Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

On Holidays, Period Food, and What We Feed Our Characters

Updated on December 6, 2013 by Gail Eastwood

Having finally finished the clean-up from Thanksgiving (the wedding crystal goblets I have to wash by hand tend to decorate the kitchen counter for days), I am now looking ahead to the next holidays, and more meals to be planned in celebration. Special occasions and special food always go together. Do you have a traditional holiday food you make or fondly remember? For Christians, this past Sunday was the first Sunday in Advent, the season leading up to Christmas, and in some parts of England, is also known as “stir-up day” –the day you are supposed to stir-up the batter for your Christmas cake or pudding so it will have enough time to age properly. (The day can also be the last Sunday before the start of Advent.) There’s a double meaning to the name, as one of the old texts used by the church for the start of Advent begins “Stir up , we beseech thee O Lord” and one site claims “this activity of stirring-up the ingredients symbolizes our hearts that must be stirred in preparation for Christ’s birth.” Christmas cakes (aka fruitcakes) have a pedigree as long as the technique of using rum or brandy to preserve food. “Plum Pudding” was also around long before the Victorians popularized it as “Christmas pudding”. Either one could include meat with the dried fruit in their early forms, but one is baked and the other was boiled –steamed in later times.

For someone who’s not a great cook, maybe it’s ironic that I’ve always been interested in period food, but it comes honestly from my interest in the daily life of other times. The Regency isn’t my only pet period –I’m a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and indulge in medieval interests, too. I collect cookbooks on period food, and recently added Dinner with Tom Jones: Eighteenth Century Cookery Adapted for the Modern Kitchen, by Lorna Sass (1977, the Metropolitan Museum of Art). Sass also wrote To the King’s Taste (Richard II) and To the Queen’s Taste (Elizabeth I).

I can’t believe I found this treasure in my church yard sale!! I recommend it as a research gold-mine; it has notes about menus, how dishes should be arranged on the table, and all sorts of extra goodies besides the recipes, and while it covers a period slightly earlier than our beloved Regency, back then things did not change as rapidly as they do now. Casting about for what to feed our characters, a ragoo of asparagus or heavens, yes, a chocolate tart(!) might be just the thing we need to serve them. And the book is illustrated with delightful sketches of county life by Thomas Rowlandson (behaving properly for a change).

On my Christmas list is another cookbook just released last month which should also be of great interest to us all —Dinner with Mr Darcy by Pen Vogler, a new addition to the existing canon related to food in Jane Austen’s books and life. Besides recipes inspired by Jane’s novels and letters, it also promises notes about table arrangements, kitchens and gardens, changing mealtimes, and servants and service, etc.

Both of these books use Hannah Glasse’s first cookbook, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747), as a chief source. A reviewer of Vogler’s book (http://tinyurl.com/mlrxl6j) says this was “one of the first commercial cookbooks to capture the public imagination and was used by middle-class families like the Austens well into the 19th century.” Does food history interest you? Do you care about what our story characters eat? (The book I’m editing now for reissue, The Captain’s Dilemma, has a running joke about the family’s inventive but not very good cook.) What are some of your favorite resources?

I wish you all very happy holidays and some memorable meals with friends and family, whatever you celebrate!

Mr Collins (Tom Hollander) distracts Elizabeth Bennett (Keira Knightley) from her meal in the 2005 ‘Pride and Prejudice’ -Photo Credit: Rex Features/Everett Collection

Posted in History, Jane Austen, Regency, Research | Tagged Christmas, Christmas cake, food, holidays, period cooking, plum pudding, Regency, research books | 13 Replies

The Elegant Regency

Updated on November 16, 2013 by Myretta

Cabinet on a stand

Last weekend, I went to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts to see the John Singer Sargent Watercolors exhibit, which was quite wonderful. I’m a big JSS fan. But I’m not here to tell you about that. One of the smaller exhibits that caught my eye as I was trying to find my way through the maze that is the MFA was the much smaller Art of the English Regency. (I just had to go back to make sure Elena hadn’t covered this in her posts about her visit to the MFA – she didn’t, but if you haven’t read her posts on Regency Pianos and Esoteric Strings, you should).

Although this exhibit is called Art of the English Regency, it’s mostly about Regency interior design with a solid representation of Thomas Hope, the father of interior design. It was a vivid illustration of the frequently outlandish design choices made by the Beau Monde.

Griffin Tripod STands

Some of the furniture was along the elegant lines we would like to think of when we decorate our Regency townhouses, but quite a lot of it reflected the ubiquitous Egyptian Revival and equally insane furniture designs. My particular favorite was the pair of griffin tripod stands complete with clawed feet (Griffin claws, I suppose). But we should not ignore the cabinet on a stand attributed to James Newton, which combines the elegant Regency lines with decorations that look like lion’s head doorknockers and Egyptian sarcophagi.

George IV

Of course, your room needs to be lighted and what better than chimera candlesticks and griffin wall lights (perhaps to complement your griffin tripod stand). And, you it wouldn’t be complete with out a (very flattering) bust of George IV.

This little jewel of an exhibit was an excellent reminder of the kinds of interiors our characters might have chosen to live in. It was fun to visit and maybe fun to live with. What do you think?

Posted in History, Regency, Research | 5 Replies

Book Wish List

Updated on November 4, 2013 by diane

Carolyn’s blog about Amazon’s Matchbook program led me to poke around at Amazon and to ultimately look at my Amazon Book Wish List. On Amazon you can make as many wish lists as you like, an easy way to record a “gift registry” for yourself or family members. I use the wish list function to keep track of books that interested me, but that I was not certain I wanted to buy immediately. Or, more accurately, books I was afraid I’d forget.

Here are a few of them.

My newest addition to the list was recommended to me by Kristine Hughes (The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England from 1811 – 1901 and Number One London blog)–The Profligate Son: Or, A True Story of Family Conflict, Fashionable Vice, and Financial Ruin in Regency Britain. by Nicola Phillips.
Booklist says:

“The dangers of a profligate son is a persistent theme in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature, and it was also a very real fear among the upper echelon of British families…an absorbing case study…Phillips eloquently fills out the bare bones of the known facts of the story.”

How can any of us resist that story?

Next on my wish list are two books with the same title but different authors–Wellington: The Iron Duke, first by Phillip J. Haythornwaite; second by Richard Holmes. I’m hoping to go on Kristine and Vicky Hinshaw’s Wellington tour next year and it has been years since I read a Wellington biography.

There are several books on my list that I own in hardback or paperback, but that I’d love to have on my Kindle for convenience. I can’t quite justify spending the money to buy books I already own, but I’m hoping someone in the family will see them and buy them for me as a gift. One of my favorites is Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket, again by Richard Holmes. This book gives so much information about the British army in the Napoleonic War, it is a treasure. Other books I already own are: Wellington’s Rifles by Mark Urban, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England by Daniel Pool, Every Man Will Do His Duty: An Anthology of Firsthand Accounts from the Age of Nelson 1793-1815 by John B. Hattendorf and Dean King.

Two more books on the list: The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and sounds fascinating. As does A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby by Mary S. Lovell. In 1828 Jane Digby left her aristocratic husband and young son for an Austrian diplomat. A sensational divorce resulted and Digby left England for the continent, marrying two more times, but leaving those husbands and more children, as well, until she ultimately found happiness marrying a sheik twenty years younger than she. If her story were fiction, it would be too far-fetched.

Do you own any of these books? Are they on your wish list? What books are on your wish list?

Posted in Reading, Regency, Research | Tagged books, Jane Digby, Wellington | 4 Replies

Esoteric strings

Updated on November 3, 2013 by Elena Greene

Last week I talked about the Regency pianofortes I saw at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Here are a few more intriguing items from their collection of musical instruments.

My daughters play violin, so they were wondering about this. It looks like a violin or viola but instead of the usual four strings, it has twelve! It turns out it’s a viola d’amore, which can have twelve or fourteen strings. The top set are played in similar fashion to a regular violin or viola; the lower set vibrates sympathetically.

The viola d’amore was popular in the Baroque period. It probably wasn’t played much during the Regency, except perhaps at Concerts of Ancient Music put on by the London Concert Society (1776-1848).

Here’s the Vivaldi Concerto for viola d’amore and lute with soloists Enrico Onofri and Luca Pianca. The viola d’amore comes in at about 1:10. I love this performance!

This beautiful instrument is a lyre guitar, circa 1810, clearly showing the classical influence popular during the Regency. The plaque dismissively calls it a “fad” but a Regency heroine could definitely have played one. In this video, John Doan provides a history of the instrument, illustrated with some period portraits. At around 2:50 you can hear him play.

This instrument was labeled the dital harp, circa 1820. I’ve also seen it called a harp/lute. This is another instrument that could have been played by a Regency lady. I was able to find this charming video of Sarah Deere-Jones singing a popular Regency song, “The Last Rose of Summer”, in Regency garb, and accompanying herself with a Regency era harp/lute. Enjoy!

Did any of you know about these instruments before? Do you have any favorite unusual instruments?

Elena

www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Music, Research | Tagged dital harp, harp/lute, lyre/guitar, Museum of Fine Arts, viola d'amore | 8 Replies

Drinking

Updated on October 28, 2013 by Myretta

Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living. — James Boswell Journals 1775

As I just returned from the New Jersey Romance Writers annual conference (at which I had the delightful company of Megan, Elena, Gail, and Diane), I thought I’d write about drinking during the Regency. Now, don’t get me wrong, the conference was not a drunken route, but I did have the pleasure of being introduced to (but unfortunately unable to partake of) a variety of mixed drinks that were new to me and sounded totally delightful. As the weekend drew to a close, I started to think about what our counterparts would be imbibing during – say – a weekend in the country.

Peter H. Brown curated the “Come Drink the Bowl Dry” exhibit at Fairfax House in York in 1996 and wrote a brief but excellent companion book of the same name. This post will rely heavily on his research.

Although mead (fermented from honey) and ale (from barley) had been available long before our period and spirits were certainly available, the English country house from the late 18th century onward seemed to run on wine. The wine inventory at Fairfax House in the latter part of the 18th century included port, claret, malmsey madeira, burgundy, and sherry, to name a few. During a normal day, the household seemed to consume one bottle of port and three of sherry, apparently not an irregular amount.

Fairfax House cellar also included beers and ales. Compared to wine and beers, fermented fruit (cider and perry) were considered exotic and were less likely to be found in the cellar of a grand house. Distilled spirits (gin, brandy, arrack, rum) became popular in the 17th century and thence the popularity of the punch bowl. Here are three recipes for you:

One teaspoon of Coxwell’s acid salt of lemons; a quarter of a pound of sugar ,a quarto of boiling water ,half a pint of rum and a quarter of a pint of brandy; add a little lemon peel, if agreeable or a drop or to of essence of lemon. (Note: the boiling water was to enable the butler to dissolve the sugar: it all had to be dissolved before it could be served. — The Footman’s Directory and Butler’s Rememberancer – Thomas Cosnett(1823)

Three bottles of champagne ;two of Madeira, one of hock ,one of Curacao, one quart of brandy one pint of rum and two bottles of selzter-water, flavoured with four pounds of bloom raisins, Seville oranges, white sugar candy ,and diluted with iced green tea. —“Consuming Passions” by J Green,1984

In twenty parts of French brandy put in the peels of 30 lemons and 30 oranges pared so thin that the least of the white is left. Infuse twelve hours. Have ready 30 quarts of cold water that has boiled; put to it fifteen pounds of double refined sugar; and when well mixed, pour upon it the brandy and peels adding the juice of the oranges and of 24 lemons; mix well ,then strain through a very fine hair sieve into a clean barrel that has held spirits and put two quarts of new milk. Stir and then bung it to close; let it stand for 6 weeks in a warm cellar; bottle the liquor for use .this liquor will keep many years and improves with age. — Mrs. Rundell, 1816

Mrs. Rundell was apparently expecting a thirsty crowd. Perhaps she was organizing a weekend for romance writers.

Posted in Frivolity, Regency, Research | 1 Reply