Food History

This morning was market morning and all the new season’s produce is happening. Tomatoes with scent and flavour, cherries, tiny parsnips and new varieties of apples. Kate takes me marketwards once a fortnight or so, and I’m getting used to the apple guy telling me “Two weeks now and we’ll have those heritage carrots for you again. This year there’ll be multicoloured beets as well.”

I’ve blogged about the nature of farmers’ market shopping before, so you probably don’t want me bouncing up and down about how different it is to buy something direct from the grower as opposed to direct from the supermarket or local shop which gets it direct from the wholesale market or from its own suppliers which (in Canberra’s case) often means ‘fresh’ fruit and vegetables coming via Sydney. Except I’m going to anyway, because there are important historical points involved. And I’m breaking it into two posts, one of which will appear tomorrow. I have a lot to say, even keeping it not-too-technical.

The pattern of who buys what from where (more…)

I started sending recipes out for the 1920s dinner this week. I know I told you about it, but I don’t know when I did it, to be honest. Somewhere between feeling sick and not feeling well.

Not only have some queries come back about the recipes (which means the testers are already thinking and cooking) but non-testers have started saving money to come to Canberra and one says he even has his costume ready. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe some people do work out their dinners nearly a year in advance? (more…)

It takes exceptional courage and skill to spin out a virus as long as I have. It also takes exceptional courage and strength to voyage in strange lands. I’ll give you more of Mr Bastard and Company every day until life is a bit more normal. If you have a favourite part of Europe you would like to time-travel to, please say and - if it’s in the guide- I can extract that section for you. Tonight’s location was chosen by Donna. (more…)

I changed my mind about recipes for today. Just because I’m not entirely well doesn’t mean you should have to read the same sort of post day in, day out. Instead of recipes, you have an extract from Algernon Bastard’s The Gourmet’s Guide to Europe from 1903. This is not entirely because I think the name ‘Algernon Bastard’ is wonderful and full of character, but I admit that the name helped. Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis is the main writer, but I like Bastard’s name better. If you like the extract and want one of my book-descriptions, all you have to do is say so in the comments.

This is from the section on Brussels. It’s dedicated to all time machine-owners in search of somewhere decent to eat.

“Brussels must have been a gayer city than the Brussels of to-day when it earned the title of “a little Paris.” (more…)

I’m a terribly lucky person. I have a virus that just doesn’t want to go away.

The trouble is that I have a busy three days and managing the aches and grump on top of work means that today and tomorrow you’ll get two more easy posts from me. Easy posts mean good recipes, so there’s nothing bad in that. Tonight’s recipe is from my grandmother, tomorrow I’ll find you something less Australian and less modern.

It’s not long until Christmas, so the recipe tonight is a Christmas Pudding made by a Jewish family (more…)

I forgot my little announcement.

I’ve sent out the first recipes for the testing of 1920s food for next year’s banquet. If you want to join in, you don’t have to love speculative fiction or to be able to come to Australia for the meal itself. All you have to do is cook a few 1920s recipes and give me your comments. I’ll blog the highlights, the way I did last year and then, after the banquet is over, give you all the recipes we ended up using, so you can hold your own banquet.

If you want recipes, just email banquet (at) conflux(dot)org(dot)au with “SEND ME RECIPES, PLEASE” in the subject line. You can ask for just one, or you can ask for twenty or you can get however many I’m handing out that day.

The recipe testing is a great deal of fun - join us!

Tonight I started teaching about food in London in the Middle Ages. It’s the first time in a while. Last time I taught Medieval food it was during my food history course, and I ranged a lot further than London.

Next week I finish teaching. Only two sessions on it. Not even two sessions, because a large chunk tonight was about how legal systems and landholding systems and people interacted.

I do love teaching food history, though. One of my students brought in Medieval gingerbread. Next week we’re getting something with apple in.

We talked about the usual things. I gave my “if your ancestors believed in eating rotten meat then maybe you’re descended from a zombie” rant* and discussed the basic seasonings used in English cooking in the later Middle Ages. We talked about what levels of society cookbooks represented and why some amazing new food history is going to reach print in the next few years (my standard methodology introduction). We looked at pretty pictures in manuscripts and discussed the size of chooks in the Middle Ages. My favourite bit, though, was where I manged to communicate to my class (an exceptionally intelligent bunch of people) that cooking with pre-modern equipment doesn’t mean bare or flavourless cooking.

Next week we’ll look at some of the ingredients and cooking methods and then we’ll move on to trade routes and what people bought where in London. I have a translation of a tariff document for my class and we’re going to consider the prices of various comestibles and how this affects who could eat them.

* my rant is much politer than its name sounds, unfortunately.

JM of Write Anyway has introduced me to US Smarties. I was expecting something like Aussie Smarties; after all, our two countries are separated by a mere sliver of water. What I found was a bit of history. Food history, of course.
(more…)

Tonight my mind is in the 1960s. last night my mind was in the 1960s, too. I was at a birthday party, and the theme was ‘Swinging Sixties.’ Party themes mean party food.

We had sort-of sixties food amidst much talk of Dr Who (and a half sized blow-up TARDIS) – I let Calliope know about the Dr Whoness and she’s current dreaming of her own blow-up TARDIS. If anyone knows where to find one, please visit her blog and let her know.

What food fits the modern Canberran idea of the sixties? (more…)

Youtube distracted me today. So did Shaun Micallef, one of my favourite comedians. I don’t know if his humour translates outside Australia, but in one YouTube clip he manages to summarise a food history sortie, so today’s post is about that clip. The photo above is for pretties – you’ll find the clip below, with a bit of commentary below that. On an almost unrelated note, I never understood why the network that hosted it didn’t understand that getting an off-the-wall comedian to host a tonight show might not produce a *normal* chat show, myself. (more…)

Tonight I have a mischmasch of recipes for you, mostly from Mrs Eaton’s book. This is our last look at the early nineteenth century for a while. For the next ten months that section of my life will be in New York in the fabled 1920s. (more…)

These are they. Or should that be “This is them”? Or maybe “Here we are”? Please just click on the links and enjoy the writing. That way I don’t have to worry about how to introduce the list.

Virginia Lee: I Ain’t Dead Yet!
Playing With Words
A View from the Waterfront
A Thoughtful Life
Gillian Polack: Food history
So, You Majored in Creative Writing; Now what?
Life in the Middle
Finding Boddie; A Simple Way to Snort Your Breakfast
Kappa No He

food history, awchain

One of the reasons I like the Absolute Write Blogchain is because you never know what the person before you is going to talk about. This means that every single time I participate, it give some new insights for my own life. Today, the insights may very well be for my own research and teaching as well. (more…)

I’m still more than a little unwell. I managed to teach today and yesterday and make hypocras for my class yesterday, but the effort has left me rather wiped out. (Don’t you like the way Australians and Brits say ‘rather wiped out’ when we mean completely obliterated?)

I don’t want to give you more of my grandmother’s recipes so soon after the last batch, and I don’t want to leave you with lame apologies two days running, so today I’m going to give you some entirely different recipes. (more…)

No wonder I was feeling tired etc. I have developed a huge migraine and feel more than a bit nauseous. Since I still have to teach tonight and tomorrow, you won’t get a proper post tonight. You especially won’t get one on the foodiness of Melbourne Cup Day, since I was sick the whole way through it.

Be back as soon as I can.