19 December 1843 – the novella, 'A Christmas Carol', by Charles Dickens, was first published ... and was sold out within the week.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing."



And so quite simply I give you Mrs Beeton’s original 1861 recipe for 'Christmas Plum Pudding' (with her notes to the cook):

Ingredients.
—l ½ lb. of raisins, ½ lb. of currants, ½ lb. of mixed peel, ¾ lb. of bread crumbs, ¾ lb. of suet, 8 eggs, 1 wineglassful of brandy.

Mode.
—Stone and cut the raisins in halves, but do not chop them; wash, pick, and dry the currants, and mince the suet finely; cut the candied peel into thin slices, and grate down the bread into fine crumbs. When all these dry ingredients are prepared, mix them well together; then moisten the mixture with the eggs, which should be well beaten, and the brandy; stir well, that every thing may be very thoroughly blended, and press the pudding into a buttered mould; tie it down tightly with a floured cloth, and boil for 5 or 6 hours. It may be boiled in a cloth without a mould, and will require the same time allowed for cooking.

As Christmas puddings are usually made a few days before they are required for table, when the pudding is taken out of the pot, hang it up immediately, and put a plate or saucer underneath to catch the water that may drain from it. The day it is to be eaten, plunge it into boiling water, and keep it boiling for at least 2 hours; then turn it out of the mould, and serve with brandy-sauce. On Christmas-day a sprig of holly is usually placed in the middle of the pudding, and about a wineglassful of brandy poured round it, which, at the moment of 　serving, is lighted, and the pudding thus brought to table encircled in flame.

Time.—5 or 6 hours the first time of boiling; 2 hours the day it is to be served.

Average cost.—4s.
 
Sufficient.—for a quart mould for 7 or 8 persons.
 
Seasonable — on the 25th of December, and on various festive occasions till March.

Note.—Five or six of these puddings should be made at one time, as they will keep good for many weeks, and in cases where unexpected guests arrive, will be found and acceptable, and as it only requires warming through, a quickly-prepared dish.



..... Well it's either that or just humbugs!

25 December 1940 – with the phoney war well and truly past; with Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France all having capitulated; with London, Coventry, Sheffield, Southampton, Plymouth, Swansea, Belfast, Glasgow and other cities suffering heavy bombing; and with still another year before the US would enter the war ... this was the first real wartime Christmas and the first under strict food rationing.


... but Santa could still deliver, even to an Anderson shelter.

In 1940 turkeys, ducks or geese were largely unobtainable and even a large chicken would have been more than a week’s meat ration for a family of four. Game was not rationed, so if you were a wealthy landowner, farmer, poacher, spiv, or just someone with contacts and plenty of cash, you might still get hold of a pheasant or wild duck, but again the number available was very limited. So today's Christmas dish is that good old wartime standby, Mock Turkey, to a recipe from a 1940 pamphlet published by the Ministry of Food.



Mock Turkey

Ingredients - 1 loaf bread (can be stale)
1 quart milk
1 carrot, grated
1 onion, minced or finely chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 tsp salt
1 dash of pepper
1lb sausage meat
1 tsp seasoning
Method - Remove crust from loaf of bread; tear apart and moisten with milk. Add meat, chopped vegetables and seasoning. Mix together well and place in a buttered baking dish. Bake at 350 for 1 1/2 hours.

This is one of the rather more austere mock turkey recipes ... others try to liven it up by adding more onion (but difficult to obtain in 1940 once France, a major supplier, had fallen), or maybe some apple to the stuffing, or wrapping the whole thing in bacon rashers (but that took a lot more ration coupons), or by just simply adding a couple of parsnips to imitate the turkey’s drumsticks. These days such a dish is often referred to as 'Murkey', but as far as I can establish that name was only adopted in December 1941, during a BBC 'Kitchen Front' broadcast by Elsie and Doris Waters:



..... The humour certainly isn't as fast-paced as some of the other popular wartime comedy shows like 'ITMA', ... indeed it's almost as if the words are being rationed too ... but the slow style was designed to allow listeners to take the recipes down. The last 60 seconds of the recording however are lost, so you won't be able to get the complete recipe here.

Their 'Murkey' specifically refers to a 'half mutton–half turkey', mock turkey made from a boned and stuffed leg of mutton, ... which even in 1941 (when the country's food stocks were in a slightly better state) was still rather optimistic. A mutton leg, if you could get hold of one, would have used up the entire weekly meat ration for about twelve people. A stuffed breast of lamb would generally have been more available and used less ration coupons (meat rations could not be accumulated from one week to the next and were based on value rather than weight). Personally, as someone who always preferred the stuffing and accompanying pigs-in-blankets to the actual turkey meat, mock turkey, for all its austerity, does sound rather fine, but one should remember that the above mock turkey recipe still uses about a week’s meat ration for some six people, as well as their entire bacon ration if it was wrapped in rashers.



"Merry Christmas."

31 December 1870 – at the height of the Prussian siege of Paris an unusual dinner was given at the famous restaurant, Noel Peter’s, by Monsieur Bonvalet, to celebrate his recent appointment as mayor of the 3ème arrondissement. The city had been besieged since 19 September 1870 and by the end of December supplies were running very low and even the most celebrated Parisian restaurants were having difficulty in making menus that were 'suitable'. As the famous chef, Thomas Genin (d.1887) later said,

"There was scarcely anything to be had but horse. Beef and veal had long since disappeared. Mutton had been replaced by dog which was sold by chicken dealers, and rats were substituted for young rabbits. Cat was considered a rare tidbit. The rat was repulsive to the touch but its flesh was of tremendous quality: delicate but not too insipid. Well seasoned, it is perfect. I have served grilled rats as 'Pigeons à la Crapaudine', but more often as potted meat, with a stuffing of donkey's meat and fat. I called that ‘Terrine de Rats à la Parisienne’. A terrine of rats cost fifteen francs. Donkey was rare: it cost 15 to 20 francs a pound. Donkey meat has a slight taste of hazel nuts: it cannot be compared to horse meat. As’ Roast Beef with beans à la Bretagne’, it was a real treat. The quality of mule is somewhere between the donkey and the horse. Dog meat is tough. It has a disagreeable taste which all the spices in the world cannot disguise. As for the meat of a mature billy-goat, I have a very definite opinion about that: the culinary art will never succeed in making it an edible dish. I have even tried using oxalic acid, ... but it is impossible to get rid of the odour."

(the quote is from, "An Illustrated History of French Cuisine: From Charlemagne to Charles de Gaulle", by Christain Guy (English edition), 1962).



But it wasn’t even goat or dog that was the main dish at Noel Peter’s on New Year's Eve 1870. Mayor Bonvalet had been one of the people who suggested killing the animals in the Paris Zoo to feed the sick in hospitals and old people in almshouses. As he had connections in high places he was able to help Mr Fraysse, the proprietor of the restaurant, by obtaining a few 'extra supplies' which would be served at his table on New Year's Eve.

The final menu was:

The Paris zoo had contained two elephants: Castor and Pollux. According to the twice weekly news bulletin, Lettre-Journal de Paris, printed throughout the siege, Castor was killed on 29 December and Pollux the following day, but as elephant soup was included on a restaurant menu (Café Voisin) for Christmas day, these dates are probably wrong. The two elephant carcasses were bought by Mr Deboos of the Bouchérie Anglais in Boulevard Hausmann for 27,000 francs the pair. The trunks he sold as a delicacy at 40 to 45 francs a pound (a French livre is about 500g), and the other parts for about 10 to 14 francs a pound. So with each elephant probably weighing about 3 tons he did quite well out of the deal (by comparison in late December dog was being sold for about 4 or 5 francs the pound).


The demise of either Castor or Pollux.

But by all accounts, other than the trunks (always known to be the best bit), elephant was not particularly tasty. Henry Labouchère who, despite his name, was an English journalist living in Paris throughout the siege wrote (on 6 January 1871):

"Yesterday I had a slice of Pollux for dinner … It was tough, coarse, and oily, and I do not recommend English families to eat elephant as long as they can get beef of mutton"


So in place of pukka pachyderm for today’s dish, I propose the American confection of thin rounds of leavened dough, deep-fried ‘til crisp and finally coated in cinnamon and sugar, called ‘Elephant Ears’:



Paris surrendered on 28 January 1871, but this was too late to save most of the animals in the Jardin Zoologique. The monkeys were spared because they were thought too human-like to be eaten, and the hippopotamus survived only because no butcher could afford the 80,000 francs demanded. Which is quite ironic as I am reliably informed hippo tastes almost exactly like prime pork.

Today, being Hogmanay, is National Steak Pie Day. Butchers throughout the land are churning them out by the thousand and of highly variable quality. I flew round to my local boucherie first thing this morning and was fortunate to obtain a large example of their very excellent ones - fortunate because they stopped taking orders 3 weeks ago but someone had called last night to cancel an order for two. The rush was because my gang were supposed to be going off with friends to a remote croft for the festivities but it's now cut off by the floods and road closures so, of course, they are coming to me tomorrow and I'm buggered if I'm braising meat all day to make a pie for hungover appetites.

That was fortunate, Ferval.  I was whinging about the rain to a friend recently and she chided me (mildly) saying how much worse it was in climes further north (I'm in the English Midlands).  Sorry I'm not having any steak - not even the Quorn variety.  There were some reduced mini vege pizzas (well cheese made with vege rennet and tomato ones) so I bought some of those.

1st January 1877 – Queen Victoria was proclaimed "Empress of India" at the Delhi Durbar thereby effectively completing the transfer of the government of India from the East India Company to the British Crown.

As it’s Panto season lets have the famous Punch cartoon (from 15 April 1876) "New Crowns for Old", depicting Disraeli as Abanazer from the pantomime version of Alladin, offering Victoria the Imperial crown in exchange for his earl's coronet.



And who better to suggest a suitable Anglo-India anniversary 'dish-of-the-day' than Colonel Arthur Robert Kenney-Herbert, who under the pen-name ’Wyvern’ wrote numerous culinary articles for The Madras Times, many of which he reproduced in his best seller: 'Culinary Jottings for Madras. A Treatise in thirty chapters on Reformed Cookery for Anglo-Indian exiles' (1878), with five later editions up to 1885.

Kenney-Herbert had arrived on the sub-continent in 1859 as a nineteen year old cadet straight from Rugby School into the Madras Cavalry, at a time when the proportion of British to native troops was increased four-fold after the mutiny of 1857. He proved to be a competent officer, rising rapidy to become Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General for Madras with the rank of a lieutenant-colonel and later military secretary to the Governor of Madras with a major’s rank. He retired from the army in 1892, returned to England, and in 1894 set up a cookery school, The Commonsense Cookery Association, in London. He died in 1916.

The first edition of his Culinary Jottings was published in 1878 just at the time when there was a whole new wave of British administrators, civil-servants, architects, civil-engineers, and army officers arriving following the transfer of Indian government to the British Crown. It is to these new arrivals and particularly their wives, the memsahibs, that he addressed his culinary advice. Not of course that any of these ladies were ever actually going to do any of the cooking themselves, but they needed to know good household and kitchen management, even if that just meant writing down a suggested menu for the native cooks to produce. These were women brought up on Mrs Beeton, with menus of roast mutton, boiled beef, ornate raised pies, suet puddings, boiled cabbage, floury sauces and no end of ornate fripperies, which were not really suited to the climate of southern India. In place of Mrs Beeton’s infinitely useful chapters on how to form a Venetian villa out of nougat complete with swan-shaped biscuits, overly-complicated soufflés, and vegetables cut into fancy shapes or as coloured piped purées … "pretty-pretty" dishes he disdainfully calls them, Kenney-Herbert encouraged the use of good local ingredients, simply but well cooked. He relished a good curry but lamented that it was increasingly hard to find, for in Anglo-Indian cuisine of the 1870s and 80s, curry had been demoted and was considered suitable only for the homeliest supper or luncheon.

But for today, in deference to Kenney-Herbert, I still propose a Madras curry... to whatever particular recipe you prefer.

Culinary jottings devotes a chapter to cooking curries, but hardly gives any recipes at all, rather it devotes the chapter to the general details of curry making. If at times Colonel Kenney-Herbert seems to ramble and waffle, throwing in literary quotations and classical references (though he'd been an undistinguished scholar when at Rugby), his words and descriptions do invoke the days of the Raj. One could almost be sitting, gin and tonic in hand, listening to him hold forth about women or natives or the lower classes, or curry, ... in the Madras Club, reputed to have the longest bar in India, and where women, of course, were forbidden:

"We are often told by men of old time, whose long connection with the country entitles them to speak with the confidence of "fellows who know, don't you know," that in inverse proportion, as it were, to the steady advance of civilization in India, the sublime art of curry-making has gradually passed away from the native cook. Elders at Madras, erst-while the acknowledged head-centre of the craft, shake their heads and say "Ichabod!" and if encouraged to do so, paint beautiful mouth-watering "pictures in words" of succulent morsels cunningly dressed with all the savoury spices and condiments of India, the like of which, they say, we ne'er shall look upon again.

Looking back myself to the hour of my arrival in India, I call to mind the kind-hearted veteran who threw his doors open to me, and, pouring in the oil and wine of lavish hospitality, set me upon his own beast, killed the fatted calf, and treated me, indeed, as a son that had been lost and was found. It rejoiced this fine old servant of honest John Company, I remember, to give "tiffin" parties at which he prided himself on sending round eight or nine varieties of curries, with divers platters of freshly-made chutneys, grilled ham, preserved roes of fishes, &c. The discussion of the "course,"—a little banquet in itself—used to occupy at least half an hour, for it was the correct thing to taste each curry, and to call for those that specially gratified you a second time.

Now, this my friend was, I take it, a type of the last Anglo-Indian generation; a generation that fostered the art of curry-making, and bestowed as much attention to it as we, in these days of grace, do to copying the culinary triumphs of the lively Gauls.

Thirty years ago fair house-keepers were wont to vaunt themselves upon their home-made curry powders, their chutneys, tamarind and roselle jellies, and so forth, and carefully superintended the making thereof. But fashion has changed, and although ladies are, I think, quite as fond of a good curry as their grandmothers were, they rarely take the trouble to gather round them the elements of success, and have ceased to be cumbered about this particular branch of their cook's work."

…. and so on for another dozen pages ... and that's just chapter XXVIII on "Our Curries".

Ah the joys of finishing off the holiday fare as the rain it raineth no end today ....well, Christmas cake and larger glass than usual of Sauternes at tea time went down well.

8 January 1940 - food rationing starts in the UK. 

Throughout November and December 1939 ration books had been issued to the whole population and there had been a series of public announcement films and radio broadcasts to prepare everyone:



At midnight on Sunday 8 January 1940 food rationing officially started, initially with rationing of only bacon/ham, butter and sugar (despite the assurance given in the film above that it wouldn’t initially be necessary to ration sugar). This was just the start. In January 1940 the minister of Food was W S Morrison, but he was replaced on 3 April 1940 by Lord Woolton, and it was under Woolton that rationing really started to bite. Over the course of the war and well beyond (rationing finally ended in 1954), various schemes would ration: meat, bacon, sugar, tea, jam, sweets, butter, cheese, eggs, lard, milk, tinned fruit, and even after the war had ended, albeit fairly briefly, bread. 

So today’s dish of the day is Woolton pie.

The recipe was the creation of Francis Ladry, the chef of the Savoy hotel, although the 'recipe' was deliberately made suitable for individual interpretation to accommodate shortages of one ingredient or other. Basically it was mixed vegetables (which were unrationed, but note it doesn't use whole onions which were often unobtainable), a water/oatmeal sauce, and a topping of either pastry, or potatoes either mashed or sliced, or mashed potatoes bulked up with flour, or whatever you had. It might have been "wholesome" but it was still fairly unexciting fare. The 'official' recipe appeared in The Times on 26 April 1941:

20 January – Saint Agnes’ Eve

According to tradition, Agnes was a beautiful young girl of a wealthy Roman family. She had many suitors of high rank, but the young men, all slighted by her resolute devotion to religious purity, submitted her name to the authorities as a follower of Christianity. The Prefect Sempronius condemned Agnes to be dragged naked through the streets to a public brothel, where after various tribulations she eventually suffered martyrdom at the age of about thirteen (officially on 21 January 304). She is the patron saint of chastity, virgins, girls, engaged couples, rape survivors ..... and gardeners.

In England, St Agnes’ Eve was traditionally one of the days of the year (like Halloween, Midsummer’s Eve, and St Mark's eve – April 24th) when the spirit world was considered particularly accessible. One traditional ritual involved the making of 'Dumb Cake' by single maids in an attempt to discover their future husband. The name may relate to the fact that the cake had to be made and eaten in silence, or its origin may be from Middle English 'doom' meaning 'fate' or 'destiny'.

The superstitions have been immortalised in John Keat's poem 'The Eve of Saint Agnes':

" …upon St. Agnes' Eve,
Young virgins might have visions of delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honey'd middle of the night,
If ceremonies due they did aright;
As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire."

Concerning Dumb Cake, the Rev. M.C.F. Morris, in his 'Yorkshire Folk Talk' (1892) says that,
"The proper day for making Dumb Cake was the eve of St. Agnes. What all the ingredients of the cake were I know not, but one principal one was salt. I remember being told some years ago, by an old inhabitant in one of the dales, about the composition of this mystic cake. It was somewhat as follows: In the first place four people had to assist in the making of it, each taking an equal share in the work, adding small portions of its component parts, stirring the pot, and so forth. During the whole time of its manufacture and consumption a strict silence has to be observed. Even when it is being taken out of the oven each of the interested parties must assist in the work. When made it is placed on the table in the middle of the room, and the four persons stand at the four corners of the room. When set on the table the cake is divided into equal portions and put upon four plates or vessels.　The spirit of the future husband of one of the four would then appear and taste from the plate of his future bride, being only visible to her whose husband he was destined."

The 'Evening Telegraph' (Thursday 21 June 1928) gives a slightly more detailed list of ingredients:
"A 'dumb cake' was a concoction of water, flour, sugar, and salt, and no other ingredient, and absolute silence had to be maintained throughout the entire operation. The next condition was that two must make it, two must bake it, and two must break it."

So not a particularly tasty dish, but the edibility was irrelevant to the magic.


"The Dumb-Cake Baking"   
Print by W Finden, circa 1843.

Although recipes usually state just these few simple ingredients there are hints that other, secret ingredients, were sometimes added. It is possible that Dumb Cake is a remnant of ancient shamanic or 'Druidic' ritual where the visions of future husbands were helped-out by the addition of hallucinogenic herbs such as mistletoe or hemp seed. This could be unfortunate if you lived when the ritual was only half-remembered and the ingredients largely forgotten, as in this report from 1813.


From the 'Stamford Mercury', Friday 19 February 1813

So here’s today’s recipe for Dumb Cake

An egg-shell-full of salt,　
An egg-shell-full of wheat-meal.　
An egg-shell-full of barley-meal.　
Water.

Must be made by either two, three or four un-married women who share all the tasks equally. The ingredients are mixed into a batter and the cake cooked on a griddle in complete silence. When done the little cake is broken by hand into equal portions one piece for each cook. According to some versions the portions are then eaten, in silence, at exactly midnight when the spirit of the future husband of one of those present will appear before her, but be invisible to all others. In other versions, the girls should take their cake portion and walking backwards retire to their respective beds. They then put the cake under their pillow and hope to dream of their future husband, chanting as they fall asleep:

"Sweet St Agnes, work thy fast
If ever I be to marry man,
Or even man to marry me
I hope him this night to see."

Actually if you google "recipe dumb cake" you will get loads of recipes, nearly all originating from the US. These are very simple recipes for dumb cooks who presumably fear their lack of cooking skills will mean they will never get a husband. The recipes are usually along the lines of: open a packet of cake mix, add the required quantity of water or milk, open a tin of fruit, mix all together and dump into a cake tin. Bake 'til done. But I doubt St Agnes would have much patience with such lazy cooks.

Really interesting, MM.

Poor Saint Agnes - legend maybe, but I've just been reading about the "casual brutality" of the Roman Empire. Brutality, greed and power were the attributes of the Romans, despite all the high falutin' stuff in Virgil and Cicero and such.

No wonder Christianity took hold - until the Romans grabbed it and made it their own, as they did with everything else: "in this conquer" indeed, conquer being the key word.

How well-written the newspaper article is - very different from today's Daily Rags.

25 January 1759 – The Birthday of Robert Burns - 'Burn's Night' .... and so today's dish has got to be haggis.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.

But we have discussed (and disgust) haggises on several threads over the last few days, so I’ll just leave you with this thought:
Did Homer have an early haggis in mind when he likened Odysseus to,

..."a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that, a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly." ?

30 January 1649 – The execution of King Charles I.

Putting aside the execution itself … the anniversary of the date was decreed a day of national celebration and thanksgiving during Cromwell’s Commonwealth, however after the Restoration (1660) any such anti-royalist anniversary celebrations had to be conducted in secrecy. One particular group of those that still held allegiance to puritan republicanism formed a society (it was possibly started by John Milton together with Jeremy White, formerly Cromwell’s chaplain) specifically to annually mark the execution of King Charles with a grand celebratory dinner. They were known as the 'Calves Head Club', due to the principal dish served, with its obvious mocking reference to the late king.

Being a secret society little is known about their proceedings … other than the details contained in a curious little 22-page booklet, 'The Secret History of the Calves Head Club'.



This was a pro-monarchist work, first published in about 1702 (the above is the 1709 edition), which originally set out to vilify and mock the "Calves Head Heroes". In it the anonymous author admits that he had never been present at the club itself, but states that he obtained his information from, " a Whig … active in the late reign ...[that] … knew most of the members of the club and had been often invited to their meetings, but had never attended".

He deals firstly with the "character of the calf’s head clubman", and he does not mince his words:
"He is the spawn of regicide – hammered out of a rank Anabaptist hypocrite – his father beget him by the fat of sequestered lands upon a bed stolen from an honest cavalier. His villainous principles he imbibed in his mother’s womb, nourished them when born with her infectious milk and is an incorrigible rebel by instinct of nature……he is a republican monster so full of passion and prejudice that he is blind to all truth and deaf to all reason etc …"

This tirade continues for 6 pages, ending with the following words:
"… he loves nothing so well in this world as a calves head upon the 30th of January but the next time he sits down to one in derision of the sufferings of the royal martyr I heartily wish that the devil choke him."

The writer then gives supposed details of the dinner itself which formed a kind of irreligious service. An axe was hung on the wall in remembrance of Charles’ beheading. The main dish was calves’ heads which were dressed in different ways: one had a pike’s head in its mouth to represent tyranny and one had a cod’s head in its mouth to represent the person of the king and all those who had suffered under him. After the meal Charles I’s spiritual autobiographical book 'Eikon Basilike'　was burnt whilst republican anthems were sung. Then a copy of Milton’s 'Defensio Populi Anglicani' was produced and everyone laid their hands on it and swore an oath. After grace had been said a final toast was made, "To those worthy patriots who killed the tyrant".

The dinners were apparently regularly held throughout the reigns of Queen Anne and George I, but then in the reign of George II they seem to have started to fizzle out.

One was "supposedly [held] as usually on this day" in 1732:


　Caledonian Mercury, 11 February 1732

The very last appears to have been held in 1735. (This is from 'The Weekly Oracle', London, 1st February 1735):

"Thursday [30th January 1735] in the evening a disorder of a very particular nature happened in Suffolk-street [Charing Cross]. ’Tis said that several young gentlemen of distinction having met at a house there, call’d themselves the Calf’s-Head Club; and about seven o’clock a bonfire being lit up before the door, just when it was in the height, they brought a calf’s-head to the window dress’d in a napkin-cap, and after some Huzza’s, threw it into the fire: The mob were entertained with strong-beer, and for some time halloo’d as well as the best; but taking a disgust at some healths which were proposed, grew so outrageous, that they broke all the windows, forc’d themselves into the house, and would probably have pull’d it down, had not the Guards been sent for to prevent further mischief. The damage done within and without the house, is computed at some hundred pounds. The Guards were posted all night in the street, for the security of the neighbourhood."

After that widely reported debacle there are no further references to any meetings of the Club. It would appear that, following the much-reported riot, and being so clearly revealed as a political association of revolutionary character, the Calves' Head Club was finally broken up.

So today’s delightfully disgusting dish of the day, has got to be a calf’s head.

Although not a dish to modern tastes, a whole roast calf’s head was, like its fellow the Christmas boar’s head, a very popular festival dish until well into the 19th century (Mrs Beeton includes recipes for both dishes in her 1861 first edition). It is usually par-boiled and then roasted, and finally decorated with sprigs of herbs, an apple or orange in the mouth, and a coloured breadcrumb coating.

Here’s a suitable "Reſtoration-ſtyle" recipe, taken from, 'The Acccomplisht Cook', (1660) by Robert May, the principal cook to Charles II:

To roaſt a Calves head.
"Take a calves head, cleave it and take out the brains, ſkins, and blood about it, then ſteep them and the head in fair warm water the ſpace of four or five hours, ſhift them three or four times and cleanse the head; then boil the brains, & make a pudding with ſome grated bread, brains, ſome beef-ſuet minced ſmall, with ſome minced veal & ſage; ſeason the pudding with ſome cloves, mace, ſalt, ginger, ſugar, five yolks of eggs, & ſaffron; fill the head with this pudding, then cloſe it up and bind it faſt with ſome packthread, ſpit it, and bind on the caul round the head with ſome of the pudding round about it, roſt it & ſave the gravy, blow off the fat, and put to the gravy; for the ſauce a little white-wine, a ſlic't nutmeg & a piece of ſweet butter, the juyce of an orange, ſalt, and ſugar. Then bread up the head with ſome grated bread; beaten cinamon, minced lemon peel, and a little ſalt."

If you really can’t eat a whole calf’s head, or just prefer something that doesn’t grin back at you from the plate, feel free to substitute bath chaps.

Excellent stuff from MM, as ever. Thank you.

However, I'll eschew - or rather not chew - the calf's head, if you don't mind.

MM - is this the same as the Tete de veau so favoured by J Chirac?

This thread is fast becoming the material for a book by MM which, I believe, could well prove a best seller! Well researched and well presented (and appetising to boot).

As a slight deviation - today February 1st is the 989th anniversary of the coronation ceremony for the fourteen year old Edward III, the ceremony having been delayed a few days while his mammy and her lover tied up all the loose ends which their deposing of his daddy had entailed. Once Eddie Two was safely under arrest and on his way to incarceration and a highly suspicious premature demise in Berkeley Castle Isabella and her "bit of rough" Mortimer got down to business. The sprog was crowned and, as a matter of urgency, parliament was convened to pass all the necessary laws which would copper-fasten their coup and set into law all the wonderful principles that this new enlightened reign would promote.

Number one on the parliamentary agenda? An Act to limit the number of desserts a lower ranking English citizen could legally eat at one meal to two portions! Isabella did however grant that three could safely be consumed on Holy Days. Just to show that Izzie wasn't averse to sharing this dietary imposition along with her - sorry, her son's - subjects the law stipulated that top rank bods such as Isabella herself had to struggle to limit their own little repasts to thirty courses in total.

Desserts in England amongst the non-francophiles was still a rather healthy affair, comprised as it was mostly of fruit and nuts. The aristocracy however had already veered towards an unhealthy sugar addiction, even then, so in fact Isabella's intervention might be seen as an early precursor to more modern calls for legal impositions on sugar consumption that are fast becoming clamorous enough to result in what most likely will be as ineffective legislation as Isabella's proved to be.

However, a fair compromise at the time to suit Saxon and Francophile palates was this one:



Gingerbread without ginger. It actually sounds quite nice.

Well, what do you know, I made gingerbread yesterday for the first time in my life. I was going to leave it for a few days to get appropriately mature and sticky but now I will have a slice today in commemoration of wee Eddie.

2 February 1684 - during the hardest frost recorded for 500 years (and only surpassed by that in 1709) King Charles II and Queen Catherine of Braganza were driven along the frozen river Thames in a state carriage accompanied by a squad of cavalry … to visit the Great Frost Fair.


Abraham-Danielsz Hondius: A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs, London (1684)

The freezing conditions had started just before Christmas and within a week the Thames at London was frozen solid from shore to shore. An impromptu fair was rapidly set up, as John Evelyn records in his diary:
 
1st January, 1683-84. The weather continuing intolerably severe, streets of booths were set up on the Thames; the air was so very cold and thick: as of many years there had not been the like.
6th January, 1684. The river quite frozen.
9th, 1684. I went across the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as to bear not only streets of booths, in which they roasted meat, and had divers shops of wares, quite across as in a town, but coaches, carts, and horses passed over.
16th January, 1684. The Thames was filled with people and tents selling all sorts of wares as in the city.
24th January, 1684. The frost continues more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with booths in formal streets, all sorts of trades and shops furnished, and full commodities, even to a printing press, where the people and ladies took a fancy to have their names printed, and the day and year set down when printed on the Thames; [the King bought one inscribed with the names of all the royal family who were there with him], this humor took so universally, that it was estimated that the printer gained £5 a day, for printing a line only, at sixpence a name, besides what he got by ballads, etc. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several stairs to and fro, as in the streets, sleds, sliding with skates, a bull-baiting, horse and coach-races, puppet plays and interludes, cooks, tippling, and other lewd places, so that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water.”

Another eye-witness wrote (in memoirs that were later submitted anonymously by his grandson to the 'Gentleman’s Magazine’, and published by them in February 1814):

“On Candlemas Day (2nd Feburary) I went to Croydon market, and led my horse over the ice to the Horseferry from Westminster to Lambeth; as I came back I led him from Lambeth upon the middle of the Thames to Whitefriars' stairs, and so led him up by them. And this day an ox was roasted whole, over against Whitehall. King Charles and the Queen ate part of it."

The king was only just in time as a rapid thaw started four days later, as the same commentator continues, for 6th February:

“In the morning I saw a coach and six horses driven from Whitehall almost to the bridge yet by three o'clock that day, February the 6th, next to Southwark the ice was gone, so as boats did row to and fro, and the next day all the frost was gone."

Roasting whole animals, particularly big beasts like oxen, seems a common aspect of frost fairs, whether on the Thames or elsewhere throughout Europe. A whole animal roast has always been a popular celebratory spectacle, and the huge fire and long cooking time (it takes about 24 hours to roast an animal as big as an ox) must have spectacularly emphasised how unusually solid and thick the river ice was.

 
Detail from, 'A Frost Fair – Great Britain’s Wonder – London’s Admiration' (1684) ….. the ox is roasting bottom right.


So today’s dish is a whole spit-roast ox, or if that’s a little too ambitious, maybe just a bit of roast beef.

Roasting a whole ox doesn’t require a recipe as such, but rather practical words of encouragement and advice regarding basic logistics, and so ox-roast ‘recipes’ do not really exist. Nevertheless Robert May (cook to Charles II) does give this recipe idea concerning spit-roasting individual joints of beef (from, ‘The Accomplisht Cook’, 1660):

"Take a fillet which is the tenderest part of the beef, and lieth in the inner part of the surloyn, cut it as big as you can, broach it on a broach not too big, and be careful not to broach it through the best of the meat, roast it leisurely, & baste it with sweet butter, set a dish to save the gravy while it roasts, then prepare sauce for it of good store of parsely, with a few sweet herbs chopp’d smal, the yolks of three or four eggs, sometimes gross pepper minced amongst them with the peel of an orange, and a little onion; boil these together, and put in a little butter, vinegar, gravy, a spoonful of strong broth, and put it to the beef."

… which is far more sophisticated than the fare cooked on the Thames in 1684 when one could by a simple slice of roast beef with bread for just a few pennies.

Also on this day,

2 February 1880 – the arrival of the first frozen lamb from Australia to Britain.

Between 1860 and 1870 the population of Britain had risen by 20% and for the first time the country was unable to feed itself. Government committees advised that mass starvation and nation-wide anarchy were a real possibility unless ways could be found for Australia and New Zealand to send their abundant sheep in the form of meat rather than just as tallow and wool.

Independently two Britons, Thomas Mort and James Harrison, emigrated to Australia to set up systems to refrigerate meat. In 1873 Harrison gave a public banquet of meat that had been frozen in his ice factory to celebrate the departure of SS Norfolk for England. On board were twenty tons of mutton and beef kept cold by a mixture of ice and salt. But on the way the system developed a leak and the cargo was ruined. Harrison retired from the freezing business. Mort then tried a different system, using ammonia as the coolant. He too gave a frozen meat lunch, in 1875, to mark the departure for England of SS Northam. But again a leak ruined the entire cargo and Mort too retired from the business.

Both men had however left behind working refrigeration plants in Australia but the problem was to find a system that would survive the long sea voyage to London. Eventually a group of shippers went back to an earlier, less efficient, but technically more robust ‘dry air’ system. This was installed on SS Strathleven and with her first cargo of frozen meat she left Australia on 6 December 1879. The Strathleven docked in London on 2 February 1880 with her cargo intact. The meat sold at Smithfield market for between 5d and 6d per pound, and was an instant success. Queen Victoria was presented with a leg of lamb from the same consignment, and pronounced it "very good indeed".


SS Strathleven - with a typically cautious 1870s mix of sail and steam.

So for dish of the day, rather than an ox roast or roast beef, as suggested above, perhaps one should have roast lamb, a méchoui perhaps, or maybe a typically Australian barbeque.

Hmmm, what to have - for practicality, it being February and outdoor cooking being somewhat impractical - a nice fillet steak with béarnaise sauce (that's pretty much what the beef sauce above is, isn't it?) or a tagine of good Scotch lamb? Either would have been much appreciated I'd guess by Alexander Selkirk who was rescued from his South Sea island on this day in 1709, co-incidentally the year of the greatest 'big freeze' of all.

2nd February is also Candlemas (Chandeleur in French).

Here in southern France it’s customary to make crêpes on this day and traditionally one whips the crêpe mixture with the right hand while holding a coin in the left to ensure prosperity throughout the year. Also the final crêpe made should be carefully kept in a dry box or cupboard (where it won’t get eaten by mice) to ensure a plentiful harvest later in the year.

It is also Groundhog Day in the States, a tradition that can be dated back to at least 1841 when a Candlemas-related tradition held by local Pennsylvanian Germans was mentioned in a Morgantown storekeeper's diary as "Grundsaudaag". In 1887 a local newspaper editor in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania promoted the local woodchuck (Phil) to the role of meteorologist - if Phil came out of his burrow on February 2nd and saw his shadow then he'd scurry back in again, thereby guaranteeing a late spring. If on the other hand it was overcast on the day then Phil would take his time on the surface, thereby auguring a mild spell, an early spring and a fine summer ahead. Phil still makes an annual appearance in Punxsutawney, now the largest celebration of a festival that has spread far beyond Pennsylvania indeed. Legend has it that it's the same groundhog. But that's legend for you.

Anyway, if one really wants to go the whole nine yards (to use another American colloquialism) then one can eat Phil too, or one of his relations.

Woodchuck Pie

1 woodchuck
3 medium carrots
3 potatoes
1/4 cup of butter or margarine
1 onion, diced
2 tablespoons of flour and piecrust dough

Quarter the woodchuck and place the pieces in a large pot with enough cold water to cover the meat. Boil it for 10 minutes, then discard the water, refill the pan, and bring the liquid to a boil again. Lower the heat and let the contents simmer for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Add the carrots and potatoes and continue cooking the stew for about another 30 minutes ... until the meat is tender and separates easily from the bone. By this time, you should be able to pierce the vegetables readily with a fork. Now, strain the liquid and reserve 2 cups. The remaining pot liquor can be saved for soup stock, or discarded.

Next, remove the cooked meat from the bones and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Melt the butter or margarine in a large, heavy skillet, add the diced onion, and cook it for 5 minutes. Then add the flour and stir the mixture until it bubbles ... put in the reserved liquid and blend the brew some more until it thickens . . . and, when that happens, combine the vegetables and meat, mixing the whole concoction thoroughly.

Finally, butter a large casserole and pour in the meat-and-vegetable mixture. Lay piecrust dough over the top of the filling, brush the pastry with milk, and place the container in a preheated 400°F oven for about 30 minutes, or until the crust has turned golden brown.

nordmann wrote:

This thread is fast becoming the material for a book by MM which, I believe, could well prove a best seller! Well researched and well presented (and appetising to boot).

Absolutely! I'm simply in awe of Meles' contributions on this thread just from today alone.

P.S. Meles, just because your postings here may sometimes go uncommented on, that in no way suggests that they are not read or are not appreciated.

P.P.S. My stomach's rumbling. The goat's cheese open sandwich I had for lunch just isn't cutting it. I'll have to have a proper Candlemas supper tonite.

ferval wrote:

Hmmm, what to have - for practicality, it being February and outdoor cooking being somewhat impractical - a nice fillet steak with béarnaise sauce (that's pretty much what the beef sauce above is, isn't it?) or a tagine of good Scotch lamb? Either would have been much appreciated I'd guess by Alexander Selkirk who was rescued from his South Sea island on this day in 1709, co-incidentally the year of the greatest 'big freeze' of all.

I expect that on the day of his rescue Alexander Selkirk actually ate spit-roast goat. The ship that came upon him (the Duke) was a privateer and she was urgently searching this group of 'uninhabited' islands for somewhere safe to anchor and top up with supplies of fresh produce as her crew were suffering badly from scurvy and malnutrition. Selkirk, seeing in what bad health his rescuers were, immediately showed them what wild fruits were edible, and also led a party on a goat-hunting expedition of 'his' island. In some respects it was he that rescued them.

I expect Selkirk, on the day of his rescue actually ate roast goat.

Indeed, and I expect the day before and the day before that...............


she was searching this group of 'uninhabited' islands for somewhere safe to moor

Yes, where did all those ocean-going goats come from?

Oh, I forgot, they were Polynesian goats......

I thought there was a common trend for merchant ships (in the 17/18th centuries) to deliberately release potential food animals (ie pigs and goats) onto remote islands along the common shipping routes, just so they would hopefully populate the place, and so that on ones next trip there would be food animals a-plenty ready to be hunted. Of course such a policy invariably played absolute havoc with any local wildlife, but at least having numerous feral goats or pigs running over an island took some of the pressure off, say the indiginous tortoises or dodos, ... well at least for a bit anyway.

Besides doesn't Defoe specifically say that the goats that lived on Crusoe's/Selkirk's island were only there because they'd managed to swim ashore from the same wreck as he did?

It is said that ancient seafarers also did the same with planting crops. Grain was sown in South Africa by Phoenicians  before turning to port for a bit more look-see up the coast.

I wasn't sure where to put this but since bread baking is a daily task, I thought I might as well put it here.

How to make Roman bread:

http://www.openculture.com/2015/08/how-to-bake-ancient-roman-bread-dating-back-to-79-ad.html

And to link with Trike's post on the Youtube thread:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/42934/artisan-pompeii-miche

If however you are having a dinner party and have an ostrich to hand..........

http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/cook-real-recipes-from-ancient-rome.html

The wild boar however could be an achievable option for MM

Ostrich isn't so hard to get these days. Even in gastronomically conservative southern France it's occasionally available from my regular frozen food supplier, and there's a large ostrich farm just next to the A61 motorway between Narbonne and Carcassonne (which gave me a surprise the first time I drove past).

Its also good to see Patrick Faas' book being plugged ... I bought my copy for about £2 some ten years ago from a discount book seller (the sort that sells bankrupt stock and slow-moving editions etc), and as I recently mentioned in relation to Roman cheese, I find it excellent in putting Roman cuisine in context, rather than just being a simple translation/interpretation of Apicius, and without all the "gosh weren't they decadent ... honeyed dormice and flamingo tongues" comments.

And that bread recipe trying to recreate the sort of Roman loaves that have been found, rather over-baked, in Pompeii and Herculanium ... will be perfect for dish of the day, 24 August 79AD. I might try it myself, though I think it should be made with emmer wheat rather than buckwheat ... and I'm not convinced by the string arguement, but perhaps if I tried the recipe all would become clear.

Pancake Tuesday today, here is a recipe from 1588;




Tudor Pancake

I like this from your link, Trike: I love the way it is written!

From 1630:

“Then there is a thing called wheaten floure, which the cookes do mingle with water, egges, spice, and other tragical, magicall inchantments; and then they put it, by little and little, into a frying-pan of boiling suet, where it makes a confused dismal! hissing until at last, by the skill of the cooke, it is transformed into the forme of a flip-jack cal’d a pancake, which ominous incantation the ignorant people doe devoure very greedily.”

I wonder what ingredients count as "tragical, magicall inchantments"?

Ash Wednesday, Temp, and though such things don't really concern Dinosaurs, here is an old recipe for Makerouns. Noodles and cheese, meat free of course;

Medieval Mac and Cheese

Well done Trike (and for yesterday's pancakes too) ... all I managed to produce this morning was some burnt toast.

Although of course strictly speaking, since it's the first day of Lent and so a particular day of penance, in the Middle Ages you wouldn't even have been allowed anything containing eggs, milk, butter or cheese ... neither today nor for the next forty days. Eggs were particularly frowned upon as (according to Michael the Scot of Melrose, circa 1240), "Eggys ... do augmente sperma and incyte copulation", and that sort of thing was definitely not permitted during Lent.

I had an egg this morning, so I've got off to a disastrous start. But “an egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome”, whatever that Michael the Scot chap said.


The Independent had an article about Lent today. It included the following information:



Lent represents a period of fasting and abstinence in which strict observers do not eat meat on Fridays and eat fish instead. There are a few interesting exceptions to the rule however; in the late 1600s a group of monks in France classified a Puffin as a fish, as its “natural habitat was as much terrestrial as aquatic,” allowing it to be eaten on Fridays. The National Bishops’ Conference approved a New Orleans archbishop’s declaration two years ago that alligators may be eaten on Fridays, because it “is considered in the fish family,” and in 2006 a number of bishops in America gave their Irish heritage worshipers special dispensation to eat meat on one Friday during Lent. This was because St Patrick’s Day, which in America carries the tradition of eating corned beef brisket, fell on a Friday.


So we may treat ourselves to a nice bit of puffin or alligator this Friday. I'm sure that will defeat even MM's culinary genius - a recipe for Lenten puffin? I like puffins - wouldn't want to see one hurt. Not so fussed about alligators. And what about crocodiles? Are they too considered to be a sort of honorary fish?

If the criterion for Lenten consumption was an aquatic habitat and thus one of these qualified





might she also have had to be very careful where she swam?






And this one would have had no chance, an impressive centrepiece for the abbot's banquet though.

It was thought (supposedly) that these hatched from barnacles, and thus were fish and could be eaten in Lent.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/b/barnaclegoose/

Whilst accepted medieval wisdom said that barnacle geese came from barnacles, not everyone agreed that they were acceptable as Lenten fare. This is from Dorothy Hartley's 'Food in England' (1954):



Note the comment: "some ... men of religion make no scruple of eating these birds on fasting days, as not being flesh because they are not borne of flesh. But these men are curiously drawn into error."

And by the same token not everyone was convinced that beavers were fish too ... it rather all hinged on whether one agreed with the 'Summa Theologica' of Thomas Aquinas, which based animal classification as much on habit as anatomy.

But if one was going to dine on beaver I guess Nord's 'Woodchuck Pie', from 2 February, is as good a recipe as any.

PS

The capybara (another large aquatic rodent) is still a popular Lenten dish in South America.

The (New York) Sun : In Days Before Easter, Venezuelans Tuck Into Rodent-Related Delicacy

12 February 1429 – The Battle of the Herrings.

Since the previous October the French city of Orléans had been besieged by English forces. On February 12th an English supply convoy coming from occupied Paris was approaching the village of Rouvray some 20 miles to the north of Orléans. Escorted by 600 English archers and about the same number of allied Burgundian troops, the convoy of 300 wagons contained stocks of ammunition and most importantly a large quantity of salt herring in barrels. Ash Wednesday had fallen on February 9th and so the army was now on entirely meat-free Lenten rations.

Under the command of Charles of Bourbon, Count of Clermont, a French force of about 4000 men-at-arms, including 500 Scottish soldiers under John Stewart of Darnley, attempted to intercept the convoy, hoping to take it into the besieged city. As the French approached, the English commander, Sir John Falstoff, immediately arranged his wagons into a defensive laager and set up sharpened stakes. Unusually for the period the French had a number of wheeled field artillery pieces with them, and with these they started to bombard the English from a safe distance. The English were outnumbered and out-ranged, and if the artillery fire had been kept up the French might have prevailed.

However, unfortunately for the French commander, his Scottish contingent, growing impatient at the time the bombardment was taking, took it upon themselves to charge the defensive ring of wagons. It was not a good idea and the Scots were slaughtered almost to a man. For fear of hitting their allies the French artillery had to cease firing and then belatedly, and in some disarray, the French tried to back up the Scots' attack, but they were easily repulsed by the entrenched English archers. Finally, with the few cavalry at his disposal, Falstoff led a counter attack and put the French to flight.


'La Bataille des Harengs' - 15th century minature, artist unknown.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

The battle itself was little more than a skirmish but it may have been the event that finally convinced Robert of Baudricourt to accede to Joan of Arc’s demand for support and safe passage to Chinon. It was the very same day of the battle (12 February) that Joan met Baudricourt for the final time and she gave out the information that "the Dauphin’s arms had that day suffered a great reverse near Orléans". Formal news of the defeat near Rouvray arrived a few days later, and according to the story, Baudricourt immediately viewed Joan in a new light and agreed to sponsor her journey and petition to the Dauphin. In May 1429, having won the Dauphin’s trust, she led the French counter attack at Orléans and within a few days the siege was lifted.

For dish of the day it’s clearly got to be herring, whether salt, smoked or fresh. So how about a nice Dutch soused herring or perhaps a British kipper? Or maybe a Scottish herring fried in oatmeal in remembrance of John Stewart and his impetuous fellow Scots?

Salt herring was of course a medieval staple, not just for armies but for the majority of the population. As well as the whole of Lent, all Saturdays, Fridays and Wednesdays were fish days, in addition to numerous other religious fast days, and so overall about half the days of the year were obligatory meat-free days. For ordinary people who lived away from the coasts, or without their own fishponds, fish meant salted, pickled or smoked herrings, or stockfish (dried cod). Britain’s herring fleets off the east coast caught thousands of herrings throughout the summer (the herring season), and there was a big salting and pickling industry to process them for transport inland. At first they were preserved in a very primitive fashion, by salting in heaps on the shore without even being gutted. But in the 14th century improved techniques were introduced by Dutch entrepreneurs: the herrings were gutted and soaked for a day in brine before being barrelled up in rows between layers of salt to produce 'white herrings'. In a further refinement in about the same period, the fish were first soaked in brine, and then strung up and smoked for many hours, and finally barrelled as 'red herrings'.

To prepare these salty preserved herrings for consumption they were first soaked in fresh water to get rid of the excess salt and then usually simply boiled and served with a piquant sauce. If you were wealthy your cook would probably make a rich sauce based on ground almonds with dried fruit, ginger, pepper and saffron, but the best ordinary people could expect, and that would include the common soldiery besieging Orléans, would be a sauce made from home-grown mustard. But as well as adding flavour to the meal and disguising the saltiness, mustard as an accompaniment also complied with the latest medical advice since being a mildly hot spice it would counteract the cold, moist humours of the fish.

Here’s a contemporary sweet-and-sour mustard sauce recipe from 'Forme of Cury' (circa 1390):

Lumbard mustard. Take Mustard seed and waisshe it, & drye it in an ovene. Grynde it drye; sarce [sieve] it thurgh a sarce. Clarifie hony with wyne & vyneger, & stere it wel togedre, and make it thikke ynowȝ ; & whan þou wilt spende þerof make it thynne with wyne.

I’m not sure what, if any, the relationship is with Lombardy, but this recipe (from the cooks at the court of Richard II) is essentially akin to what one would still recognise as French mustard. The above recipe is not clear, but with French mustard the mustard grains are steeped for some hours in vinegar and white wine, and then pounded to a paste with additional flavourings. English mustard sauces, particularly as rustled up by the average medieval 'goodwyfe' seem to have usually been made by simply pounding the grains to a paste with water and vinegar, and as they were also often bulked out with flour, the sauce was generally milder and was served in a quantity and with a consistency, more like custard.

But even when spiced up, an all-herring diet rapidly became monotonous during Lent. One schoolboy in the 1400s gave voice to the strain of it all when he wrote in his schoolbook, (from, 'A Fifteenth Century Schoolbook', W Nelson ed. Clarendon Press, 1956):

"Thou wyll not beleve how werey I am off fysshe, and how moch I desir that flesch wer cum in ageyn."

Your food posts make such fascinating reading -  do collate and publish, MM. herring - ah! cooked anyway you like, was one of the foods I missed when abroad. I see also that sprats are on offer at Tesco........ but I have no outside place to cook them. Even cooking herrings set off my fire alarm; sprats would bring out 'Neighborhood Watch.' (With our elderly curtain-twitchers  now pushing the clouds, the younger new ones seek offence in other matters.)

Perhaps the crew of the CSS Hunley had some Frogmore Stew before setting out on their mission;

[quote="Triceratops"]Perhaps the crew of the CSS Hunley had some Frogmore Stew before setting out on their mission;

Then again, probably not, as the recipe only starts in the 1960s according to wiki:

Charleston Frogmore Stew

More likely Goober Peas;

Goober Peas

19 February 1985, the BBC broadcast the first episode of Eastenders

Jellied Eels Recipe

20 February 1816 – The première performance of Gioachino Rossini’s comic opera The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution    (Il barbiere di Siviglia, osia L'inutile precauzione) at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. Rossini, then aged just 24, had already had several operatic successes but The Barber of Seville was to be his first real triumph and it remains one of his best known operas. The opening night however was an absolute disaster.

His opera was based on the first of three plays by the French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro. Beaumarchais’ play was first performed in 1775, and was subsequently adapted by Giovanni Paisiello, whose opera (called Il barbiere di Siviglia) premiered in 1782. Rossini’s opera used a new libretto written by Cesare Sterbini and when it opened (under the title, Almaviva, osia L'inutile precauzione), Paisello’s opera had been doing the rounds of European opera houses for over a quarter of a century. Nevertheless Paisiello still considered Rossini’s version to be an affront to his own work. He rallied his supporters and they managed to thoroughly disrupt Rossini’s opening night with jeers, boos and hisses.     However the second night, in the absence of the Paisiello’s rent-a-mob, was completely different and the opera immediately became a roaring success.

Here's the overture:



Rossini was a prodigious composer sometimes writing three complete operas in a year. But in 1829, aged only 38, and having just completed his 39th opera (William Tell) he suddenly retired, first to Bologna, then Florence and finally to an opulent villa just outside Paris. From then on, apart from a little sacred music, some songs and a few instrumental pieces, he wrote nothing more. He had always been a well-known gourmand and an excellent amateur chef, and once he’d retired from composing he was able to indulge these two passions fully, and his villa became known for its lavish dinner parties. He wrote:

"I know of no more admirable occupation than eating, that is really eating. Appetite is for the stomach what love is for the heart. The stomach is the conductor, who rules the grand orchestra of our passions, and rouses it to action. The bassoon or the piccolo, grumbling its discontent or shrilling its longing, personify the empty stomach for me. The stomach, replete, on the other hand, is the triangle of enjoyment or the kettledrum of joy. As for love, I regard her as the prima donna par excellence, the goddess who sings cavatinas to the brain, intoxicates the ear, and delights the heart. Eating, loving, singing and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like the bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool." (quoted in ‘Classical Cooks’ by Ira Braus, 2006)

Inevitably he became rather stout.


Gioachino Rossini in 1865

There are a number of dishes with the appendage "alla Rossini" to their names that were created either by or specifically for him. Probably the most famous of these is Tournedos Rossini, still served by many restaurants today, and so that is today’s dish. Tournedos Rossini was purportedly created in his honour by either Auguste Escoffier, Marie-Antoine Carême or Adolphe Dugléré. It comprises a beef tournedos (filet mignon) pan-fried in butter, served on a crouton and topped with a hot slice of whole fresh foie-gras briefly sautéed at the last minute, garnished with slices of black truffle and finished with a Madeira demi-glace sauce.



Rossini died at the age of 76 from pneumonia at his French country house at Passy on Friday, 13 November 1868. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. In 1887 his remains were moved to the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, at the request of the Italian government.

Oh, that takes me back, MM. In the late 50's my smart auntie would tale me for a birthday treat to a long vanished restaurant for lunch, just across from where she worked. My menu choice was always the same: Tournedos Rossini, sauté potatoes, pêche Melba and then petits fours served in a sugar work basket and all accompanied by a non-alcoholic cocktail called a pussyfoot.

All that and the maitre d' fussing over us, I felt so very sophisticated and soigné amongst all the businessmen, it was the highlight of my year and cultivated a taste for the good things that has never left me.

I much prefer your Tournedos Rossini story to my own.

Several years ago, and only a few months before my partner died (so he sometimes acted a bit aggressively), I took him to a small local restaurant for lunch. They had Tournedos Rossini on the menu but it was rather expensive. I went for local lamb côtelettes, and he finally went for some simple pan-fried fresh foie-gras.

The waiter returned saying, sorry, but they had no fresh foie-gras left (although we were the only customers). He suggested as an alternative, and at more than twice the price, Tournedos Rossini. My partner reluctantly agreed. When it arrived it was clearly not made with fresh foie-gras .... indeed how could it have been when they had already said they had no fresh foie-gras, and a Tornedos Rossini can only be made with fresh foie-gras cooked at the very last minute.  We argued, and then when the chef refused to discuss it any further and got aggressive we just got up and started to walk out. In short there was a bit of a disagreement, then a major disagreement, then a really major disagreement and a table got knocked over .... umm, and then the Gendarmes arrived.

But in the end the police finally agreed the essential point: that you cannot serve Tournedos Rossini if you haven't got fresh foie-gras. Food is taken very seriously France and I can't quite imagine having the same experience in England. Although I do earnestly advise everyone not to take food so seriously that you end up fighting over it.

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/jeering-catcalls-and-a-wandering-cat-the-birth-of-rossinis-barber-of-seville

Rossini was no stranger to fiascos - he used to include a drawing of one, large or small according to circumstances, in his letters to his mother on the first night of a new opera.

ps - didn't Borge describe him as a trained pastry chef - I think, also, that the dining hall at the music camp established by the von Trapp family (of "Sound of Music" infamy) was named after him.

Claques were very much a part of opening nights in those days, were they not? Were they any more intimidating than today's critics though? As you said their barracking usually only disrupted one performance and might be soon forgotten whereas a stinking review lasts and is more widely read by prospective punters.

Your foie-gras story is definitely more colourful than mine though, MM. As it happens I had a slice, flash fried and glazed, as part of a starter just a couple of weeks ago for the first time in years. I did check that it was the higher welfare variety and very delicious it was too.

Higher welfare foie-gras?

That's a bit of an oxymoron, surely?

The birds are from small scale, free-range farms and are asked very nicely if they would mind swallowing all that extra food. OK, it's not perfect but it's a big improvement on the intensively farmed variety and it was only a very little slice that I had - it would have to have been, it wasn't a very expensive meal.

Geese and ducks naturally gorge themselves in autumn in preparation for winter. You can get "humane" foie gras which is basically goose liver from autumn-killed, free-range birds, here it mostly comes from Spain or Bulgaria. It's darker in colour with a firmer texture, generally not as big and nowhere near as rich nor fatty as the real gavage "stuff", but I personnally think it's got a more genuine flavour. It's still not cheap, but then its not something to have in large amounts nor everyday, and at least one can still nibble ones canapés of foie-gras et confiture d'oignon, without excessive feelings of guilt spoiling the taste.

Actually the most expensive ingredient of a Tornedos Rossini is usually the garnish of sliced black truffle. Now (January, February, March) is their season but in France, last autumn was rather hot and dry and this winter has been too mild, and so the harvest is expected to be about half that of last year. The prices, so my local newspaper tells me, are currently almost 1300 €/kg for black truffles (Tuber melanosporum). They grow in the local woods around here, but the places where they are most plentiful (the oak woods along the narrow limestone outcrop) are all privately owned and at the moment are regularly patrolled by men with little dogs and big guns (just should they come across a pheasant whilst walking the dog of course).

PS

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/jeering-catcalls-and-a-wandering-cat-the-birth-of-rossinis-barber-of-seville.

Thanks for that link Gil .... I was aware the opening night also had several on-stage misshaps, but I didn't know what they were. I'll bet it was the cat that craftily raised the trapdoor an inch too.

And I also liked the tale of Rossini on the (successful) second night pacing his room with worry, and then when the crowd turned up to fete him, he, fearing the worst, hid in the stable saying "F*** their bravos! I'm not coming out!"

24 February 1525 – The Battle of Pavia

During the French-Imperial wars in Italy, a French army under the personal command of King Francis I, having crossed the Alps and taken Milan, in February laid siege to the Italian city of Pavia. But a Spanish-Imperial army soon arrived, and on February 24th, working in conjunction with the besieged garrison, they launched a surprise dawn attack on the French siege lines. In a four hour battle the French army was decisively defeated, suffering massive casualties including many of the nobles of France. King Francis himself was captured and later forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Madrid, which cemented Spanish Habsburg control in Italy. The battle is also remembered as the first major engagement in which foot soldiers armed with hand guns and supported by pikemen, defeated a force predominantly composed of heavily armoured cavalry. The battlefield dominance of the 'invincible' mounted man-at-arms was at an end.


"The Battle of Pavia" (detail) - Joachim Patinir c. 1530.

According to legend, king Francis, seeing that the battle was lost, took refuge in a nearby farmhouse. The humble housewife, already flustered by having had a battle rage around her home all morning, was then required to rustle up a tasty meal fit for a king. She only had a pot of stock bubbling away on the fire and so had to hastily improvise: she fried some stale bread, put that into a bowl and then cracked on top a couple of eggs. She then ladled over this some of the boiling broth, and while the eggs poached she crumbled over it all some dried cheese. Francis might have lost the battle but he hadn't lost his appetite ... indeed he was so pleased with the dish he ordered his servants to note the recipe so that he could eat it again once he'd returned to France. And so, supposedly, zuppa alla Pavese was born. 

Sadly the story is probably largely apochryphal. Contemporary reports of the battle describe how Francis was surrounded by a unit of Spanish harquebusiers (hand-gunners) under the command of Cesare Hercolani, an Italian condottiere, and had his horse shot from under him. He was formally taken prisoner by a group of senior Spanish/Imperial officers (several names are mentioned together) at about mid-morning and well before lunchtime. He was then quickly escorted from the battlefield to a nearby castle (Pizzighettone). Nevertheless there is a 15th century farm house, 'Cascina Repentita', located close by the wall of the Mirabello hunting estate, roughly where Francis was cornered, which is officially recognized (at least by the local tourist board) as the place where zuppa alla Pavese was created.


The farm of Cascina Repentita today.

True or not here’s a recipe for Zuppa alla Pavese (serves 4).

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 slices French or Italian bread with crust
¼ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 ½ litres beef, veal or chicken stock
4 small eggs
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley
Freshly grated black pepper to taste

In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat, then cook the bread on both sides until golden, making sure not to blacken the edges. Place a slice of bread in each bowl. Sprinkle a tablespoon of parmigiano on each slice of bread.
Bring the broth to a rolling, vigorous boil. Without breaking the yolk, crack an egg onto the center of each slice of bread and carefully ladle the boiling broth over the egg until the bowl is filled. Let sit 1 to 2 minutes, sprinkle with parsley and a pinch of pepper and serve immediately. Add more Parmigiano-Reggiano at the table if desired.

Note that the bowls should be warmed, the eggs at room temperature and most importantly the broth must be boiling furiously before it is poured into the bowls, otherwise the eggs will not poach properly.



Buona appetito!