Entries tagged with victorian

Current Mood: amused

Entry tags:

victorian

Occasionally I forget how much I love Victorians

...and then I'm obliged to remind myself.

coastal_spirit rented the BBC miniseries Cranford from Netflix and since my dad didn't really want to watch it with her, when we went over on Sunday, we did :) It was very good, mostly because the cast was awesome. It all turned out satisfactorily in the end, but good LORD, the body count was higher than RIII! *boggles* Which was not something I expected from an early Victorian story about small-town old ladies. Okay, so they were kickass old ladies.

Anyway, I was once again seized by the love of Victorian things. Luckily, there's so much on the internet for resources :3

Cassell's Household Guide: A never-ending source of amusement. This time it's about pregnancy and child-rearing.

( In which I quote parts of the guide and am somewhat snarky. )

Current Mood: amused

Entry tags:

food,
victorian

Plum Pudding

As many of you have probably noticed, we're back from the cruise! It was incredibly awesome. I plan on writing up a hugemongous post about it at some point, but first, boiled pudding!

Yeah, so, the day I got out of work before Christmas (er, December 23rd, I think) I decided that I HAD TO MAKE A PLUM PUDDING. I had always wanted to try a recipe from a Victorian cookbook like Cassell's Household Guide, and I was reading through the section about Christmas food and decorations to get me into the proper festive spirit. So I called up

caitirin and told her that I really wanted to make a boiled pudding that night. She was v. amused. So I stopped at the fabric store and got a yard of unbleached muslin, and then we went to the grocery store for the few ingredients we needed.

Here's the recipe we used:

Another Recipe.—Half a pound of currants, half a pound of raisins stoned, three table-spoonfuls of flour, three tablespoonfuls of bread grated fine, six ounces of beef suet minced, eight eggs beaten up, five ounces of brown sugar, a small grated nutmeg, a pinch of salt, three cloves pounded, and half a teaspoonful of ground allspice; a glass of brandy may be added, if it be liked; mix all the ingredients carefully together, and boil for three or four hours.

The only thing we didn't use was beef suet (we couldn't find any at our grocery store, and

caitirin was happy to veto it in favor of vegetable Crisco). We also halved the recipe and modified the amounts of flour and bread. I mean, I'm no master baker, but I can't quite imagine a pleasing consistency being the result of eight eggs and only three tablespoons of flour and three of grated bread. I could be wrong O_o

Considering that the recipe for Plum Pudding right above this one calls for only six eggs and a whole pound of flour, I figure people generally put in whatever they had on hand or could easily acquire. Also, other recipes for puddings include such helpfully vague measurements as "the quantity of flour and bread-crumbs added will depend upon the richness required in the pudding." Another recipe said to add enough flour to make the batter the proper consistency. I guess they assume you know what that is.

( Pictures under the cut! )

Current Mood: calm

Entry tags:

victorian

Oh, Victorians.

I love Victorians so much! I've been reading a Victorian guide to cookery bit by bit over the past couple of months (it's part of Cassell's Household Guide, I think, available on www.victorianlondon.org) and along with recipes ranging from the tantalizing to the frightening, I've come across several bizarre and amusing gems. Here are a handful:

Large forks should not be admitted into modern kitchens, where they only do mischief.

??? Forks? Mischief? I can't say those two words have ever come together in my head before XD

In short, considering the carp's intelligent and familiar disposition ; considering that it is a want of the respect due to age to partake of a creature who may be older than your great-grandfather, should he be alive; and considering that, to eat, he is only a fourth-rate fish, we prefer petting and feeding a carp to feeding on him.

Hee! Only the Victorians would insist on politeness when dealing with fish XD

On the virtues of fat, with a surprise bonus of the romanticized working class:

The housewife at least ought to be thoroughly convinced of the great importance of all kinds of fat in family dishes, and never to waste any; but, on the contrary, to procure all she can at an economical rate. There are families in which every scrap of fat which we helped to its members seated at table is left on the plate, and thrown to the cat or the pig. This ought never to be. It will not often happen in families who live by outdoor employment, but it will when their occupations are different. We have no right to say an unkind word about "daintiness" and the rest, if persons who are confined nearly all day long to sedentary and monotonous employment, in a close, in-door atmosphere, have not the sharp-set appetite of the ploughman who hears the singing of the lark and feels the freshness of the winds of March, from misty daybreak to ruddy sunset; only, if they can eat no meat but lean, we urge them to use the fat under some disguise.

From the muffin recipe:

Once possessed of the iron plate (which you will be able to obtain without difficulty from any ironmonger), a few trials will put you in the way; and if you have one or two failures at first, they will be eaten with the greater relish because they are your failures.

Uh. Okay. Your failures taste better because you failed!

Before toasting a muffin, cut it nearly in two, leaving it slightly attached in the middle. When toasted brown and crisp on both sides, slip the butter into the gaping slit, and serve on a plate not quite red-hot.

OMFG NOM. This sounds so delicious.

And on the merits of sugar! Man, so much in our lives is a backlash against Victorian society.

And as we have said a few words about fat, so now we would call the attention of house-wives to the importance of sugar as an article of food. Its effects on the constitution are similar to those of fat, and it may be used as a partial substitute for, or in addition to it.

The way these recipes are written is just so ridiculously endearing XD Talking about apple dumplings:

Then work the crust round them [the apples], closing it at the top with a clever twist, and tie them, not too tight, nor yet too loose, in cloths floured inside, and boil galloping an hour and a half.

Then, out of baking and into fish:

After cleaning your fish, salt them for a night. Throw them into as much boiling water as will cover them.

The use of "throw" here, after such delicate language throughout the whole thing leading up to it, gives me the best mental images of a modest and thrifty Victorian housewife violently hurling fish into boiling water.

For broiled mackerel:

Remove the head; you may leave the tail - it will make the dish look more important.

*cracks up* LOVE VICTORIANS.

Current Mood: sleepy

Entry tags:

victorian

Photos, whee!

We got back from Vermont yesterday, and it's so wonderful to have three whole days before we have to go back to work. Yay for Labor Day! We stayed at a beautiful Victorian inn where I went nuts for the architecture and tried (with limited success) to map the whole place. I couldn't quite figure out the outside shape - that is, they gave us a very bare-bones map, but I had serious issues reconciling it with the inside - so I just drew up how I thought the inside worked. There were lots of fascinating little sets of staircases that led to other halls full of rooms, and they obviously were shorter than the staircase that went down to the ground floor, so the whole place had to have multiple levels. It was so neat. Anyway, the awesome Victorianness propelled me into finally scanning those pictures I bought when we went antiquing.

( Photographs and amusing magazine ads )

I just had an epiphany - the reason I've been spelling the word traveling "wrong" for so long is that I persist in using the British English "travelling" with two Ls! That makes me feel better.

Current Mood: exanimate

Entry tags:

victorian

Unmentionables

So there's been an ongoing conversation in my last post where helpful commenters have been posting what they know about Victorian men's undergarments, and I thought that *cough* purely for academic purposes, I'd post what I've gathered from those comments and from internet searching here.

( On with the underclothes )

Current Mood: curious

Entry tags:

history,
victorian

Victorian snippets

www.victorianlondon.org is not only a great research site (yay primary sources!), it's also a pretty never-ending source of amusement. I thought I'd post a bunch of my favorite snippets here :D They're things that I either find particularly adorable, funny, or mind-boggling. I get such a kick out of the way things are put in the Victorian style of writing. I'm sure you'll see what I mean XD

These are all from www.victorianlondon.org, and there's something about the way the site is coded that I can't figure out how to link to specific articles. If there's anything you're particularly interested in, ask me and I'll tell you how to find it. The search feature on the left is also useful.

( First, adorable Victorian letters from gentlemen to their BFFs on the occasion of their marriage )

( Everyday advice for ladies )

The next advice book I delved into was Cassell's Household Guide, which is four volumes of just about everything you could ever want to know, from how to manage your household expenses to first aid to training dogs. I found the link for this one, actually! Cassell's Household Guide. Particularly interesting (and useful for both Watson fic and my own Victorian characters, one of whom is a medical student) are the "Domestic Medicine" sections, which these next excerpts come from.

( What to do when your clothes catch fire, and other things )