Risky Regencies

Winter in London, or All the Town’s a Slide

Updated on December 13, 2017 by Sandra Schwab

“All the town’s a slide,
And all the men and women merely skaters,”

rhymes PUNCH in 1850 (with a nod towards the Bard), and indeed, 19th-century Londoners were keen skaters: when during a strong frost in January 1850 all the ornamental lakes in the parks of London froze, people turned out in their thousands to slide or skate along the ice. THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS talks of 12,000 people assembling in St. James’s Park alone to enjoy the wintry spell.

The Serpentine in Hyde Park was another favorite with skaters, and one of Richard Doyle’s illustration from “Manners and Customs of ye Englyshe” depicts the crush.

Apart from the bodies of water, the streets themselves often froze over, no doubt helped along by the many child workers out and about, who, PUNCH suggests, took joy in turning the main thoroughfares of London into giant slides:

But of course, Mr. Punch has already come up with a brilliant solution to this particular problem: “As slides in public thoroughfares, during the frost, are now ‘great facts,’ which the police officially recognise, there is only one thing to be desired, namely, that some little order should be observed on the foot-pavements, so as to make a slide a convenient and rapid mode of transit. […] By the present system, under which slides are merely tolerated, and are only partially carried out, some of the public who are unprepared for them, keep tumbling about in a very awkward manner. A well-regulated routine of slides, under the control of the police, would be an understood accommodation for all, and order could easily be preserved by sending policemen up and down each series of slides at proper intervals.” 🙂

After all, tumbling about is not nice, as some of the PUNCH contributors know only too well: this little initial letter is “drawn from experience”:

What about your town? Has winter already come to where you live? (Frankfurt turned into a Winter Wonderland on Sunday, and we’ll probably get more snow toward the weekend.)

Posted in History, Places | Tagged Illustrated London News, Life in London, Punch, Sandy and the Periodicals | Leave a reply

Jane Austen Movie Night

Updated on November 19, 2017 by Elena Greene

This weekend I hosted the “Dining for Dollars” Jane Austen Movie Night I’ve been talking about. About twenty people attended and I think all had a lovely time. My goal with the menu was to serve foods based on period recipes that would have a reasonable appeal to modern tastes, but also to make sure to honor the guests’ dietary needs and preferences, including some dishes that were vegetarian, some gluten free, and some nut free. Luckily, no one was vegan, because it’s hard to find recipes that don’t include some butter and/or eggs! I used a lot of recipes from The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye, also some I found online.

The dinner menu:
– Salamongondy (pictured: a salad of cold meats, vegetables, and fruit, based on a Hannah Glass recipe)
– White Fricasey (a chicken and mushroom stew, also a Hannah Glasse recipe)
– Roast Potatoes (adapted from Hannah Glasse, using gluten free crumbs)
– Vegetable Pie (adapted from the cookbook of Martha Lloyd)
– Swiss Soup Meagre (also from Martha Lloyd, also adapted to be gluten free)
– Bread, both regular and gluten free (I cheated and bought from a store that has a good bakery)

I served lemonade, burgundy, claret (Bordeaux), and hock (white German wine).

There was a lot to do to prepare, so several friends came early and took the role that would be taken by under-cooks, kitchen maids, and scullery maids, for which I am very grateful!

While the guests were arriving and getting their food, I played Jane’s Hand, a CD of music from Jane Austen’s songbooks. Here is one of my favorites, “I Have a Silent Sorrow Here”, written by none other than Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire and performed by Julianne Baird.

I offered guests a choice of films to watch, and they chose Persuasion, starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds, because most had not already seen it. They enjoyed the story and the romantic resolution. Here’s the famous “letter scene”.

Some of my guests were surprised that Persuasion is not as popular as Pride & Prejudice and said they were eager to read the book now.

The dessert menu:
– Hedgehogs (adapted from Hannah Glasse–a huge hit but without the calf’s foot jelly!)
– Rout Drop Cakes (little cookies flavored with rose water, sherry, brandy, and orange juice, dotted with currents, a Maria Rundell recipe)
– Chocolate Ice Cream (store bought, gluten free)

It was a lot of work, but so fun I may do it again sometime.

Have you ever done anything like this, or would you like to? Which movies are your favorites? Any foods or drinks you’ve tried to recreate, or want to?

Elena

Posted in Food, Frivolity, Jane Austen, Music, TV and Film | Tagged Hannah Glasse, Jane Austen Movie Night, Maria Rundell, Martha Lloyd | Leave a reply

That Bewitching Illustrated London News, or, Oooops, I Did It Again

Updated on November 8, 2017 by Sandra Schwab

Dear Reader,

I did it again. ~~I went on Abebooks and bought another volume of the Illustrated London News~~ I discovered another poor, abandoned volume of a nineteenth-century newspaper, sitting in a corner, crying piteously, so of course, I had to adopt it. I mean, how could I leave it there, out in the cold, with nobody to cherish it?!?! And so I… um… adopted it. 🙂

In truth, it’s a volume I’ve been trying to hunt down for quite some time. The last time it became available at a decent price, I waited too long and somebody snatched it up before me. But this time, I got lucky. And now it’s ALL MINE!!!

As always, it’s an utter delight to leaf through the volume. There are so many things to discover! The ads alone are extremely intriguing. (At this point in time – 1845 – ads were still text based, rather than illustrated, because of the tax on ads. I talked about this in my last post here.)

Dietetic pale ale? Who would have thought this was a thing!

And remember when I talked about Victorian street food? Well, it would appear that the West India pineapples that were sold in London’s streets in 1845 weren’t such a big hit…

In the illustration you can see the kind of handcart from which street vendors would sell their wares. This pineapple seller has a very simple cart; those who sold soup or coffee would have had much more sophisticated carts, with heaters to keep their wares warm.

From time to time, nineteenth-century periodicals would also include sheet music – the kind of song that would have been suitable for a young woman to perform at an evening entertainment in order to show off her singing voice and her skills on the piano. These songs were often quite sentimental like this example from the issue of 25 October 1845. It’s called “My Writing Desk” – which is the place where people would have kept letters they received from family and dear friends. And this is exactly what this song is about.

The first stanza reads:

My writing desk is the home of my treasure,
My desk is the shrine of my care;
Oh! all I have loved beyond measure
Have left me some dear relics there,
Have left me some dear relics there.
The dry leaves of long perish’d flowers,
Whose perfume has lingered behind,
Have made them as sweet as the hours
Those dear relics bring to my mind.

Awwwwwwww!!!!!

This volume is the second bi-annual volume of 1845, meaning it will most likely include a Christmas special. I haven’t yet looked because I’m kind of keeping the December issues as a special pre-holiday treat.

Posted in Research | Tagged Illustrated London News, It's all research, Sandy and the Periodicals | 1 Reply

Two Regency Recipes

Updated on October 15, 2017 by Elena Greene

Last time, I blogged about an event I’m organizing for my UU church’s “Dining for Dollars” fundraiser–a Jane Austen movie night with period refreshments.

Since then, I’ve made progress on a menu. It’s a fair-sized crowd (about 20 people) with a variety of dietary needs and preferences. I’m looking mostly for recipes that can be at least partially prepared ahead of time at home, then reheated or finished as necessary at the church hall; otherwise I’ll need to hire some servants to help me!

The dietary issues are something I doubt a Regency hostess would have had to worry about, but I do want to make sure everyone has at least a few items they can eat. There will be both meat and vegetarian items. I’ve also figured out a few dishes that are gluten free and nut free. No one has asked for vegan. Perusing Georgian and Regency recipes, I’m finding that many include eggs and/or butter. I would have been willing to tinker with them if necessary, although I’m not sure how accurate the results would be (not that I’m being a real purist here).

Here are a few recipes I’ve tried out so far.

The first is a “White Fricasey” of chicken and mushrooms (above). I used a recipe for Uppercross Cottage Chicken Fricassee from the Jane Austen Centre website, adapted from The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse (first published in 1747). With roasted potatoes and glazed carrots, it made a very nice meal. It should be easy to double and reheated well, so this should work as the main meat entree.

The other recipe I just tried out is “Rout Drop Cakes” from The Jane Austen Cookbook by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye. The recipe is adapted from one in A New System of Domestic Cookery, by Maria Rundell, 1806. These cookies are made with currants and flavored with orange juice, rose water, sherry, and brandy. I could see why they might be good for parties as they are small and not too crumbly. Good finger food, and I love the hint of rose-scent!

Some other recipes I may try out soon are a “Vegetable Pie” for the vegetarian entree, a “Swiss Soup Meagre” from the cookbook of Martha LLoyd (with whom Jane Austen lived in the later part of her life), and a hedgehog cake which I hope will turn out as cute as the examples I’ve seen online.

Do you enjoy trying out period recipes? Any notable successes or amusing failures?

Elena

Posted in Food, Research | Tagged Hannah Glasse, Maria Rundell, Martha Lloyd, rout drop cakes, White Fricasey | 2 Replies

Advertisements in Newspapers & Magazines

Updated on October 11, 2017 by Sandra Schwab

When you look at surviving copies of 19th-century periodicals (typically bound in volumes) today, you will perhaps notice a distinct lack of advertisements. Ads were printed on the wrapper (the cover) of single issues as well as on additional pages, and when periodicals were privately bound into volumes, the wrappers and the pages with ads were typically thrown away. Some magazines, like PUNCH, released annual or bi-annual volumes of their publication as special keepsakes – and these didn’t contain any ads either.

So imagine my delight when earlier today I stumbled across a volume of PUNCH on Google Books that not only consists of individual issues bound together, but has also retained most of the wrappers with ads.

*squee*

The issues are all from 1874, which means that thanks to changes in taxation and technological improvements, the ads all look very different from what you would have found in periodicals in the early decades of the century. By 1874, many ads came with pictures or with interesting typography.

There wasn’t any particular order to them, so Howard’s Parquet Flooring stood side by side with anchovy preparations, the latest novels (such as TAKEN AT THE FLOOD by Mary Elizabeth Braddon), or Thomson’s Unbreakable Corset Busk.

In the early decades of the 19th century, by contrasts, ads tended to be text only, and they were very short and to the point. The reason for this was the tax on paper and the tax on ads. The latter was a reaction to social unrest: the government believed that there was a connection between ads and politics. On the other hand, most periodicals couldn’t survive without the income from ads. Indeed, it is thought that the majority of radical publications folded due to a lack of advertisers.

As the political climate changed, the tax on ads was first reduced in 1833 and was finally abolished in 1853. The tax on paper, however, remained in place until 1861, keeping paper expensive and forcing publishers and advertisers to be economical with the space on paper. Hence, illustrated ads as seen in the examples here in this post, only started to appear with regularity after the repeal of the paper tax, and the following decades are often referred to as the Golden Age of advertising.