Risky Regencies

Ugh, the plague!

Updated on January 9, 2015 by Elena Greene

My daughters and I have been passing around some sort of cold/flu/plague thing. It’s been so bad I even forgot this was my day to post! That NEVER happens. Anyway, here are some Regency cold remedies I posted a while ago.

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“People do not die of little trifling colds.”

But what Mrs. Bennett didn’t say is sometimes it feels like you could.

What would Regency folk have done when they felt like I do?

One of my favorite period sources on medicine is DOMESTIC MEDICINE, by William Buchan, first published in 1769 with 18 subsequent editions. Buchan was pretty forward-thinking about general health and prevention and many of his suggestions are far less kooky than those of his counterparts (though that’s not saying much!) I think of it as the sort of book my heroines might have owned and used to help keep their families healthy during the happily-ever-after.

Anyway, here are some suggestions:

“THE patient ought to lie longer than usual a-bed…”

Amen to that one.

“A SYRUP made of equal parts of lemon-juice, honey, and sugar-candy, is likewise very proper in this kind of cough. A table-spoonful of it may be taken at pleasure.”

This sounds very nice.

“If the pulse therefore be hard and frequent, the skin hot and dry, and the patient complains of his head or breast, it will be necessary to bleed, and to give the cooling powders recommended in the scarlet fever, every three or four hours, till they give a stool.”

I checked some of the recommended medications, and they include “Peruvian bark” and “snake root”. Googling these exotic terms, I learned that Peruvian Bark is also called cinchona bark, and can still be used to treat fevers. Seneca Snake Root has expectorant properties. OK, so far, Dr. Buchan is not so dumb.

However, I don’t think my medicine cabinet contains any Peruvian Bark or Snake Root…

And the bleeding I could definitely do without!

Here’s another tidbit.

“MANY attempt to cure a cold by getting drunk. But this, to say no worse of it, is a very hazardous experiment.”

Aw, I’m willing to try it at this point. It couldn’t make me feel any worse, could it????

I hope everyone is feeling better than I am. If not, what do you rely on?

Elena

Posted in Research | Tagged Colds, Medicine | 5 Replies

The Joys of Doing Research on Historical Food

Updated on January 7, 2015 by Sandra Schwab

The end of the old year must have addled my brains, for I completely forgot to write a post last Wednesday – sorry about that!!!

I hope you all had a good start into 2015! I for one, started the year doing research on food.

I love good food (cheesecake!!!), so perhaps it’s no surprise that dinners, luncheons, & teas feature frequently in my books. Researching 19th-century food is such a joy: not only are there oodles of books available on the subject (like Kristen Olsen’s Cooking with Jane Austen), but you can also easily access primary material – in other words, cookbooks! One of my favorite cookbooks from the Georian era is Frederick Nutt’s The Complete Confectioner; or, The Whole Art of Confectionary Made Easy: Also Receipts for Home-Made Wines, Cordials, French and Italian Liqueurs, &c. It was originally published in the late 18th century, and new editions appeared throughout the Regency era. The 1819 edition is available online from Google Books.

Nutt’s Complete Confectioner is just perfect when you’re looking for something to satisfy your hero’s (or heroine’s) sweet tooth: the book starts with biscuits (including chocolate biscuits, orange biscuits, and French maccaroons), continues with cakes, wafers, drops (perhaps your hero likes munching bergamot drops? Seville orange drops?), and also includes recipes for jellies, creams, ice creams and water ices (well, okay, you’d probably want to skip No. 153, “Parmasan Cheese Ice Cream”). And then, of course, there are the recipes for alcoholic beverages (elder wine, cowslip wine, orange wine, cinnamon liqueur, coffee liqueur, etc.)

For the Victorian period, there is the ever-wonderful Mrs. Beaton, whose cake recipes often include breath-taking amounts of eggs (16 for the Rich Bride Cake!) and who also gives you advice on the duties of servants – perfect! Moreover, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management includes suggestions for seasonal dinner menus. And while there are a few dishes I really wouldn’t want to see on the table in front of me (boiled calf’s head with tongue and brains, anybody?), I’d be more than happy with the roast ribs of beef, the grilled mushrooms, with the Charlotte Russe and the rhubarb tart (yum!).

But, alas, at the moment I’m not doing research on 19th-century food. I am doing research on Roman food.

Oh dear, Roman food.

*hides behind her couch and whimpers*

First of all, there is the infamous garum, the stuff the Romans apparently poured over almost anything – like ketchup. Only, well, garum wasn’t made from tomatoes, but from fish.

Rotten fish.

In his De re coquinaria (On the Art of Cooking), Apicius included a particularly nice recipe for garum: take gills, fish intestines, fish blood, salt, vinegar, parsley and wine, throw everything into a vessel, and leave it out in the sun for three months. Afterwards, stain and bottle (= fill into an amphora).

And as if rotten fish sauce wasn’t bad enough, there is also the stuff that the Romans ate at posh dinner parties.

Think sow’s udders stuffed with giant African snails.

Or fried dormice rolled in honey and poppy seeds.

But hey, if you don’t like something, you can always pour garum over it!

[Note to self: Should you ever write another historical set in Roman antiquity, DON’T GIVE ANY OF YOUR MAIN CHARACTERS POSH FRIENDS!!!!! No extravagant Roman dinner parties EVER again!!!!]

Posted in History, Research | Tagged food, Traumatized by Research | 8 Replies

Out tomorrow – Freedom to Love

Updated on January 3, 2015 by susanna

Freedom to Love, my newest historical romance–and my first full-length release in over two years!–comes out tomorrow. It has what I think is an unusual and somewhat risky setting for a Regency–most of the story takes place in America in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of New Orleans.

FTL cover

I specifically asked for this release week because Thursday is the 200th anniversary of the battle. Even though all the story action is after the fighting ends–the first scene is the hero waking up on the battlefield, wounded and dazed–I did a fair amount of research just to know what he’d gone through before the story started. Most of that research involved books that have long since been returned to the University of Washington library (my day job employer and go-to source for dry academic tomes, access to 200-year-old newspapers, and the like), but here are five things I learned about the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans that I didn’t know going in.

1) I’d always been told that the British were so confident of victory and eager to get at the wealth and famously beautiful women of New Orleans that on the eve of battle their sentries’ sign and countersign were “beauty” and “booty.” Turns out that isn’t true–while the British knew they outnumbered the Americans and with some justification believed their regiments to be of superior quality, they also knew they were attacking a well-fortified position across open ground. Also, no matter how much they were looking forward to the pleasures and treasures of New Orleans, “beauty” and “booty” sound far too much alike to be an effective sign/countersign, and the British commander, Sir Edward Pakenham, was an upstanding, upright gentleman who would’ve been unlikely to approve its use.

2) Andrew Jackson employed slave-catchers to try to prevent American slaves from escaping to the British (who promised–and delivered–emancipation to any who came to them). However, he also accepted the city’s free black militia into his cobbled-together army over the objections of many officers and civilian officials. This would not be the first or last time Jackson proved himself a pragmatist above all, IMHO.

3) British soldiers too severely wounded to join the retreat were cared for by Ursuline nuns–though my plot required a different fate for my hero, Henry Farlow.

4) Back in elementary and high school, we were taught that the main cause of the war was the British navy’s impressment of American sailors. While that was certainly a cause, the reality, as it often is, was More Complicated Than That. In fact, it was so complicated that I’ll simply recommend that anyone interested read Robin Reilly’s The British at the Gates.

5) Wellington was offered command of British forces in America after Napoleon’s initial abdication, but he politely refused, preferring a diplomatic role as ambassador to France and at the Congress of Vienna. It’s intriguing to imagine how different history might’ve looked if he’d accepted. He might not have been back in time for Waterloo, for starters. While I think Napoleon would’ve ultimately been defeated regardless, the 19th century would’ve looked different if, say, the Russian army rather than the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian forces claimed credit for his downfall. Also, there is simply no way Wellington would’ve attacked Jackson’s fortifications from such a position of weakness. Even Pakenham knew it was a bad idea, but he was pretty much goaded into it by the naval commander, Admiral Cochrane. Since Wellington was as stubborn and confident as anyone living at that time not named Napoleon, he would’ve stood up to the pressure. And if the Battle of New Orleans hadn’t been fought, or it was fought at a different place or time as a British victory…let’s just say we’d almost certainly have a different face on our twenty dollar bills.

Freedom to Love

Louisiana, 1815

Thérèse Bondurant trusted her parents to provide for her and her young half-sister, though they never wed due to laws against mixed-race marriage. But when both die of a fever, Thérèse learns her only inheritance is debt—and her father’s promise that somewhere on his plantation lies a buried treasure. To save her own life—as well as that of her sister—she’ll need to find it before her white cousins take possession of the land.

British officer Henry Farlow, dazed from a wound received in battle outside New Orleans, stumbles onto Thérèse’s property out of necessity. But he stays because he’s become captivated by her intelligence and beauty. It’s thanks to Thérèse’s tender care that he regains his strength just in time to fend off her cousin, inadvertently killing the would-be rapist in the process.

Though he risks being labeled a deserter, it’s much more than a sense of duty that compels Henry to see the sisters to safety—far away from the scene of the crime. And Thérèse realizes she has come to rely on Henry for so much more than protection. On their journey to freedom in England, they must navigate a territory that’s just as foreign to them both—love.

Freedom to Love is available wherever ebooks are sold, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, All Romance Ebooks, and Carina Press.

Posted in History, Regency, Risky Book Talk | Tagged Battle of New Orleans, Freedom to Love, new release, Susanna Fraser | 5 Replies

Looking Forward and Back: Some Changes in the Wind

Updated on January 2, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you’ve been enjoying the holidays, and found some time to relax, read, write, or at least spend some time with loved ones. It always feels refreshing to me when we start a new year. I like to do the Janus-thing –you know, the Roman god of new beginnings & reflection, who looked both forward and backward. Do you like to do that, too?

Looking forward, we are considering some changes here at the Riskies, and we would love to have your feedback. So, below I’m going to post some questions and hope you’ll take the time to consider them and share your thoughts with us. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any changes we decide to make!

Before I post the questions, I’ll share a little of looking backwards over my holidays. First, I learned why it’s best to spoon the brandy already in the pan over the plum pudding after it’s alight. My family always has plum pudding (with hard sauce) at Christmas dinner, a nod to our English heritage. But you must understand the job of flaming the pudding is usually undertaken by my sister, who could not be with us this year. Here’s what happens if you light the pudding, then decide to pour more brandy on it after it’s flaming nicely –the blue flame travels up the stream of brandy to the receptacle you are pouring from, making you dump the rest quickly and without much grace, before your sleeve catches on fire. <g> I must say that creates a really good blaze!! Good thing I was using a heat-proof glass measuring cup! Hmm, maybe that’s why the pudding package says to use just a teaspoon or two of brandy, but we have found that’s nowhere near enough! I might have to use this in a story…

Second, I learned a lot about foods that are considered to be lucky, or lead to prosperity and good health, if eaten on New Year’s Eve. We usually stay in and have friends over for dinner on New Year’s Eve, so this year I planned a menu made up almost entirely of these sorts of foods: shrimp (before dinner), lentil soup, butternut squash soup, roasted pork tenderloin, soba noodles (with water chestnuts, spinach, and curry sauce), salad of dark leafy greens with poppyseed dressing, sour cream & chive mashed potatoes colored gold, lemon poppyseed muffins. Explaining them all would be another whole blogpost! (Desserts were exempt from the theme.) Aside from the fact I prepared almost twice as much as we needed, we had a lovely evening, watched the 2006 movie Miss Potter (about Beatrix Potter) and all managed to stay awake to watch the NYC ball drop on TV and make a toast to the new year at midnight. Now we are all expecting great things from 2015.

I am sure I should be posting profound insights here, but after also having relatives over for dinner on New Year’s Day who couldn’t come on Christmas, I am still (or again) cleaning up my kitchen and am too tired to think that hard. I do love the holidays, but still, I can’t wait to get back to work on my Christmas novella (for release next fall), my rewrite of The Magnificent Marquess, my series and other writing projects. Do you feel a bit relieved when life starts to return to “normal” routines?

The normal routines here at the Risky Regencies are already a little changed with the departure of Megan and Myretta. We will miss them greatly! Thank goodness we can still visit with them in their other online homes. And we’ve invited some wonderful guests and may be expanding the ranks of the Riskies, as we have before. But we are taking a hard look at our blogging schedules, and wondering about making changes. So here are some questions we’d love to have you answer:

1) How often do you read the Risky Regencies blog? Daily, every few days, weekly, or less often?

2) Do you read several postings at a time, to catch up, if you don’t visit every day?

3) If we cut back the posting schedule so there were only three or four posts each week, would you still check in with us to read the posts?

4) Do you tune in to read only certain Risky authors, or do you read all/any of us? Do you pay attention to the schedule of who posts when?

5) Do you prefer one type of post over another? (i.e research posts, personal posts, writing related posts…)

6) Are you on Facebook? Do you think we should make the Riskies Facebook page a more active venue for discussions and posts?

We have tried to keep a schedule where there’s a new post almost every day. While we love the sharing with you, keeping to that schedule can really cut into writing time, and we are thinking a somewhat reduced schedule might be a help to all of us. What do you think?

Please, share your thoughts with us? We really would like to know. You can post in the comments here, or on the FB page, or in anyone else’s comment spaces in the next week.

In the meantime, I (and all my fellow Riskies, I’m certain) wish you all the very best in 2015, and look forward to many more conversations in this space!

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged changes, Christmas, Gail Eastwood, Janus, plum pudding | 22 Replies

Happy New Year

Updated on January 1, 2015 by Janet Mullany

To all our Risky friends. May you have a great 2015 of reading, writing, research, or whatever moves you most; time with family and friends; and good health.