Meeting Mrs Beeton

Usually the Christmas wish-list includes at least on recipe book but I really don't have room for very many more and I am certainly not prepared to part with anything to make space so I am trying hard to resist more recipes - surely I must have enough inspiration already? That does not of course mean that there is a moratorium on all books and it certainly doesn't mean a ban on food-related books.
The summer holiday reading so far has been almost entirely food related.
I started with Mrs Beeton  - The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton by Kathryn Hughes. I'm a great fan of biography and a firm believer in fact being both more interesting an infinitely stranger then fiction. I also have a bit of a fascination with the Victorians. The mid- to late-nineteenth century really saw the beginning of life as we know it, the beginning of the rise and rise of the middle class, and so often sounds like a gas lit version of the late twentieth century. The Beetons - Isabella and  Sam - were first and foremost middle class entrepreneurs, on the look out for new ideas and ways of making money and a name for themselves. The gorgeous irony in Mrs Beeton's case is the contrast between the reality of the young woman and her limited experience and knowledge of household management, let alone cooking (Isabella got most of her material from other sources) and the authority which has been attached to her name. Although of course by now we are used to the idea that credentials or expertise of some sort  are no longer a prerequisite for fame or at least notoriety.

Mrs Beeton is a big read. At 428 pages (plus notes, extensive bibliography and excellent index) even my eyes glazed over from time to time and I would have to concede that it may not hold the attention of anyone only concerned with how the Book of Household Management came in to being. The author has done an enormous amount of research (both exhaustive and no doubt exhausting) and presents a detailed discussion of both Isabella's life and family background as well as that of her husband, Sam, and their social milieu all of which is interesting if at times a little overwhelming.  The final chapter is a brief analysis of what Mrs Beeton has come to stand for and the myths that have been perpetuated relating to both the woman and her book. Kathryn Hughes organises her material well and her writing is clear and entertaining but this is, I think, a book that might appeal more to history tragics than general readers although that said it is worth reading if only for an insight into how we got to where we are today.
The late nineteenth century saw the benefits and burdens of the Industrial Revolution really start to come in to their own bringing the gradual move towards the mechanised household run by a lone woman in charge of mechanised servants. Mrs Beeton advocated prudence, patience and perseverance. Her book was aimed at effective and efficient management of the home, emphasising system, organisation and productivity. Many of the ideals espoused in The Book of Household Management were alive and well when I was young and were certainly still entirely desirable when my mother was a young woman starting a home of her own.  It seems to me that today we undervalue the work and skill involved in efficient household management - the work of planning, shopping, preparing and serving meals, balancing the family's tastes and nutritional needs, the allocation of resources and finances, washing, cleaning, ironing etc. Whether these tasks are undertaken personally, by the lone housewife, or sub-contacted to someone outside the home, somebody is responsible for the management of the household or at least someone should be responsible for the organisation and monitoring of the household activities. Perhaps we need a latter day Mrs Beeton who could again 'elevate domestic duties so that they became something you could be proud of doing well' (Hughes, p.472).
My great grandmother and her sisters, like their mother and aunt before them, were all domestic servants.  Grangran was born in in 1875 and by the time she was 16 she was working as a general servant. When she married in 1898 she was employed as a cook. I wonder if she owned a copy of The Book of Household Management or whether she had learnt enough from her experiences 'in service' not to need a manual.

The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton
Kathryn Hughes
Harper Perennial, London, 2006
ISBN-13 978-1-84115-374-2

A change is as good as a rest.

If a change is as good as a rest then it must be even better to have a change and a rest.
In this case I have changed the look of the blog, partly because I could and partly because I couldn't work out how to update the old design, and I've also had a rest.
 Rather than risk another Moroccan outcome, in November/December 2010 we spent almost three weeks in France - twelve of those days spent in Paris - and post-Christmas we spent two weeks doing nothing much more than sit on the beach and read.
So now it's time to think about writing again and catching up with everything food related. The garden also looks like a scene from The Day of the Triffids - it is just amazing how plants thrive on rain and sunshine and the various diseases they are prone to thrive on humidity. The tomatoes and zucchinis have succumbed to mildew and the capsicums are a bit unhappy. On the bright side the eggplants look fabulous and there are so many of them that there is a chance we may overdose. The basil is lush and tall and begging to be turned into pesto and the tomatillos and ground cherry have overcome their initial hesitation and now look almost bushy.
If nothing else trying to grow some of your own food makes you much more appreciative of the effort that must go in to producing the abundance in the shops - and how little remuneration there must be for all the work and time involved. And given that farmers have to contend with land which is either parched and desperate for water or literally washing away you would have to question why anyone would consider being a primary producer. Perhaps the inevitable increase in prices as a result of the dreadful flooding in Queensland will make a few people stop and think a bit more about where the food they eat comes from - and perhaps choose not to buy French eschallots imported from Holland or even Spanish red onions from the USA but support someone local instead.

This Time Last Year

This time last year we were on holiday in Morocco. It has taken me a year to write about this because during our time there I spent four days confined to either the bed or the bathroom sicker than I have ever been in my life. We were all ill to varying degrees, but all ill enough to have to make arrangements to go to a doctor and check out the local hospital. The upshot was that none of us has been over fond of coriander since and none of us will ever touch pastilla again. In a bizarre way it was a good family holiday - we all got to bond in ways we had never anticipated.

So Fes particularly will always be etched in our memories, not least because it was a very interesting place.

Was it something we ate? This is what we ate for breakfast on the first day - milk coffee, fresh goats cheese, honey and a variety of breads

 


We sampled a variety of different bread-y things.The most interesting were the giant crumpets although we now suspect that they might also function as giant petri dishes.

We were there for Eid el Kebir  (or Eia al-Adha) the Feast of the Sacrifice of the Lamb or just the Feast of Sacrifice or even the Grand Feast. This is a major event with every family who can afford it purchasing a sheep to slaughter. The streets were busy before the event with sheep being transported around one way or another and after the event it is very hard to avoid coming into contact with some evidence of the deceased.

 

We didn't try camel or smen the amazing fermented butter that is a traditional ingredient (apparently blue cheese is a reasonable substitute). We did consume large quantities of mint tea and we did get to see warka pastry being made and we even got to play with it at a cooking class we did.

The markets were endlessly fascinating.



And tempting though the food stalls in the Djemmaa el-Fna in Marrakesh may be we didn't push our luck.



Cooking History

Although the recent Sydney International Food Festival was mainly about restaurants, chefs and eating out there were one or two non eating events. One was the screening of this little film 'Cooking History', a documentary about army chefs and the logistics of feeding armies during wartime - but also about food and nostalgia, food and memory, food and identity. Filmed in Europe and dealing with conflicts from WW2 to Tchechnia it was  interesting and thought provoking. Worth looking out for if it ever gets a run on television - or at a film festival?

Foraging Frenzy



Luis Melendez, Still Life with Gherkins and Tomatoes

 October is Food Festival month in Sydney which means an orgy of chefs and restaurants strutting their stuff. This year the highlights included a presentation by René Redzepi at the Sydney Opera House. Over the preceding weeks and indeed subsequently there has been much written about Mr Redzepi, his restaurant and his food philosophies. So although I haven't actually met the man I would have to say that I feel reasonably well acquainted with him. He is a pleasant enough young man, he speaks well, he has some interesting things to say and he has a sense of humour, something which few others appear to have noticed.
How else would you explain the fact that he gets away with foraging for bits and pieces in the forests, fiddles with them in the kitchen, charges a fortune for them and gets called the greatest chef in the world? I had thought that I was perhaps the only person who had seen the irony in taking wild raw materials, torturing them a bit (quite literally in the case of the live shrimp he dishes up), serving it on a warm rock and then suggesting to the consumer that they were in some way communing with nature. Many of his dishes take hours if not days to prepare, how can he suggest that he is keeping the link from origin to plate as unbroken as possible? Can he be serious in suggesting that anything you eat in a restaurant  is likely to bring you close to the forces of nature? So it was with a sense of joy and relief that I read Keith Austin's piece on his experience sitting at the feet of the great man - here.
Don't get me wrong - I find the Redzepi approach fascinating and I wish the man well but doesn't it  make you stop and ask  'Que?'
The big disappointment is that Mr. Redzepi's visit does not seem to have engendered any on-going interest in some of the bigger questions about our fascination with restaurants (why we go out to eat, what we expect from the experience ) and with celebrity. The media has however taken up the cause of indigenous ingredients and why we don't use them or even appreciate them (see Carli Ratcliff here) which gets us back to the old problem of culture and cuisine. If, as Mr. Redzepi affirms, cuisine is 'a palatable experience of your culture' then what do our palatable experiences tell us about our culture?

David Mitchell Chews Over Public Mastication

The anthropologist in me just loves this piece. I've been doing a good deal of reading about dining out and the rituals of the restaurant and this was a refreshing change from academic writing.

I told you so



Van Gogh  Interior of a Restaurant
 (oil on canvas, 1887)

 Science comes to the rescue! The fact that I don't like noisy restaurants may well be due to the fact that I am a grumpy old person but the fact that noise does affect the enjoyment of the food you are eating is just that - a fact! So noisy restaurants beware!