Elizabeth Raffald: The Martha Stewart of the Georgian Era

by Lauren Gilbert

Elizabeth Raffald,  From the 1782 edition of The Experienced English Housekeeper published by Baldwin

Elizabeth was born about 1733 in Doncaster, near York, and may have been baptized July 8, 1733. Her father was Joshua Whitaker, school teacher, taught her and siblings (4 sisters) including French. In the introduction to his work, Roy Shipperbottom indicates that her mother’s name was Elizabeth. However, in other data, there was a suggestion that her mother may be someone else. Little is known about Joshua. Shipperbottom’s introduction states that Joshua and Elizabeth moved from Wadwoth to Doncaster by the time the infant Elizabeth was baptized on July 8th, 1733. The Dictionary of National Biography does not mention her mother’s name, which could certainly lead one to speculate. Shipperbottom lists Elizabeth's sisters: Jane, Sarah, Ann and Mary. One learned confectionery (Mary) and another married a flax grower.

She went into service at age 15, about 1748. She was familiar with and developed contacts in the city of York. There are indications that she worked for several families in Yorkshire. John Raffald, born around 1724, was from a family with market garden stalls in Manchester and that owned land where they grew plants in Stockport with links to Salford. (John was the oldest but signed his share over to his brother George.) John was working in Pontefract for a firm of nurserymen called Perfects of Pontefract, which sold plants. There are hints that Elizabeth may have worked for a family in Pontefract (in Yorkshire, less than 100 mi from York) at the same time. There is speculation that Elizabeth met John there. John was shown in employee records as head gardener at Arley Hall in Cheshire in January 1760 with earnings of 20 pounds per year (worth roughly $3822.85 US today*).

In December 1760, Elizabeth went to Arley Hall as housekeeper (Arley Hall records indicate that she came from Doncaster-it is unclear if it means that she travelled to Arley Hall from Doncaster or that her family was from that area), earning 16 pounds per year (worth roughly $3058.28 US today*). Arley Hall was owned by Sir Peter Warburton, 4th baronet, and his wife Lady Elizabeth. Her duties included managing the female servants, buying certain comestibles from travelling vendors and keeping accounts of the money spent (she received cash monthly, turned her accounts in to the steward monthly). She would have had duties in the kitchen as well, including making wine, pickling and preserving, baking special cakes, and making table decorations. She apparently developed an excellent relationship with Lady Elizabeth.

After serving three years as housekeeper, Elizabeth married John Raffald on March 3, 1763 at Great Budworth in Cheshire (a village near to and dependent on the Warburtons of Arley Hall). Because house rules did not allow married couples, Elizabeth and John had to leave. Arley Hall records show their marriage and that they both departed some weeks afterwards, in April 1763. Some sources indicate they were given a year’s salary at that time. The couple moved to Manchester were John’s family had two market stalls were they sold plants, vegetables and flowers. The Raffald family were an established family and ran market gardens near the market place, and also owned land near Stockport, a town roughly seven miles away. Sources indicate John went to work in his family’s business. This left Elizabeth to her own devices.

Manchester was a thriving market town, with a growing textile trade. There was a commodities market and warehouses for fabrics produced in the surrounding area. Money was being made, and there were those with ambitions to rise to the gentry class. From their home in Fennel Street, Elizabeth sold food products, including Yorkshire hams and other prepared foods, sweets, and “portable soup”, and rented out space in the cellar. She also made table decorations and catered dinners. In 1764, she established a Register Office where people could find servants seeking work.

Elizabeth and John moved to a location at Market Place (later number 12 Market Place) in August 1766, which was near the Bull’s Head Inn and the town center (convenient to the newspaper, the Exchange and the market where John and his brothers sold produce). She opened a confectioner’s shop, where she sold cakes and other sweets, tea, coffee, chocolate, and condiments. She also took orders for christening and bride cakes. In addition to these ventures, she taught cooking. She maintained her ties with Arley Hall, as receipts show purchases from her. Her wares expanded, including perfumes and other items. She and John took on the running of the Bull’s Head. Apparently, Elizabeth’s culinary skills paid off: the officers of military stationed in the area transferred their mess to the Bull’s Head.

During this time period, they also started their family. Daughter Sarah may have been born in January of 1765. Mr. Shipperbottom’s and Ms. Appleton’s research showed daughters as follows: Emma was born March of 1766, Grace November 1767, Betty January 1769, Anna (or Hannah) January of 1770 and Harriot (or Harriet) September of 1774. Another child Mary was born in February of 1771, with a male child who apparently did not survive. Although some sources indicate she had nine or even sixteen children, these seven daughters and one male child are the ones who are known.

In addition to caring for her family and her business enterprises, Elizabeth was also working on her cookbook. She dedicated it to Lady Elizabeth Warburton (whom she visited in 1766 and from whom she presumably got a blessing on the cookbook and its dedication) and included clear instructions for her recipes (numbering about eight hundred, and shown as her own), based on her experience and designed to be of benefit for novice cooks. She provided information on when what foods were in season, and how to set an elegant table (including diagrams). Interestingly, she did not include recipes for medicinals, a deliberate exclusion as she preferred to defer to “...the physician’s superior judgement, whose proper province they are.” (1)

Foldout engraving of table layout for an elegant second course, from Elizabeth Raffald's The Experienced English Housekeeper, 4th Edition, 1775

The cookbook was published in 1769 on a local basis, by subscription. Eight hundred copies were sold in advance, and she signed the first page of each first edition. It was extremely popular and went into multiple editions. It is worth noting that in the second and later editions, new recipes were included that were not Elizabeth’s own. In another venture, Elizabeth gave Mr. Harrop of Harrop’s Manchester Mercury newspaper financial backing that allowed the paper to continue to be published. She entered into a similar venture in 1771 when she assisted in establishing Prescott’s Journal in Salford, a town near Stockport. She may have written articles for Prescott’s Journal. (Elizabeth had an appreciation for newspapers, as she advertised her wares in local periodicals on a regular basis.) Sometime between 1771-1773, she sold the copyright to Richard Baldwin of Paternoster Row in London for 1400 pounds (roughly $267,599.65 US today*).

Also in 1772, she produced THE MANCHESTER DIRECTORY FOR THE YEAR 1772, a trade directory of 60 pages listing local businesses and inhabitants in alphabetical order and the first of its kind for the city of Manchester. She included the Raffalds but not herself in this directory. It was designed to benefit business people and customers alike by making it possible for them to discover the locations of businesses and residents alike. (It certainly was beneficial to her employees charged with deliveries.) She published new and updated editions in 1772, 1773 and 1781. Each edition was published in a limited run of one hundred copies.

In 1772, John and Elizabeth advertised that they were closing their respective businesses, and advertised on August 25, 1772 that they were taking over the King’s Head in Salford. The King’s Head was a coaching inn with accommodations (including meals), an assembly room and stables. They held entertainments, including cards and public dinners. The officers’ mess followed them from the Bull’s Head to the King’s Head. John was the host, and appears to have been the mastermind of the Florists’ Feasts. In 1774, Elizabeth went into partnership with a Mr. Swaine in hiring out carriages from the inn. Unfortunately, the carriage rentals were not successful.

At this point, there appears to be difficulties arising. John and Elizabeth were carrying a load of debt and John acquired a reputation for heavy drinking and inconsistent behaviour. There were problems with thefts. In spite of the income from her books, including the large lump sum from Mr. Baldwin, and encouragement of her sister Mary Whitaker who moved nearby in 1776 and opened her own confectioners shop, their debt load became excessive. They ended up having to assign all of their business effects to their creditors by December 1778 and leave the King’s Head.

Their next venture was the Exchange Coffee House, for which John received the license as master in October of 1779. The coffee house was a come-down from their previous establishment, and offered much less scope for Elizabeth’s talents as the food offerings were quite limited. Subsequently, she sold hot beverages and small treats from a stand to ladies and gentlemen at the Kersal Moor racecourse nearby in the summer of 1780. There are indications that she was co-author of a book on midwifery with physician Charles White during this period as well. The stand at Kersal Moor was apparently her last independent venture.

Elizabeth Raffald died suddenly, possibly of a stroke, April 19, 1781 aged approximately 48 years. She was buried in St. Mary’s churchyard, in Stockport, in a family vault belonging to the Raffald family. She was survived by John and three daughters, her youngest Anna and two of her four older girls (Grace is known to have died in March of 1770, but it is not clear whether Sarah, Emma or Betty died young). . Some accounts indicate she was buried in haste, as her name was not engraved on the stone. There is speculation that John simply could not afford to pay for the engraving. After her death, creditors closed in and John fled to London, where it is believed that he sold the manuscript of the midwifery book. He died in 1809 at the age of 85. He was buried in Salford.

Because of the fame of her cookbook, Elizabeth Raffald has been compared variously to Mrs. Beaton of Victorian Fame and today’s Mary Berry. However, because of her entrepreneurial spirit, head for business, and wide-ranging talents, I prefer a comparison to today’s Martha Stewart. Elizabeth not only cooked the food, she created table decorations and established guidelines for setting an elegant table. She branched out beyond cooking and her cookbook into other areas, including starting an employment register, publishing her Manchester Directories, running inns and leasing carriages. She was a fascinating woman. It is worth noting that, in 2013, some of her recipes were re-introduced at Arley Hall, when the general manager announced that her pea soup, lamb pie and rice pudding would be served in the hall’s restaurant. I think she would have been pleased.

* Currency converter: I used the converter using a base year of 1770 at this site: HERE

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Raffald, Elizabeth. THE EXPERIENCED ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER. P. 3

Sources include:

Appleton, Suze. THE COMPLETE ELIZABETH RAFFALD Author, Innovator and More from Manchester’s 18th Century. 2017: Suze Appleton.

Raffald, Elizabeth. THE EXPERIENCED ENGLISH HOUSEKEEPER, with an Introduction by Roy Shipperton. Ann Bagnall, editor. 1997: Southover Press, Lewes.

Stephen, Sir Leslie, ed. DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY, Vol. 1-22, 1921-1922: Oxford University Press, London.

Arley Hall Archives. HERE

BBC.com “Georgian chef Elizabeth Raffald’s return to Arley Hall menu” posted April 6, 2013 (no author shown). HERE

Chesterfield Life. “Elizabeth Raffald-Arley Hall’s Domestic Goddess” by Paul Mackenzie, posted May 20, 2013 and updated Feb. 6, 2018. HERE

Museum of Fine Arts Houston. “Keeping House: The Story of Elizabeth Raffald” by Caroline Cole, posted Sept. 30, 2011. HERE

Sheroes of History. “Elizabeth Raffald: The Original Domestic Goddess and Celebrity Chef” by Naomi Wilcox-Lee, posted Dec. 10, 2015.HERE

The Elizabeth Raffald Society. HERE

Images:

Elizabeth, from the 1782 edition of THE EXPERIENCED HOUSEKEEPER, Wikimedia Commons (public domain).    HERE

2nd Course Table Layout, from the 4th edition of THE EXPERIENCED HOUSEKEEPER, Wikimedia Commons (public domain). HERE

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Lauren Gilbert is a dedicated reader and student of English literature and history, holding a BA in liberal arts English with a minor in Art History.  A long-time member of the Jane Austen Society of North America, she has done several presentations for the local region, and delivered a break out session at the 2011 Annual General Meeting.  Her first book, HEYERWOOD: A Novel was published in 2011, and her second, A RATIONAL ATTACHMENT, will be released (finally!) later this year.  She lives in Florida with her husband, and is researching material for a biography.  For more information, visit her website here

A Taste for Offal-Tongue and Udder

by Lauren Gilbert

I have a great fondness for old cookbooks, and have a couple of facsimile copies of cookbooks in use during the Georgian era that I use for reference, as I can find bills of fare for every month of the year, and the proper courses for serving. Needing to check on dishes that would have been in season during the months of November and December, I pulled out my copy of The Compleat Housewife: or, Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion by Eliza Smith. As I leafed through, I paused at the May entry and spotted “Roasted Tongues and Udders.” After visualizing for a moment, I went on to December, and there I found “Roasted Tongue and Udder, and Hare.”

While I am no stranger to unusual dishes, I must confess that these menu items gave me pause. I wrote about the pupton on my own blog, which included a description of a “Pulpatoon of Pigeon”. I ventured into the area of offal in a discussion of “Ragooed Palates” which sounded surprisingly tasty. I am no stranger to the concept of tongue, with beef tongue as a main dish and in sandwiches being popular well into the 20^th century, and fairly easy to find in my grocery store today. However, the idea of eating udders was something I had not previously considered.

In Mrs. Smith’s book, the following recipe appears: To roast a Tongue, or Udder. Take your Tongue or udder and parboil it, then stick into it ten or twelve cloves, and while it is roasting baste it with butter. When it is ready take it up, and send it t0 table with some gravy and sweet sauce.” (1) Apparently, since this method applied to both items, one could cook them together.


However, another recipe I found called for salting the tongue, letting it sit a few days, boiling with “a fine young udder” (2) until tender, then roasting them together with a basting of red wine and finishing with butter. After sticking the udder with cloves, this dish was served with gravy and a current jelly sauce. Hannah Glasse’s THE ART OF COOKERY MADE PLAIN AND EASY had a recipe that boils the tongue and udder together, calls for the insertion of cloves and basting with butter. However, her recipe calls for gravy and “gallintine-sauce” (her gallintine-sauce was made with bread crumbs, water, red wine and some sugar; there is a link below with a medieval recipe). I did not find a recipe that detailed the cooking of the tongue and udder with the hare all together. All of the recipes have sweetness in common, which seems odd to my modern taste.

Since this dish appears to have been fairly common over centuries, with recipes readily available, and served in the spring as well as the winter, it would be easy to assume it was popular fare. However, in my mind, offal in general is a very specific taste: one either likes it or does not. Samuel Pepys, the 17^th century diarist, apparently relished it.(3) However, Parson James Woodforde commented in 1763 after a meal which included this dish, “...I shall not dine on a roasted tongue and udder again soon”....(4) Although I am open to trying new flavours, I suspect I might have more in common with Parson Woodforde than with Mr. Pepys. However, a roasted tongue and udder would certainly make an interesting addition to a winter dinner table in Georgian England.

Sources include:
Foodreference.com. “Roast Tongue and Udder.” (c) James T. Ehler, 1990-2015. (Footnote 2.) http://www.foodreference.com/html/r-tongue-udder-1209.html
HistoryNeedsYou. .“Recipe for Gallantine Sauce.” Posted 9/12/2012. http://www.historyneedsyou.com/blog/recipe-for-galantine-a-spicy-sauce-for-meat-c1390
Glasse, Hannah. THE ART OF COOKERY Made PLAIN AND EASY. A new EDITION, with modern Improvements. This edition first published 1805. Reprint published Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 1997.
Smith, Eliza. The Compleat HOUSEWIFE: or Accomplished Gentlewoman’s COMPANION. First published 1758. Facsimile published London: Studio Editions Ltd., 1994. (Footnote 1 found on page 20)
TheOldFoodie.com “The Parson’s Tongue and Other Parts.” Posted 2/19/2006 by The Old Foodie. (Footnotes 3 and 4) http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/02/parsons-tongue-and-other-parts.html

Image “The Canon’s Dinner” from Wikimedia Commons.
Image “Frontispiece and Title Page of The Compleat Housewife: or Accomplished Gentlewoman’s Companion by Eliza Smith” from Wikimedia Commons

You can read in my blog The World of Heyerwood about puptons here https://laurengilbertheyerwood.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/food-in-history-what-is-a-pupton and a

bout ragooed palates here https://laurengilbertheyerwood.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/christmas-dinner-now-and-then 

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Lauren Gilbert lives in Florida with her husband and is working on a new novel, tentatively titled A Rational Attachment.  At least one interesting Georgian dish will be featured!  Her first published book, HEYERWOOD: A Novel, is available through Amazon.com and other outlets.  Visit her website at www.lauren-gilbert.com for more information. 

Jellies: Dessert, Medicine, Art Pieces and More!

by Lauren Gilbert

Growing up, when I thought of jelly, I thought of jelly as the apple-grape jelly my mother spread on toast and on my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I never thought of Jell-O as “jelly.” However, jellies have been popular since medieval times, and are so much more than a spread or a 9” x 13” dish of rubbery fruit-flavored treat adored by 20th and 21st century children. Expensive ingredients and elaborate moulds turned jelly into something extraordinary. They are a flexible dish that can take on certain aspects of many ingredients. They can be clear; they can be opaque. The addition of cream can add a creamy flavour and a silkier texture. Obviously powdered gelatin was not available. Hart’s horn, calves’ feet and isinglass (an expensive ingredient imported from Russia, made from the stomachs of sturgeon) were used to obtain the desired “jell”. Clear jellies required additional work, having to be filtered through the “jelly bag” to remove any pulp or fibers that might cloud the jelly.

Savory jellies, or aspics, have been a standby for centuries. Le Viandier, a 14th century French cookbook contains a recipe for aspic. The fact that a meat broth could become a jelly with cooling (thanks to the collagen in bones and cartilage) made all kinds of things possible. A wide variety of meat, poultry,eggs and fish have been served in this way. A very popular dish was jellied eel, which became popular in English cuisine in the 18th century. Eels produced a broth that jelled easily. In the Regency era, Careme, a famous French chef who at one point was employed by the Prince Regent, invented a dish called Chaud Froid (hot cold) which was prepared hot but eaten cold, which apparently included aspic.

Sweet jellies have always been favourites. These included fruit-flavoured jellies, wine jellies, sweetened cream jellies, and flummery, among others. They could be all one flavour or combinations of flavours and textures. The clear jellies were served in glasses, frequently in pyramids, which would have created a lovely effect with the light shining through. One example of a special jelly was “Oranges en Ruben”, which were orange skins filled with alternating layers of red wine jelly and creamy flummery in stripes, which must have been a lovely presentation. (The Petworth House and Park website has a recipe called “Stripey Orange Jellies” that seems very close to this special treat.)

It was considered that invalids were best nourished with dainty portions of foods that were easy to eat. Jellies would slip down easily, not aggravating a sore throat, or requiring much effort in chewing or swallowing. Calves’ foot jelly and pork jelly were considered especially strengthening. Pork jelly, such as Dr. Ratcliffe’s (or Ratteliff’s) Restorative Pork Jelly, was highly recommended for loss of appetite or any sort of consumptive complaint. There are multiple recipes for jellies recommended for varying complaints, most based on calves’ feet or hart’s horn. (I ran across one that included snails and citrus juice.)

There were establishments dedicated to the jelly. Just as there were coffee houses in the Georgian era, there were jelly houses that served jelly in special glasses. (According to Clarissa Dickson Wright, they were popular with prostitutes and their customers, so acquired a bad reputation.) In THE EPICURE’S ALMANACK, John Rylance specifically listed Tomlinson’s Jelly House in St James’s, that specialized in jellies only, and had been in business for over a century.

One of the aspects of jelly that maintained its popularity was the shape. Jelly moulds came in all kinds of shapes and sizes, from architectural forms (such as Solomon’s Temple) to fruit garlands, fish shapes and even multipart moulds that allowed for colour and textural contrasts. Moulded jellies maintained their popularity through the Victorian era, but gradually lost their appeal in the 20th century. Do visit the Petworth House and Park website; there are some wonderful photographs of jellies made in Georgian moulds. Take a look!

Sources include:

Brears, Peter. JELLIES AND THEIR MOULDS. 2010: Prospect Books, Totnes, Devon England. On-line at https://prospectbooks.co.uk/samples/Jellies.pdf

Dickson Wright, Clarissa. A HISTORY OF ENGLSH FOOD. 2011: Random House, London.

Rylance, Ralph. THE EPICURE’S ALMANACK Eating and Drinking in Regency London. Edited by Janet Ing Feeman. 2013: British Library, London.

Historic Food blog. “Jelly, Flummery and Creams.” http://www.historicfood.com/Jellies.htm

Petworth House and Park website. “Jellies, Jellies Everywhere!” http://petworthhouse.blogspot.com/2013/09/jellies-jellies-everywhere.html



Lauren Gilbert published her first book, HEYERWOOD A Novel, in 2011. She is currently working on another novel, in which Tomlinson's Jelly House will make an appearance, and has notes for a non-fiction work as well. She lives in Florida with her husband.

In a Pickle

by Lauren Gilbert

Being American, when I think of “pickle”, I think of pickled cucumbers heavy with dill and garlic. Pickled beets, too, are a favourite of mine. However, in Georgian England, a wide range of foods was pickled, as it was still a common method of preservation. Many exotic foods from other parts of the world became popular in a pickled form, as that was the only way they could be preserved for shipping.

Pickling, as in preserving via a brine or salt solution, has been known since ancient times. Some attribute it to the ancient Egyptians. China, Mesopotamia and India also used this method. (Pickled cucumbers were a favourite in ancient India.) Once disseminated to the Romans, the rest, as they say, is history. In one form or another, pickling has been used for centuries in virtually all cultures. The word pickle itself is supposed to derive from the old Dutch “pekel” which meant the pickling brine or a spicy sauce. Pickling was a common method of preserving seasonal food for later use. The item to be pickled was usually steeped in brine (usually water with a quantity of salt “enough to float an egg”) and then boiled in a mixture of vinegar, salt and other spices. The early cook books are filled with recipes for a variety of pickled vegetables and other items.

In England, pickles of various kinds have always been popular. However, it is important to realize that a wide range of foodstuffs were pickled, ranging from various vegetables, to eggs, fish, meats and poultry. Today, we forget that eggs and vegetables were once seasonal foods, and pickling was a favourite means of extending their shelf life. The addition of spices, sugar and herbs imparted a strong flavour that must have made dining much more pleasurable, especially during the colder months when pickled foods would have been consumed most frequently. Elizabeth I and Samuel Pepys were known to be fond of pickles and pickled fruits and vegetables of all kinds were commonly served on their own in pickle dishes or used in sauces.

A popular dish in England for centuries was puffin meat and, in the Georgian era, pickled puffin was quite popular. A sea bird whose diet is mainly fish, pickling not only preserved the meat but helped to reduce the strong fishy taste. The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies blog posted a recipe for pigeons “to make pigeons look like puffins” (this would appeal to someone who could not afford puffin meat which was a delicacy). This recipe includes boiling the meat in a mixture that included vinegar. While it was intended to be eaten right away, the recipe contains an additional step: “If you keep them anytime, boyle the pickle again & put it to them when cold.” (Eliza Smith also has a recipe for pickled pigeon which, when served, were eaten with vinegar and oil.)

“India pickle” was a popular pickle during the Georgian era. In Hannah Glasse’s cookbooks, the recipe for “Indian pickle” contains turmeric, garlic, mustard seed, “long pepper” (an Indian flowering vine which fruit is dried and used as a seasoning and is hotter than black pepper), and ginger mixed in vinegar in which two cabbages and two cauliflowers are pickled. In A Jane Austen Household Book, a similar combination of ingredients is used. This dish evolved to piccalilli which is still common.

Clearly a wide range of foods were consumed as a pickle. Eliza Smith, Hannah Glasse and others preserved recipes for pickled ham and tongue, nasturtium buds, quinces, asparagus, oysters and lobsters. Multiple ways to pickle walnuts mushroom and fruits were known. The spices and seasonings used evolved as availability and affordability increased. The term “pickle” had a much broader culinary meaning than most of us know today.

Sources

Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. (Facsimile of first American edition published in 1805, reprinted1997 by Applewood Books, Bedford, MA).

Hickman, Peggy. A Jane Austen Household Book with Martha Lloyd’s recipes.

Smith, Eliza. The Compleat Housewife. (First published 1758, published 1994 by Studio Editions Ltd., London, England).

The Food Timeline.

The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies.

British History Online. Dictionary of Traded Goods and Commodities 1550-1820, by Nancy Cox and Karen Dannehl, 2007.

InDepthInfo.com  In Depth Info on Pickles.  “Pickle History.”

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Lauren Gilbert, author of Heyerwood, A Novel, lives in Florida with her husband.  Visit her website to find out more.  Her second book is due out later this year.

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.