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Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Medieval Tastes, first published in Italian and now in English by Columbia University Press is a fascinating account and analysis of what we know and what we can surmise about life and food in the Middle Ages, a long and ever changing period.
In his introductory chapter Professor Montanari tackles the ambivalent attitude so many of us take towards the Middle Ages (a vague and simplified term along with "long ago"), on the one hand hankering for some strange notion of purity and supposed healthfulness (an attitude that disregards the reality of life for most people, including the rich in those centuries) and on the other hand seeing those centuries as uniformly dark and oppressive (which disregards the many and varied achievements).
The two attitudes, which he calls the "tenebrous" and the "luminous" Middle Ages have grown out of different post-Mediaeval historic and literary developments.
The obscure Middle Ages and the luminous one live side by side today in the collective imagination, which has digested and assimilated both premises, blending them in an unforeseeable manner. But when it comes to food, the Middle Ages are decidedly and exclusively good, for they represent the nostalgic dream of a pure and uncontaminated past that guarantees authenticity and quality.Marketing of entertainment tends to follow certain fashions and one just has to accept that. Of greater interest is what transpires from that rather muddled attitude to "mediaeval food" and customs and that is a complete lack of desire to understand, merely to use the expression "mediaeval" as a symbol of various modern fears and longings.
Things change when the marketing of the Middle Ages introduces theme events, festivals, and rural and municipal feasts - all very common in many European countries - offering historical processions with ladies in costume, knights in noble combat, archery contests, games in the central square along with reconstructions of artisans's shops and markets and all kinds of amenities under the aegis of a Middle Ages filled with warmth and goodness, genuine humanity and profound sentiments. During those festivals, however, even the other Middle Ages are revealed (and later become preponderant), reflecting the obscure and malevolent, with their classic stereotypes of black magic, witches, torture, poisoning and exorcisms of fears and anxieties that are in us but that we prefer to relegate to a finished past.
Even gastronomy enters into this world of festivals when the tenebrous Middle Ages cohabit with the luminous Middle Ages. this would seem to be the "good" side, with its habitual trousseau of platitudes about the healthfulness, tastiness, and purity of medieval food. But beware: here, we are no longer talking about simple products, or products that boasts "medieval origins". Here, we are talking about cuisine and recipes prepared in the medieval manner, or presumed such.
There will be more as TH progresses with the book.
The book I have just finished is of a lesser breed: it is called Movable Feasts by Arnold Palmer and deals with the changing times of various meals, especially breakfast and dinner and with the slow introduction of lunch or luncheon (originally nuncheon) and afternoon tea into the timetable.
The book, written and published in the fifties is charming and often informative but suffers from that playful coyness that we can find in a good many books on food of that period despite the efforts of such writers as Elizabeth David, Patience Gray and others. There are, however, some interesting facts culled from letters, diaries and works of fiction from the 1780s to the First World War in the way the timing of various meals moved, sometimes later, sometimes earlier.
As the author explains, mostly his account is of the aristocracy and the gentry, with some interpolation of city gents and businessmen because, on the whole, we know more about them (though, as it happens, the timetable of working classes, farmers and even farm labourers is not unknown).
The book was reprinted in 1984 with an introduction by David Pocock that consisted of some comments about post-fifties eating habits and possible future developments. We can always assume that any predictions for the future are going to be wrong and Mr Pocock's are no exception. How could he possibly have known the interest in more traditional food, the growth of local food shops and of farmers' markets and, on the other hand, the development of luxury and complex convenience foods? One cannot really blame him for that.
What I did find slightly odd was the information he received from his Mass-Observation correspondents on which he based his own observations. Because these were observations sent in by various individuals they could never give an adequate picture but they are strange, nevertheless. According to these observations, people had stopped eating lunch, subsisting on a diet of tea and biscuits. The seventies and eighties were the heyday of the big business lunches but, presumably, people who indulged in them did not send in reports to Mass-Observations. But even people who were not in the business lunch category must recall the sandwich shops and their queues, the boxes of packed lunch that one took to work and the cups of soup one bought from various shops. Lunch at one's desk did not consist of nothing but biscuits. It consisted of sandwiches, maybe salads, soup, tea or coffee and it was eaten at the desk in order to have time to do something else when going out for a lunch break.
Mr Pocock also talks of the demise of the afternoon tea. While it rarely exists in its full glory at people's homes, it never really died out in various hotels and restaurants. In the last couple of decades it has had a great revival with every hotel, restaurant, cafe, especially museum cafes competing with each other in the production of afternoon tea (sandwiches, scones and cakes) or cream tea (just scones with jam and cream) plus a far greater variety of beverages than our ancestors could imagine.
It is Mr Palmer in the main body of the book who mentions another disappearance, that of muffins. They were not to be found anywhere in the British Isles in his day. Well he would be pleased now: muffins are available in every bakery and every supermarket. Their return was, I suspect, via the American brunch in which "English muffins" play an integral part.
Predictions are always difficult and should not really be indulged in by people who write about history; they should know that the past does not predict the future and, in any case, when it comes to food, names of meals and their times, the changes in the various centuries have been so great that it would be foolhardy to make a decision what to use as a basis for a prediction.
I would have wished fewer references to Henry James and some to Saki, who is a mine of information about lunches in the Edwardian years and who actually has a highly entertaining story called Tea. The story contains several different items of interest. We find out that 4.30 was the sacred hour of tea in all good houses and it usually involved a good deal of silver and porcelain as well as tinkling laughter on the part of the hostess; that even a young lady who was living on her own had tea at that hour but it may well have been a "picnic tea" in the kitchen; most interestingly, though, we find out that such a young lady, though from a good family, who had to work for a living, creating couture hats, could still afford caviare for tea.
Or what of Harold Nicolson's delightful essay Edwardian Weekend in his 1926 collection Some People? There could be no doubt in any reader's mind of the importance of afternoon tea or any other meal to the Edwardians. In fact, the only conundrum faced by anyone who read that essay is the possible state of those people's stomachs and livers.
Sadly, Arnold Palmer does not refer either to Saki or Nicolson but he culls many interesting bits of information from Dickens (naturally, since it is food), from Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen as well as the tiresome Henry James.
He also has several stories of his own childhood memories and of memories of people older than himself who could recall late nineteenth and early twentieth century habits. Undoubtedly, these memories constitute the most amusing part of the book and the most informative.
For various reasons to do with an article to be completed Tory Historian has been reading a fascinating book by Alison K. Smith, called Recipes for Russia, subtitled Food and Nationhood under the Tsars. It deals partly with attempts to discuss and reform agriculture in Russia in the nineteenth century and partly with the late development of cookery books from the end of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, analyzing the links between agriculture or food and national identity.
Quoting others, Professor Smith describes the growth of Russian literature (also from the second half of the eighteenth century)
particularly the art of translating - became the source of a new image of the Russian nation as an imperializing and assimilating one. Incorporating foreign literary works into the Russian canon helped suggest the power of the Russian state, and its ability to borrow from abroad without losing its sense of self.She then draws a parallel with writing about food:
Something rather similar developed on the tables of Russia's elite. By choosing to eat foods labeled [sic] Russian, even the westernized elite could still think of themselves as tied to the land. Or, alternatively, the persistence of Russian foods even among those whose dress, carriages, and even language had shifted enormously displays a raeal connection between Russians of different social estates. Whether mere façade, the mixture of foreign and native foods struck many foreign visitors as deeply disturbing.For Russian authors, though, she adds, this was a source of pride as native Russian and foreign influences were combined to create a Russian cuisine beyond the old-fashioned, rather crude Russian cooking.
Tory Historian has read many accounts of Russia by foreign travellers and the number of things that disturbed these people is very high. One cannot really go by that, any more than by the fact that almost every national cuisine consists of many "native" dishes and others that became "native" at various times. However, Russian pride in ability to "borrow" and incorporate is real enough, especially at times when there is yet another drive to build up some kind of an official national identity.
There is a posting in the pipeline (and what a painful position that is to be in) about Sir Jack Drummond, nutritonal scientist, public servant and historian of food in his ground-breaking "The Englishman's Food".
In the meantime, as a link between the postings about the outbreak of World War II and the Drummond piece, here is a link to an article published in Time magazine about meat shortage and food rationing in Britain in January 1941.
It talks about Lord Woolton, a man about whom Tory Historian will write again and describes the activity of that fairly repulsive journalist, William Connor a.k.a. Cassandra of the Daily Mirror.
The story of him finding restaurants where politicians and others stuffed themselves while Lord Woolton cut the meat ration for everyone else is amusing in its consequence. One can't help suspecting that among the diners there were journalists, editors and friends of journalists and editors. Were they, one wonders, all that pleased by Lord Woolton forcing restaurants to abide by the rationing rules?
As ever, Tory Historian is appalled by the paucity of recent postings on this blog. Let us rectify it by reference to two books, at present in the bathroom, to be read in a particularly relaxed mood. Both are about the history of food and drink but approach the subject very differently, not just from a geographical and social point of view but from that of what is important intellectually. (Eeek should one be using words like intellectually if one is a Tory Historian?)
The lighter one is “The Raj at Table” by David Burton, a professional cookery writer from New Zealand, who became interested not just in Indian food but in the whole concept of the food of the British Raj and the social habits that grew up around it.
The introductory history tends to be a little on the accepted and predictable trendy side – all that stuff about the White Man’s Burden, a phrase Kipling coined in very special circumstances: he addressed the poem to the Americans in 1899 after the Spanish-American War when the Philippines were taken. Like the better known Recessional, written for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, the poem is not precisely a hymn to imperialism but an acceptance of duty and a warning against arrogance. One may or may not agree with Kipling sentiments but using that phrase, like “dominion over palm and pine”, in an inappropriate throw-away line is wrong and dishonest.
Mr Burton is not an historian but a food writer. For all of that he is full of every prejudice against Victorians that the world of glamour media supplies, often disproving his statements by his own accounts and quotations.
For instance, he maintains that the “memsahibs” (a word he is inordinately fond of) managed to remove Indian cuisine from British tables, imposing their own view of what food should be, that is either British and heavy or French and inappropriate. Yet, every menu, every description of every meal, breakfast, lunch (tiffin) and even dinner seem to include curries and pilavs. They had not all gone.
Tory Historian suspects that the homes of the numerous traders and businessmen as well as lower rank officials that do not figure in Mr Burton’s accounts had a greater preponderance of Indian food than the Viceroy’s or various Governor-General’s formal dinners.
Another crime the Victorians were apparently guilty of is contempt for all things Indian (Mr Burton clearly does not know about Lord Curzon’s hard work to preserve Indian memorials and architectural works of art) and disregard for Indian notions. Yet he also tells us that “[i]n certain parts of India it was not permitted to eat pea-fowl, however, out of respect for Hindus, who consider the bird sacred”.
Furthermore, it seems that British officers would attend important Hindu and Muslim festivals throughout the year as a mark of respect, as well as invite various high-ranking Indians to Christmas parties. So, errm, what is the truth about that lack of respect? Some and some, as usual? Or, maybe people who attempt to write on any aspect of cultural history should learn more about their subject (including the timing of when service à la Russe, that is course following a course in the now accepted fashion, became the norm in Britain).
Given all that, why does Tory Historian think that this is a pleasant book to read? Because when David Burton manages to overcome his prejudices he produces a delightful set of stories about what the British ate in India. It cannot really be called a history because he hops around so much, demonstrating a story from the early twentieth century by providing an anecdote or a description from the early nineteenth.
A number of his quotations had Tory Historian reaching for library catalogues for further reading. Above all, there are the recipes. How can one resist dishes that are called: Pineapple Beef, Jahl Fry, Sandhurst Curry (one to try on one’s enemies), Navroji Framji’s Mahratha-Mode Meat Curry or desserts such as Pootoo Rice Fritters? Tory Historian intends to try one or two and describe recipes and results.
The other book is a more scholarly one: “Coffee and Coffeehouses” by Ralph S. Hattox.
Professor Hattox, who appears to be an expert on the history of coffee, an excellent thing to be in Tory Historian’s opinion, “The Origin of a Social Beverage in the Mediaeval Near East”. He writes of the early history of coffee, its use in Sufi rituals, the general growth of its consumption and the importance of coffeehouses as social and cultural centres.
The early part of the book is taken up with the ferocious debates and fights around the introduction of coffee, the furious attacks on it and the rituals around it by Islamic scholars and the equally furious defence by other scholars and people who liked coffee.
This proves that in the Near East, just as later in Europe, coffee had and has a magical quality, good or bad. Coffeehouses were always dangerous places as far as the authorities were concerned; the drinking of coffee was often perceived as something akin to black magic (and that is not counting the fortune telling that revolves round coffee sediment).
On the evidence of the first two chapters Professor Hattox’s book, based on Arab and European sources will impart much of interest. Plus there are delightful illustrations of coffee makers, coffee drinkers and coffeehouses.
Yesterday Tory Historian attended a reception where there were British and American guests. One of the plates of canapes had little tartlets with what the waiter cheerfully explained was coronation chicken. American guest drew back, alarmed by the yellow colouring.
Tory Historian explained equally cheerfully that it was merely cold chicken in mayonnaise, adding as an afterthought, with curry powder. It is, in fact a matter of some wonder to TH why this dish so redolent of the fifties should have survived into the age of far greater choice in spices and Indian food.
There was then a discussion among the British guests as to the origin of the dish, one person opining that it was created for the coronation of either Victoria or Edward VII with ingredients from every member of what was then the Empire.
Tory Historian remained doubtful, having been convinced some time ago that it was created for the coronation of Elizabeth II. It seems that TH was right. The dish was, indeed, created for the Queen's coronation banquet by Constance Spry (not exactly a florist as Wiki has it by a woman who changed the whole concept of flower arranging and formal cooking in this country) and the chef Rosemary Huyme.
It does, indeed, consist of cold chicken, mayonnaise and curry powder or paste with various additions, like raisins and almonds that were, possibly, seen as exotic in post-war Britain. Of course, one can have a rather grand recipe as supplied by Sophie Grigson.
Yesterday, when it was not raining, Tory Historian attended a garden party in Oxford. Well, what else does one do in Oxford? This was an unusually mixed party with guests from many different parts of the world and even different parts of Oxford easily chatting with each other. Those who know the city well will not be surprised to hear that the party was not in that stronghold of academic residence, North Oxford.
Tory Historian spent a long time talking to a Serbian lady, who teaches English in Belgrade and comes to England once a year or so. She spent the war of the nineties in that city and was, together with her family, part of the ten per cent, as he estimates it, who were against Milosevic and his wars with the other states of former Yugoslavia. They did not even object to the final act, the bombing of Belgrade because, as her father had put it, Serbia had to learn a lesson.
Anybody who thinks this smacks of treason might like to contemplate what Germans, who had opposed the Nazi regime, its wars and the support it had from ordinary people, may have thought during allied bombing.
However, what Tory Historian found particularly interesting was the story of the Serbian lady becoming vegetarian – not a common phenomenon in the Balkans or Eastern Europe. It was precisely because of that she had decided to stop eating meat and fish, however hard that made her life. This made her different, roused suspicion in her interlocutors (you are not Orthodox, they would say) and allowed her to start discussions on politics and express her opinions. Rather a courageous move that puts the activity of our own vegetarians into perspective.
Interestingly enough, as Tory Historian mentioned in the ensuing conversation, vegetarianism in history has always been viewed as rather a subversive form of living, ever since the days of Pythagoras, who is alleged to have been murdered with his disciples by rebels in Croton. Of course, that may have been simply because they were seriously fed up with having to study that theorem.
Colin Spencer, in many ways a very eccentric writer and journalist, did produce a fascinating history of vegetarianism, in which he explored the relationship between it and social subversiveness at length.
