I was studying English literature in the 6th form in England. No need to go on about it. Read my old post. Rather, I would like to extol some of his books that are less commonly read or discussed.
Keep the Aspidistra Flying was an early foray of mine into the cloudier recesses of Orwell's writing. All of his writing involves social commentary of some sort, but some is more biting than merely observational. So it is with Aspidistra. The main character, Gordon Comstock has 'declared war' on what he sees as an 'overarching dependence' on money by leaving a promising job as a copywriter for an advertising company called 'New Albion'—at which he shows great dexterity—and taking a low-paying job instead, ostensibly so he can write poetry. Coming from a respectable family background in which the inherited wealth has now become dissipated, Gordon resents having to work for a living. The 'war' (and the poetry), however, aren't going particularly well and, under the stress of his 'self-imposed exile' from affluence, Gordon has become absurd, petty and deeply neurotic.
Orwell's attention to precise details, written in plain language, is compelling in this novel – from the beginning. But it was the structure of the book that most caught my attention. In the opening chapter, Comstock plays with the first two lines of a new poem, and as the novel progresses he fleshes the poem out more and more as his life becomes more convoluted and desperate, until, finally, his life rights itself and the poem is finished. Not a masterwork by any means, but a definite tapestry woven from fine threads.
Coming Up For Air has a similar bitterly mocking tone. At the opening of the book, the first-person narrator, George Bowling has a day off work to go to London to collect a new set of false teeth. A news-poster about the contemporary King Zog of Albania sets off thoughts of a biblical character Og, King of Bashan that he recalls from Sunday church as a child. Along with 'some sound in the traffic or the smell of horse dung or something' these thoughts trigger Bowling's memory of his childhood as the son of an unambitious seed merchant in "Lower Binfield" near the River Thames. Bowling relates his life history, dwelling on how a lucky break during the First World War landed him in a comfortable job away from any action and provided contacts that helped him become a successful salesman.
Bowling is wondering what to do with a modest sum of money that he has won on a horserace and which he has concealed from his wife and family. He decides to use the money on a trip down memory lane, to revisit the places of his childhood. He recalls a particular pond with huge fish in it which he had missed the chance to try and catch thirty years previously. He therefore plans to return to Lower Binfield but when he arrives, he finds the place unrecognizable. Eventually he locates the old pub where he is to stay, finding it much changed. His home has become a tea shop. Only the church and vicar appear the same, but he has a shock when he discovers an old girlfriend, who is completely changed and utterly devoid of the qualities he once adored. She fails to recognize him at all. Bowling remembers the slow and painful decline of his father's seed business – resulting from the nearby establishment of corporate competition. This painful memory seems to have sensitized him to – and given him a repugnance for – what he sees as the marching ravages of "Progress". The final disappointment is to find that the estate where he used to fish has been built over, and the secluded and once hidden pond that contained the huge carp he always intended to take on with his fishing rod, but never got around to, has become a rubbish dump.
In reading these two, and others, it's hard not to see Orwell as a cynical observer of everyday middle-class life in pre-war England. His protagonists seem pathetic in their dreams and ambitions, and completely unimaginative when it comes to making changes in their lives. Is this how he saw the world around him in general? Did any of these accounts reflect doubts about himself? There is no doubt that he saw the English class system as pernicious and cruel, but was he a victim of it, or a revolutionary?
Orwell championed many social causes, but none is dearer to my heart than his loud defense of English cooking, which may be found here — https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/in-defence-of-english-cooking/ His point is twofold. First, visitors to England usually have to eat in restaurants and so miss the great array of dishes that home cooking has to offer (Yorkshire pudding being his prime example). Second, visitors are usually unaware of the huge number of regional specialties available. You could write a whole book on English regional sausages (and these days, most certainly on cheeses). I have made this point countless times before in this blog. Orwell was especially fond of English puddings and he claimed that a list of them would be interminable if he gave it in full. Look in Mrs Beeton if you doubt him. Here is a favorite of mine:
EXETER PUDDING.
(Very rich.)
INGREDIENTS.—10 oz. of bread crumbs, 4 oz. of sago, 7 oz. of finely-chopped suet, 6 oz. of moist sugar, the rind of 1/2 lemon, 1/4 pint of rum, 7 eggs, 4 tablespoonfuls of cream, 4 small sponge cakes, 2 oz. of ratafias, 1/2 lb. of jam.
Mode.—Put the bread crumbs into a basin with the sago, suet, sugar, minced lemon-peel, rum, and 4 eggs; stir these ingredients well together, then add 3 more eggs and the cream, and let the mixture be well beaten. Then butter a mould, strew in a few bread crumbs, and cover the bottom with a layer of ratafias; then put in a layer of the mixture, then a layer of sliced sponge cake spread thickly with any kind of jam; then add some ratafias, then some of the mixture and sponge cake, and so on until the mould is full, taking care that a layer of the mixture is on the top of the pudding. Bake in a good oven from 3/4 to 1 hour, and serve with the following sauce:—Put 3 tablespoonfuls of black-currant jelly into a stewpan, add 2 glasses of sherry, and, when warm, turn the pudding out of the mould, pour the sauce over it, and serve hot.
Time.—From 1 to 1-1/4 hour. Average cost, 2s. 6d.
Sufficient for 7 or 8 persons. Seasonable at any time.
Posted by admin at 9:06 am	Tagged with: beeton, coming up for air, eric blair, exeter pudding, keep the aspidistra, pudding
Lindley Murray
Food and Culture, Food and History, Recipes No Responses »
Today is the birthday (1745) of Lindley Murray, a North American born Quaker who moved to England where he became a writer and grammarian. Once in a while I feel a need to salute grammarians who, although sometimes overly pedantic, keep us within reasonable bounds. I have far too many friends and former students who decry precision in writing, and mostly I simply grin and bear it. But sometimes I rebel.
I expect the world has always been filled with people whose writing is poor and shallow, just as there are people who cannot draw or compose music. All of these skills require patience and dedication to master, and many (perhaps most) people have neither. Not a problem. I am not going to look down on someone who has no interest in painting, nor on someone who has no interest in writing. I do object, however, when all too frequently I am told by a terrible writer that writing well is a waste of time and effort. If you want to be ignored, dismissed, ridiculed or misunderstood, then by all means write with bad grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Above all, do not blame the language for your own inabilities. It can perform wonders, but you have to know what you are doing. It is not fair to say, as I have heard way too often, "If it could be written, I would not have to dance/play/paint . . . etc." Idle rubbish. It is not language that is inadequate; it is either your education, or your lack of attention to the skills and subtleties of writing that is at fault. Murray wanted people to do better.
Lindley Murray was born at Harper Tavern in Pennsylvania. His father, Robert Murray, a member of an old Quaker family, was one of the leading New York merchants. Murray was the eldest of twelve children, all of whom he survived, although he was puny and delicate in childhood. When six years old, he was sent to school in Philadelphia, but soon left to accompany his parents to North Carolina, where they lived until 1753. They then moved to New York, where Murray was sent to a good school, but was put down as a 'heedless boy'. At 14 years old he was placed in his father's counting-house. In spite of endeavors to foster in him the commercial spirit, Murray's interests were mainly concentrated in science and literature. He escaped to Burlington, New Jersey, entered a boarding-school, and started to study French. His retreat was discovered, he was brought back to New York, and allowed a private tutor. His father still wanted him to apply himself to commerce, but he stated arguments in favor of a literary profession so ably in writing that his father's lawyer advised him to let him study law.
Four years later Murray was called to the bar, and practiced as counsel and attorney in the province of New York. At the age of 22 he married, and in 1770 went to England, but returned in 1771 to New York. Here his practice became both large and lucrative, in spite of his conscientious care to 'discourage litigation, and to recommend a peaceable settlement of differences.' On the outbreak of hostilities in the colonies America, Murray went with his wife to Long Island, where he spent four years fishing, sailing, and shooting. On the declaration of independence he returned to New York, and was so successful that he retired in 1783 to a mansion on the Hudson.
Because Murray's health was failing, he decided to try the English climate (yes, you read that right). In 1784, he left North America and never returned. For the remainder of his life he lived in Holgate, near York, and for the last sixteen years of his life, his physical condition, likely the result of Post-Polio Syndrome, confined him to his house.
His library became noted for its theological and philological treasures. He studied botany, and his garden was said to exceed in variety the Royal Gardens at Kew. The summer house in which he wrote his grammars still remains. Murray's first published work, The Power of Religion on the Mind, (1787) went to 20 editions by 1842, and was twice translated into French. To the 8th edition (1795) was added 'Extracts from the Writings of divers Eminent Men representing the Evils of Stage Plays, &c.,' published separately 1789 and 1799.
His attention was then drawn to the lack of suitable lesson-books for a Friends' school for girls in York, and in 1795 he published his English Grammar. The manuscript petition from the teachers requesting him to prepare it has been preserved. The work became rapidly popular; it went through 50 editions, was edited, abridged, simplified, and enlarged in England and the US, and for a long time was used in schools to the exclusion of all other grammar-books. In 1816, an edition corrected by the author was issued in 2 vols. An 'Abridgment' of this version by Murray, issued two years later, went through more than 120 editions of ten thousand each. It was printed at the New England Institution for the Blind in embossed characters, Boston, 1835. English Exercises followed (1797), with A Key (27th ed. London, 1847), and both works were in great demand. Murray's English Reader, Sequel, and Introduction, issued respectively 1799, 1800, and 1801 (31st edit. 1836), were equally successful, as well as the Lecteur Francais, 1802, and Introduction to the Lecteur Francais, 1807. An English Spelling Book, 1804, reached 44 editions, and was translated into Spanish (Cadiz, 1841). The 150,000th First Book for Children, with portrait and woodcuts, was issued in 1859. He died on 16 January 1826, aged 80.
You can find, The English Reader: or, Pieces in Prose and Poetry, Selected from the Best Writers Designed to Assist Young Persons to Read with Propriety and Effect; to Improve Their Language and Sentiments; and to Inculcate Some of the Most Important Principles of Piety and Virtue. : With a Few Preliminary Observations on the Principles of Good Reading. (1799) here if you are interested: https://books.google.com.kh/books?id=cy4ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=meal%20&f=false .
Mrs Beeton's prose style would pass muster with Murray, and this segment speaks of another transplant from New York to England:
THE APPLE.—The most useful of all the British fruits is the apple, which is a native of Britain, and may be found in woods and hedges, in the form of the common wild crab, of which all our best apples are merely seminal varieties, produced by culture or particular circumstances. In most temperate climates it is very extensively cultivated, and in England, both as regards variety and quantity, it is excellent and abundant. Immense supplies are also imported from the United States and from France. The apples grown in the vicinity of New York are universally admitted to be the finest of any; but unless selected and packed with great care, they are apt to spoil before reaching England.
BOILED APPLE DUMPLINGS.
INGREDIENTS.—6 apples, 3/4 lb. of suet-crust No. 1215, sugar to taste.
Mode.—Pare and take out the cores of the apples without dividing them; sweeten, and roll each apple in a piece of crust, made by recipe No. 1211; be particular that the paste is nicely joined; put the dumplings into floured cloths, tie them securely, and put them into boiling water. Keep them boiling from 1/2 to 3/4 hour; remove the cloths, and send them hot and quickly to table. Dumplings boiled in knitted cloths have a very pretty appearance when they come to table. The cloths should be made square, just large enough to hold one dumpling, and should be knitted in plain knitting, with very coarse cotton.
Time.—3/4 to 1 hour, or longer should the dumplings be very large.
Average cost, 11/2d. each.
Sufficient for 4 persons.
Seasonable from August to March, but flavourless after the end of January.
Posted by admin at 1:07 pm	Tagged with: apple dumpling, beeton, grammar
Today is the birthday (1780) of Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney), an English prison reformer, social reformer and philanthropist. Fry was a major driving force behind new legislation to make the treatment of prisoners more humane, and she was supported in her efforts by Queen Victoria.
Elizabeth Fry was born in Norwich in Norfolk, England into a prominent Quaker family, the Gurneys. Her childhood family home was Earlham Hall, which is now part of the University of East Anglia. Her father, John Gurney (1749–1809), was a partner in Gurney's Bank. Her mother, Catherine, was a member of the Barclay family who were among the founders of Barclays Bank. Her mother died when Elizabeth was 12 years old. As one of the oldest girls in the family, Elizabeth was partly responsible for the care and education of the younger children, including her brother Joseph John Gurney, a philanthropist.
She met Joseph Fry (1777–1861), a banker whose uncle founded the Fry's chocolate company, who was also a Quaker, when she was 20 years old. They married on 19th August 1800 at the Norwich Goat Lane Friends Meeting House and moved to St Mildred's Court in the City of London. Elizabeth Fry was recorded as a minister of the Religious Society of Friends in 1811. Joseph and Elizabeth Fry lived in Plashet House in East Ham between 1809 and 1829, then moved to The Cedars on Portway in Forest Gate, where they lived until 1844. They had eleven children, five sons and six daughters.
Prompted by a family friend, Stephen Grellet, Fry visited Newgate Prison in 1813. The conditions she saw there horrified her. The women's section was overcrowded with women and children, some of whom had not even received a trial. The prisoners did their own cooking and washing in the small cells in which they slept on straw. She returned the following day with food and clothes for some prisoners. She was unable to personally further her work for nearly 4 years because of difficulties within the Fry family, including financial difficulties at the Fry bank, which Elizabeth helped extricate her husband from. Put simply, she had a strong sense of business, and her husband had hardly any. Fry returned to Newgate in 1816 and was eventually able to fund a prison school for the children who were imprisoned with their mothers. Rather than attempt to impose discipline on the women, she suggested rules and then asked the prisoners to vote on them. In 1817 she helped found the Association for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This association provided materials for women so that they could learn to sew and knit and then once they were out of prison they could earn money for themselves. This led to the eventual creation of the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners in 1821 She also promoted the idea of rehabilitation instead of harsh punishment which was taken on by the city authorities in London as well as many other authorities and prisons.
Elizabeth Fry also campaigned for the rights and welfare of prisoners who were being transported. The women of Newgate Prison were taken through the streets of London in open carts, often in chains, huddled together with their few possessions. They were pelted with rotten food and filth by the people of the city. The fear was often enough to make women condemned to transportation riot on the evening before. Fry's first action was to persuade the governor of Newgate prison to send the women in closed carriages and spare them this last indignity before transportation. She visited prison ships and persuaded captains to implement systems to ensure each woman and child would at least get a share of food and water on the long journey. Later she arranged each woman to be given scraps of material and sewing tools so that they could use the long journey to make quilts and have something to sell as well as useful skills when they reached their destination. She also included a Bible and useful items such as string and knives and forks in this vital care package. Elizabeth Fry visited 106 transport ships and saw 12,000 convicts. Her work helped to start a movement for the abolition of transportation. Transportation was officially abolished in 1837, however Elizabeth Fry was still visiting transportation ships until 1843.
Elizabeth Fry wrote in her book Prisons in Scotland and the North of England that she stayed the night in some of the prisons and invited nobility to come and stay and see for themselves the conditions prisoners lived in. Her kindness helped her gain the friendship of the prisoners and they began to try to improve their conditions for themselves. Thomas Fowell Buxton, Fry's brother-in-law, was elected to Parliament for Weymouth and began to promote her work among his fellow MPs. In 1818 Fry gave evidence to a House of Commons committee on the conditions prevalent in British prisons, becoming the first woman to present evidence in Parliament.
Elizabeth Fry also helped the homeless, establishing a "nightly shelter" in London after seeing the dead body of a young boy in the winter of 1819/1820 on the streets. In 1824, during a visit to Brighton, she instituted the Brighton District Visiting Society. The society arranged for volunteers to visit the homes of the poor and provide help and comfort to them. The plan was successful and was duplicated in other districts and towns across Britain. Elizabeth Fry also used her influential network and worked with other prominent Quakers to campaign for the abolition of the slave trade.
After her husband went bankrupt in 1828, Fry's brother became her business manager and benefactor. Thanks to him, her work expanded. In 1838 the Friends sent a party to France: Fry and her husband, Lydia Irving, and abolitionists Josiah Forster and William Allen. They were there on other business but despite the language barrier Fry and Lydia Irving visited French prisons.
In 1840 Fry opened a training school for nurses. Her program inspired Florence Nightingale, who took a team of Fry's nurses to assist wounded soldiers in the Crimean War.
In 1842, Frederick William IV of Prussia went to see Fry in Newgate Prison during an official visit to Great Britain. The king, who had met Fry during her previous tours of the continent promoting welfare change and humanitarianism, was so impressed by her work that he told his reluctant courtiers that he would personally visit the gaol when he was in London.
Queen Victoria admired Fry's work and granted her an audience a few times before she became queen, and contributed money to her cause after she ascended the throne. Robert Peel was also an admirer, and passed several acts to further her cause including the Gaols Act 1823. The act was largely ineffective, because there were no inspectors to make sure that it was being followed.
Fry died from a stroke in Ramsgate, England, on 12th October 1845. Her remains were buried in the Friends' burial ground at Barking. More than a thousand people stood in silence during the burial at the Ramsgate memorial. Following her death, a meeting chaired by the Lord Mayor of London, resolved that it would be fitting "to found an asylum to perpetuate the memory of Mrs Fry and further the benevolent objects to which her life had been devoted." An 18th-century town house was purchased at 195 Mare Street, in the London Borough of Hackney and the first Elizabeth Fry refuge opened its doors in 1849. Funding came via subscriptions from various city companies and private individuals, supplemented by income from the inmates' laundry and needlework. Such training was an important part of the refuge's work. In 1924, the refuge merged with the Manor House Refuge for the Destitute, in Dalston in Hackney, becoming a hostel for girls on probation for minor offences. The hostel soon moved to larger premises in Highbury, Islington and then, in 1958, to Reading, where it remains today.
I searched Mrs Beeton and found this anecdote on prisons and punishment, rather typical of Victorian humor, followed by her recipe for baked ham, which I think would make a fine dish in honor of Elizabeth Fry (although I would love to sneak in a bar of Fry's Turkish Delight in honor of her husband's uncle).
HOG NOT BACON. ANECDOTE OF LORD BACON.—As Lord Bacon, on one occasion, was about to pass sentence of death upon a man of the name of Hogg, who had just been tried for a long career of crime, the prisoner suddenly claimed to be heard in arrest of judgment, saying, with an expression of arch confidence as he addressed the bench, "I claim indulgence, my lord, on the plea of relationship; for I am convinced your lordship will never be unnatural enough to hang one of your own family."
"Indeed, replied the judge, with some amazement," I was not aware that I had the honour of your alliance; perhaps you will be good enough to name the degree of our mutual affinity."
"I am sorry, my lord," returned the impudent thief, "I cannot trace the links of consanguinity; but the moral evidence is sufficiently pertinent. My name, my lord, is Hogg, your lordship's is Bacon; and all the world will allow that bacon and hog are very closely allied."
"I am sorry," replied his lordship, "I cannot admit the truth of your instance: hog cannot be bacon till it is hanged; and so, before I can admit your plea, or acknowledge the family compact, Hogg must be hanged to-morrow morning."
TO BAKE A HAM.
INGREDIENTS.—Ham; a common crust.
Mode.—As a ham for baking should be well soaked, let it remain in water for at least 12 hours. Wipe it dry, trim away any rusty places underneath, and cover it with a common crust, taking care that this is of sufficient thickness all over to keep the gravy in. Place it in a moderately-heated oven, and bake for nearly 4 hours. Take off the crust, and skin, and cover with raspings, the same as for boiled ham, and garnish the knuckle with a paper frill. This method of cooking a ham is, by many persons, considered far superior to boiling it, as it cuts fuller of gravy and has a finer flavour, besides keeping a much longer time good.
Time.—A medium-sized ham, 4 hours.
Average cost, from 8d. to 10d. per lb. by the whole ham.
Seasonable all the year.
Posted by admin at 5:44 pm	Tagged with: baked ham, banking, beeton, chocolate, poverty, prison reform, quaker
Kate Greenaway
Today is the birthday (1846) of Catherine "Kate" Greenaway, a Victorian children's book illustrator and writer whose work influenced the children's dress styles of the day. She is part of what is called The Golden Age of Book Illustration which actually covers a huge raft of styles and techniques.
Kate Greenaway was born in Hoxton, London, the second of four children. Her mother, Elizabeth Greenaway, was a dressmaker and her father, John Greenaway, was a wood engraver, whose business failed when he took a commission to engrave illustrations for Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers from a publisher who went bankrupt. As a young girl Kate lived with relatives in Rolleston, Nottinghamshire. John wanted to work without interruption on the Dickens engravings and sent the entire family away for about two years, a period that for Kate, according to children's literature scholar Humphrey Carpenter "was crucial … she felt it to be her real home, a country of the mind that she could always reimagine."
John Greenaway
On the return of his wife and children the family moved to Islington, living in the flat above a millinery shop Elizabeth Greenaway opened to provide an income. There was a garden outside the building, which Greenaway wrote about in letters and an unfinished autobiography in the 1880s, describing it as place with "richness of colour and depth of shade." Her father took on work for The Illustrated London News, often bringing home the wood blocks to carve during the night. Kate was interested in her father's work, and through him was exposed to the work of John Leech, John Gilbert and Kenny Meadows.
As a young child Kate was educated at home and also sent to series of dame schools. When she was about 12 she began formal art education when enrolling in the National Course of Art instruction,[5] first at Finsbury School of Art and later at the South Kensington School of Art headed by Richard Burchett. The curriculum was design-based with a focus on technical skills, with emphasis on geometric and botanical designs to create patterns for architectural elements such as decorative wallpapers and tiles. She completed the five stages of ornamental courses in one year and the ten stages of the drawing courses with similar speed. In 1864, she completed the final course, "Elementary Design," winning a national bronze medal for her designs. Later awards included a national silver medal in 1869 for a set of geometric and floral decorative tiles.
She later attended the Royal Female School of Art. With classmate Elizabeth Thompson, Greenaway augmented her studies by learning to draw the human figure from life and the two women rented a studio in South Kensington for a year for this purpose. At the school she did have the opportunity to work from models dressed in historical or ornamental costumes but she continued to be frustrated that nude models were not permitted in the women's classes. Later she enrolled in night classes at Heatherley School of Fine Art where she met Edward Burne-Jones, Edward Poynter and Walter Crane and in 1871 she enrolled in the Slade School of Fine Art.
By 1867 she began to receive commissions, in part the result of the national awards she received and in part because of exposure at exhibitions. The publisher of People's Magazine, W. J. Loftie purchased a set of six watercolours Greenaway exhibited in 1868, printing them in the magazine set to verse written by his contributors. A year later Frederick Warne & Co purchased six illustrations for a toy book edition of Diamonds and Toads.
Her first book, Under the Window (1879), a collection of simple verses about children, was a bestseller. As well as illustrating books Greenaway produced a number of bookplates. Greenaway was elected to membership of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1889.
She lived in an Arts and Crafts style house she commissioned from Richard Norman Shaw in Frognal, London, although she spent summers in Rolleston. Here's a gallery:
Greenaway died of breast cancer in 1901, at the age of 55. She is buried in Hampstead Cemetery, London.
Greenaway's paintings were reproduced by chromoxylography, by which the colors were printed from hand-engraved wood blocks by the firm of Edmund Evans. Through the 1880s and 1890s, her only rivals in popularity in children's book illustration were Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott. "Kate Greenaway children" were dressed in her own versions of late 18th century and Regency fashions: smock-frocks and skeleton suits for boys, high-waisted pinafores and dresses with mobcaps and straw bonnets for girls. Liberty of London adapted Kate Greenaway's drawings as designs for actual children's clothes. A full generation of mothers in the liberal-minded "artistic" British circles who called themselves The Souls and embraced the Arts and Crafts movement dressed their daughters in Kate Greenaway pantaloons and bonnets in the 1880s and 1890s.
We have to go with apple pie to celebrate Kate Greenaway, and Mrs Beeton has to be our guide. I have given modern recipes for apple pie in other posts, but this one works fine. Adding beer or sherry to the apples would work fine as long as you pick the right ones. A dark or amber ale would be all right. I would use a dry sherry rather than a sweet one. Then again, I would prefer brandy.
APPLE TART OR PIE.
INGREDIENTS.—Puff-paste No. 1205 or 1206, apples; to every lb. of unpared apples allow 2 oz. of moist sugar, 1/2 teaspoonful of finely-minced lemon-peel, 1 tablespoonful of lemon-juice.
Mode.—Make 1/2 lb. of puff-paste by either of the above-named recipes, place a border of it round the edge of a pie-dish, and fill it with apples pared, cored, and cut into slices; sweeten with moist sugar, add the lemon-peel and juice, and 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of water; cover with crust, cut it evenly round close to the edge of the pie-dish, and bake in a hot oven from 1/2 to 3/4 hour, or rather longer, should the pie be very large. When it is three-parts done, take it out of the oven, put the white of an egg on a plate, and, with the blade of a knife, whisk it to a froth; brush the pie over with this, then sprinkle upon it some sifted sugar, and then a few drops of water. Put the pie back into the oven, and finish baking, and be particularly careful that it does not catch or burn, which it is very liable to do after the crust is iced. If made with a plain crust, the icing may be omitted.
Time.—1/2 hour before the crust is iced; 10 to 15 minutes afterwards.
Average cost, 9d.
Sufficient.—Allow 2 lbs. of apples for a tart for 6 persons.
Seasonable from August to March; but the apples become flavourless after February.
Note.—Many things are suggested for the flavouring of apple pie; some say 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of beer, others the same quantity of sherry, which very much improve the taste; whilst the old-fashioned addition of a few cloves is, by many persons, preferred to anything else, as also a few slices of quince.
VERY GOOD PUFF-PASTE.
INGREDIENTS.—To every lb. of flour allow 1 lb. of butter, and not quite 1/2 pint of water.
Mode.—Carefully weigh the flour and butter, and have the exact proportion; squeeze the butter well, to extract the water from it, and afterwards wring it in a clean cloth, that no moisture may remain. Sift the flour; see that it is perfectly dry, and proceed in the following manner to make the paste, using a very clean paste-board and rolling-pin:—Supposing the quantity to be 1 lb. of flour, work the whole into a smooth paste, with not quite 1/2 pint of water, using a knife to mix it with: the proportion of this latter ingredient must be regulated by the discretion of the cook; if too much be added, the paste, when baked, will be tough. Roll it out until it is of an equal thickness of about an inch; break 4 oz. of the butter into small pieces; place these on the paste, sift over it a little flour, fold it over, roll out again, and put another 4 oz. of butter. Repeat the rolling and buttering until the paste has been rolled out 4 times, or equal quantities of flour and butter have been used. Do not omit, every time the paste is rolled out, to dredge a little flour over that and the rolling-pin, to prevent both from sticking. Handle the paste as lightly as possible, and do not press heavily upon it with the rolling-pin. The next thing to be considered is the oven, as the baking of pastry requires particular attention. Do not put it into the oven until it is sufficiently hot to raise the paste; for the best-prepared paste, if not properly baked, will be good for nothing. Brushing the paste as often as rolled out, and the pieces of butter placed thereon, with the white of an egg, assists it to rise in leaves or flakes. As this is the great beauty of puff-paste, it is as well to try this method.
Average cost, 1s. 4d. per lb.
BUTTER.—About the second century of the Christian era, butter was placed by Galen amongst the useful medical agents; and about a century before him, Dioscorides mentioned that he had noticed that fresh butter, made of ewes' and goats' milk, was served at meals instead of oil, and that it took the place of fat in making pastry. Thus we have undoubted authority that, eighteen hundred years ago, there existed a knowledge of the useful qualities of butter. The Romans seem to have set about making it much as we do; for Pliny tells us, "Butter is made from milk; and the use of this element, so much sought after by barbarous nations, distinguished the rich from the common people. It is obtained principally from cows' milk; that from ewes is the fattest; goats also supply some. It is produced by agitating the milk in long vessels with narrow openings: a little water is added."
MEDIUM PUFF-PASTE.
INGREDIENTS.—To every lb. of flour allow 8 oz. of butter, 4 oz. of lard, not quite 1/2 pint of water.
Mode.—This paste may be made by the directions in the preceding recipe, only using less butter and substituting lard for a portion of it. Mix the flour to a smooth paste with not quite 1/2 pint of water; then roll it out 3 times, the first time covering the paste with butter, the second with lard, and the third with butter. Keep the rolling-pin and paste slightly dredged with flour, to prevent them from sticking, and it will be ready for use.
Average cost, 1s. per lb.
BUTTER IN HASTE.—In his "History of Food," Soyer says that to obtain butter instantly, it is only necessary, in summer, to put new milk into a bottle, some hours after it has been taken from the cow, and shake it briskly. The clots which are thus formed should be thrown into a sieve, washed and pressed together, and they constitute the finest and most delicate butter that can possibly be made.
Posted by admin at 3:36 am	Tagged with: apple pie, beeton, children, greenaway, illustration, puff pastry, victorian
Nature versus Nurture
Today is the birthday (1822) of Sir Francis Galton, FRS, an English statistician and polymath whose mathematical investigations of human variables lie at the heart of quantitative analysis in social science to this day. I apologize for the preponderance of studies of biological variability in recent days. I promise to move on after Galton. Galton created or popularized the statistical concept of correlation, regression toward the mean, and was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and the inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities. He also popularized the phrase "nature versus nurture." He founded psychometrics (the science of measuring mental faculties), differential psychology, and the lexical hypothesis of personality. He devised a method for classifying fingerprints that proved useful in forensic science. He also conducted research on the power of prayer, concluding it had none by its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for. His quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for making tea. Galton devised the first weather map, proposed a theory of anticyclones, and was the first to establish a complete record of short-term climatic phenomena on a European scale. He also invented the Galton Whistle for testing differential hearing ability. I can't cover it all, so I'll make some selections.
Galton was born at "The Larches", a large house in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham, built on the site of "Fair Hill", the former home of Joseph Priestley, which the botanist William Withering had renamed. He was Charles Darwin's half-cousin, sharing the common grandparent Erasmus Darwin. His father was Samuel Tertius Galton, son of Samuel "John" Galton. The Galtons were famous and highly successful Quaker gun-manufacturers and bankers, while the Darwins were distinguished in medicine and science.
Galton was by many accounts a child prodigy – he was reading by the age of two; at age five he knew some Greek, Latin and long division, and by the age of six he had moved on to adult books, including Shakespeare for pleasure, and poetry, which he quoted at length. Later in life, Galton would propose a connection between genius and insanity based on his own experience. He stated:
Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.
Galton attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, but chafed at the narrow classical curriculum and left at 16. His parents pressed him to enter the medical profession, and he studied for two years at Birmingham General Hospital and King's College London Medical School. He followed this up with mathematical studies at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, from 1840 to early 1844. A severe nervous breakdown altered Galton's original intention to try for honours. He elected instead to take a "poll" (pass) B.A. degree, like his half-cousin Charles Darwin. Following the Cambridge custom, he was awarded an M.A. without further study, in 1847. He then briefly resumed his medical studies. The death of his father in 1844 had left him financially independent but emotionally damaged, and he terminated his medical studies entirely, turning to foreign travel, sport, and technical invention.
In 1850 he joined the Royal Geographical Society, and over the next two years mounted a long and difficult expedition into then little-known South West Africa (now Namibia). He wrote a successful book on his experience, Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa. He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Gold Medal in 1853 and the Silver Medal of the French Geographical Society for his pioneering cartographic survey of the region. This established his reputation as a geographer and explorer. He proceeded to write the best-selling The Art of Travel, a handbook of practical advice for the Victorian on the move, which went through many editions and is still in print.
In 1888, Galton established a lab in the science galleries of the South Kensington Museum. In Galton's lab, participants could be measured to gain knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses. Galton also used these data for his own research. He would typically charge people a small fee for his services. During this time, Galton wrote a controversial letter to The Times titled "Africa for the Chinese." This paper will set the stage for my general opinion of Galton, namely, he was a brilliant mathematician whose work on the quantitative aspects of human populations is unrivalled, but his social theories themselves are hopelessly inadequate because they are driven by a warped English Victorian colonial mentality. In "Africa for the Chinese" he makes the case for having the overpopulation problem of China solved by having all the surplus population of China emigrate to Africa and displace the indigenous Africans because the Chinese are a superior race. They are inferior to the English, of course, but their current degeneracy was caused by the failures of Chinese dynasties, not their inherent tendencies. With room to move (sound familiar?) they would prosper. He was following the anthropology of the time, notably the work of E. B. Tylor, that saw all cultures as evolving inexorably through three stages: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. The Chinese were barbarians who were stunted in their attempts to become civilized by former governments, so why not have them displace some savages and thereby flourish? No one is going to miss a few savages. The African slave trade itself had been abolished by this time, but slavery was still very much alive and well in the Americas.
Galton devoted much of the rest of his life to exploring variation in human populations and its implications. In so doing, he established a research program which embraced multiple aspects of human variation, from mental characteristics to height; from facial images to fingerprint patterns. This required inventing novel measures of traits, devising large-scale collection of data using those measures, and in the end, the discovery of new statistical techniques for describing and understanding the data. Many of his actual metrics are deeply flawed. For example, there is no statistically valid correlation between skull size and intelligence, yet he ploughed on in this direction regardless, including using inappropriate ways of measuring skulls.
Galton was interested at first in the question of whether human ability was hereditary, and proposed to count the number of the relatives, of various degrees, of eminent men (not women). If the qualities were hereditary, he reasoned, there should be more eminent men among the relatives than among the general population. To test this, he invented the methods of historiometry. Galton obtained extensive data from a broad range of biographical sources which he tabulated and compared in various ways. This pioneering work was described in detail in his book Hereditary Genius in 1869. Here he showed, among other things, that the numbers of eminent relatives dropped off when going from the first degree to the second degree relatives, and from the second degree to the third. He took this as evidence of the inheritance of abilities. The flaw is obvious, bringing up the phrase that he himself popularized: "nature versus nurture." [He did not coin the phrase, but used it widely.] Take famously musical families, such as the Bachs, Mozarts, and Mendelssohns. Is there a musical genius gene that they all passed on from generation to generation, or were they nurtured in musical households that fostered interest in, and training in, music at a young age? Galton knew nothing about genetics, so his views on inheritability of characteristics were crudely speculative.
Galton recognized some of the limitations of his methods and believed that some nature versus nurture questions could be better studied by comparisons of twins. His method envisaged testing to see if twins who were similar at birth diverged in dissimilar environments, and whether twins dissimilar at birth converged when reared in similar environments. He used the method of questionnaires to gather various sorts of data, which were tabulated and described in a paper "The history of twins" in 1875. In so doing he anticipated the modern field of behavior genetics, which relies heavily on twin studies. He concluded that the evidence favored nature rather than nurture. He also proposed adoption studies, including trans-racial adoption studies, to separate the effects of heredity and environment.
Galton invented the term eugenics in 1883 and set down many of his observations and conclusions in a book, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development. He believed that a scheme of 'marks' for family merit should be defined, and early marriage between families of high rank be encouraged by provision of monetary incentives. He pointed out some of the tendencies in British society, such as the late marriages of eminent people, and the paucity of their children, which he thought were dysgenic. He advocated encouraging eugenic marriages by supplying able couples with incentives to have children. On 29 October 1901, Galton chose to address eugenic issues when he delivered the second Huxley lecture at the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Galton's eugenics needed a firm foundation in understanding the mechanism of the inheritability of traits. Mendel's work on genetics was available, but buried in obscurity because when he hit upon the gene theory of inheritance there was no use for it. Mendel's work predated Darwin, and largely contradicted the prevailing view that offspring are blends of their parents. Mendel showed that certain traits in garden peas were either one thing or another, never blends. A seed was either smooth or wrinkled, never slightly wrinkled, for example. That is because he chose traits that are represented by single genes that are either dominant or recessive. Galton experimented with sweet peas using traits that are represented by multiple genes and can also be influenced by environmental factors. Height is an obvious example. A tall and a short parent will likely produce middle height children because height is represented by several genes. It is also influenced by diet in childhood. Galton was particularly interested in why traits, like height, which can be represented by a normal (bell-shaped) curve, remained stable in populations over time. He devised all manner of physical experiments using variously shaped containers through which he passed lead shot, and ultimately came up with a statistical model we call "regression to the mean." I'll leave you to explore the details if you are interested.
Galton's accumulation of data on thousands of humans allowed him to observe correlations between, for example, forearm length and height, head width and head breadth, and head length and height. With these observations he was able to write "Co-relations and their Measurements, chiefly from Anthropometric Data." In this paper, Galton defined "co-relation" as "the variation of the one [variable] is accompanied on the average by more or less variation of the other, and in the same direction." The use of co-relation (spelled, now, "correlation") is invaluable in quantitative social science, as long as you remember that correlation is not the same as causation. If I demonstrate that people who exercise daily are smarter than people who do not, have I shown that exercising regularly makes you smarter, or that being smarter makes you exercise daily?
The method used in Hereditary Genius has been described as the first example of historiometry. To bolster these results, and to attempt to make a distinction between 'nature' and 'nurture' he devised a questionnaire that he sent out to 190 Fellows of the Royal Society. He tabulated characteristics of their families, such as birth order and the occupation and race of their parents. He attempted to discover whether their interest in science was 'innate' or due to the encouragements of others. The studies were published as a book, English men of science: their nature and nurture, in 1874. In the end, it promoted the nature versus nurture question, though it did not settle it. It is settled now. NOTHING IS EITHER ONE OR THE OTHER !!
In an effort to reach a wider audience, Galton worked on a novel entitled The Eugenic College of Kantsaywhere from May until December 1910. The novel described a utopia organized by a eugenic religion, designed to breed fitter and smarter humans. His unpublished notebooks show that this was an expansion of material he had been composing since at least 1901. He offered it to Methuen for publication, but they showed little enthusiasm. Galton wrote to his niece that it should be either "smothered or superseded". His niece appears to have burnt most of the novel, offended by the love scenes, but large fragments survived, and it was published online by University College London.
In 1906 Galton proposed a method of cutting a cake so that there were never any exposed surfaces to dry out when it was stored. Here are diagrams:
Galton's method of cutting is economical so I will pair it with Mrs Beeton's idea of an economical cake:
ECONOMICAL CAKE.
INGREDIENTS.—1 lb. of flour, 1/4 lb. of sugar, 1/4 lb. of butter or lard, 1/2 lb. of currants, 1 teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, the whites of 4 eggs, 1/2 pint of milk.
Mode,—In making many sweet dishes, the whites of eggs are not required, and if well beaten and added to the above ingredients, make an excellent cake, with or without currants. Beat the butter to a cream, well whisk the whites of the eggs, and stir all the ingredients together but the soda, which must not be added until all is well mixed, and the cake is ready to be put into the oven. When the mixture has been well beaten, stir in the soda, put the cake into a buttered mould, and bake it in a moderate oven for 1-1/2 hour.
Time.—1-1/2 hour. Average cost, 1s. 3d.
Posted by admin at 2:34 pm	Tagged with: beeton, cake, causation, correlation, eugenics, galton, inheritance, mendel, regression, statistics
Endurance Walking
On this date in 1879, Ada Anderson completed a great feat of pedestrianism (endurance walking) in Mozart Gardens in Brooklyn: 2700 quarter miles in 2700 quarter hours. She started on 16 December 1878 and finished on 13 January 1879, and during that entire time was not allowed rest periods longer than 20 minutes. Nothing so grueling had ever been attempted before, although she and others had done somewhat shorter events of the kind before. I don't know if it has ever been replicated. She was one of a handful of female athletes who are largely forgotten now, but were extremely important in their day in pressing for equal rights for women.
Anderson was born Ada Nymand, but very little about her early life is known, including her birth date. Her father Gustavas Nymand was reported to be a 'Cockney Jew' and the identity of her mother is not known. She left home at 16 to join a theater company and five years later married the man whose name she was most commonly known by. She claimed to have been a singer, clown, and theater proprietress, with a childhood ambition to be famous by accomplishing something no one else could do. Having struggled to make a name for herself as an actress Anderson and her husband became managers of a theatre in Cardiff. But in 1877 her husband died, leaving her on the brink of bankruptcy.
Anderson's interest in pedestrianism started in 1877 when she met British champion racewalker William Gale at an event in Cardiff. Unlike other working-class pedestrians, such as Emma Sharp who claimed to do no formal training, Anderson was trained by Gale who specialized both in pedestrianism and sleep deprivation. After training for six weeks with Gale, Anderson made her pedestrian debut in Newport, Wales in September 1877. She walked 1,000 half-miles in 1,000 half-hours and got no more than 20 minutes rest at one time during the entire three-week trial. There were several days of rain which required her to walk with an umbrella and a lamp, but this did not prevent her from finishing.
Her second walk was planned to be 1,250 half-miles in 1,000 half-hours in Exeter, October 1877, which would break a record of 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours set by Captain Robert Barclay, but that had to be abandoned when a storm blew in. This did not deter Anderson and Gale, and they were able to accomplish that feat in Plymouth later that year. In addition to breaking the distance record by 250 miles, by starting each 1¼ mile at the beginning of the hour (rather than completing two consecutive miles as Barclay did) Anderson completed the event with much shorter rest periods. After this event Anderson was referred to in the press as a 'Champion Lady Walker of the World'.
Anderson's first indoor event was a 100-mile 28-hour walk, again in Plymouth. However, the pollution from gas lamps and cigars gave Anderson problems breathing. After falling a number of times, she collapsed unconscious after completing 96 miles. Following this failure Anderson went to the press and claimed she would "never take on another event she would not finish." She completed 1,344 quarter-miles in the same number of quarter-hours in Plymouth and 1.5 miles every hour for 28 days in Boston before attempting to equal Gale's record of 1,500 miles in 1,000 hours. Anderson started the event on 8 April 1878 and finished on 20 May 1878. Two days later, she got married for the second time to William Paley, who was in theater.
After completing three more walks during the summer of 1878, Anderson established herself as the dominant pedestrian in the UK. Therefore, on 13 October 1878, with the aim of making a name for herself in the US, Anderson, Paley, her manager J. H. Webb and her assistant Elizabeth Sparrow sailed on the steamship Ethiopia.
Anderson's manager, Webb, wanted to launch her US debut (2,700 quarter-miles in 2,700 quarter-hours) in Glimore's Garden (which later became Madison Square Garden). However, William Kissam Vanderbilt, the venue's owner rejected their request claiming, "The woman will never accomplish the feat and nor can any woman." This led Webb to approach Mozart Garden, a smaller venue in Brooklyn which was refurbished for the event, reducing the seating from 2,000 to 800 to make way for a track which was surrounded by an 18-inch railing and measured by Brooklyn's city surveyor to ensure accuracy. The venue was so small that the track was only 189 feet in circumference, requiring Anderson to walk seven laps to complete each quarter of a mile. A 'privacy tent' was built for Anderson to use during her short rest periods containing a bed and a makeshift kitchen including a stove. Walking 2,700 quarter-miles in so many quarter-hours was an accomplishment never attempted by any person before in the US, requiring an ability to endure severe sleep deprivation, leading the champion US pedestrian Daniel O'Leary to state that he would never attempt it.
The event was so popular that the spectator fee was raised from 25 cents to 50 cents after 23 days of the event had been completed (with 5 to go). By the final day of the event, ticket prices were $1 for standing and $2 for reserved seating. As many as 4,000 people per day came to see Anderson during the event which started at 8pm on 16th December 1878. She completed the event at 11pm on 13th January 1879 to a venue so packed that police had to prevent additional spectators. Many of the spectators were women whom it was reported regarded Anderson as 'the most wonderful of their sex'.
There were numerous checks and judges to ensure the integrity of the event, and doctors who checked on Anderson concluded that she had trained herself to cope with sleep deprivation, since she had no more than nine minutes sleep at a time during the entire 28-day event. 55 miles into the event Anderson played the piano and sang Verdi's "Back to Our Mountains" during her rest period and became known for such entertainment during the walk. Over the next few weeks she continued to entertain the crowds with impromptu singing and speeches. Anderson had a number of celebrities come and walk with her during the event including 75-year-old boxer Bill Tovec, General Tom Thumb and Texas Jack. She also entertained the crowd by marking the faces of sleeping spectators with coal. Because of the heavy wagers on the completion of the event, Anderson required protection in the final days of the walk. There were reports of attempted gassing with chloroform although Anderson denied this. With only half a mile to go Anderson sang 'Nil Desperandum' to the crowd before completing her penultimate lap. She completed her final quarter of a mile in 2 minutes 37 seconds the fastest of all 2,700. The total receipts of the event were reported to be $32,000 of which Anderson's personal share was reported to be $8,000.
When asked by reporters about fatigue, Anderson claimed her biggest problem was often with blisters and the pain of them preventing her sleeping. However, the sleep deprivation became apparent even within the first two days where she had periods of stumbling through the walk in an almost semi-conscious state before appearing as lively as she was at the start a few hours later. In these sleepy periods her assistant, Sparrow, had to prepare her to walk at the three-minute warning bell and on occasion had to send her back to the track when she hadn't completed the required seven laps. After 100 miles, the regular check by the a physician noted she had a temperature of 99 °F (37 °C), pulse 78-80 with her only complaints badly blistered feet and mental anxiety interfering with sleep. Mike Henry, Anderson's coach, who walked with her for much of the event was not in such good health, and with blisters covering his feet and suffering from exhaustion and dizziness he had to retire, being replaced by one of the race judges Charles Hazelton. Anderson ate at almost every rest time unless she was sleeping and her diet included beef, oysters, corned beef, potatoes, cakes, and grapes, she drank beef tea, port wine and occasionally champagne.
Local magistrates in Boston, UK, objected to walking events on Sundays believing that they corrupted morals. However Anderson found support in the local mayor who claimed that Boston was 'more moral than Plymouth' where Anderson had last walked on a Sunday. The New York Times was also critical of Anderson's journey stating it had no "skill" attributes" and the sport "leads people to bet on any absurd performance of uncertain issue." There were others who claimed that it was cruelty for a woman to be put through such suffering, and claims during her walk in Chicago that her husband coerced her. To these criticisms Anderson responded, "I am walking against my husband's wishes." Reverend W. C. Steele of the Third St. Methodist Church published sermons in a number of newspapers criticizing pedestrianism for a number of reasons, including event walking on a Sunday.
Given Anderson's published diet for the event I would certainly have a nice steak and oysters on the half shell if I could get hold of them here in Cambodia. I need to be back in Argentina for the steak, and anywhere but SE Asian waters for raw oysters. Anyway . . . have at it. Or try Mrs Beeton's beef and oyster sauce. In this case "oyster sauce" is, of course, not the Asian variety, but her own recipe made with fresh oysters. I don't think it's quite clear that the beef is sliced cold, but you could broil the beef while cooking the oysters and slice (and serve) it hot.
BROILED BEEF AND OYSTER SAUCE (Cold Meat Cookery).
INGREDIENTS.—2 dozen oysters, 3 cloves, 1 blade of mace, 2 oz. of butter, 1/2 teaspoonful of flour, cayenne and salt to taste, mashed potatoes, a few slices of cold roast beef.
Mode.—Put the oysters in a stewpan, with their liquor strained; add the cloves, mace, butter, flour, and seasoning, and let them simmer gently for 5 minutes. Have ready in the centre of a dish round walls of mashed potatoes, browned; into the middle pour the oyster sauce, quite hot, and round the potatoes place, in layers, slices of the beef, which should be previously broiled over a nice clear fire.
Time.—5 minutes. Average cost, 1s, 6d., exclusive of the cold meat.
Posted by admin at 12:35 pm	Tagged with: ada, anderson, beef, beeton, brooklyn, oysters, pedestrienne
Dinner in an Iguanodon
On this date in 1853 a celebrated New Year's Eve dinner was held in the mold of the Iguanodon being used at the time in the construction of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs. It was immortalized in an image in the Illustrated London News (above). Following the closure of the Great Exhibition in October 1851, Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace was bought and moved to Penge Place on Sydenham Hill, South London by the newly formed Crystal Palace Company. The grounds that surrounded it were then extensively renovated and turned into a public park with ornamental gardens, replicas of statues and two new artificial lakes. As part of this renovation, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to build the first-ever life-sized models of extinct animals. He had originally planned to just re-create extinct mammals before deciding on building dinosaurs as well, which he did with advice from Sir Richard Owen, a celebrated biologist and paleontologist of the time. Hawkins set up a workshop on site at the park and built the models there. The models were displayed on three islands acting as a rough timeline, the first island for the Paleozoic era, a second for the Mesozoic, and a third for the Cenozoic. The models were given more realism by making the water level in the lake rise and fall, revealing different parts of the dinosaurs. To mark the launch of the models, Hawkins held a special dinner on New Year's Eve 1853 inside the mold of one of the Iguanodon models, although the exact location of the dinner has been disputed. The mold does not appear to be big enough to accommodate all the invited guests, but there may have been some seated in the mold and some beside it.
Specially engraved invitations were sent out bearing the following:
Mr Waterhouse Hawkins requests the honour of — at dinner in the mould of the Iguanodon at the Crystal Palace on Saturday evening December the 31st at five o'clock 1853 An answer will oblige.
The scene shown in the Illustrated London News depicts a collection of gentlemen sitting around a table inside one of the Iguanodon models under construction over the winter 1853-54. In the image, waiters deliver dinner. On the floor are pieces of the mold used to cast the model. Different reports put Richard Owen at the head of the table and Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins standing center and facing the viewer. The model is surrounded by a tent decorated with a chandelier and four plaques honoring famous paleontologists (William Buckland, Georges Cuvier, Richard Owen, Gideon Mantell). Because the Iguanodon model stood so tall, a stage was required for waiters and guests to get inside.
This picture in Illustrated London News was based on a drawing made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, preserved in the Academy of Natural Science of Drexel University. This drawing was meant to be a report to the geologist Joseph Prestwich, but Waterhouse Hawkins intended it for wider circulation. At the time, much was made of the fact that Professor Richard Owen was placed at the head of the table – quite literally, sitting where the brain was located. Waterhouse Hawkins' drawing was accompanied by a small report.
THE DINNER IN THE MOULD OF THE IGUANODON
Given by Mr. B Waterhouse Hawkins
To Prof R Owen, Prof Edward Forbes, Mr Joseph Prestwich and 18 other Scientific and literary gentlemen at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham on the 31st of December 1853
The Restoration of the lguanodon was one of the largest and earliest completed of Mr Waterhouse Hawkins' gigantic models measuring thirty feet from the nose to the end of the tail, of that quantity the body with the neck contained about fifteen feet which when the pieces of the mould that formed the ridge of the back were removed the body presented the appearance of a wide open Boot with on enclosed arch seven feet high at both ends. The arch in the head of the animal was occupied by Prof R Owen the celebrated Palaeontologist who with Prof Edward Forbes liberally aided Mr Waterhouse Hawkins with counsel and scientific criticism during the whole time occupied by his unique, arduous and successful undertaking. The wider arch at the opposite end was filled by Mr Francis Fuller the Managing Director of the Crystal Palace with Prof Edward Forbes on his right and a musical friend on his left whose delightful singing greatly increased the pleasure of a memorable evening. The two sides contain nine seats each that in centre of left was occupied by Mr Hawkins as host and Chairman, was supported on his right by Mr Joseph Prestwich one of his earliest pupils & constant friend during the previous twenty five years. Mr John Gould FRS was on his left.
There was an eight-course dinner, details of which we know from copies of the menu card:
Soups: Mock Turtle, Julien, Hare
Fish: Cod and Oyster Sauce, Fillets of Whiting, Turbot à l'Hollandaise
Removes: Roast Turkey, Ham, Raised Pigeon Pie, Boiled Chicken and Celery Sauce
Entrées: Cotolettes de Moutonaux Tomates, Currie de Lapereaux au riz, Salmi de Perdrix, Mayonnaise de filets de Sole
Game: Pheasants, Woodcocks, Snipes
Sweets: Macedoine Jelly, Orange Jelly, Bavaroise, Charlotte Russe, French Pastry, Nougat à la Chantilly, Buisson de Meringue aux Confiture
Dessert: Grapes, Apples, Pears, Almonds and Raisins, French Plums, Pines, Filberts, Walnuts &c, &c
Wines: Sherry, Madeira, Port, Moselle, Claret
Many newspapers reported the event in the following days. All press accounts followed the tongue-in-cheek spirit of holiday celebrations. For example, Punch reported "Fun in a Fossil" (1854 volume 26 page 24),
The world of scientific gastronomy will learn with interest that Professors Owen and Forbes, with a party of other gentlemen, numbering altogether 21, had an exceedingly good dinner, the other day, in the interior of the Iguanodon modelled at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. We congratulate the company on the era in which they live; for if it had been an early geological period, they might perhaps have occupied the Iguanodon's inside without having any dinner there.
The London Quarterly Review asked,
Saurians, Pterodactyls all! . . . Dreamed ye ever . . . of a race to come dwelling above your tombs and dining on your ghosts.
Hawkins benefited greatly from the public's reaction to the dinosaurs, including the publicity generated by the dinner in the Iguanodon. He was able to sell sets of small versions of the dinosaur models, priced at £30, for educational use. But the building of the models was costly (around £14,000 each) and in 1855, the Crystal Palace Company cut Hawkins's funding. Several planned models were never made, while those that were half finished were scrapped, despite protests from sources including the Sunday newspaper, The Observer.
With progress in paleontology, the reputation of the models declined. In 1895, the US fossil hunter Othniel Charles Marsh scorned the inaccuracy of the models. The models and the park fell into disrepair as the years went by, a process aided by the fire that destroyed the Crystal Palace itself in 1936, and the models became obscured by overgrown foliage. A full restoration of the animals was carried out in 1952 by Victor H.C. Martin, at which time the mammals on the third island were moved to less well-protected locations in the park, where they were exposed to wear and tear. The limestone cliff was blown up in the 1960s.
In 2002, the display was totally renovated. The destroyed limestone cliff was completely replaced using 130 large blocks of Derbyshire limestone, many weighing over 1 ton, rebuilt according to a small model made from the same number of polystyrene blocks. Fiberglass replacements were created for the missing sculptures, and badly damaged parts of the surviving models were recast.
The menu for the meal gives you ample scope for celebratory dishes, and might inspire a New Year's Eve feast of your own. Here's Isabella Beeton's recipe for Charlotte Russe, which would be perfectly in keeping with the times. If you like, you can add a topping of seasonal fruits. I'm fond of berries. Beeton's cautions about unmolding the dessert are well taken. I butter a spring-form pan, line it with greaseproof paper, and set the lady fingers in right-side-up. Then fill with the cream mix, let set in the refrigerator, then loose the spring-form. Molding upside-down in a fixed mold, and turning out by inverting is a recipe for disaster.
CHARLOTTE RUSSE.
(An Elegant Sweet Entremets.)
INGREDIENTS.—About 18 Savoy biscuits, 3/4 pint of cream, flavouring of vanilla, liqueurs, or wine, 1 tablespoonful of pounded sugar, 1/2 oz. of isinglass.
Mode.—Procure about 18 Savoy biscuits, or ladies'-fingers, as they are sometimes called; brush the edges of them with the white of an egg, and line the bottom of a plain round mould, placing them like a star or rosette. Stand them upright all round the edge; carefully put them so closely together that the white of the egg connects them firmly, and place this case in the oven for about 5 minutes, just to dry the egg. Whisk the cream to a stiff froth, with the sugar, flavouring, and melted isinglass; fill the charlotte with it, cover with a slice of sponge-cake cut in the shape of the mould; place it in ice, where let it remain till ready for table; then turn it on a dish, remove the mould, and serve. 1 tablespoonful of liqueur of any kind, or 4 tablespoonfuls of wine, would nicely flavour the above proportion of cream. For arranging the biscuits in the mould, cut them to the shape required, so that they fit in nicely, and level them with the mould at the top, that, when turned out, there may be something firm to rest upon. Great care and attention is required in the turning out of this dish, that the cream does not burst the case; and the edges of the biscuits must have the smallest quantity of egg brushed over them, or it would stick to the mould, and so prevent the charlotte from coming away properly.
Time.—5 minutes in the oven.
Average cost, with cream at 1s. per pint, 2s.
Sufficient for 1 charlotte. Seasonable at any time.
Posted by admin at 2:59 am	Tagged with: beeton, charlotte, crystal palace, dinosaur, hawkins, menu, new year, Owen, paleontology, russe
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Today is the birthday (1812) of Samuel Smiles, a Scottish author and government reformer who campaigned on a Chartist platform, but who became an almost overnight celebrity for his book Self-Help (1859), which promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire government. In some ways it was a testament to Victorian morality.
Born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, Smiles was the son of Janet Wilson of Dalkeith and Samuel Smiles of Haddington. He was one of eleven surviving children. While his family members were strict Reformed Presbyterians, he was not religious. He studied at a local school, leaving at the age of 14. He apprenticed to be a doctor under Dr. Robert Lewins. This arrangement enabled Smiles to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh in 1829. There he also developed an interest in politics, and became a strong supporter of Joseph Hume (a strict fiscal conservative in Parliament). During this time, he contracted a lung disease, and his father was advised to send him on a long sea voyage.
His father died in the cholera epidemic of 1832, but Smiles was enabled to continue with his studies because he was supported by his mother. She ran the small family general store firm in the belief that the "Lord will provide." Her example of working ceaselessly to support herself and his nine younger siblings strongly influenced Smiles's future life.
In 1837, he wrote articles for the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle and the Leeds Times, campaigning for parliamentary reform. In November 1838, Smiles was invited to become the editor of the Leeds Times, a position he filled until 1842. In May 1840, Smiles became secretary to the Leeds Parliamentary Reform Association, an organization that held to the six objectives of Chartism: universal suffrage for all men over the age of 21; equal-sized electoral districts; voting by secret ballot; an end to the need of MPs to qualify for Parliament, other than by winning an election; pay for MPs; and annual Parliaments.
As editor of the Leeds Times, he advocated radical causes ranging from women's suffrage to free trade and parliamentary reform. By the late 1840s, however, Smiles became concerned about the recommendation of physical force by Chartists Feargus O'Connor and George Julian Harney, although he seems to have agreed with them that the movement's current tactics were not effective, saying that "mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society." In 1845, he left the Leeds Times and became a secretary for the newly formed Leeds & Thirsk Railway. After nine years, he worked for the South Eastern Railway.
In the 1850s, Smiles abandoned his interest in parliament and decided that self-help was the most important avenue to reform in society. In 1859, he published Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct. The origins of Self-Help lay in a speech he gave in March 1845 in response to a request by a Mutual Improvement Society, published as, The Education of the Working Classes. In it Smiles said:
I would not have any one here think that, because I have mentioned individuals who have raised themselves by self-education from poverty to social eminence, and even wealth, these are the chief marks to be aimed at. That would be a great fallacy. Knowledge is of itself one of the highest enjoyments. The ignorant man passes through the world dead to all pleasures, save those of the senses … Every human being has a great mission to perform, noble faculties to cultivate, a vast destiny to accomplish. He should have the means of education, and of exerting freely all the powers of his godlike nature.
The newly founded Routledge publishing house rejected publishing Self-Help in 1855. Twenty years later Smiles was seated next to George Routledge at a dinner, and he said to him, "And when, Dr. Smiles, are we to have the honour of publishing one of your books?" Smiles replied that Mr. Routledge already had the honor of rejecting Self-Help. Although John Murray was willing to publish Self-Help on a half-profits system, but Smiles rejected the offer. In 1859, he self-published the book, retaining the copyright, while he paid John Murray a ten percent commission, for distribution, I presume. It sold 20,000 copies within one year of its publication. By the time of Smiles's death in 1904 it had sold over a quarter of a million copies. Self-Help brought almost instant celebrity status and he became a much-consulted pundit. He was also deluged with requests to lay foundation stones, sit for his portrait, present prizes to orphan children, make speeches, and so forth, but he declined them all.
Smiles wrote articles for the Quarterly. In an article on railways, he argued that the railways should be nationalized and that third-class passengers should be encouraged. In 1861 Smiles published an article from the Quarterly, renamed Workers Earnings, Savings, and Strikes. He claimed poverty in many instances was caused by habitual imprudence:
Times of great prosperity, in which wages are highest and mills running full time are not times in which Mechanics' Institutes and Schools flourish, but times in which publicans and beer sellers prosper and grow rich … A workman earning 50s. to 60s. a week (above the average pay of bankers' clerks) was content to inhabit a miserable one-roomed dwelling in a bad neighbourhood, the one room serving as parlour, kitchen, and sleeping-room for the whole family, which consisted of husband, wife, four sons, two cats, and a dog. The witness was asked: Do you think this family was unable to get better lodgings, or were they careless? They were careless, was the reply.
In 1866, Smiles became president of the National Provident Institution, but left in 1871, after suffering a debilitating stroke. He recovered from the stroke, eventually having to learn to read and write again. In 1875, his book Thrift was published. In it, he said that "riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches." He claimed that the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was "one of the most valuable that has been placed on the statute-book in modern times." He also criticized Victorian laissez-faire:
When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides. Nobody adulterates our food. Nobody poisons us with bad drink. Nobody supplies us with foul water. Nobody spreads fever in blind alleys and unswept lanes. Nobody leaves towns undrained. Nobody fills gaols, penitentiaries, and convict stations. Nobody makes poachers, thieves, and drunkards. Nobody has a theory too—a dreadful theory. It is embodied in two words—Laissez faire—Let alone. When people are poisoned by plaster of Paris mixed with flour, "Let alone" is the remedy. When Cocculus indicus is used instead of hops, and men die prematurely, it is easy to say, "Nobody did it." Let those who can, find out when they are cheated: Caveat emptor. When people live in foul dwellings, let them alone. Let wretchedness do its work; do not interfere with death.
In 1877, the letters young Smiles wrote home during his teenage sea voyage and the log he kept of his journey to Australia and America between February 1869 and March 1871 were published in London in book form, under the title A Boy's Voyage Round the World.
In 1881 he claimed that,
Labour is toilsome and its gains are slow. Some people determine to live by the labour of others, and from the moment they arrive at that decision, become the enemies of society. It is not often that distress drives men to crime. In nine cases out of ten, it is choice not necessity. Moral cowardice is exhibited as much in public as in private life. Snobbism is not confined to toadying of the rich, but is quite as often displayed in the toadying of the poor… Now that the "masses" exercise political power, there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, flatter them, speak nothing but smooth words to them. They are credited with virtues they themselves know they do not possess. To win their favour sympathy is often pretended for views, the carrying out of which is known to be hopeless. The popular agitator must please whom he addresses, and it is always highly gratifying to our self-love to be told that someone else is to blame for what we suffer. So it rarely occurs to these orators to suggest that those whom they address are themselves to blame for what they suffer, or that they misuse the means of happiness which are within their reach … The capitalist is merely a man who does not spend all that is earned by work.
Karl Marx he was not. The late 19th century and early 20th century saw the rise of New Liberalism, Keynesian economics, and socialism, all of which viewed thrift unfavorably. The New Liberal economists, J. A. Hobson and A. F. Mummery in their Physiology of Industry (1889), claimed that saving resulted in the underemployment of capital and labor during trade depressions. Over time Smiles fell out of vogue and now he is mostly seen as a Victorian curiosity although some of his ideals are still valuable. Certainly the self-help movement is alive and well.
On 16 April 1904, Samuel Smiles died in Kensington in London and was buried in Brompton Cemetery. Shortly before his death, he was reportedly offered a knighthood, which he declined to accept.
Mrs Beeton sounds almost like Smiles in the following passage, down to vaunting the Scots over the English for their legendary thrift. If you are not a Brit you probably don't know that the English make fun of the Scots for their frugality.
IT HAS BEEN ASSERTED, that English cookery is, nationally speaking, far from being the best in the world. More than this, we have been frequently told by brilliant foreign writers, half philosophers, half chefs, that we are the worst cooks on the face of the earth, and that the proverb which alludes to the divine origin of food, and the precisely opposite origin of its preparers, is peculiarly applicable to us islanders. Not, however, to the inhabitants of the whole island; for, it is stated in a work which treats of culinary operations, north of the Tweed, that the "broth" of Scotland claims, for excellence and wholesomeness, a very close second place to the bouillon, or common soup of France. "Three hot meals of broth and meat, for about the price of ONE roasting joint," our Scottish brothers and sisters get, they say; and we hasten to assent to what we think is now a very well-ascertained fact. We are glad to note, however, that soups of vegetables, fish, meat, and game, are now very frequently found in the homes of the English middle classes, as well as in the mansions of the wealthier and more aristocratic; and we take this to be one evidence, that we are on the right road to an improvement in our system of cookery. One great cause of many of the spoilt dishes and badly-cooked meats which are brought to our tables, arises, we think, and most will agree with us, from a non-acquaintance with "common, every-day things." Entertaining this view, we intend to preface the chapters of this work with a simple scientific résumé of all those causes and circumstances which relate to the food we have to prepare, and the theory and chemistry of the various culinary operations. Accordingly, this is the proper place to treat of the quality of the flesh of animals, and describe some of the circumstances which influence it for good or bad. We will, therefore, commence with the circumstance of age, and examine how far this affects the quality of meat.
I've picked rumbledethumps as the dish to honor Smiles, partly because it's Scottish, partly because it is a thrifty dish, and partly because I love the name. Rumbledethumps is a traditional dish from the Scottish Borders. The main ingredients are potato, cabbage and onion. It is similar to Irish colcannon, and English bubble and squeak, either served as an accompaniment to a main dish or as a main dish itself. I'll also follow Smiles in recommending that you employ a little ingenuity in working out how to make rumbledethumps. You don't need a recipe, just the idea (and I'll give you a photo too).
Begin by shredding some cabbage and slicing an onion. Also boil some potatoes. Fry the onions and cabbage in butter until they are soft. Mash the potatoes with a little butter plus salt and pepper to taste. Combine all three well and place in a baking dish. Covered with shredded melting cheese of your choice, and bake in a hot oven until the top is golden and bubbly.
Posted by admin at 7:41 am	Tagged with: beeton, capitalism, John Murray, Routledge, rumbledethumps, Scotland, smiles, socialism, thrift, Victoria
Today is the birthday (1870) of Hector Hugh Munro, who usually wrote under the pen name Saki, but also as H. H. Munro. His works are not nearly as well known now as those of Oscar Wilde, who influenced his style, or P. G. Wodehouse who followed him. He satirized Edwardian society in short stories that were usually witty and mischievous, but also often had a dark, macabre side absent from Wilde and Wodehouse. Beside his short stories (which were first published in newspapers and then collected into several volumes), he wrote a full-length play, The Watched Pot, in collaboration with Charles Maude; two one-act plays; a historical study, The Rise of the Russian Empire, the only book published under his own name; a short novel, The Unbearable Bassington; the episodic The Westminster Alice (a parliamentary parody of Alice in Wonderland); and When William Came: A Story of London Under the Hohenzollerns, a fantasy about a future German invasion and occupation of Britain.
Munro was born in Akyab in British Burma, which was then still part of the British Raj, governed from Calcutta. He was the son of Charles Augustus Munro, an Inspector General for the Indian Imperial Police and Mary Frances Mercer (1843–1872), the daughter of Rear Admiral Samuel Mercer. In 1872, on a home visit to England, Mary Munro was charged by a cow, and the shock caused her to miscarry. She died soon after. After the death of Munro's mother, Charles Munro sent his children, including two-year-old Hector, home to England. The children were sent to Broadgate Villa, in Pilton village near Barnstaple, North Devon to be raised by their grandmother and paternal aunts Charlotte and Augusta in a strict and puritanical household. It is said that they were most likely models for a few of his characters, notably 'The Lumber Room' and 'Sredni Vashtar'. Leading slightly insular lives Munro and his siblings, during their early years were educated under tutelage of governesses. At the age of 12 Munro was educated at Pencarwick School in Exmouth and then as a boarder at Bedford School. In 1887, after his retirement, his father returned from Burma, and embarked upon a series of European travels with Hector and his siblings.
Munro followed his father in 1893 into the Indian Imperial Police and was posted to Burma, but successive bouts of fever caused his return to England after only 15 months. Munro started his writing career as a journalist for newspapers such as the Westminster Gazette, Daily Express, and Morning Post, and magazines such as the Bystander and Outlook. His first book The Rise of the Russian Empire, a historical study modelled upon Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, appeared in 1900, under his real name, but proved to be something of a false start.
Whilst he was writing The Rise of the Russian Empire, he made his first foray into short story writing and published a piece called 'Dogged' in St Paul's in February 1899. He then moved into the world of political satire in 1900 with a collaboration with Francis Carruthers Gould entitled "Alice in Westminster". Gould produced the sketches, and Munro wrote the text accompanying them, using the pen-name "Saki" for the first time. The series lampooned political figures of the day ('Alice in Downing Street' begins with the memorable line, '"Have you ever seen an Ineptitude?"' – referring to a zoomorphised Arthur Balfou, and was published in the Westminster Gazette.
In 1902 he moved to The Morning Post, to work as a foreign correspondent, first in the Balkans, and then in Russia, where he was witness to the 1905 revolution in St Petersburg. He then went on to Paris, before returning to London. In the intervening period his first collection of short stories (as opposed to collections of political satires), Reginald had been published in 1904, the stories having first appeared in the Westminster Gazette. He had also been contributing pieces for the Morning Post, Bystander, and Westminster Gazette. He kept a place in Mortimer Street, wrote, played bridge at the Cocoa Tree Club, and lived simply. Munro was gay, and because male homosexuality was illegal in England at the time, he kept his sexuality a secret.
The collection, Reginald in Russia, appeared in 1910, and The Chronicles of Clovis was published in 1911, and Beasts and Super-Beasts in 1914, along with many other short stories that appeared in newspapers not published in collections in his lifetime.
At the start of the First World War Munro was 43 and officially over-age to enlist, but he refused a commission and joined the 2nd King Edward's Horse as an ordinary trooper. He later transferred to the 22nd Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, in which he rose to the rank of lance sergeant. More than once he returned to the battlefield when officially still too sick or injured. In November 1916 he was sheltering in a shell crater near Beaumont-Hamel, France, during the Battle of the Ancre, when he was killed by a German sniper. According to several sources, his last words were "Put that bloody cigarette out!" Munro has no known grave. He is commemorated on Pier and Face 8C 9A and 16A of the Thiepval Memorial.
The pen name "Saki" is most commonly assumed to be a reference to the cupbearer in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. Both close friend Rothay Reynolds and sister Ethel Munro confirm this in their published accounts of Munro.
I was not particularly taken with Saki's short stories when I was a teenager because the Edwardian world they were satirizing was alien to me. To be fair, I felt the same way about Wilde, but I warmed to him later on. Saki got lost in the shuffle. Here's some quotes that restore my interest, to a degree:
He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation."
Romance at short notice was her specialty.
The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.
Every reformation must have its victims. You can't expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return.
Confront a child, a puppy, and a kitten with a sudden danger; the child will turn instinctively for assistance, the puppy will grovel in abject submission, the kitten will brace its tiny body for a frantic resistance.
I hate posterity – it's so fond of having the last word."
To be clever in the afternoon argues that one is dining nowhere in the evening.
I'm living so far beyond my means that we may almost be said to be living apart.
The censorious said she slept in a hammock and understood Yeats's poems, but her family denied both stories.
For our recipe of the day we can start here:
I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion. They not only forgive our unkindness to them; they justify it, they incite us to go on being perfectly horrid to them. Once they arrive at the supper-table they seem to enter thoroughly into the spirit of the thing. There's nothing in Christianity or Buddhism that quite matches the sympathetic unselfishness of an oyster.
I am sure he is thinking about oysters on the half shell, and that would certainly be an appropriate treat for today. I've not had oysters on the half shell in over 8 years. I miss them, but Asia is not where I want to sample them. Oyster soup might be a better bet, and, of course, I must turn to Mrs Beeton. Six dozen oysters for soup for 8 people might seem a bit over the top, but in Victorian and Edwardian days oysters were cheap and plentiful. She does get a bit carried away at the end.
OYSTER SOUP.
INGREDIENTS.—6 dozen of oysters, 2 quarts of white stock, 1/2 pint of cream, 2 oz. of butter, 1-1/2 oz. of flour; salt, cayenne, and mace to taste.
Mode.—Scald the oysters in their own liquor; take them out, beard them, and put them in a tureen. Take a pint of the stock, put in the beards and the liquor, which must be carefully strained, and simmer for 1/2 an hour. Take it off the fire, strain it again, and add the remainder of the stock with the seasoning and mace. Bring it to a boil, add the thickening of butter and flour, simmer for 5 minutes, stir in the boiling cream, pour it over the oysters, and serve.
Time.—1 hour. Average cost, 2s. 8d. per quart.
Seasonable from September to April.
Note.—This soup can be made less rich by using milk instead of cream, and thickening with arrowroot instead of butter and flour.
INGREDIENTS.—2 quarts of good mutton broth, 6 dozen oysters, 2 oz. butter, 1 oz. of flour.
Mode.—Beard the oysters, and scald them in their own liquor; then add it, well strained, to the broth; thicken with the butter and flour, and simmer for 1/4 of an hour. Put in the oysters, stir well, but do not let it boil, and serve very hot.
Time.—3/4 hour. Average cost, 2s. per quart.
SEASON OF OYSTERS.—From April and May to the end of July, oysters are said to be sick; but by the end of August they become healthy, having recovered from the effects of spawning. When they are not in season, the males have a black, and the females a milky substance in the gill. From some lines of Oppian, it would appear that the ancients were ignorant that the oyster is generally found adhering to rocks. The starfish is one of the most deadly enemies of these bivalves. The poet says:—
The prickly star creeps on with full deceit
To force the oyster from his close retreat.
When gaping lids their widen'd void display,
The watchful star thrusts in a pointed ray,
Of all its treasures spoils the rifled case,
And empty shells the sandy hillock grace.
Posted by admin at 4:57 am	Tagged with: beeton, biography, munro, oyster, short stories, soup
On this date in 959 CE Edgar the Peaceful became king of all England. Before I get into details about Edgar let me dribble on for a while about the history of Anglo-Saxon England, particularly about how it is conceived in standard school textbooks. As a schoolboy I was taught that the BIG EVENT in English history was the conquest by William the Bastard in 1066. Anglo-Saxon history was no more than a series of cute vignettes, such as Alfred and the cakes, or Canute commanding the waves. The rest was irrelevant to the REAL history of England which began with William. This is pure propaganda, still fed to us by the line of monarchs that followed down to the current useless bunch. If you look closely at the history of post-conquest England you'll see that for about 100 years, following William, England was nothing more than a province of Normandy (or various other French power blocs) as far as its kings were concerned. The kings spoke French and spent most of their time away from England. England was nothing more than a source of income and labor. Richard I, vaunted by Victorian Romantics as the GREAT KING, spoke French, and when he wasn't Crusading was battling enemies in continental Europe. He spent no more than a few months in England during his entire reign. His brother, John, on the other hand, was reviled by the Victorians because of Magna Carta and the like.
Go here for much more of my thoughts on all of this:
https://www.bookofdaystales.com/richard-lionheart/
https://www.bookofdaystales.com/king-john/
https://www.bookofdaystales.com/magna-carta/
The fact is that William, while he unified England in certain critical ways, was not by any means the first king of England. Who was the first king of a unified England will be debated endlessly, no doubt. Some say it was Alfred the Great (849 – 899), some, his grandson, Æthelstan (c. 894 – 939). I'll leave you to read the details elsewhere. No one disputes that Edgar I was king of all England with provincial kings under him, although, like Alfred and Æthelstan, he is sometimes called king of the English.
Edgar I (Old English: Ēadgār – "happy spear" i.e. powerful) was the son of Edmund I and Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury. Upon the death of Edmund in 946, Edgar's uncle, Eadred, ruled until 955. Eadred was succeeded by his nephew, Eadwig, son of Edmund (Edgar's older brother). Eadwig was not a popular king, and his reign was marked by conflict with nobles and the Church, primarily St Dunstan and Archbishop Oda. In 957, the thanes of Mercia and Northumbria changed their allegiance to Edgar. A conclave of nobles declared Edgar as king of the territory north of the Thames. Edgar became king of all England on Eadwig's death October 959, aged just 16.
One of Edgar's first actions was to recall Dunstan from exile and have him made Bishop of Worcester (and subsequently Bishop of London and later, Archbishop of Canterbury). Dunstan remained Edgar's advisor throughout his reign. While Edgar may not have been a particularly passive man, his reign was peaceful. The kingdom of England was well established, and Edgar consolidated the political unity achieved by his predecessors. By the end of his reign, England was sufficiently unified in that it was unlikely to regress back to a state of division among rival kingships, as it had to an extent under the reign of his uncle Eadred. In fact, some historians have argued that it was Edgar who was the truly pivotal figure in uniting all England by standardizing laws throughout the kingdom – far more than either Alfred or Æthelstan. In a letter to his subjects Canute states, "it is my will that all the nation, ecclesiastical and lay, shall steadfastly observe Edgar's laws, which all men have chosen and sworn at Oxford".
The Monastic Reform Movement that introduced the Benedictine Rule to England's monastic communities peaked during the era of Dunstan, Æthelwold, and Oswald, although the extent and significance of this movement is still debated.
Edgar was crowned at Bath and, along with his wife Ælfthryth, was anointed, setting a precedent for a coronation of a queen in England. Edgar's coronation did not occur until 973, planned not as the initiation, but as the culmination of his reign, and which took a considerable amount of preliminary diplomacy with lesser kings. The coronation service, devised by Dunstan himself and celebrated with a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, forms the basis of the present-day British coronation ceremony. The coronation was an important symbolic step towards further unification. Other kings of Britain came and gave their allegiance to Edgar shortly afterwards at Chester. Six kings in Britain, including the King of Scots and the King of Strathclyde, pledged their faith that they would be the king's liege-men on sea and land. Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee.
Edgar died on 8 July 975 at Winchester, Hampshire. He left behind Edward, who was probably his illegitimate son by Æthelflæd (not to be confused with the Lady of the Mercians), and Æthelred the younger, the child of his wife Ælfthryth. He was succeeded by Edward.
As it happens, Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management was published first on this date in 1861. I've mentioned it numerous times before when I've needed Victorian recipes as well as here:
https://www.bookofdaystales.com/isabella-beeton/
As it also happens, she had a lot to say about Anglo-Saxons and their cooking. To begin she has a point to make about food and the English language that I have taught numerous times.
NAMES OF ANIMALS SAXON, AND OF THEIR FLESH NORMAN.—The names of all our domestic animals are of Saxon origin; but it is curious to observe that Norman names have been given to the different sorts of flesh which these animals yield. How beautifully this illustrates the relative position of Saxon and Norman after the Conquest. The Saxon hind had the charge of tending and feeding the domestic animals, but only that they might appear on the table of his Norman lord. Thus 'ox,' 'steer,' 'cow,' are Saxon, but 'beef' is Norman; 'calf' is Saxon, but 'veal' Norman; 'sheep' is Saxon, but 'mutton' Norman; so it is severally with 'deer' and 'venison,' 'swine' and 'pork,' 'fowl' and 'pullet.' 'Bacon,' the only flesh which, perhaps, ever came within his reach, is the single exception.
She goes on to say later:
THE HOG IN ENGLAND.—From time immemorial, in England, this animal has been esteemed as of the highest importance. In the Anglo-Saxon period, vast herds of swine were tended by men, who watched over their safety, and who collected them under shelter at night. At that time, the flesh of the animal was the staple article of consumption in every family, and a large portion of the wealth of the rich freemen of the country consisted of these animals. Hence it was common to make bequests of swine, with lands for their support; and to these were attached rights and privileges in connection with their feeding, and the extent of woodland to be occupied by a given number was granted in accordance with established rules. This is proved by an ancient Saxon grant, quoted by Sharon Turner, in his "History of the Anglo-Saxons," where the right of pasturage is conveyed in a deed by the following words:—"I give food for seventy swine in that woody allotment which the countrymen call Wolferdinlegh."
This all leads me to think that a dish of boiled bacon is the answer. As Beeton tells us, bacon was the common meat of the Anglo-Saxons, and boiled bacon would have been something festive for many people. We're not talking about the common sliced breakfast bacon, but a full rolled joint. It might be a little difficult to find but you could make one yourself. That's a recipe for another time. Here's Beeton. I usually add some potatoes, carrots, and onions to the water when I am boiling the bacon. I serve it with hot English mustard (along with peas or broad beans to go with the potatoes and carrots). Potatoes don't match the Anglo-Saxon period, of course, but everything else does.
BOILED BACON.
INGREDIENTS.—Bacon; water.
Mode.—As bacon is frequently excessively salt, let it be soaked in warm water for an hour or two previous to dressing it; then pare off the rusty parts, and scrape the under-side and rind as clean as possible. Put it into a saucepan of cold water, let it come gradually to a boil, and as fast as the scum rises to the surface of the water, remove it. Let it simmer very gently until it is thoroughly done; then take it up, strip off the skin, and sprinkle over the bacon a few bread raspings, and garnish with tufts of cauliflower or Brussels sprouts. When served alone, young and tender broad beans or green peas are the usual accompaniments.
Time.—1 lb. of bacon, 1/4 hour; 2 lbs., 1-1/2 hour.
Average cost, 10d. to 1s. per lb. for the primest parts.
Sufficient.—2 lbs., when served with poultry or veal, sufficient for 10 persons.
Seasonable at any time.
Posted by admin at 7:09 am	Tagged with: Anglo-Saxon, beeton, boiled bacon, edgar, peaceful