Category: History

Who needs an excuse for trifle?

Updated on January 13, 2017 by Elena Greene

My daughters and I have a tradition of trying new recipes out for New Year’s Eve dinner. This year, I’d planned to try a new macaroni and cheese recipe (with smoked gouda, bacon, and peas) followed by a chocolate brownie and raspberry trifle. But I was feeling under the weather and so we just made the main dish and had ice cream for dessert.

Having the ingredients around (but really, who needs an excuse for something like this), I finally made the trifle this last weekend. It is delicious! I would definitely make it again, especially for a party as it looks festive and it makes a lot (though we are not getting tired of it)! Here’s the recipe: Bigger, Bolder Baking: Chocolate Raspberry Trifle. You could use your own brownie recipe for this, but I used the recommended Best Ever Brownie Recipe and will likely be making that again, too.

This recipe just popped up on my Pinterest feed, so I pinned it because chocolate and raspberries is one of my favorite combinations. Now it’s also making me think about the history of this type of dessert.

Although the word “trifle” has been used for desserts longer, the trifle as we know it (layers of cake, custard and cream, often with fruit or jam) became popular during the 18th century. Syllabub, which could be a dessert on its own or used as part of a trifle, is cream whipped with fruit juice and/or alcohol.

Here’s a cool NY Times article on the evolution of trifle.

Martha Lloyd, Jane Austen’s friend and eventually sister-in-law, lived with Jane Austen at Chawton and carried on many of the responsibilities of housekeeping. Here are recipes for trifle and syllabub from her collection of recipes. The Jane Austen Cookbook has a modernized version I will have to try, maybe for another blog post.

The recipe calls for Naples Biscuits, and I found a recipe for Naples biscuits at History Hoydens, where they are described as similar to Lady’s Fingers.

Here are a few other period recipes I found which I may want to try sometime:
Whim Wham, a Scottish Regency trifle (such a fun name, and it has Scotch in it), and a
trifle recipe from the Mrs Beeton (1861).

In my googling, I also ran across some delicious-sounding modern variations: a tipsy trifle with peaches and cream and pumpkin and gingerbread trifle.

Have you ever made a trifle? Do you have a favorite recipe?

Elena

Posted in Food, History | Tagged syllabub, trifle | 5 Replies

Cover Reveal & an Unusual Topic -Cheetahs!

Updated on January 6, 2017 by Gail Eastwood

Happy 2017! I had hoped to give you a date for the re-release of The Magnificent Marquess, but I am finishing up my revisions and still aiming for the end of this month or early February. I just can’t sit on my new cover any longer –take a look!! (click on images to see them bigger)

The hero in this book has lived in India for most of his life, and besides some loyal Indian servants who chose to come with him to London, he also has brought his pet cheetah, Ranee. She is the cause of some trouble right at the beginning of the story. And while you might not think the topic of cheetahs is very connected to the Regency, let me show you how it is!

When this story was first published by Signet back in 1998, some readers didn’t realize that in the early 19^th century there were still (or ever had been) Asian cheetahs in India. They are gone from India (the cheetahs, not the readers) and are very nearly extinct now even in the Middle East, where they used to roam freely. I was very distressed recently to read that cheetahs of every kind are now considered endangered. But in 1816, that was not the case.

In India, cheetahs were often trained for hunting. They are, after all, the fastest animal on the planet. It almost seems like cheating!! Just because the British were in India where the climate was quite unlike that at home doesn’t mean they were about to give up their treasured leisure pursuits. But not all cheetahs were suited to it, and that is the case with Ranee, who is much happier as a pampered companion.

Of course, Ranee is fictional, and I went with my belief in “what could have been” when I wrote this story. Have you ever read or written something in a story that seems reasonable based on research, even though you couldn’t document that anyone ever did it? Isn’t it exciting when later you stumble across information that supports it? It’s so much easier to do research now!

The Internet was just blossoming back when I wrote the original version of this book. At that time I did not find any actual cases of cheetahs being brought to London. But do you know who had one? George III! And the artist George Stubbs took time off from painting horses long enough to paint a picture of it. Here it is:

It breaks my heart that the king’s cheetah eventually ended up in the zoo at the Tower of London, such a sad fate for a magnificent animal born to run. How long it survived there I have not been able to find out. Even though this happened some 60 years before my story takes place, pre-Regency, the king and many other people from that time were still alive during the Regency and might have remembered poor Sultan, or at least saw Stubbs’s painting exhibited at the Royal Academy.

I still haven’t been able to access much information about Sultan or even the later history of the Stubbs painting, and now I would love to know more. If you’ve ever run across this or know of an accessible source, please share!

In the meantime, please let me know in the comments what you think of my new cover? I always wished Signet had included Ranee in the original one. I hope by next month I’ll be letting you know the new version of the book, revised and expanded, is out and available!! Happy New Year, everyone! P.S. If you are interested in learning more about cheetahs, there’s a fascinating blog that follows the story of one rescued cheetah from cub-dom to adulthood (click on any of the cheetah pix on the site’s homepage, or go here for a single post: http://sirikoi.blogspot.com/2013/09/sheba.html or here for a nice narrative version of Sheba’s story: http://www.care2.com/causes/cheetah-raised-by-humans-who-loved-her-enough-to-set-her-free.html Also here’s a link to the recent information about how endangered these beautiful cats have become today (with some more lovely photos): http://www.care2.com/causes/worlds-fastest-land-animal-is-now-racing-extinction.html

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Posted in History, Plot bunnies, Regency, Research, Risky Book Talk, Risky Regencies, Writing | Tagged Book covers, books, Gail Eastwood, Reading and Writing, Regency, research, The Magnificent Marquess | 12 Replies

Storing Clothing in the Georgian Era: The Clothes Press

Updated on December 20, 2016 by Isobel Carr

One of the questions I get a lot when giving clothing workshops is “How did people store their clothes”? The answers are obviously very different across the classes, but in general my audience wants to know about the gentry and nobility.

Let’s start with closets. Yes, closets existed. Both in the modern sense of a large cupboard in which you store things and in the more historical sense of “a smaller room off a main living space, where you also stored things”. You see modern-type built in closets in many period homes, though they’re often hidden. They usually flank fireplaces, doorways, or built-in nooks for beds. The period idea of a closet was part of a suite of rooms that made up a person’s private chambers. There would be a bedroom, a study or boudoir, and often a closet or dressing room. This all varied widely so there’s no hard and fast rule as to what set-up your characters might have (and don’t forget to take in the era in which the house was built).

Mahogany clothes press, c. 1730-1760. Interior contains both drawers and shelves. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Regardless of what rooms your house has, the clothing storage will be of three types: chests (the classic flip-top large box), chest of drawers (just like today) and the clothes press/wardrobe (not like the big one that leads to Narnia). Clothes presses are most similar to what Americans now call “high boys” (which are a form of raised clothes press).

Clothes Press, c.1775-1778, Chippendale. Interior contains both shelves and drawers. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Clothes presses have drawers at the bottom and then an open space with pull-out shelves at the top behind doors. Later on (late 19thC) you get the kind with half the space given over to hanging garments and half to shelves). So your clothing would be carefully folded and organized among these various options, but in general it would not be hung as it often is today (I’ve heard their might have been pegs or a line for awkward items like false rumps, hoops, etc., but I’ve never seen this in practice outside of satirical drawings of how the poor lived).

Japaned Clothes Press, c. 1815, Crace (likely made for Brighton Pavilion). Victorian and Albert Museum.

It’s also likely that clothes were cycled, so you didn’t have everything in your room at once, just the things you needed for the season you were in. Clothing for other seasons would be packed away and stored in the attics (hence the treasure troves occasionally unearthed ). At the end of each season, you would decide what was worth packing away for use the next year and what you would get rid of (this retired clothing was generally a perq of the lady’s maid, who could refashion it for her own use or sell it).

English Clothes Press, c. 1750.

For more insight into period homes, I highly recommend Georgian & Regency Houses Explained by Trevor Yorke.

Posted in Clothing, History, Isobel Carr, Regency, Research | 3 Replies

Elections, Regency Style Redux!

Updated on November 5, 2016 by diane

I originally wrote this blog Nov 5, 2012, so this is a redux (giving me time to finish the work-in-progress)

Tomorrow is Election Day here in the USA and when you live in a swing state (Virginia) in the suburbs of the nation’s capital (Washington, D.C.), You. Cannot. Escape. This. Fact. Ever. (Diane Note: I would daresay, if you are a citizen of the WORLD this election cycle, You. Cannot. Escape. This. Fact. Ever.)

If I lived in Regency England, though, things would be a lot different. An election would only be for members of the House of Commons. In the early 1800s, the House of Lords consisted of hereditary peers and, of course, the king was not elected. Members of Parliament served until Parliament was dissolved, every five years unless emergency extensions were necessary.

Fairness was a rare commodity in election to the House of Commons. Some “pocket boroughs” were in the pocket of the local magnate or his designee and, therefore, had no real opposition. Other “rotten boroughs” might have small enough numbers of voters that all could be successfully bribed, while areas as densely populated as Manchester had no representative. For example, Old Sarum in Wiltshire had three houses and seven voters. The Reform Act of 1832 dissolved the rotten boroughs and more evenly distributed representation.

Like in the US, there were two main political parties. Generally speaking, the Tories were conservative, wanting to maintain the status quo, while the Whigs advocated electoral, parliamentary, and social reform. After the French Revolution, the Tory party experienced years of largely uncontested power. Before he became Prince Regent, George IV supported Whig sentiments, but when in power, he turned Tory.

The only people who could vote in Regency England were male landowners. Only one man in seven could vote in England; one in 44 in Scotland. Women did not earn full voting rights in the UK until 1928.

So when I cast my vote tomorrow, I’ll be grateful that I have a voice in my government and I’ll appreciate how different it would have been if I had lived in my beloved Regency England.

Go vote!!

Posted in History, Regency, Research | Tagged elections | Leave a reply

Helping Hands: Life with Servants

Updated on November 4, 2016 by Gail Eastwood

Do you ever catch yourself wishing you had a cook and a housekeeper? How about a lady’s maid to do your hair, or a footman you could send to the store? My schedule imploded this week thanks to a big surprise project at work, and once again I caught myself wishing for that kind of extra help.

My family has already pointed out to me that clones wouldn’t do. They would be just like me, and therefore likely to enthusiastically embrace new projects, rather than merely help complete the existing ones, so they would multiply the problem rather than solve it. (sigh)

If you could have whatever servants you wanted, which ones would you choose? Our modern conveniences have made some servant jobs obsolete –scullery maid, for instance. In a large Regency household, the scullery maid washed all the dishes, pots, and pans, not only for the family, but also those used by the other servants, all of whom outranked her. Today the dishwashing machine handles most of that.

I don’t think I need a butler, either, even though in the Regency the butler might reign supreme over all the other servants in a household where there wasn’t a steward over him. The butler managed the wine cellar, looked after the good silver cutlery and plate, and supervised all the male servants in the household under him, especially the footmen who served the family and guests at dinner. He sorted the mail (well, on second thought, that still might be useful to me), and welcomed or turned away the visitors who came to call. (We have few visitors. Could a butler manage my social media?)

The housekeeper was, in many households, of nearly equal rank with the butler, and often was trusted with keeping accounts and other management duties, which might have been shared with him. It was her job to supervise all the female servants under her, which would have included all the different types of maids (chamber maids, house maids, laundry maids) and sometimes, the cook, although male cooks were preferred in the wealthiest households, and in many homes the cook and housekeeper were equals.

A housekeeper and a couple of maids would be very welcome in my house –for paying the bills, keeping track of supplies, tending to my clothes, and getting rid of the unwanted stuff that accumulates around here! Most especially, for CLEANING. Everything! And a cook would be worth her weight in gold in my household.

Footmen. Well, who wouldn’t want a couple of those? In the Regency, footmen seeking positions often included their height as part of their qualifications. It seems that you wanted your footmen to come in matched sets, and the more handsome, the better! Experience, reliability and character were not enough. Footmen were handy because they could accompany you on errands and carry your packages, open doors, or if visiting, they would go to the door and present or leave your card. They could assist you in and out of you high carriage if you actually needed to get out. They waited on table at meals, and might be charged with answering the door if the butler was busy with other tasks. These days? I would love to send my footman to run my errands –think of all the time that would save!!

I admit I don’t have need for a coachman or a groom, thank you, but a gardener would be heavenly! For a place that has no lawn, our property needs an awful lot of pruning, weeding, and other kinds of yard care.

Of course, having servants meant having enough of the ready to cover the cost. During the Regency, there was a tax to be paid on male servants in addition to their wages, their room and board, and the additional expense of clothing them and providing for incidentals. (A candle to light their room at night? Extravagant!) That was one reason the more modest households often employed only female servants. Females were also paid lower wages, even for similar work. (Hmm, some things take a long time to change.) Servants also had to be paid “board wages” if the employer’s family was not in residence for any length of time.

Even other people’s servants cost you money in the Regency, for tips (called vails) were expected, especially if you were visiting. Do you remember to leave a tip for your chamber maid when you stay at a hotel? Well, the same was expected then when you stayed at someone’s country house, and not only for the maid who tended your room, but any other servant who gave you service, whether it was the butler, the groom, or the host’s valet on loan to help your husband with his attire. (A valet today would probably refuse to work with my husband’s wardrobe!) These costs had to be considered before accepting just any invitation.

Employers not only had to follow the terms of the employment contracts, but they had to observe the strict social pecking order among the servants themselves. Heaven forbid if you asked one servant to perform a task that was the duty of another!

If you’re interested in more information about types of servants, wages paid, and more, the blogpost at: https://countryhousereader.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/the-servant-hierarchy/ has some of that information and a good bibliography at the end of it. Another good article is at: http://rth.org.uk/regency-period/family-life/servants. Authors Donna Hatch and Geri Walton, among others, have done more in-depth articles on this and related topics. Thanks to my crazy week (and lack of servants), this had to be a quick one!!

Having some live-in “help” seems like such a great idea, until you begin to weigh the complications of it. I have a feeling the maids would take one look at my house and run away screaming. (or I would need a bunch of them!!)

Maybe I’m okay just muddling through on my own, thank you –unless a big enough chunk of cash comes along with the fantasy servants I’m wishing for!

How would you have fared in the Regency world having servants? Which ones would you still wish you could have today?

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Posted in History, Rant, Regency, Research, Risky Regencies | Tagged Gail Eastwood, Regency, Regency life, research, servants | 10 Replies