Notes

Publication dates are those of editions consulted.

INTRODUCTION

1 Hieatt, Constance B., Jones, Robin F., Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections, edited from British Library Manuscripts. Additional 32085 & Royal 12. C. X11.

2 Hill, Christopher, The World Turned Upside Down (Penguin 1972).

3 Mead, William Edward, The English Medieval Feast (Allen & Unwin 1931).

4 Feild, Rachel, Irons in the Fire (Crowood 1984).

CHAPTER 1: Prologue: The Land

1 A measure of capacity containing 4 pecks or 8 gallons.

2 Anglo-Saxon herbals of great range, foresight and wisdom.

3 Quoted in Magennis, Hugh, Anglo-Saxon Appetites (Four Court Press 1999).

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid, ‘Seasons of Fasting’.

6 Cumin (cuminum cyminum), native of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East, an important spice in ancient Egypt and in the Mycenaean palaces of the fourteenth century. It came to England via the Rhineland and Lotharingia, which were granted a licence to sell pepper, wax and cumin.

7 Rick Stein was shown hedge fishing by some Dorset fishermen off Chesil Beach. They went out in a small rowing boat and dragged a net in a semi-circle, with one end staked to the beach; then they drew in the catch of mackerel.

8 Aelfric: Colloquy, ed. G.N. Garmonsway (Methuen’s Old English Library 1939). Bishop Aelfric (fl. c.955-c.1010), considered the greatest prose writer and grammarian of his time, wrote books to instruct monks and a Colloquy to teach Latin, which gives portraits of contemporary life.

9 These same tracks are now, of course, our roads, country lanes and footpaths.

10 An amber equals 4 bushels.

11 Aelfric: Colloquy, op.cit.

12 Quoted in Fell, Christine, Women in Anglo-Saxon England (Colonnade Books 1984).

13 Ibid.

CHAPTER 2: Anglo-Saxon Gastronomy

1 Tacitus, Germania, ch.23; trans Mattingly (Penguin Classics 1951).

2 Aelfric: Colloquy, op.cit.

3 Knowles, David, The Monastic Order in England: a History of its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 943-1216 (CUP 1949).

4 Anglo-Saxon Conversations. The Colloquies of Aelfric Bata, ed. Scott Gwara; trans. and introduction, David W. Porter. Colloquy 21 (Boydell Press 1997).

5 Ibid. Colloquy 25.

6 Ibid. Colloquia Difficiliora, 1.

7 Hagen, Ann, A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: Production and Distribution (Anglo-Saxon Books 1992).

8 Aelfric: Colloquy, op.cit.

9 As the kidneys’ function in mammals is to remove waste and excess substances from the blood and change them into urine, I have often thought it odd that such an excretory organ should be eaten at all. Perhaps this was an early taboo now faded which might in our days of factory farming be resurrected.

10 Of the dolichos family, which is both pole and dwarf in growth.

11 Anthimus, On the Observance of Foods, translated and edited by Mark Grant (Prospect Books 1996).

12 An oatmeal dish from the Welsh llymru which spread into Cheshire and Lancashire, and which was made from oatmeal steeped in water, then strained and boiled, until it became solid like a blancmange.

13 See Hagen, Ann, op.cit.

14 This was a fermented fruit drink, as beer from hops was not made until the sixteenth century.

15 All infectious diseases of cattle were referred to as murrain, these could have been any of the diseases we are familiar with now that cause such havoc in contemporary farming.

16 Quoted in Hagen, op.cit., from which this analysis of Anglo-Saxon infestation derives.

CHAPTER 3: Norman Gourmets 1100-1300

1 Froissart, Chronicles, ed. Brereton, Geoffrey (Penguin 1968).

2 His obesity at the end of his life is thought to have had a genetic cause.

3 Quoted in Bartlett, Robert, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075-1225 (Clarendon Press 2000).

4 Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, edited and translated with introduction and notes by Chibnall, Marjorie (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1969-1980).

5 Martin, Description of the Western Isles of Scotland, quoted in Seebohm, M.E., The Evolution of the English Farm (Allen & Unwin 1952).

6 Neckam, A., De Naturis Rerum, quoted in Hieatt, Constance; Butler, Sharon, Curye on Inglysch (OUP 1985).

7 We have noted the Anglo-Saxons’ love for this spice.

8 Dyer, Christopher, Everyday Life in Medieval England (Hambledon Press1994).

9 Rumex Sanguineus (Bloodwort) a red-veined dock, grown as a pot herb in gardens and eaten as a vegetable, not unlike spinach.

10 Wright, Clifford, A., ‘Cucina Arabo-Sicula and Maccharruni’, Vol 9, (Al-Masaq 1996-97).

11 Charles Perry has pointed out that there are many Arabic recipes for mawmenny that do not have almonds or chicken in them and are also in different colours. See PPC 31, ‘Isfidhabaj, Blancmanger and No Almonds’ (1989).

12 France then was only a small region around Paris while the Counties of Champagne, of Bourbon, of Auvergne and others were vassals of the French monarch.

13 Wright, Clifford, A., A Mediterranean Feast (William Morrow & Co. 1999)

14 Shaida, Margaret, The Legendary Cuisine of Persia (Grub Street 2000).

15 Hieatt, Constance; Butler, Sharon, Curye on Inglysch (OUP 1985).

16 English Historical Documents, c.500-1042, trans. Whitelock, Dorothy (OUP 1979).

17 Some of the monks who arrived with the Norman kings had trained at the medical school of Salerno where the Antidotarium Nicolai originated, a collection of prescriptions deriving from Greek and Arabic sources which remained in use for several centuries.

18 London paid sixteen-point-eight per cent of the total taxation, Boston fifteen-point-seven per cent, Southampton 14.3%, Lincoln 13.3%, and Lynn 13.1%.

19 The word apothecary derives from apotheca meaning the place where wine, spices and herbs were stored.

20 Nightingale, Pamela, A Medieval Mercantile Community: The Grocer’s Company and the Politics and Trade of London 1000-1485 (Yale University Press 1995).

21 Norman, Jill, The Complete Book of Spices (Dorling Kindersley 1990). In this comprehensive manual the author lists 49 spices.

22 There is a contemporary account from Peter of Blois (quoted in Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir, Pimlico 2000) of eating at Henry II’s court, where the bread was unbaked and the meat and fish rotten. It is so exaggerated that one cannot take it literally. Peter was a man of acerbic wit and fine sensibility and, one infers, loyal to Queen Eleanor whose aesthetic temperament must have been more in tune with his own life than the raucous and wild company he had found himself among.

23 Scully, Terence, The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages (Boydell Press 1995).

24 Henna itself comes from the tree Lawsonia inermis.

25 Oil came from a variety of wild plants, also rape oil was imported from Flanders and rape was also grown in medieval gardens. Linseed oil from cultivating flax was also used.

26 The Anglo-Saxons would boil a mixture of fish in an iron cauldron – possibly the source of the term ‘kettle of fish’.

27 Cobb, H.S., Overseas Trade of London: Exchequer Custom Accounts 1480-81 (London, London Record Society 1990).

28 Woolgar, C.M., The Great Household in Late Medieval England (Yale University Press 1999).

29 Dyer, Christopher, Everyday Life in Medieval England (Hambledon Press 1994).

30 Carp were only introduced in the late fourteenth century and took some time to be accepted.

31 Harvey, Barbara, Living and Dying in England 1100-1540 (Clarendon Press 1993).

32 Austin, T., (ed), Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books: Harleian MS 279,4016 (Early English Text Society 1888).

33 Dyer, op.cit.

34 Wilson, C. Anne, Food and Drink in Britain (Constable 1973).

35 Carlin, Martha, ‘Fast Food and Urban Living Standards in Medieval England’ from Food and Eating in Medieval Europe, ed. Martha Carlin; Joel T. Rosenthal (Hambledon Press 1998).

36 FitzStephen, William, A Description of London, trans. H.E. Butler (Historical Association Leaflet 1934).

37 The Victorians decimated the population by their organised shoots and the drainage of the marshes. The bird is still very rare.

38 In Colchester in 1301 only 3% of the taxpaying households had a kitchen.

39 The fire was the centre of the house, the source of heat and light for all classes. Among the poor a gift of fire was carried to neighbours inside a hollowed out giant puff-ball.

40 Dyer, op.cit.

41 Adamson, Melitta Weiss, ‘The Games Cooks Play: Non-Sense Recipes & Practical Jokes in Medieval Literature’ from Food in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays Garland Medieval Casebooks 12 (London and New York 1995).

CHAPTER 4: Anarchy and Haute Cuisine 1300-1500

1 Mintz, Sidney, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom (Beacon Press 1996).

2 Quoted in C. Anne Wilson, op.cit.

3 This was public land used by the peasant to graze livestock, grow food and gather wood for his cooking, enclosed by hedges or fences by the local landowner for his sole use, later such acts were legalised by Parliament.

4 The Plantagenet character was an obsessive one; one idea would take hold and everything else would be sacrificed towards it.

5 Hunt, Alan, Governance of the Consuming Passions. A History of Sumptuary Law (Macmillan 1996).

6 Saaler, Mary, Edward II (The Rubicon Press 1997).

7 Ziegler, Philip, The Black Death (Penguin, 1969).

8 Saaler, Mary, op.cit.

9 Quoted in Ziegler, op.cit.

10 Ibid.

11 Constance Hieatt in the Introduction to her An Ordinance of Pottage (Prospect Books 1988) deals with the intricacies of the various manuscripts and the differing interpretations of the recipes by historians throughout the centuries.

12 Landsberg, Sylvia, The Medieval Garden (British Museum Press 1995).

13 Quoted in Stead, Jennifer, ‘Bowers of Bliss: The Banquet Setting’ in Banquetting Stuffe, ed. C. Anne Wilson (Edinburgh University Press 1986).

14 A version of this recipe with others was found in a collection in Samuel Pepys’ library.

15 The amount spent upon food in the royal households was carefully graded dependent on the importance of each person. For example, a duke related to King Edward III with a company of 300 horse was allowed £15 13s 4d per day, every man and horse was allowed 12s per day. A duke who was not of the blood royal was allowed £10 13s 4d, a viscount 55s, while a knight having in his company ten men was only allowed 12s. These amounts rose with inflation throughout the years, but the system remained unchanged for hundreds of years.

16 This is a recipe that I have cooked and the figs, prunes and sultanas poached with the partridge make a delicious sauce.

17 Swabey, ffiona, ‘The Household of Alice de Bryene, 1412-13’, in Food and Eating in Medieval Europe, ed. Carlin, Martha; Rosenthal, Joel T. (Hambledon Press 1998).

18 See Norman, Jill, The Complete Book of Spices (Dorling Kindersley 1990).

19 Wilson, C. Anne, Food and Drink in Britain (Constable 1973).

20 Variously spelt ‘bestys’ or ‘beastlyns’ or also called ‘firstings’.

21 Hartley, Dorothy, Food in England (Macdonald 1954).

22 Marcel Boulestin thought it originated at Trinity College, Sir Harry Luke believed it was Corpus Christi.

23 Dyer, Christopher, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages (CUP 1989).

24 The Paston Letters 1422-1509, ed. J. Gairdner (London 1872).

25 Harvey, Barbara, Living and Dying in England 1100-1540. The Monastic Experience (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1993).

26 Ibid.

27 Wilson, C. Anne, Food and Drink in Britain, op.cit.

28 Hallam. H.E., ed. ‘The Worker’s Diet’, The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol. 2, 1042-1350. General ed. Joan Thirsk (CUP 1988).

29 Ibid.

30 Trow-Smith, R. A., History of British Livestock Husbandry to 1700 (London 1957).

31 Hallam, H.E., ed. ‘England before the Norman Conquest.’ The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol 2. General ed. Joan Thirsk (CUP 1988).

32 Quoted in Wilson, C. Anne, op.cit.

33 Boorde, Andrewe, A Dyetary of Helth (Kegan Paul, London 1870).

34 Plat, Sir Hugh, Sundrie new and Artificial remedies against Famine (1596). Quoted in Drummond, J.C., The Englishman’s Food (Jonathan Cape 1958).

35 Wilson, C. Anne, op.cit.

36 Webb, Diana, Pilgrimage in Medieval England (Hambledon & London 2000).

37 Dyer, Christopher, op.cit.

38 Lampreys are still eaten in Spain, Portugal and Bordeaux, while they are smoked in Finland. They fell out of favour in the nineteenth century, while pollution in our rivers has now greatly diminished their numbers.

39 Wilson C. Anne, op.cit.

40 The name dates from the eighteenth century and came from France, where the sauce was flavoured with vinegar and bitter herbs and appeared to have an asp-like bite.

41 Dyer, Christopher, op.cit.

42 Wilson C. Anne, ‘The Evolution of the Banquet Course: Some Medicinal, Culinary and Social Aspects’ from Banquetting Stuffe (Edinburgh University Press 1986).

43 Wilson C. Anne, Food and Drink in Britain, op.cit.

44 Dyer, Christopher, op.cit.

45 Ibid.

46 Jane Austen mentions eating it with enjoyment later. See page 255.

47 This account depends on Harvey, Barbara, Living and Dying in England 1100-1540. The Monastic Experience, op.cit.

48 Barbara Santich believes the word to derive from Persian/Arabic sikbaj meaning vinegar stew. See Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food (OUP 2000).

49 Woolgar, C.M., The Great Household in Late Medieval England (Yale University Press 1999).

50 The name was used pejoratively; it came from Middle Dutch lollaert, meaning mumbler, and applied to heretical sects. Here it was used to mean followers of Wycliffe.

51 A term coined by Sir Walter Scott.

52 Briggs, Asa, A Social History of England (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1983).

53 See Briggs, Asa, op.cit.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid.

56 Quoted in Strong, Roy, The Story of Britain (Pimlico 1998).

57 Quoted in Curtis-Bennett, Sir Noel, The Food of the People (Faber & Faber 1949).

58 Ibid.

CHAPTER 5: Tudor Wealth and Domesticity

1 Giving an erroneous impression that we were being influenced by French dishes.

2 Briggs, Asa, A Social History of England, op.cit.

3 McGrath, Patrick, Papists and Puritans Under Elizabeth I (Blandford Press 1967).

4 Crawford, Patricia, Women and Religion in England 1500-1720 (Routledge 1993).

5 Ibid.

6 Whiting, Robert, The Blind Devotion of the People (CUP 1989).

7 Ibid.

8 Heinze R.W., The Proclamations of the Tudor Kings (CUP 1976).

9 Youngs, Frederick, A., The Proclamations of the Tudor Queens (CUP 1967).

10 Heal, Felicity; Holmes, Clive, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500-1700 (Macmillan 1994).

11 The Agrarian History of England & Wales, Vol IV 1500-1640, ed. Joan Thirsk (CUP 1967).

12 Beys were the so-called ‘new draperies’ like ‘shaloons’ and ‘perpetuonos’ which were cheap, light, less durable but highly amenable to changes in fashion. These profitable draperies were made by immigrant labour.

13 Elinor Fettiplace (see page 124) mentions them roasted, or sliced with butter, rosewater, sugar, salt and the juice of Seville oranges. This is a method still used by Americans at Thanksgiving.

14 ‘Feaberrie’ in Cheshire, ‘feabes’ in Norfolk, and ‘grozer’ or ‘grozet’ in Scotland, probably from the corruption of the French groseille.

15 Gooseberries in France are called groseilles à maquereau because of their association with the cooking of mackerel.

16 Dodd, A.H., Life in Elizabethan England (Batsford 1961).

17 The Star Chamber Dinner Accounts, Commentary by Andre L. Simon (The Wine and Food Society 1959).

18 Markham, Gervase, The English Hus-wife, 1615.

19 Quoted in Hibbert, Christopher, The English, a social history, 1066-1945 (Grafton Books 1987).

20 A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye (Cambridge MS c1560), ed. C.F. Frere (Cambridge 1913). Also A Booke of Cookry Very Necessary for All Such as Delight Therein, Gathered by A.W. (1584).

21 Quoted in Barber, Richard, Cooking and Recipes from Rome to the Renaissance (Allen Lane 1973).

22 The Lisle Letters, ed. Muriel St Clare Byrne (Penguin 1981).

23 Burton, Elizabeth, The Elizabethans at Home (Secker & Warburg 1958).

24 Plat, Sir Hugh, Delightes for Ladies, 1602 (London 1948).

25 A gibe at France and its barbarous tastes in food.

26 Sim, Alison, Food and Feast in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing 1997).

27 The tongue of an ox, cow, bullock or heifer.

28 Meads, D.M., ed. The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1559-1605 (George Routledge 1930).

29 The Elizabethan Home. Discovered in Two Dialogues by Claudius Hollyband and Peter Erondell and Edited by M. St. Clare Byrne (Cobden-Sanderson 1930).

30 This was a name since the twelfth century applied to round cheeses from Brie and Camembert country.

31 A cheese greatly admired at this time, ‘by age waxing mellower and softer and more pleasant of taste, digesting whatsoever went before it, yet itself not heavy of digestion.’ Quoted in C. Anne Wilson, op.cit.

32 Thomas Cogan thought Banbury cheese to be better than Cheshire: ‘for therein you shall neither taste the rennet nor salt, which be two special properties of good cheese.’

33 The Elizabethan Home, op.cit.

34 St Clare Byrne, M., Elizabethan Life in Town and Country (Methuen 1925).

35 Isinglass is made from the air bladders of freshwater fish – notably the sturgeon. Hartshorn jelly is made from the shavings of hart’s horns. Both are transparent and gelatinous.

36 Edited by Hilary Spurling (Viking Salamander 1986).

37 C. Anne Wilson in ‘A Cookery Book and Its Context: Elizabethan Cookery and Lady Fettiplace’, PPC 25 (1987) is critical of Spurling, believing that this is only a fragment of an original family receipt book.

38 I recall a vogue for this same dessert in the 1950s.

39 Quoted in Stead, Jennifer, ‘Navy Blues: the Sailor’s Diet, 1530-1830’ from Food in the Community, ed. C. Anne Wilson (Edinburgh University Press 1991).

40 Hartley, Dorothy, Food in England (Macdonald 1954).

41 Laslett, Peter, The World We Have Lost (Methuen 1965).

42 Later reissued as Five Hundreth Pointes of Husbandrie in 1573.

43 See Braudel, Fernand, The Wheels of Commerce (Collins 1982).

44 Borrowed from France with its roots in both Latin and Greek.

45 Hentzer, Paul, A Journey into England in the Year 1598. Printed in Fugitive Pieces on Various Subjects, vol II (London 1765), quoted in Beeverell, James, The Pleasures of London, translated and annotated by W.H. Quarrell (Witherly & Co. London 1940).

46 Quoted without source in Claire, Colin, Kitchen Table (Abelard & Schumann 1964).

47 Wilson, C. Anne, ed., Banquetting Stuffe (Edinburgh University Press 1986).

48 In 1513 the King of Portugal offered the Pope a lifesize effigy of himself surrounded by 12 cardinals and 300 candles all made out of sugar.

49 Quoted in Baldwin Smith, Lacey, Elizabethan World (Hamlyn 1967).

50 Barclay, John, Icon Animorum (1614). Quoted in Hill, Christopher, The World Turned Upside Down (Penguin 1972).

CHAPTER 6: A Divided Century

1 Mennell, Stephen, All Manners of Food (Blackwell 1985).

2 Hill, Christopher, The Century of Revolution 1603-1714 (Nelson 1961).

3 In 1612 the Earl of Salisbury was receiving £7,000 a year from the silk monopoly, the Earl of Suffolk £5,000 from currants, the Earl of Northampton £4,500 from starch.

4 Quoted in Hill, op.cit.

5 Ladurie, E. Leroy, ‘Peasants’ in New Cambridge Modern History, XIII., ed. P. Burke (CUP 1979).

6 Hill, Christopher, ‘A Bourgeois Revolution?’ in Collected Essays, Vol. 3 (Harvester Press 1986).

7 Davenant, Charles, Discourses on the Publick Revenues and on the Trade of England, by the Author of Ways and Means (1698).

8 Quoted in Hill, Christopher, ‘The Poor and the People’ in Collected Essays, op.cit.

9 See Pullar, Philippa, Consuming Passions (Hamish Hamilton 1970). Stephen Mennell (op.cit.) has argued convincingly against such a trite and populist theory.

10 Hill, Christopher, The World Turned Upside Down (Penguin 1972).

11 Cohn, Norman, The Pursuit of the Millennium (Paladin 1970).

12 His life and work are dealt with in detail in my book Vegetarianism – A History (Grub Street 2001).

13 Named after Leonard Mascall who published The Booke of Arte and Maner, howe to plant and graffe all sortes of trees, published in 1572.

14 Bacon, Francis, ‘On Gardens’, an essay 1625, quoted in Roach, F.A., Cultivated Fruits of Britain (Blackwell 1985).

15 Thick, Malcolm, The Neat House Gardens: Early Market Gardening around London (Prospect Books 1998).

16 Ibid.

17 The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol. IV, ed. Thirsk, J. (CUP 1967).

18 May, Robert, The Accomplisht Cook (Prospect Books 1994).

19 Ibid.

20 Hamlyn, Matthew, The Recipes of Hannah Woolley (Heinemann 1988).

21 Burnett, John, Liquid Pleasures (Routledge 1999).

22 Ibid.

23 Lehmann, Gilly, ‘Food and Drink at the Restoration, as seen through the diary, 1660-1669, of Samuel Pepys’. (This essay was based on a computer analysis of the food eaten.) (PPC 1998).

24 Quoted in Driver, Christopher; Berriedale-Johnson, Michelle, Pepys at Table (Bell & Hyman 1984).

25 Defoe, Daniel, A Tour Through England and Wales (Everyman ed. 1928).

26 Ibid.

27 Pepys, Samuel, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol IV 1663, ed. Latham, R.C.; Matthews, W. (Harper Collins 1995).

28 The salted, pressed dried female roe of the striped grey mullet or tunny. It is an old eastern Mediterranean delicacy, known in ancient Egypt. Rare to find now, though I have eaten it in the past.

29 Preserved or pickled from the Latin condire to season or pickle.

30 Quoted in Driver, Christopher, ed., John Evelyn, Cook (Prospect Books 1997).

31 McKendrick, Neil; Plumb, J.H.; Brewer, John, The Birth of the Consumer Society (Europa, London 1982).

32 Mennell, Stephen, All Manners of Food (Blackwell 1985).

33 The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol V ii, ed. Thirsk, Joan (1985).

34 General works on husbandry stood alongside specialist treatises by authors such as Sir Hugh Plat, Thomas Hill, Edward Maxey and Leonard Mascall.

35 Samuel Hartlib was granted a pension for publicising various utilitarian plants, and army garrisons as far afield as Kirkwall taught the locals how to grow cabbages.

36 Marshall, W., The Rural Economy of the West of England (1796) quoted in Chambers, J.D.; Mingay, G.E., The Agricultural Revolution 1750-1880 (Batsford 1966).

37 The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol VIII 1967 (Harper Collins 1995).

38 Folio, In the Savoy (printed by Thomas Newcomb 1687), privately owned.

39 Succory (chicorium intybus), a root needing to be blanched, was thought to have medicinal qualities, and to be good for the stomach and liver.

40 Marcoux, Paula, ‘The Thickening Plot: Notable Liaisons between French and English Cookbooks, 1600-1660’ (PPC 60, 1998).

41 See Mennell, op.cit.

CHAPTER 7: Other Island Appetites

1 Introduction by Professor Wollner to The Vision of MacConglinne, ed. Kuno Meyer (Nutt, London 1892). We are now familiar with the goliardi from Carl Orff ’s Carmina Burana.

2 Ibid.

3 The Vision of MacConglinne, op.cit.

4 Ibid.

5 Kelly, Fergus, Early Irish Farming (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 1997).

6 Ibid.

7 Proc.R.I.A., LV, C, pp8 ff, Professor Dillon.

8 Quoted in Lucas, A.T., ‘Irish Food Before the Potato’, Gwerin 3, no 2, Dec. 1960.

9 Ibid.

10 Hunt, H., De contemptu mundi I, quoted in Bartlett, Robert, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075-1225 (OUP 2000).

11 Sexton, Regina, A Little History of Irish Food (Kyle Cathie 1998).

12 Donaldson, J., Husbandry Anatomized (1697).

13 Bellhaven, Lord, The Countrey-Man’s Rudiments (1699).

14 Quoted in Sexton, op.cit.

15 Lysaght, Patricia, ‘Continuity and Change in Irish Diet’ in Food in Change, ed. Fenton, Alexander; Kisbán, Eszter (John Donald Publishers 1986).

16 Woodham-Smith, Cecil, The Great Hunger (Harper 1962).

17 Allen, Darina, Irish Traditional Cooking (Kyle Cathie 1998).

18 Aneirin, ‘The Gododdin’ (sixth-century) in The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English, ed. Jones, Gwynn (OUP 1977).

19 Johnson, Samuel, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, 1775.

20 Fenton, Alexander, ‘Food and the Coastal Environment’ in Food in Change, op.cit.

21 Cheape, Hugh, ‘Pottery and Food Preparation, Storage and Transport in the Scottish Hebrides’ in Food in Change, op.cit.

22 Handley, J.E., Scottish Farming in the 18th Century (Faber & Faber 1953).

23 Brown, P.H., Scotland before 1700 (1893).

24 Scottish Society 1500-1800, ed. Houston, R.A.; Whyte, I.D. (CUP 1989).

25 Quoted in ibid.

26 See Houston and Whyte, op.cit.

27 General View of the Northern Counties, quoted in ibid.

28 The Cottagers of Glenburnie (9th edition 1832).

29 Taillevent, Le Viandier (1312-1395). (Paris 1892).

30 Sue Lawrence in Scots Cooking (Headline 2000) gives two alternative derivations: from Shetland where the dialect word for codling is kabbilow, and because of the trade between Scotland and Holland she suggests it is likely that the Dutch for cod, kabeljauw, was responsible.

31 Bingham, Madeleine, Scotland under Mary Stuart (Allen & Unwin 1971).

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 Bristed, J., A Pedestrian Tour through part of the Highlands of Scotland in 1801, quoted in Handley, op.cit.

35 Cave, Sir Thomas, A Diary of a Journey from Stanford Hall to the North of Scotland and back in the Year 1763, quoted in ibid.

36 McNeill, F. Marian, The Scots Kitchen (Blackie 1929).

37 Quoted in Fenton, op.cit.

38 Quoted in McNeill, op.cit.

39 Ibid.

40 Quoted in Handley, J.E., op.cit.

41 Robertson, G., Rural Recollections (1829).

42 Macdonald, J., An Economical History of the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland (1808).

43 Ibid.

44 Johnson, Samuel, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775).

45 Ordinance Gazetteer of Scotland.

46 Robertson, G., General View of Midlothian (1793).

47 Robertson, G., General View of Agriculture in the Southern Districts of the County of Perth (1794).

48 Lettice, J., Letters on a Tour through various parts of Scotland in the year 1792.

49 Memoirs of a Highland Lady, quoted in McNeill, F. Marian, op.cit.

50 Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, Metcalfe-Telford (1904).

51 Firth, C.H., Scotland and the Protectorate (1899).

52 McNeill, op.cit.

53 Davies, Wendy, Wales in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester University Press 1982).

54 Evans, J.G., The White Book of Mabinogion (Pwllheli 1907).

55 I’m indebted to Canon T.J. Prichard for this explanation and the translation of excerpts of this early Welsh poem.

56 Owen, George (1552-1613), quoted by Davies, D.J. (1933), The Economic History of South Wales (Cardiff 1933).

57 Freeman, Bobby, First Catch Your Peacock (Image Imprint 1978).

58 Lady Bridget Bulkeley’s accounts of food and drink (1709-11) and the accounts of Elizabeth Morgan of Henblas, Llangristiolus (1734-73) are quoted in Ramage, Helen, Portraits of an Island (Anglesey Antiquarian Society 1987).

59 The Letters of Lewis, Richard, William and John Morris, ed. Davies, J. H., quoted in Ramage, op.cit.

60 Aikin, Arthur, Journal of a Tour through North Wales (London 1787).

61 Haldane, A.R.B., The Drove Roads of Scotland (Thomas Nelson & Sons 1952).

62 See Salaman, Redcliffe, N., The History and Social Influence of the Potato (CUP 1949).

63 Williams, Meryell, Ystumcolwyn (Peniarth collection, NLW).

CHAPTER 8: Glories of the Country Estate

1 Young, Arthur, Six Weeks Tour Through the Southern Counties of England (1768).

2 Briggs, Asa, A Social History of England (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1983).

3 American cookery books began to be published in the eighteenth century and have recipes for baked beans, chowders, soft gingerbreads, pumpkin pie and turkey with cranberry sauce.

4 See Karen Hess and her brilliant introduction and footnotes in Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery (Columbia University Press 1981).

5 Emmerson, Robin, Table Settings (Shire Publications 1991).

6 David, Elizabeth, ‘Banketting Stuffe’ (PPC 3 1979).

7 Girouard, Mark, Life in the English Country House (Yale 1978).

8 Shipperbottom, Roy, Introduction to The Experienced English Housekeeper by Elizabeth Raffald (Southover Press 1997).

9 Cookson, Caroline, ‘The Technology of Cooking in the British Isles, Part 1: Before the Use of Gas’ (PPC 1 1979).

10 Feild, Rachael, Irons in the Fire (Crowood Press 1984).

11 Ibid.

12 The finest black tea from the Wu-i Hills north of Fuhkien, which after 1704 became the name for all tea, even the poorest, and the infusion itself.

13 Named after Lucas Bols who began manufacturing gin at Schiedam in 1575, known in French as eau de genièvre.

14 Woodforde, James, The Diary of a Country Parson 1758-1802, ed. Beresford, John (OUP 1978).

15 Burnett, John, Liquid Pleasures (Routledge 1999).

16 Ibid.

17 PPC 52 (May 1996).

18 See Jennifer Stead in PPC 13 & 14, and Priscilla Bain in PPC 23. Between them they have detected over 360 recipes copied from other books out of a total of 972. No doubt there are more.

19 The origins of Worcester Sauce began in a similar manner.

20 Burkhardt, B.; McLean, B.A.; Kochanek, D., Sailors and Sauerkraut (Gray’s 1978).

21 Ibid.

22 Cook’s Voyages of Discovery, ed. Barrow, John (Everyman 1906).

23 Watt, Sir James, ‘Some Consequences of Nutritional Disorders in Eighteenth Century British Circumnavigations’ from Starving Sailors, ed. Watt, J.; Freeman, E.J.; Bynum, W.F. (National Maritime Museum 1981).

24 Young, A., Farmers’ Letters Vol 1. (1771).

25 Countess Morphy in British Recipes (Herbert Joseph 1936) gives Lobsgows under Welsh recipes as a mutton stew with onions, root vegetables and potatoes boiled for over two hours. Bobby Freeman also considers it a north Welsh dish (see First Catch Your Peacock, op.cit.).

26 Shipperbottom, Roy, ‘Cooking Potatoes in the North of England: A Rare Document of 1796’ (PPC 45 1993).

27 Laurence, John, A New System of Agriculture (1726).

28 Hale, Thomas, A Compleat Body of Husbandry (1756).

29 Austen-Leigh, E., A Memoir of Jane Austen (1870).

30 Baxter, Richard, The Poor Husbandman’s Advocate (John Ryland 1926).

31 Salaman, Redcliffe N., The History and Social Influence of the Potato (CUP 1949).

32 See Shipperbottom, Roy, Introduction to The Experienced English Housekeeper by Elizabeth Raffald, op.cit.

33 Mabey, Richard, Gilbert White (Century 1986).

34 Verrall, William, Cookery Book, 1759 (Southover Press 1988).

35 Woodforde, James, The Diary of a Country Parson 1758-1802, ed. John Beresford (OUP 1935).

CHAPTER 9: Industry and Empire

1 Laing, Samuel, National Distress: Its Causes and Remedies, quoted in Burnett, John, Plenty and Want (Routledge 1966).

2 Briggs, Asa, A Social History of England (Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1983).

3 Hobsbawm, E.J., Industry and Empire (Penguin 1968).

4 Eden, Sir Frederick, The State of the Poor, quoted in Drummond, J.C., op.cit.

5 Quoted in Salaman, Redcliffe N., op.cit.

6 Cobbett, William, Rural Rides (Penguin 1967).

7 Quoted in Hobsbawm, E.J., op.cit.

8 Scola, Roger, Feeding the Victorian City: The Food Supply of Manchester 1770-1870 (Manchester University Press 1992).

9 Ibid.

10 Burnett, John, Plenty and Want, op.cit.

11 Scola, Roger, op.cit.

12 Briggs, Asa, ed. Chartist Studies (Macmillan 1959).

13 This is a method of adding flour to the meat fat to make a paste as in a roux, then rolling the joint in it and finishing the roasting so that the outside gets a crust.

14 The Cook’s Oracle.

15 Beeton’s Book of Household Management, ed. Beeton, Isabella (facsimile edition, Southover Press 1998).

16 Davidson, Caroline, A Woman’s Work is Never Done: A History of Housework in the British Isles 1650-1950 (Chatto & Windus 1982).

17 Hickman, Peggy, A Jane Austen Household Book with Martha Lloyd’s Recipes (David & Charles 1977).

18 Palmer, Arnold, Movable Feasts (OUP 1984).

19 Wilson, C. Anne, ed. Luncheon, Nuncheon and Related Meals (Sutton 1994).

20 Lucraft, Fiona, ‘Food and Eating in the Bronte Novels’, PPC 62 (1999). This is a fascinating essay, especially for all Bronte enthusiasts; my very brief summary does it no justice.

21 Quoted in White, Eileen, ‘First Things First: The Great British Breakfast’ in Luncheon, Nuncheon and Related Meals, ed. Wilson, C. Anne, op.cit.

22 Quoted in ibid.

23 Henry Mayhew, Mayhew’s London, ed. Quennell, Peter (Spring Books 1972).

24 The word dates from 1712 meaning a drink of powdered salep, but it was later made from sassafras with added milk and sugar. Salep was an orchid root imported through the East India Company. It was powdered, then added to water until it thickened, then flavoured.

25 Volant, F. & Warren, J.R.

26 Hess, Karen, ‘The Origin of French Fries’, PPC 68 (2001).

27 Shipperbottom, Roy, ‘Fish and Chips’, Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium 1997. I’m indebted for this paper to the late Mr Shipperbottom.

28 See Hess, Karen, op.cit.

29 Burnett, John, Plenty and Want, op.cit.

30 Salaman, op.cit.

31 Rowntree, B. Seebohm, Poverty, a Study of Town Life (1901).

32 Lewis, Gary, The Middle Way (Brolga Press 1992).

CHAPTER 10: Victorian Food

1 He became Sir Mayson Beeton who survived until 1947.

2 Burnett, John, Plenty and Want, op.cit.

3 Spain, Nancy, The Beeton Story (Ward Lock 1956).

4 Quoted in Aron, Jean-Paul, ‘The Art of Using Left-overs: Paris, 1856-1900’, from Food and Drink in History, Vol. 5, ed. Forster, Robert; Ranum, Orest (Johns Hopkins University Press 1979).

5 Mars, Valerie, ‘A la Russe: The New Way of Dining’ in Luncheon, Nuncheon and Related Meals, op.cit.

6 Today we think of entrée as a main course, but then the entrée followed the fish and preceded the main; they were hot dishes in a sauce – croustades, timbales, or cold dishes like pâtés.

7 Quoted in ibid.

8 See ‘Pastry Ramakins to serve with the cheese course’, Beeton’s Book of Household Management (facsimile edition, Southover Press 1998).

9 Mennell, Stephen, All Manners of Food, op.cit.

10 Black, Maggie, A Taste of History (British Museum Press 1993).

11 See Spencer, Colin, Vegetarianism – a History (Grub Street 2001).

12 Corley T.A.B., ‘Nutrition,Technology and the Growth of the British Biscuit Industry 1820-1900’, in Oddy, Derek J.; Miller, Derek S., ed. The Making of the Modern British Diet (Croom Helm 1976).

13 ‘An Address to the Inhabitants of St James’s Westminster, by a retired Churchwarden’, Hon. F. Byng, 1847, quoted in Drummond, J.C., The Englishman’s Food, op.cit.

14 The same belief about BSE was strongly held in the 1980s.

15 Black, Mrs, Superior Cookery (Collins 1898).

16 Janey Ellice’s Recipes 1846-1859 ed. Wentworth, Josie A. (MacDonald and Janes 1975).

17 Mars, Valerie, ‘Parsimony amid Plenty’, Food Culture & History (London Food Seminar 1993).

18 Quoted in ibid.

19 Keane Molly, Nursery Cooking (MacDonald 1985).

20 King-Hall, Magdalen, The Story of the Nursery (Routledge 1958).

21 Quoted in Boxer, Arabella, Book of English Food (Hodder & Stoughton 1991).

22 Leyel, Mrs C.F.; Hartley, Miss Olga, The Gentle Art of Cookery (Chatto & Windus 1925).

23 Raverat, Gwen, Period Piece (Faber and Faber 1954).

24 Acton, Harold, Memoirs of an Aesthete (Artellus 1948).

CHAPTER 11: Food for All

1 Priestley, J.B., The Edwardians (Sphere 1970).

2 Ibid.

3 Reeves S.P., Magdalen, Round About a Pound a Week (1913).

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Rowntree, B. Seebohm, How the Labourer Lives: A Study of the Rural Labour Problem (1913).

8 Oddy, D.J., ‘A Nutritional Analysis of Historical Evidence: The Working Class Diet 1880-1914’ in The Making of the Modern British Diet, Oddy, Derek J.; Miller, Derek S. ed. (Croom Helm 1976).

9 ‘Astor Committee on the Production and Distribution of Milk’ (1918).

10 Whetham, Edith, ‘The London Milk Trade, 1900-1930’ in The Making of the Modern British Diet, Oddy, Derek J.; Miller, Derek S. ed., op.cit.

11 Burnett, John, op.cit.

12 Machray, R., The Night Side of London (1902).

13 Richardson D.J., ‘J. Lyons & Co. Ltd: Caterers & Food Manufacturers, 1894 to 1939’ (Oddy and Miller op.cit.).

14 Curtis-Bennett, Sir Noel, The Food of the People (Faber 1959).

15 Ibid.

16 Griggs, Barbara, The Food Factor (Viking 1986), quoted in Boyd Orr, Sir John; Lubbock, David, Feeding the People in Wartime (Macmillan 1940).

17 Johnson, James, A Hundred Years’ Eating (Gill & Macmillan 1977).

18 Heath, Ambrose, Open Sesame: two hundred recipes for canned goods (Nicolson & Watson 1939).

19 New Zealand ate 236 lb per head per annum, Australia 202 lb, Canada 144 lb and the UK 140 lb; these figures were for the years 1930-4.

20 In order following us were Denmark at 7.7 oz, Germany 6.4 oz, France 5.6 oz, USA 4.6 oz, Italy 3.4 oz and Switzerland 1.9 oz.

21 Crawford, Sir William; Broadley H., The People’s Food (Heinemann 1938).

22 Martineau, Alice, More Caviare and More Candy (Cobden-Sanderson 1938).

23 Boxer, Arabella, Book of English Food (Hodder & Stoughton 1991).

24 Quoted in ibid.

25 Cassell’s Cookery Book (1884) does, however, suggest a salad of leaves, tomato, potato and celery.

26 Martineau, op.cit.

27 Davidson, Caroline, op.cit.

28 Ibid.

29 Boyd Orr, Sir John; Lubbock, David, Feeding the People in Wartime, op.cit.

30 Quoted in Griggs, Barbara, The Food Factor, op.cit.

31 By the end of the war weekly rations for an adult were: meat by price 1s 2d (roughly 1 lb), bacon or ham 4 oz, sugar 8 oz, butter and margarine 6 oz, cheese 2 oz, chocolate and sweets 3 oz, cooking fat 1 oz, tea 2¹/2 oz, preserves 4 oz.

32 Driver, Christopher, The British at Table 1940-1980 (Chatto & Windus 1983).

33 Fitzgibbon, Theodora, With Love (Century 1982).

34 Pyke, Magnus, Townsman’s Food (Turnstile Books 1952).

35 Longmate, Norman, How We Lived Then (Hutchinson 1971).

36 Cooper, Susan, Snoek Piquante. The Age of Austerity (Penguin 1963).

37 Tuna on sale now at the fishmonger has already been drained.

38 Postgate, Raymond, Leader Magazine, 23 June 1949.

39 Cooper, Susan, ibid.

40 Driver, Christopher, ibid.

41 Leader Magazine, 20 May 1950.

42 Boxer, Arabella, Book of English Food (Hodder & Stoughton 1991).

43 Mead, William, Edward, The English Medieval Feast (Allen & Unwin 1931).

44 The food we habitually take is always an addiction; I am not referring necessarily to monosodium glutamate, or strong Indian tea or coffee which we know are very addictive, for toast and marmalade or baked beans on toast can also be.

CHAPTER 12: The Global Village

1 Quoted in Driver, Christopher, op.cit.

2 For a detailed account see Spencer, Colin, Vegetarianism – a history, op.cit.

3 Tansey, Geoff; Worsley, Tony, The Food System (Earthscan 1995).

4 Introduction to Palmer, Arnold, Movable Feasts: Changes in English Eating Habits, op.cit.

5 Ibid.

6 ‘After FMD: Aiming for a Values-Driven Agriculture’ (Food Ethics Council 2001).

7 Gary Lewis, whose thoughts on the co-operative movement I’ve summarised.

8 Kapoor, Sybil, Simply British (Michael Joseph 1998).

APPENDIX I

1 Diary of John Manningham, 1602-03 (Camden Society Publication No 99, 1868).

APPENDIX II

2 See McNeill, Marian, The Scots Kitchen, op.cit., and Bibliographies in other Scots cookery books.

3 Freeman, Bobby, First Catch Your Peacock, op.cit.

4 Allen, Darina, Irish Traditional Cooking (Kyle Cathie 1998); Sexton, Regina, A Little History of Irish Food (Kyle Cathie 1998).