Tag Archive | health

October Fare in Regency England

Oct6

While some in the countryside of Regency England might hold to old customs of bonfires and All Hallow’s Eve superstitions of bonfires and bells, it was more common to celebrate All Saint’s Day on November First. As one gentleman wrote in his Journal of a Traveller on the Continent, “In England we celebrate all hallows eve or nutcrack night as this vigil is called by eating apples and cracking nuts; we disclaim and reject all worship of saints but as they never did us any harm if the apples are good and the nuts sound and we feel inclined to eat them we indulge our taste and kindly suffer the departed worthies to take whatever credit they may think redounds to them from the due performances of these ceremonies.” – ‘The London Magazine’ 1826

Bronze Medallion made in 1810 for George III’s Jubilee from The Met

One special event fell on October 25, 1809 for the celebration of George III’s Jubilee. In an account of this, a naval officer’s wife wrote, “At half past five o’clock the doors of the magnificent Egyptian Hall were thrown open, illuminated by the blaze of innumerable lamps, tastefully arranged round the pillars, and the elegant lustres and chandeliers suspended from the roof. The tables were laid out with the greatest taste, and covered with an elegant dinner; the whole of which was served upon plate, with a plentiful supply of Madeira, &c. The band continuing during the whole time to play several delightful military and other airs.” That was not the only dinner mentioned, and sailors (tars as she calls them) got, “…roast beef, plum pudding, and a pint of wine, or half a pint of rum, in addition to their usual allowance.” Clerks at the Bank of England were given, “…one guinea each, for a dinner” and clerks at the Royal Exchange Insurance Fire Office got ten guineas, along with, “…the messengers five guineas each, and their firemen one guinea each. “At the King’s Bench, an ox was ordered in along with a butt of porter for the prisoners, and children in Christ’s Hospital also had a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding—the staples of almost any British celebration. The author also notes, “The different charity schools among the Jews had likewise dinners provided that day.” Along with dinners all over the city, there were also illuminations held across London. Medals were printed, all sorts of memorabilia created, and other celebrations were held across England that October.

As to other fare, The Epicure’s Almanack notes that in October, “…peas and beans indeed have disappeared, but potatoes having now attained their proper growth are become mealy; and carrots, with which London is chiefly supplied from Sandwich, in Kent, now arrive in large quantities.” This is the old definition of “mealy” meaning fit for a meal. Meats from August and September continue on through October, November, and December.

Almost every cottager had a pig, and the print at left from The Frugal Housewife shows the basic butchering cuts. She gives this advice for making certain pork has not gone off:

“Westphalia Hams and English Bacon. Put a knife under the bone that sticks out of the ham, and if it comes out in a manner clean, and has a curious flavour, it is sweet; if much smeered and dulled, it is tainted or rusty. English gammons are tried the same way; and for other parts, try the fat; if it be white, oily in feeling, does not break or crumb it is good; but if the contrary, and the lean has little streaks of yellow, it is rusty, or will soon be so.”

A pig slaughtered in the autumn could provide meat for a good long time, and might even provide the ‘boar’s head’ on the Christmas table (although some London shops imported actual boar’s meat). Recipes note how to soak salt pork to remove the salt and turn it into just pork for a pie or a stew.

John Loudon in his 1822 An Encylopaedia of Gardening writes of the tasks for English farms, and produce to be found:

OCTOBER

Rams to Ewes, Gathering Apples, Digging Potatoes, Harvest Festivals and Fairs, Cows in the fields eating stubble

Culinary Vegetables from the open Garden, or Garden Stores.

Cabbages, cauliflowers, brocolis. Peas and kidney-beans, if the weather is dry. Potatoes, turnips, carrots, radishes, Jerusalem artichokes, red-beet, skirret, salsify, scorzonera. Spinach, beet-chard, sorrel. Onions, leeks, garlic, shallots, and rocambole. Artichokes, cardoons, rampion, celery. Small salads, endive, succory, lettuce, winter-cress, burnet. Parsley, horse-radish, Indian-cress, marigold, fennel. Thyme, sage, mint, and all of this class green or dried. Gourds and pumkins, aromatic seeds, and dried herbs, as in September. Love-apple, capsicum, egg plant, red-cabbage, kidney bean. Meadow-sweet, and the other edible roots, and heath for brewing. All the sorts of edible fuci.

Hardy Fruits from the open Garden, Orchard, or Fruit-Room.

Apples, pears, quinces, medlars…some peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, and protected or covered morello cherries. Grapes and strawberries, raspberries, and protected or covered gooseberries and currants. Almonds from the fruit-room; and wallnuts, chestnuts, and filberts from the trees. Wild services, cloudberries, bramble-berries, and cranberries.

Culinary Productions and Fruits from the forcing Department.

Mushrooms. Pines, grapes, melons, cucumbers, figs. Pomegranates, olives, Indian figs; torch-thistles and strawberry pears. Akees, aligator, and anchovy-pears; guavas, granadillas, durions, mangoes, and mangoesteen. Yams and Spanish potatoes.

To add to the list of less familiar foods, we have listed above:

  • Meadow Sweet — traditionally used to make tea and flavor liquids with an almond and vanilla flavor.
  • Bramble-berries – any fruit in the rubus family, but in England typically means blackberries.
  • Durions – alternate spelling of ‘durian’ a fruit not well-known in England in the early 1800s.
  • Mangoesteen – a fruit native to Southeast Asia with a sweet, tangy white flesh.
The Burning of the Houses of Parliament, 16 October 1834 from the Cleveland Museum of Art

January Foods in 1822

Jan1
John Loudon portrait

In the Regency era, the best gardeners were though to come from Scotland, and John Claudius Loudon certainly helped cement that idea. His portrait at left shows him looking both prosperous and rather Scottish. He is noted as being the first to use the word ‘arboretum’ in his writings, he was a botanist, garden designer, and author, and his wife, Jane Webb, was also a horticulturalist, and author. It was a talented family. An Encylopaedia of Gardening by Loudon speaks to the wide variety of produce available in England in 1822, and also how nuts were linked to fruit. Some reference are very odd to the modern reader:

  • Rocket, of course, is called arugula in the US.
  • Savoys means a type of cabbage, known for crinkled leaves.
  • When he says ‘kidney beans for harricots’ he means that kidney beans replace the French beans (or what is called green beans in the US).
  • Fuci is the plural for Fucus a type of seaweed (obviously, you’d have to be near the sea to get this along with other coastal plants).
  • Borecoles is a type of kale.
  • Jerusalem artichoke is a hardy, starchy root plant that has nothing to do with artichokes, but has more in common with potatoes and mashes up very well.
  • Skirret, also a root plant which means hardy for winter, is said to taste like carrot.
  • Scorzonera is another root vegetable that tastes a bit like an artichoke.
  • Rocambole is another name for a shallot, which can still be found in many modern markets.
  • Elecampane or ‘elf wort’ is one of those medicinal herbs from ancient times, said to be good for ‘lung issues’.
  • Samphire does still show up in English cooking, and grows in marshy areas. It is from the parsley family, looks like baby asparagus, and has a crisp, salty taste.
  • Wild services refers to a small, edible, pear-like fruits from a tree native to England that is now rare.
  • Haws are the red berries from the Hawthorn tree.
  • ‘Pine’ means a pineapple, which are touchy to grow in England (they do look a bit like a pinecone).
  • Filberts is another name for hazelnuts, and nuts in shells used to be a common thing in many stores, but now everything seems to come in a can or a jar.
  • Cloud-berries (or cloudberries) are bright, amber-colored fruits similar to cranberries in that they are tart and need water to thrive. They were once common in England, but not so much anymore.

Loudon speaks of the open garden, a fruit-room, and the forcing-room. The latter would be some sort of hot house or glass-house that allowed for heating to extend the growing season. His spellings and variations on capitalization are also left in place here—standardization of such things is a more modern idea. He does mention some plants if not ruined by rain or frost, which would be common problems, and use of frames (anything placed over a plant to protect it from frost—this could be a large glass jar or burlap or a large metal bell).

Pickling and storing in such places as a herb room, or in barrels in a cold place would be common, as in a ‘fruit-cellar’ or any cold room. As already noted, food storage—potting, pickling, and otherwise preserving—was a vital necessity, along with making certain you got the bugs (called vermine by period sources) off anything grown outside.

Loudon includes general notes, too, for agricultural tasks set out for the year, but let’s just look at the first of the year. I do have to say I would adore a garden large enough to have a ‘forcing department’.

JANUARY

Dealing with rot (in animal hooves and plants), Weaning pigs, Fence work, Fattening Beasts (oil cake and corn), Liming, Improvements, Pruning.

Vegetables from the open Garden or Garden Stores. Strasburg cabbage, savoys, borecoles, Brussels’ sprouts. Kidney beans for haricots, and Prussian and other peas. Potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, turnip, carrot, parsnip, red beet, skirret, scorzonera, and salsify, from the seed-room. Spinach in mild seasons; also sorrel and white beet. Onions, leeks, garlick, shallot, and rocambole. Sea-kale from the covered beds. Lettuce, endive, celery, American and winter-cress. Parsley, if protected, horse-radish, and dried fennel, dill, chervil, &c. Thyme, sage, rosemary, lavender, from the open garden, and dried marjoram, savory, mint, basil, &c. from the herb-room. Rhubarb-stalks from covered roots; anise, coriander and carraway seeds, chamomile, elecampane, blessed thistle, &c. dried. Red cabbage and samphire. Wild rocket, wild spinach, sauce-alone, and sorrel, if a mild winter. Mushrooms from covered ridges. Sea-belt, or sweet fucus, dried.

Four clay pots on dirt near a garden wall
Rhubarb forcing pots From geograph.org.uk

Hardy Fruits from the Open Garden, Orchard, or Fruit-Room. Apples, pears, quinces, medlars, services from the fruit-room. Some plums and morello cherries, carefully preserved on the trees. Some thick-skinned gooseberries, currants, and grapes, preserved on the trees. Some dried fruits of the same sorts on branches hung up in the fruit-room. Almonds, walnuts, chestnuts, filberts from the fruit-room. Sloes from the bushes, wild services, hips, haws, and sometimes a few cloud-berries.

A well occupied library opens into a glasshouse with plants. One child looks at a large book held by an adult. A lady holds large harp. A young couple sit by a table while older folks read. In the glasshouse several couples and a lady with a child tour the plants.
Glasshouse design by Humphry Repton, 1816 from Fragments on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening

Culinary Vegetables and Fruits from the forcing Department. Kidney beans. Potatoes. Sea-kale. Small salads. Parsley, Fennel. Rhuharb. Mushrooms. Pines, winter melons, grapes, strawberries, cucumbers occasionally. Oranges, olives, and pomegranates. Malay apple, loquats, and lee-chees. Yams, and Spanish potatoes.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_and_Jane_Loudon_(4644568348).jpg
John and Jane Loudon blue plaque at 3 Porchester Terrace, Bayswater, London
London County Council
Here lived John and Jane Loudon
1783-1845 and 1807-1858
Their horticultural work gave new beauty to London squares