When Roasted Crabs Hiss In the Bowl - The Cup That Cheers, 17th Century Style

by M.J. Logue

What historical fiction, and what winter's evening, would be complete without the traditional foaming mug of mulled ale?

On those short, dark winter days - on those even shorter, darker, wintrier days of the Little Ice Age that was seveneteenth-century England - a brief social excursion could be a whole day's trip on horseback, or a perilous, freezing trip in a draughty carriage. Cold, wet stockings - there is no evidence to suggest that women wore anything so sensible as boots - and heavy, clinging cold wool cloaks. No central heating, nothing but an inadequate fire in houses bedevilled by draughts and inadequately insulated. Unbearable, no?

Well, no. Because in a rather civilised manner, one was provided with one's own, internal central heating.

I have blogged before on the dubious delights of buttered ale, much beloved of one fictional Parliamentarian officer's wife as a cure-all for every ill. Samuel Pepys is inclined to agree with her -

"Thence home and to the office, and so home having a great cold, and so my wife and Mrs. Barbary have very great ones, we are at a loss how we all come by it together, so to bed, drinking butter-ale."

Robert May in "The Accomplish't Cook" in 1660 described it as

... Take beer or ale and boil it, then scum it, and put to it some liquorish and anniseeds, boil them well together; then have in a clean flaggon or quart pot some yolks of eggs well beaten with some of the foresaid beer, and some good butter; strain your butter'd beer, put it in the flaggon, and brew it with the butter and eggs.

Het Babbitt's recipe is a late Tudor one and contains ginger and cloves as well as nutmeg, and (mercifully) no licquorice. There's a traditional folk song called either "The Owl" or "Who Gave Thee Thy Jolly Red Nose?" - which often turns up, rather wonderfully, in children's songbooks - the chorus of which goes

"Nose, nose, jolly red nose
and who gave thee that jolly red nose
Cinamin, ginger, nutmeg and cloves
and that gave me my jolly red nose!"

- and now you know in what capacity they were being taken!

Now, I will be honest, and say that having tried buttered ale it did nothing for me at all. Hippocras, on the other hand, is much nicer. Somewhere between a medicine, a syrup and a celebration drink, it was a spiced, sweetened wine served - possibly heated, and possibly not always - at the end of meals.

These two recipes are transcriptions from the Historic Food website, as an illustration of just how exotic - and expensive - a good hippocras would be:

Ipocras out of an old booke

Take a pottole of white or redd wyne and take a pynt of clarified honye: and mixe well the wyne and honye together in a clean pan, and you take 3 ozs of ginger, of pepper a quarter of an ounce, of good cynnimone 1 oz., saffron 1 oz., Spikenard of Spayn 1 oz., gallingale 1 oz., and make :all into pouder, and put it into the wyne and honye and medell them together, and you colour it with tumsole, and make it as red as you will: and pour it into a bagg and strain it through the bagg often tymes till it be clere, and so serve it forth.

From an early seveneteenth century manuscript (Mss. Sloane 3690, ff 26b.).

To make an excellent aromaticall Hyppocras
Take of Cinnamon two ounces, Ginger an ounce, Cloves and Nutmegs of each two drams, of white Pepper half a dram, of Cardamums two drams: of Musk Mallow seed, three ounces. Let these be bruised, and put into a bag and hanged in six gallons of Wine. Note that you must put a weight in the bag to make it sink.
‘Some boyl these spices in Wine, which they then sweeten with sugar, and then let run through a Hyppocras bag, and afterwards bottle it up, and use when they please.

A little too expensive for my plain Essex goodwife in 1645. and so her recipe is much plainer. taken from the same Elizabethan cookbook as her buttered ale:

2 quarts red wine
1 tbsp ginger
2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
6 whole peppercorns
9 whole cloves
1/2 tsp rosemary
1 cup sugar
Boil it all up, remove from the boil, allow to steep for 12 hours and longer if you can. Heady stuff, so drink cautiously - but very warming...

Of course, if you are in need of something more substantial, I will leave you with the very housewifely Elizabeth Cromwell's recipe for sack posset. I will say nothing about Oliver's much-vaunted tendency to start throwing this substance about in jest (he is reported to have spent a happy afternoon at his daughter's wedding in November 1657 chucking posset over the ladies' gowns - an interesting sense of humour, the Lord Protector.)

I think this may have been the recipe she used for the wedding, because it starts with

"Set a Gallon of Milk on the Fire, with whole Cinamon and large Mace, when it boyls stir in a half, or whole pound of Naples-bisket grated very small, keeping it stirring till it boyls, then beat eight Eggs together, casting of the whites away; beat them well with a Ladle-ful of Milk, then take the Milk off the fire, and stir in the Eggs; then put it on again, but keep it stirring for fear of curdling; then make ready a pint of Sack, warming it upon the coals, with a little Rose-water, season your Milk with sugar, and pour it into the Sack in a large bason, and stir it a pace, then throw on a good deal of beaten Cinamon, and so serve it up."

Aren't you glad we can just put the kettle on?

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 MJ Logue can be found lurking at uncivilwars.blogspot.co.uk, and is currently working on the week-by-week run up to Christmas of that hard-done-to Essex goodwife Het Babbitt. and the first four books in her bestselling series featuring the (mis)adventures of sweary Parliamentarian cavalry officer Hollie Babbitt and his rebel rabble are available here.

Don't Scoff at the Minced Pie

by Maria Grace

Traditional foods are an important part of any celebration. Every family and every culture has certain dishes that speak of holidays and festivities would be incomplete without them. This was as true in the Regency era as it is today.

During the Regency, most also considered mince meat pies, also known as Christmas or Twelfth Night pies staples for a Christmas feast and the whole of Christmastide.

These pies can be traced back to the 13^th century when crusaders returned with Middle Eastern recipes featuring meat, fruit and spices together. Mixing meat with fruit and spices helped preserve the meat without smoke, drying or salt.

In the 15th century, King Henry V served a mincemeat pie at his coronation. King Henry VIII liked his Christmas pie to be a main-dish pie filled with mincemeat.

Originally the mince pies were oblong or oval; the pastry crust tended to sink in the middle resembling Jesus’ manger. Sometimes a small doll was made from pastry and placed in the center. These were known as crib pies. In the 1600’s, the pies became circular, though they might be as large as 20 lbs. In the intervening centuries they have become smaller.

These well-loved treats were, for a time, stigmatized by the Puritans. During Cromwell's rule as Lord Protector in the mid 1600's, his council banned the celebration of Christmas as it was not sanctioned in the bible. Puritans frowned on rich food and alcoholic drink. Minced pie represented both and was not considered fit to occupy a clergyman's plate. A 1656 satire called 'Christmas Day' calls them 'Idolatrie in a Crust'. Following Cromwell's death, Christmas celebrations, including minced pie, returned in force.

Leftovers from the Christmas feast would be used to make pies for the twelve days until Epiphany. Pies could be made up shortly after the feast and could last up to two months, if the weather were cold. Recipes varied by region, but usually included beef, poultry and other meats, suet, sugar, raisins or currants, spices, orange and lemon peel, eggs, apples and brandy. When making the minced-meat filling, custom says it should be stirred it only clockwise because stirring it counterclockwise would bring bad luck for the coming year. Tradition says that the filling should include cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to represent the gifts of the Magi to the infant Jesus. Similarly, a star shaped bit of pastry should top the pie for the star of Bethlehem.

Eating minced pie every day of the twelve days of Christmas was said to bring twelve months of happiness in the new year. To strengthen the charm, the pies must be baked by the dozen and offered by friends. Other traditions suggest while eating the first mince pie of the season, the eater should make a wish make a wish and that mince pies should be eaten in silence.






Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery (1747) offered this recipe for Minced Pie.



To make Mince-Pies the best way

TAKE three pounds of suet shred very fine, and chopped as small as possible; two pounds of raisins stoned, and chopped as fine as possible; two pounds of currants nicely picked, washed, rubbed, and dried at the fire; half a hundred of fine pippins, pared, cored, and chopped small; half a pound of fine sugar pounded fine; a quarter of an ounce of mace, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, two large nutmegs, all beat fine; put all together into a great pan, and mix it well together with half a pint of brandy, and half a pint of sack; put it down close in a stone pot, and it will keep good four months.

When you make your pies, take a little dish, something bigger than a soup plate, lay a very thin crust all over it, lay a thin layer of meat, and then a thin layer of citron cut very thin, then a layer of mince-meat, and a layer of orange-peel cut thin, over that a little meat, squeeze half the juice of a fine Seville orange or lemon, lay on your crust, and bake it nicely. 

These pies eat finely cold. If you make them in little patties, mix your meat and sweet-meats accordingly. If you choose meat in your pies, parboil a neat's tongue, peel it, and chop the meat as fine as possible, and mix with the rest; or two pounds of the inside of a sirloin of beef boiled. But you must double the quantity of fruit when you use meat.~Hannah Glasse

References

A Regency Christmas By Kieran Hazzard ©2013 2nd Bn. 95th Rifles  
Christmas Feast  
Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. (1784) London 
Hale, Mrs. Sarah J. Morton, M. Michael And Louis A. Godey. Lady's Book, Philadelphia: Louis A. Godey, Publishers' Hall, Dec. 1860. 
Hirst, Christopher. Sweet delight: A brief history of the mince pie  
History of Mince Pie  
The History of Mince Pie  
Jane Austen and Christmas: The Christmas Eve Dinner at Randalls 
Jones, Callie . The mince pie in history, myth and law   
 Rundell, Eliza. A New System of Domestic Cookery. (1814)


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 Maria Grace is the author of Darcy's Decision,  The Future Mrs. Darcy and All the Appearance of Goodness.  Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, follow on Twitter or email her.

The Scent of Lavender...


By Lauren Gilbert

Lavender from Encyclopedia Britannica 1911 via Wikimedia Commons



  

      I have loved the scent of lavender since I was a teenager in the ‘60’s when Yardley’s English Lavender became a popular fragrance (at least, it was new to me!).  Light, fresh, clean and sweet, lavender has an ageless appeal.  It is almost impossible to pick up a Regency novel without a mention of lavender, whether it is scenting the hero’s immaculate white linen (a suitably masculine blend, of course), or wafting ever so subtly from the heroine’s lace-edged handkerchief. 

     Lavender is an ancient herb, long associated with healing.  Its Latin name Lavandula latifolia, appears to be derived from the Latin verb lavare, meaning “to wash” and the Romans used it to deter flies and sweeten the air, as well as to clean and dress wounds.  The ancient Egyptians used lavender in embalming and in scented unguents.  It was widely used in Tudor England, where  lavender was placed in linens (not only making them smell sweet but discouraging insects!); sewn into little bags, it could be tucked amongst clothing or into one’s bosom.  Queen Elizabeth found lavender tea soothing for migraines and used lavender perfume as well.  In the Georgian era, the perfumers D R Harris made a popular lavender water for gentleman, and Floris used lavender in potpourris and perfumes for ladies (both are still in business today)

     Down through the centuries, lavender has been long considered something of a miracle herb.  In  Nicholas Culpeper’s herbal (1653 edition), he says it cures “all griefs and pains of the head and brain that proceed of a cold cause…” and also recommends its use for dropsy, heart ailments, liver and spleen obstructions, tooth ache, and more.  Even today, herb guides discuss its antiseptic and painkilling attributes.  (Mine says it can be used to sooth insect bites, burns, sore throats and headaches, and is a relaxant when used in the bath, among other medicinal uses!)   I know from personal experience that it works wonderfully to deter moths and other insects from my linen closet and pantry-how many modern insect repellents work well, smell wonderful, and have no poisonous effects?

Among many old recipes including lavender I ran across, two seemed good to include:

The first is not adapted for modern preparation, other than the list of ingredients:

Lavender Wine (1655)

1 bottle of Sack, 3 ounces of sugar, 2 ounces of lavender flowers, and ambergris

Take 2 ounces of dryed lavender flowers and put them into a bottle of Sack, and beat 3 ounces of Sugar candy, or fine Sugar, and grinde some Ambergreese, and put it in the bottle and shake it oft, then run it through a gelly bag, and give it for a great Cordiall after a week’s standing or more.

[Derived from a recipe from The Queen’s Closet Opened, by W.M., Cook to Queen Henrietta Maria.]     

The next recipe contains the old version, and an adapted version, so that one can make it if desired:

Martha Lloyd’s English Lavender Water

To one quart of the best rectified spirits of wine put 3/4 oz. of essence of Lavender and 1/2 a scruple of ambergris; shake it together and it is fit to use in a few days.

Modern Equivalents

From: Herbinfo
To make Lavender water, put 3 handfuls of dried Lavender flowers into a wide necked screw top jar and add 1 cup of white wine vinegar and 1/2 cup Rose water.
Leave the mixture in the dark for 2-3 weeks and shake the bottle frequently.

If flowers are not available, use essential oils. Mix 25 drops of essential oil (traditionally lavender, rose or neroli) with 2 fl oz (50ml) ethyl alcohol (or isopropyl or vodka). Shake them together in a screw-top bottle. Leave the mixture to settle for 2 days then shake again. To store, pour into a dark bottle with a tight fitting lid and leave almost no air space.

[This recipe is from the Jane Austen Centre Bath website, posted by Laura Boyle 1/3/2002, in its entirety.  This is a fascinating website, and well worth a look!]

Bibliography

Bremness, Lesley.  HERBS.  Dorling Kindersley: New York.  1994

Renfrow, Cindy.  A SIP THROUGH TIME A Collection of Old Brewing Recipes.  2008

Bibliomania.com.  Culpeper’s Complete Herbal 1653 edition.  http://www.bibliomania.com/2/1/66/113/frameset.html 

The Georgian Index.  Sellers of Perfumes and Other Toilettries.  http://www.georgianindex.net/London/l_merchants.html

Jane Austen Centre Bath.  Martha Lloyd’s English Lavender Water.  http://www.janeausten.co.uk/english-lavender-water/

 LavenderFarm.com.  The History of Lavender. http://www.lavenderfarm.com/history.htm

Lavenderenchantment.com . The History of Lavender.  http://www.lavenderenchantment.com/History_Lore/history.htm

Lauren Gilbert is the author of HEYERWOOD: A Novel.  She is a member of JASNA, lives in Florida, and is working on her next novel. 

The History of Gingerbread

by Gillian Bagwell

Here in America, we associate gingerbread with Christmas, in the form of gingerbread men and decorated gingerbread houses. But gingerbread has a long history. The word "gingerbread" comes from the Old French word "gingebras", which comes from the Latin word "zingiber", meaning preserved ginger. Eventually gingerbread came to mean either biscuits or cake made with ginger and other spices.

The first documented trade of gingerbread biscuits was in the sixteenth century, where they were sold in pharmacies, monasteries and town square farmers' markets. In Shakespeare’s play Love’s Labor’s Lost, Costard, the country fool tells little Moth, “And I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread.” Some early recipes had more of a kick than we’re used to, calling for pepper or mustard. In Part One of Henry IV, Hotspur mentions “pepper gingerbread.”

The town of Market Drayton (then Drayton) in Shropshire, England became famous for its gingerbread biscuits, which were traditionally eaten dipped in port. Possibly gingerbread (and perhaps port!) were responsible for the Great Fire of Drayton in 1641. It started in a bakery and raged through the half-timbered buildings with thatched roofs and destroyed seventy percent of the town.

The other type of gingerbread traditional in England is a dense, moist cake, usually baked in a square shape or loaf. It is traditionally eaten on Bonfire Night, the Fifth of November's annual commemoration of the foiling of the plot by Guy Fawkes and his accomplices to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.

Perkin or parkin (both diminutives of the name Peter) is a kind of gingerbread typically made with oatmeal and molasses, originally made in Northern England. It keeps well, and is traditionally not eaten fresh.

Below are two quite different English gingerbread recipes. The first is from Sir Hugh Platt’s Delights for Ladies, published in 1608, for gingerbread biscuits. The original and updated recipes are from A Taste of History: 10,000 Years of Food in Britain. The second recipe, from October 1907, is the parkin variety of moist gingerbread cake. The Guardian newspaper printed it in 2007 and noted “Back then parkin sold for eight old pence a pound.”

1608 GINGERBREAD

To make gingerbread: Take three stale Manchets and grate them, drie them, and sift them through a fine sieve, then adde unto them one ounce of ginger beeing beaten, and as much Cinamon, one ounce of liquorice and aniseedes being beaten together and searced, halfe a pound of sugar, then boile all these together in a posnet, with a quart of claret wine till them come to a stiff paste with often stirring of it; and when it is stiffe, mold it on a table and so drive it thin,
and print it in your moldes; dust your moldes with Cinamon, Ginger, and liquorice, beeing mixed together in fine powder. This is your gingerbread used at the Court, and in all gentlemens houses at festival times. It is otherwise called drie Leach.

Translation!

2 cups (225 g.) fresh white breadcrumbs
1 tsp. (5 ml.) ground ginger
1 tsp. (5 ml.) cinnamon

1 tsp. (5 ml.) aniseed
1 tsp. (5 ml.) ground liquorice (if available)
¼ cup (2.5 g.) sugar)
½ cup (150 ml.) claret

Dry the breadcrumbs under the grill or in the oven (but without browning), and add to the remaining ingredients in a saucepan. Work the mixture over a gentle heat with a wooden spoon, until it forms a stiff dough. Turn the dough out onto a wooden board dusted with ground ginger and cinnamon and roll it out to about ¼ inch (5 mm.) in thickness. It may then be impressed with a small stamp, a 1 inch (2.5 cm.) diameter butter press being ideal for this purpose, and cut into small circles, using a pastry cutter. If antique gingerbread molds are available, then they should be dusted with the ground spices before the slab of dough is firmly impressed into their designs. Then, after the surplus has been trimmed off with the knife, the gingerbread can be removed by inverting the molds, and gently knocking their edges down onto the table. Like most early gingerbreads, this version released its flavors gradually, the gentle aniseed being slowly overwhelmed by the fiery ginger.

Neither of the recipes mentions baking, but I think this might be a mistake. Based on modern recipes, I would bake the gingerbread at 375F/190C for about 8-10 minutes.

1907 GINGERBREAD

2 cups (225g) plain flour
3½ tsp ground ginger
¾ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
A pinch of salt
1½ cups (125g) medium oatmeal
½ cup (100g) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 c. cup (125g) light soft brown sugar
Zest of ½ lemon
¼ cup (100g) treacle or molasses
3 tablespoons (75g) golden syrup or corn syrup (or you could use all molasses)
3 ½ tablespoons (50ml) milk
¼ cup (50g) mixed peel, finely chopped

Butter a deep, 8 inch (20cm) square cake tin and line the base with nonstick baking parchment. Heat the oven to 350F/180C (160C fan-assisted/gas mark 4). Sift the flour, spices, soda and salt into a bowl, then stir in the oatmeal. In another bowl beat the butter, sugar and zest until light and fluffy. Add the treacle and syrup, beat again until creamy and smooth, then add the milk and the
dry ingredients, and beat quickly until smooth once more. Fold in the mixed peel, then spoon the mixture into the tin. Cover the top with foil, bake for 40 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

Sources

The Guardian newspaper

Wikipedia

A Taste of History: 10,000 Years of Food in Britain, Brears et al., published by English Heritage in association with British Museum Press, 1993

Shakespeare Lexicon and Quotation Dictionary, Alexander Schmidt, 1902, reprinted by Dover Publications, Inc., 1971

Gillian Bagwell is the author of The Darling Strumpet, The September Queen, and the forthcoming My Lady Bess. For information about her books, and links to other articles and the blogs of her research adventures, please visit her website.