Ivan Day on Historic Cooking

Let’s talk about Gilly Lehmann’s book, The British Housewife.

The British Housewife is really an academic survey of the cookery books of the 18th century. The male cooks of the 17th century tended to be flamboyant characters who worked in very wealthy households. Their recipes were just show-off things – they’ve got enormous numbers of ingredients, all of which are expensive and some very impractical. The 18th century was the time when female cookery writers started to really emerge. The 17th century recipes were trimmed down and simplified by ladies who had a real eye for economy, simplicity and for not wasting materials – and their books started to sell much more quickly than their male counterparts. Gilly Lehmann, in a very eloquent way, traces this very interesting phenomenon which is very much still part of the British pattern of culinary life – we have a huge place for the domestic in our cookery literature, rather than just the fancy, professional approach.

It talks about the movement away from the Continental style of cooking, too.

Well, one of the things that she points out is that during that period France and England were at war. It was not considered terribly patriotic to read books on French food, and the very wealthy who still kept their French cooks did so very quietly. Good old English roast beef and plum pudding was seen very much as a symbol of patriotism during this period, and anything that was Frenchified was seen as a little bit suspect. Nevertheless, some of the ladies who disparaged French food still included a lot of French recipes, and French cookery certainly had a huge effect on our own. Many French recipes that died out in France carried on in this country. One delicacy which started out in France was a pie-like dish called a poupeton with a forcemeat crust on the outside rather than pastry. It died out in France, but carried on in England and eventually became known as a pulpatoon, which is a very English sounding name. So lots of French ideas were implanted on English soil and they remained here. Her book is probably one of the best works on the subject. Another book which I can really recommend is actually one about French cookery.

Is this Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Savouring the Past?

Yes. It’s a superb outline of the development of French food from the medieval period through to the 18th century. She lets the story unfold in a really interesting way – it’s superbly researched and it’s got some really strong arguments in it. It’s written by an American, but the French actually gave her a very important literary award for this book, so it’s very much appreciated in France as well as in the Anglo-Saxon world. It’s much more than just a history of French food – it helps you to understand the whole development of European food. It’s full of cross-references, and it’s based on a lifetime’s research and incredible erudition. She’s the honorary curator of the culinary collection at the Schlesinger Library, Harvard, so she has a great resource.

Let’s talk about Peter Brears’s book.

Cooking and Dining in Medieval England is really his masterwork. It is a book that is very important – it acts as a foundation for any further research in British food history. He has looked at the period after the Norman Conquest through to the rise of the Tudors in a way which no one else has ever done. He’s done his own investigations of medieval castles and manor houses, where he’s scratched around and found many forgotten and overlooked domestic features. His revelations are so extraordinary that they actually mean that some of the investigations of military historians, who’ve looked at castles from a defensive point of view, are often mistaken. Things they assumed were places for storing gunpowder and cannon balls turned out to be places where the malt was made for beer. Most of the time these buildings were not actually in a state of conflict – there were long uneventful decades where people were living in them just leading everyday lives, and they had to be fed and they needed something to drink. So he looks at that culture – and it’s a remarkable book. He deserved to get the André Simon award for the extraordinary research that it’s based on.

Your next recommendation is by Kathryn Hughes – The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton. I’m a fan of Mrs Beeton, especially her household management tips pertaining to the care of sick people.

Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not a fan of Mrs Beeton at all.

Ah. OK.

I find Mrs Beeton in some ways, from the point of view of a historian, a bit of a distraction, because she was a publishing phenomenon rather than an original cookery writer.

Was she the first of the celebrity cookbook writers?

Well, she never knew that she was going to become a celebrity because she died before her book got any kind of recognition.