Foods in Season: June 1861

Let's see what Beeton's Book of Household Management tells us is in season in June.

Fish- Carp, crayfish, herring, lobsters, mackerel, mullet, pike, prawns, salmon, soles, tench, trout, turbot.

Meat- Beef, lamb, mutton, veal, buck venison.

Poultry- Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, plovers, pullets, rabbits.

Vegetables- Artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbages, carrots, cucumbers, lettuces, pease, potatoes, radishes, small salads, sea-kale, spinach, -various herbs.

Fruit- Apricots, cherries, currants, gooseberries, melons, nectarines, peaches, pears, pineapples, raspberries, rhubarb, strawberries.

We start with more changes in the fish category (two new, five removed since last month). Instead of a separate game category, venison is added to the otherwise unchanged meat list. Pigeons are out of the poultry category, replaced by plovers, turkey pullets, and wheatears. There are new additions in the vegetable realm with artichokes, radishes and spinach replacing cauliflower and cresses;  I'm confused by the cresses disappearing, since multiple varieties are flourishing in my garden just now (the curly cress has been doing well since mid-May while the nasturtium or Indian cress is just starting to reach useful size). There's even more expansion in the fruit category, losing only apples while apricots and currants come into more general use and peaches, pears, pineapple, and raspberry are all starting.

Revisiting Tea Cakes (1855)

Needed something sweet for Steilacoom, so I decided to revisit the tea cake receipt from Cookery, Rational, Practical and Economical (1855). This time I tried increasing the spices to 2 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp allspice, the combination of which made for more flavorful cakes. I like that this recipe is already on a small scale (8 flour, 5.5 oz sugar, 4 oz butter, 1 egg; makes 2 pans of cookies), though I had forgotten just how dry the dough is. It takes a lot of hand kneading to get all the dry ingredients worked in, and ends up making a rather grainy dough as a result. The cakes were a bit dense (as usual for this kind of biscuit/cake/cookie), but are perfectly serviceable for serving with tea.

Small tea cakes flavored with cinnamon and allspice.

Being pressed for time, I tried just shaping these cakes with my hands (roll into small balls and flatten rather than rolling out a sheet and cutting them). It worked tolerably well, and made 3 dozen ~1.5" diameter cakes. I do think the texture could be improved by letting the dough chill overnight and then rolling them out, which is what I will plan to try next time.

Original: Seaside Outfit, c.1864-1867

Cotton seaside ensemble, c.1864-7, in LACMA.

 

Something summery this month! I selected this sacque-and-petticoat outfit partly for the seasonal theme, and partly because it breaks all the 'rules' (read: general trends) of reproducing 1860s dresses. It's a two-piece outfit; the bodice (sacque) does not closely fit the figure; and the fabric is a solid cotton (no printed design in sight). And it's covered in embroidery! But there are reasons for all of these departures from the norm, which is that this is a very specific kind of outfit, made of a very specific kind of fabric, worn by very specific people for very specific purposes.

In short: this is a rich person's casual summer recreation outfit, intended for outdoor daywear in a "watering place" (read: seaside resort full of other rich people relaxing and having fun outside). The loose fit of the sacque makes the whole thing look relaxed and informal, while the unprinted white cotton should both look and feel cool in the summer heat. And that isn't just any kind plain cotton: it's a cotton pique, which as far as I can recall is only used for summer wear (and is one of the few solid-colored cotton materials to feature in women's dresses of the period). And the white won't be fading or crocking; not that this need be a concern, because the person commissioning hyper-specific garments for hitting the beach on vacation is not someone trying to eke out a meager clothes budget, and can readily replace this outfit when it starts getting dingy or dated. Note also the long train on this skirt: it's meant to be worn over the fashionable elliptical hoops of the later 1860s, despite the ostensibly 'relaxed' show made by the sacque.

May Mending

Mostly modern tasks this month (jeans and the like), though I did fix a split seam in my 1850s drawers and replace a bone button which had broken on my tucked petticoat. After last weekend's reenactment, I found a number of tears in my shifts and stockings, which have now replenished the mending pile.  

Sallet of all kinde of hearbes, 1587

 To make a Sallet of all kinde of hearbes, from The Good Huswifes Jewell (1587): 

Take your hearbes and picke them very fine into faire water, and picke your flo∣wers by them selues, and wash them all cleane, and swing them in a strainer, and whē you put them into a dish, mingle them with Cowcumbers or Lemmons payred and sliced, and scrape Suger, and put in vineger and Oyle, and throw the flowers on the top of the Sallet, and of euery sorte of the aforesaid things, and garnish the dish about with the foresaide thinges, and hard Egges boyled and laide about the dish and vpon the Sallet.

So, which are these "all kinde of hearbes?" In the contemporary A Book of Cookrye (1591), the only salad recipe is a boiled salad of spinach (with a sauce of currants, sugar, and vinegar). The earlier Forme of Cury (c.1390) gives a "salat" that truly features all kinds of herbs:

Take persel, sawge, garlec, chibolles, oynouns, leek, borage, myntes, porrectes [porrets], fenel and ton tressis [cresses], rew, rosemarye, purslarye [purslain], laue and waische hem clene, pike hem, pluk hem small wiþ þyn honde and myng hem wel with rawe oile. lay on vynegur and salt, and serue it forth.

In a more modern spelling, I read this as

Take parlsey, sage, garlic, chibolles [spring onions], onions, leeks, borage, mint, porret [scallions, young leeks, or small onions], fennel, cresses, rue, rosemary, purslane. Lave [rinse] and wash them clean, pick them, pluck them small within hand and mingle well with raw oil. Lay on vinegar and salt, and serve it forth.

Meanwhile, Eleanor Fettisplace's Receipt Book (edited by Hilary Spurling, started c.1604) apparently mentions salads of lettuce, radish, cress, and 'other greens' interspersed with olives, currants, nuts, and decorated with flowers. None of these recipes made the printed addition in full.

Being limited by what was available in the garden, I had to use a purchased spinach/baby lettuce combination as the bulk of the greens, supplemented by curly cress (lots in the garden already), roquet/arugula, parsley (doing well in the container garden), sage (ditto), mint (likewise), and green onions (also coming along in the garden). I technically could have grabbed some leeks and borage as well, but I didn't like how either of them looked in the necessary interval between when I picked them and when I started assembling the salad--and I simply forgot to pick any rosemary. I opted for the cucumber over the lemon (this being for an event, and feeling that cucumbers require less of an explanation), and did remember to grab some chive flowers to decorate the sallet.   

Sallet of all kinde of hearbes, after a recipe of c.1587.

Per the instructions, I washed and drained all the vegetables, then sliced the cucumbers and tore up all the leafy greens. Mounding the greens on a plate, I set the cucumber slices over them, and poured white wine vinegar and olive oil over the whole thing. I finished it the sallet by setting slices of three hard-boiled eggs around the edges and putting the chive flowers on top.

Overall the salad was fine, I just found it really bland. In many respects, it's not that different from my usual Victorian salads, so I think the main issue is the dressing not having that extra zip of mustard and cayenne. It might also just have been too cool of a day for salad to really be appealing. I was worried about the more pungent herbs, and the sheer number of onion variations called for, but it ended up not being a huge deal. The few bits of green onion I included went very nicely with the egg and cucumber, while the sage wasn't bad, and even the mint worked better than I feared. I'm not sure this will hold true for a salad with more mint and onion all together, but in small amounts, it sort of worked. I'd definitely inflict this one on other people in the name of historical accuracy (it's weird, but not awful). 

I did forget the sugar, but otherwise feel pretty good about the accuracy of this salad. For one thing, I think there's room to interpret "all kinde of hearbes" as 'this recipe can be many with any kind of green salad vegetables' as much as it can be read as 'this recipe requires as many different vegetables as possible,' and in that case, not including every plant isn't a failure. Furthermore, the herb list I used was a good 200 years older than the salad recipe itself, so while I think it was a potentially useful suggestion, I don't think it's a binding matter of accuracy to includes all of them in this one specific recipe. I think there's room to argue that the cucumbers should be mixed into the greens instead of laid on top, so I might try that instead next time, though I like the look of the cucumbers on top.

Shoe-making Tool Roll

Much like the flatware rolls, and the one for my straw-plaiting accoutrements, this tool roll isn't an historical copy, but rather the application of a historic method (rolled fabric pocket) to a crafting and living history need (a way to contain my shoe-making tools, especially the pointy ones, in storage and transit). It certainly would have been a familiar organizational strategy for the sorts of women trying to DIY their own shoes with Every Lady Her Own Shoemaker, so I think it's a reasonable addition to my interpretive kit. After all, I'm not portraying a period shoemaker, just a person with basic sewing skills attempting to learn from a book.

Tools all assembled.

 

I left out the hammer and pliers, due to their size and weight skewing my mock-ups. The rest of the tools and supplies get their own designation pockets: wool-lined leather sheaths for two shoe knives and a rasp; wool needle-page;  then fabric pockets for two awls, a wood burnisher, an edging tool, bar of wax, thread winders, a bag of tacks, and glass burnisher. Wool is used to keep moisture (and thus rust) away from the blades and needles, while the rest of the roll is made from reproduction cotton prints. The awls have small pieces of cork over their tips to prevent them poking through the fabric.

I've taken it out for one event so far, and other than being inconveniently large for the table space, it did a good job of keeping everything neat and ready at hand. I also appreciate that it rolls up into a single neat package, which is helpful for organizing my box of shoe-making supplies.

Food in Season: May 1861

It's May Beeton's Book of Household Management considers to be in season for May.

Fish- Carp, chub, crabs, crayfish, dory, herring, lobsters, mackerel, red and gray mullet, prawns, salmon, shad, smelts, soles, trout, turbot.

Meat- Beef, lamb, mutton, veal.

Poultry- Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, pigeons, pullets, rabbits.

Vegetables- Asparagus, beans, early cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, cresses, cucumbers, lettuces, pease, early potatoes, salads, sea-kale, -various herbs.

Fruit- Apples, green apricots, cherries, currants for tarts, gooseberries, melons, pears, rhubarb, strawberries.

Meat and poultry are looking pretty much the same as last month, save for the addition of goose. The game category is completely gone, as are the shellfish. Lots of turn-over in the fish, vegetables, and fruit categories.