………
1871
(available in paperback from Penguin, 2003)
ELIOT’S NOVEL is set in Middlemarch, a fictional provincial English Midlands town, during the early 1830s, a time when manufacturing and technological progress created new sources of wealth and political reforms created broader participation in the political process. Eliot brings to life a changing community, depicting the rising middle classes of the town as well as the landed gentry of the adjoining villages. The novel presents a finely drawn portrait of social change, love, courtship, marriage, politics, and work, and of the intricate web of circumstance and coincidence that shapes the lives of Middlemarch’s inhabitants.
Middlemarch is a study of human nature, and Eliot provides keen psychological portraits of many individuals, including the two leading characters: the young, moral, restless upper-class Dorothea Brooke, who yearns for intellectual growth and a role in improving the lives of those around her, and Tertius Lydgate, a struggling, highly principled young doctor, whose career is thwarted by the limitations of provincial life. Their ambitions limited by a narrow-minded society, both find themselves trapped in unsuitable marriages: Dorothea to the aging scholarly cleric Casaubon, and Lydgate to the socially inferior, ambitious, beautiful Rosamond Vincy. The wholesomeness of the family of Caleb Garth, agent for Dorothea’s land, provides a contrast to characters such as the nefarious banker Bulstrode, and Fred Vincy, Rosamond’s profligate brother. Eliot illustrates how individuals of different temperaments and convictions, motivated by idealistic or materialistic values, constrained by social custom, and at the mercy of circumstance and fate, live their lives.
The Garth family—Caleb, Susan, and their six children—are people of principle, proud, industrious, unpretentious, moral. The Garths live “in a small way” in a “homely place,” a former farmhouse a little out of town, with an attic smelling of apples and quinces.
Hardworking Susan Garth is a former teacher who earns money instructing students and her own children at home, all the while presiding over the baking and other household chores. “Even while her grammar and accent were above the town standard, she wore a plain cap, cooked the family dinner, and darned all the stockings,” writes Eliot. Susan, who is looked down upon by other women in Middlemarch because she has no servants, stands in sharp contrast to most of the other female characters, who are either wealthier or more socially ambitious.
When Fred Vincy visits the Garth home to confess that he cannot repay the note Caleb Garth has signed for him, he observes Mrs. Garth carrying out several tasks at once—instructing her son and daughter and “pinching an apple-puff”—as he waits to speak to Caleb. Fred is amused by the sight of her, sleeves rolled up, “deftly handling her pastry—applying her rolling pin and giving ornamental pinches, while she expounded with grammatical fervor what were the right views about the concord of verbs and pronouns.” Unlike other female characters, such as Rosamond and Dorothea, Mrs. Garth is not afraid to get flushed or to have a little flour on her nose while baking pies.
The apple puff that Mrs. Garth bakes is a quintessential nineteenth-century English dessert. Recipes for puff pastry, or “paste,” a light, buttery pastry used for tarts and pies, appear in many English cookbooks of the nineteenth century, including one of the most popular culinary references of the time, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, by Mrs. Isabella Beeton, first published in London in 1861 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977).
“Pastry is one of the most important branches of culinary science,” writes Mrs. Beeton, as it “occupies itself with ministering pleasure to the sight as well as to the taste.” She adds, “The art of making pastry requires much practice, dexterity and skill. It should be touched as lightly as possible, made with cool hands and in a cool place.”
Puff pastry is folded and rolled numerous times to create a rich, delicate multilayered pastry. When the butter enclosed within each layer melts during baking, the moisture creates steam, resulting in puffy dough and flaky layers.
According to Mrs. Beeton, apples are “esteemed” as dessert fruits in pies and puddings, and are the “most useful of all British fruits,” with an abundance and variety of apples available. Mrs. Beeton suggests using a puff pastry recipe to make treats that can be stamped out with “fancy cutters” in a variety of shapes, such as a half-moon. For our apple puffs, we adapted Mrs. Beeton’s recipe for apple filling and enclosed it in miniature crescent-shaped puff pastry. Roll up your sleeves, and enjoy making these delicious British treats for your discussion of Middlemarch.
Prepare puff pastry or frozen puff pastry (see below).
Preheat oven to 400°F.
In a bowl, mix together the apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, lemon peel, and lemon juice.
Mound 1 heaping tablespoon of the apple mixture on half of each 4-inch round. Fold over into a half-moon shape and crimp to finish, sealing edges.
Bake for 15–20 minutes. Remove puffs from the oven, brush with egg white, and sprinkle with a little sugar. Return to the oven and bake for an additional 2 minutes until golden, making sure crust does not burn. May be served warm or cold.
Yield: 2 dozen apple puffs, 6 to 8 servings
This recipe for homemade puff pastry from New British Cooking by Jane Garmey (Simon & Schuster, 1985) calls for chilling dough in between rolling.
NOTE: The dough can be refrigerated for four to five days, or it can be frozen for several months, if wrapped first in plastic and then in foil.
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus extra for sprinkling 1 teaspoon salt |
1 cup (2 sticks) butter ½ cup ice water |
Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Cut 4 tablespoons of butter into small pieces and work into flour with your fingers until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add enough ice water to turn the mixture into a stiff dough. Work the dough quickly into a ball, dust lightly with flour, place in a plastic bag, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Using your fingers, soften remaining butter and work into a 4-inch square. Place butter square between two sheets of waxed paper and roll it smooth. Remove the top sheet of waxed paper and sprinkle butter with a little flour. Wrap in fresh waxed paper and refrigerate until the butter is firm.
Take the dough and butter from the refrigerator and remove the waxed paper. Lightly flour a rolling surface. Roll dough into a 12 ÷ 12-inch square. Place butter diagonally in the center. Bring the corners of the dough over the butter to make a closure similar to an envelope. Dust the dough with a little flour and roll into a rectangle approximately 6 ÷ 10 inches, the long sides running top to bottom. Fold the top dough over all but the bottom third of the rectangle. Then fold the bottom third over the top and turn the dough so that one of the open ends is facing you. Roll the dough from the center to the edge farthest from you, stopping before the very edge so as to keep the butter in. Turn the pastry around and roll the other half out and away from you until you have a rectangle approximately 12 inches long. Fold the dough into thirds as before. Wrap in waxed paper and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
Remove dough from the refrigerator and take off the waxed paper. Flour work surface and dough, and roll out exactly as before, always rolling away from you. Fold into thirds again and repeat the rolling-out process. Chill the dough for at least another 30 minutes.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll out to ¼-inch thickness. Using a cutter or the top of a glass, cut dough into 4-inch rounds.
Yield: 12 ounces homemade puff pastry
For frozen puff-pastry sheets
Defrost puff pastry sheets at room temperature for 20–30 minutes or until pliable. Roll out one pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface to ¼-inch thickness. Using a cutter or the top of a glass, cut 4-inch rounds. Repeat rolling and cutting with second pastry sheet until you have about 24 rounds. You may have additional puff pastry.
Named after a literary society founded by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien for the exploration of intellectual great ideas, the Inklings meet at the Sullivan Free Library in Chittenango, New York.
Inspired by their successful discussion of James Joyce’s Ulysses, the Inklings tackled other literary classics they considered challenging.
Librarian Karen Traynor was particularly inspired to read Middlemarch “by a Barbara Kingsolver essay in which she suggests there is no need to read trash when there are books like Middlemarch.” The Inklings read and discussed Middlemarch over four months, dividing the eight hundred pages and eight books or chapters into four parts. “Middlemarch provided an excellent portrait of women during the early 1800s in provincial England and provoked a discussion of the limited options available to women during a time when marrying well was the most important objective. We learned that Eliot—her real name was Marian Evans—had a very unusual lifestyle and wondered if Dorothea, the protagonist, was based on Eliot’s idea of what a woman should be—intelligent, curious, and not content to limit herself to what was acceptable to the society around her,” says Traynor.
The Inklings had read other nineteenth-century British novels, but found that Middlemarch delved deeply into the role of the church in society as well as into the politics of the time. Members were surprised to learn that clerical positions were inherited or appointed, not necessarily a matter of faith or a “calling,” as in modern times. Traynor recommends watching the Arts & Entertainment network’s film adaptation of Middlemarch, which she says is very faithful to the book. “We all enjoyed Middlemarch immensely, and it led us to other books of that period, such as Jane Austen’s early nineteenth-century comedy of manners, Pride and Prejudice, and Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary,” says Traynor.
The Inklings enjoyed sipping tea and eating biscuits and scones as if they were characters in Middlemarch during each of the discussion meetings. “We didn’t have a dinner to celebrate the end of Middlemarch,” says Traynor. “Perhaps because we enjoyed it so much, we didn’t feel the need to reward ourselves.”
English Wedgwood china, cut crystal stemware, and sterling silver flatware set the mood for the Portola Hills Book Group’s discussion of Middlemarch. “We don’t usually get so fancy,” says Lynne Sales of Portola Hills, California, who hosted the meeting, “but I thought that using the formal china matched the tone of the book.” Sales served a typical English dessert, blueberry and peach trifle, along with chocolate and blond brownies and an assortment of English teas and coffee.
cup sugar