Food history - the Mrs Beeton class experience
Mrs Beeton was supposed to be a minor part of yesterday’s class. I wanted to spend more time on exploring why some cultures managed to retain foodways despite colonisation etc and others didn’t. All we got of that was about 20 minutes with a few interesting books. And it was all Mrs Beeton’s fault. My students kept opening various editions of her book and reading bits aloud or noticing interesting snippets. And then there was the scrapbook.
The scrapbook was from a high school version of Mrs Beeton the musical (which isn’t the correct name for it - it’s Mrs Beeton’s Book: a Music-Hall Guide to Victorian Living and was published by Novello in 1983) and we were sung small sections. Between that and the wonderful food, my lesson plan was entirely thrown upside down. And next week is the last week, so there’s a bunch of mopping up to do. Also a chocolate tasting.
I shouldn’t complain. There wasn’t so much historical theory in last night’s class, but we met a wonderful bunch of recipes and some amazing household tips. And I taught the big bit of theory - the huge change in cookbooks from the nineteenth century and their social impact. We also talked about the effects of industrialistion on the foodways of the poorer parts of populations.
Mostly, though, we had great fun. We worked out what sort of cake packed best in from-home packages sent to kids at boarding school in the nineteenth century and why a cookbook for the poor would recommend two stoves. And we talked about Mrs Beeton. A lot. I rather suspect most of the class sought bookshops and libraries today, to check out this.
food history, teaching food history, Mrs Beeton, foodways
Leave a Reply