In article ,
Jaques d'Alltrades writes:
|
| I presume that a lot of the poorer people used thes cookery books.
| Elizabeth Craig certainly didn't talk down to 'her public', and on a
| quick glance through I have found two recipes which are still commonly
| used in the Highlands, and no doubt I shall find more.

They did, and I didn't say that there was no overlap. You can do
a fairly good test, however, by looking for things like soup, stew
and colcannon (bubble and squeak to you foreigners - I am going
all Cornish :-) ).

In particular, using significant quantities of meat or named cuts,
cooking all ingredients for the dish (rather than using leftovers)
etc. means that the recipes are NOT a description but an example.
I lived (briefly) in Cornwall in the early 1950s, and it was (and
is) a very deprived area.

| I didn't say that such descriptions didn't exist, whereas I would
| say the same for any date before (say) 1750.
|
| Well, I would guess that the information is there somewhere, but
| no-one has thought it worth searching for, collecting, collating and
| publishing.

I based my statement, not just on my own limited experience, but
on the experience of people who have tried doing precisely that,
sometimes as a proper research project. Your guess is wrong.

Whether there is more information to be found is unknown, but it
assuredly the case that quite a few people have looked pretty
hard and failed to find anything significant.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

lid (Rodger Whitlock) wrote in
:

The "Penguin Cookery Book" by Bee Nilson (1952) has to take the
cake. Written during post-WWII austerity, it tells you how to
make mock-cream from milk and margarine. They even had a device
for the purpose; is there no end to British ingenuity?


I actually have a copy of this reprinted in about 1985, and sold as a
helpful cookbook for students.

Which, in fact, it is and was, though I think I bought it in 1989 for 50p
remaindered, so possibly not all that popular.

You have to look sideways at some of the detail - for example it says that
lamb 'is usually considered unpalatable unless very well done' which seems
a little contrary to modern approaches.

I think Nick's right about the lack of written evidence about use of herbs
outside the richer classes in the UK, (based on some rather cursory
research some years ago when I cooked for 'medieval' banquets).

This site: http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html may amuse,
however.

An awful lot of the better/more authoritative food evidence is
archeological rather than written, and herbs are the kind of things that
would not preserve well in a rubbish pit.

As a useless by-comment: I understand that there is quite a lot of evidence
about food preparation from Hammurabis' Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC) The
recipes are on clay tablets, but apparently quite detailed. ;-)

Victoria

The message 9
from Victoria Clare contains these words:

I understand that there is quite a lot of evidence
about food preparation from Hammurabis' Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC) The
recipes are on clay tablets, but apparently quite detailed. ;-)

When their recipe tablets got a bit spattered and soiled, the
Hammurabis just put them in the dishwasher.

Janet

The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:
In article ,
Jaques d'Alltrades writes:
|
| I presume that a lot of the poorer people used thes cookery books.
| Elizabeth Craig certainly didn't talk down to 'her public', and on a
| quick glance through I have found two recipes which are still commonly
| used in the Highlands, and no doubt I shall find more.

They did, and I didn't say that there was no overlap. You can do
a fairly good test, however, by looking for things like soup, stew
and colcannon (bubble and squeak to you foreigners - I am going
all Cornish :-) ).

We used to make bubble and squeak with leftover greens and potato, and
other stuff got bunged in too - meat scraps, swede and other root veg,
and sometimes, the previous day's gravy was re-heated to top it.

Our (proper) gravy was often used with stock as a basis for 'Mother's
Dustbin Soup'.

In particular, using significant quantities of meat or named cuts,
cooking all ingredients for the dish (rather than using leftovers)
etc. means that the recipes are NOT a description but an example.
I lived (briefly) in Cornwall in the early 1950s, and it was (and
is) a very deprived area.

Elizabeth Craig has a section on using up leftover chicken, and a
chapter on other leftover meats. Recipes include Beef croquettes;
Creamed ham on toast; Farmhouse curry; Ham (or any other meat) toasts;
Jellied meats; Lamb steaks.

| I didn't say that such descriptions didn't exist, whereas I would
| say the same for any date before (say) 1750.
|
| Well, I would guess that the information is there somewhere, but
| no-one has thought it worth searching for, collecting, collating and
| publishing.

I based my statement, not just on my own limited experience, but
on the experience of people who have tried doing precisely that,
sometimes as a proper research project. Your guess is wrong.

Whether there is more information to be found is unknown, but it
assuredly the case that quite a few people have looked pretty
hard and failed to find anything significant.

I would venture to suggest that they were looking in the wrong places
then. I'm not going to wade through The canterbury Tales, but I wouldn't
mind betting......

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

In article ,
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

We used to make bubble and squeak with leftover greens and potato, and
other stuff got bunged in too - meat scraps, swede and other root veg,
and sometimes, the previous day's gravy was re-heated to top it.

Our (proper) gravy was often used with stock as a basis for 'Mother's
Dustbin Soup'.

Yes, precisely. Now look through those books, and see how many
describe doing that - SPECIFICALLY that, as the cooking technique
is slightly different from when using fresh ingredients.

In particular, using significant quantities of meat or named cuts,
cooking all ingredients for the dish (rather than using leftovers)
etc. means that the recipes are NOT a description but an example.
I lived (briefly) in Cornwall in the early 1950s, and it was (and
is) a very deprived area.

Elizabeth Craig has a section on using up leftover chicken, and a
chapter on other leftover meats. Recipes include Beef croquettes;
Creamed ham on toast; Farmhouse curry; Ham (or any other meat) toasts;
Jellied meats; Lamb steaks.

My case is proven, I think. Do you SERIOUSLY think that the ordinary
household outside the affluent Home Counties and a few such areas HAD
that quantity of leftover meat in 1950?

I can assure you that we did not in Cornwall and, as I say, we were
not poor. We didn't even have in the late 1950s in Wiltshire, and
that was after rationing had stopped, though we were relatively
poorer then.

Whether there is more information to be found is unknown, but it
assuredly the case that quite a few people have looked pretty
hard and failed to find anything significant.

I would venture to suggest that they were looking in the wrong places
then. I'm not going to wade through The canterbury Tales, but I wouldn't
mind betting......

If I recall, there is at least one recipe in that. That is not the
point. Chaucer was NOT a peasant - he was a senior civil servant,
and he was NOT describing what the ordinary people ate on a routine
basis. The researchers looked in pretty well every contemporary
document they could find, fact and fiction, and there is effectively
damn-all on the ordinary cooking of before a couple of centuries
back.

Look, I am not just referring to the researches of random amateur
mediaevalists, but to those of serious academics. Many of them would
LOVE to find ANY reliable information on the ordinary household life
of pretty well any era before 1800 (and many after it). They can
get some pretty good data on the running of the Great Houses, and
even some down to fairly modest manors, but there is very little
indeed below that.

Don't take my word for it - go and look for it :-)


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

The message
from "ajr" contains these words:

I'm sure that I must have sampled sorrel at some point, however I must admit
that I have no idea, off the top of my head, what it tastes like!

Sour.

What is its flavour? Nick mentioned earlier that it was good with "fat
meat", so I assumed that it would have a sage like flavour, but (presumably)
if it compliments fish as well it is a lot more 'delicate'.

No, no 'herby' flavour, just a very sharp taste.

Anyway, I'm getting hold of some seeds tommorow so by the end of the summer
I'll know if it's worth keeping, or throwing on the compost heap!

Nice in salads.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

In article , lid (Rodger Whitlock) writes:
| On Mon, 5 Apr 2004 12:01:15 +0100, ajr wrote:
|
| Good King Henry
| Hamburg Parsley
| Sorrel
|
| [a book mentions] that they were a staple of most herb gardens
| until supermarkets became common - is this true?
|
| IMHO, there's a lot of urban myth-making and falsification of the
| historical record where herbs are concerned. Just take a look at
| a copy of the original Mrs. Beeton and you'll see that most herbs
| are rarely mentioned, if at all.
|
| Perhaps what's happened is that famine and poverty foods have
| been mistaken for everyday foods. Certainly, here in the Pacific
| Northwest the Indians were often reduced to dire straits by late
| winter when the previous summer's stash had been consumed and
| would end up eating, inter alia, the young shoots of thimbleberry
| (Rubus parviflorus) for lack of anything better.

No, I don't think that's it. Mrs Beeton was an upper-middle class
urban writer in the Victorian era, and a lot of the remarks are
referring to what the rural peasantry did before the industrial
revolution. VERY different. Remember that large-scale vegetable
farming and long-distance transport were already well established
by Mrs Beeton's time.

In the 15th century, for example, spices were EXPENSIVE and so the
poorer people used them sparingly. Hence herbs would have been of
more interest for flavouring. Similarly, the foods you would grow
in a vegetable patch if you could not buy any imported foods are
very different from those you grow for shipping into a city and
selling wholesale.

There is very little written about how the common people cooked,
which doesn't help :-( Try and find anything written about how
the poorer people (or even somewhat richer people in poorer areas)
cookec in even 1950, for example, and it's hard. Try for 1850,
and it's diabolical. Try for 1750, and it's almost impossible.
And so on ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
Jaques d'Alltrades writes:
| The message
| from "ajr" contains these words:
|
| I'm sure that I must have sampled sorrel at some point, however I must admit
| that I have no idea, off the top of my head, what it tastes like!
|
| Sour.

Yes, but lemon juice sour, not unripe japonica sour. It doesn't
take the roof of your mouth off.

| What is its flavour? Nick mentioned earlier that it was good with "fat
| meat", so I assumed that it would have a sage like flavour, but (presumably)
| if it compliments fish as well it is a lot more 'delicate'.
|
| No, no 'herby' flavour, just a very sharp taste.

I disagree, somewhat. A slight 'herby' flavour, but less than a
lemon. Comparable to lemon juice.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Mon, 5 Apr 2004 23:07:10 +0100, "ajr" said:

[]
] I'm sure that I must have sampled sorrel at some point, however I must admit
] that I have no idea, off the top of my head, what it tastes like!
]
] What is its flavour? Nick mentioned earlier that it was good with "fat
] meat", so I assumed that it would have a sage like flavour, but (presumably)
] if it compliments fish as well it is a lot more 'delicate'.
]

Hi Andrew,

Rusty's right, it's pretty sour, also somewhat lemony I think, but naturally
YMMV as taste is so subjective. It's more of a salad taste than and herby
taste, to me.

BTW in the sauce I mentioned I neglected to say the sorrel should be lightly
sauteed, about 10 seconds.

] Anyway, I'm getting hold of some seeds tommorow so by the end of the summer
] I'll know if it's worth keeping, or throwing on the compost heap!
]

It may take a bit to get established. (It does stay green all winter, although the
leaves are too small for anything that requires a lot.) Anyway, if you don't like
it you can always sell it at the local market!

-E


--
Emery Davis
You can reply to
by removing the well known companies

In article ,
Emery Davis writes:
|
| It may take a bit to get established. (It does stay green all winter, although the
| leaves are too small for anything that requires a lot.) Anyway, if you don't like
| it you can always sell it at the local market!

Only in mild winters. If the temperature drops below about -5
Celcius, it will lose its leaves.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.