What's For Dinner? Porpoise anyone?

Time once again for this week's Marvelous Link...

From the BBC via the University of Manchester Library comes this short video and write-up on medieval cookery.

The Forme of Cury was published around 1420--and is now available online. My favorite quote in the interview was: "These aren't like a modern cookery book. This doesn't give you precise quantities or time. But great for experimenting."

From what I've read in the The Good Wife's Guide: A Medieval Household Book, I'll take a pass on whipping up some good medieval eats.

As tasty as that porpoise stew recipe sounds, it's just too hard to find fresh porpoise at my local Kroger (Publix, Dominicks, Harris Teeter, Piggly Wiggly, whatever).

So about the image: Porpoises are close enough to Dolphins for this Midwestern girl. Dolphins make me think of the French word dauphin. Dauphin makes me think that they called the heir apparent to the French throne, le Dauphin. And this makes me think of Louis le Grand Dauphin (above), who was Louis XIV's eldest son (1661-1711). See, there's always a 17th century connection... (Plus it's the weekend and 150 degrees here, that would make anyone a little punchy!)

Take a Peek: 17th Century Cookbooks

By Holly Tucker

I mentioned last week that the Wellcome Library for the History of Medicine is one of the wonders of the world for people working in the history of medicine. I have been there several times and have felt like a child in candy store. My last trip was about a year ago. It was generously funded by a Library travel fellowship. I rented a studio flat about five minutes away from the library, which is in central London not from King's Cross station. I spent my days carefully turning the pages of 400 year old dissection manuals, and my evenings reading up on what I needed to prepare for the next day's research foray. The trip was blissful.

I recall vividly my first trip to the collections several years ago. I was finishing up a book on women's medical knowledge in the seventeenth century. I stumbled across the Library's extraordinary collection of early cookbooks and household manuels.

The large bound volumes had clearly been passed on through generations. The hand written recipes and notes were in the hand of different women at different moments. These were not recipes on how to make cakes. No, the recipes included procedures for distilling herbs, curing common ailments, and even tips on how to stay beautiful.

I gasped aloud when I turned the page of one such cookbook--I think it was the one by a French family dated 1699--and discovered several meticulously pressed leaves. Imagine this: those leaves had been in the book for nearly 3oo years. This is why I do what I do for a living. This is why I delight in being a researcher.

The Wellcome has made many of its cookbooks now accessible online. In fact, they're looking for beta testers. If you want to have a look yourself, just head over to the Library's outstanding blog for more information.

And let me know if you're hooked too. I'll bet you will be!

Image Wellcome Library.

A History of Rum

By Frederick H. Smith, Ph.D.

In the summer of 1996 I went to Barbados to prepare a historical archaeological field school in Bridgetown with my colleague Dr. Karl Watson and his students from the department of history at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. On the morning of Saturday, July 13, Watson called to say that construction workers in a part of the city known as the Pierhead had unearthed skeletal remains while preparing a site for the expansion of a local shopping mall.

The skeletal remains turned out to be human, and further investigation revealed more burials at the site. We spent the day surveying this unmarked and forgotten cemetery, and recording information about the site. Based on the absence of grave markers, the cemetery’s location on the periphery of the town, and the presence of a mid-eighteenth century white kaolin clay tobacco pipe, which had been placed in the crook of the right arm of one the deceased, we determined that the graveyard was the final resting place of Bridgetown’s slave population.

Throughout the day, construction workers and residents from the nearby neighborhoods monitored our excavation and pondered our work. Some mentioned the ghosts of those buried at the site and the restlessness of duppies, the mischievous, and sometimes malicious, spirits of the dead. At the end of the day, we removed the skeleton with the tobacco pipe and began packaging it for proper storage at the University of the West Indies. About that time, someone in the crowd shouted that we needed to pour libations to those buried at the site, and within minutes a bottle of rum was produced for that purpose. The rum was poured on the ground and the pouring was punctuated by requests that the duppies “rest in peace” and “leave us alone.”

This event was a major turning point in my academic career. Since 1991, I had conducted fieldwork in different parts of the Caribbean and during these visits had the opportunity to observe the central place of rum and other forms of alcohol in Caribbean society. I had also come across numerous references to rum in the primary documents I was reading. During the excavations at the Pierhead cemetery in Bridgetown, however, I was an actual participant in an event that embodied and expressed centuries of alcohol-related traditions in the Caribbean, which inspired me to pursue further study.

My book explores the role of alcohol in the Caribbean from the sixteenth century to the present. Drawing on materials from Africa, Europe, and throughout the Americas, it contributes to the growing field of Atlantic studies and breaks new ground in using an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates documentary, archaeological, and ethnographic evidence. It investigates the economic impact of Caribbean rum on multiple scales, including rum’s contribution to sugar plantation revenues, its role in bolstering colonial and post-colonial economies, and its impact on Atlantic trade. A number of political-economic trends determined the volume and value of rum exports from the Caribbean, especially war, competition from other alcohol industries, slavery and slave emancipation, temperance movements, and globalization.

My book also examines the social and sacred uses of rum and identifies the forces that shaped alcohol drinking in the Caribbean. While the enormous amounts of rum available in the Caribbean contributed to a climate of excessive drinking, levels of alcohol consumption varied among different social groups. The different drinking patterns reflect more than simply access to rum. For example, levels of drinking and drunken comportment conveyed messages about the underlying tensions that existed in the Caribbean, which were driven by the coercive exploitation of labor and set within a highly contentious social hierarchy based on class, race, gender, religion, and ethnic identity. Moreover, these tensions were often magnified by epidemic disease, poor living conditions, natural disasters, international conflicts, and unstable food supplies. While nearly everyone in the Caribbean drank, the differing levels of alcohol use by various social groups highlights the ways in which drinking became a means to confront anxiety.

To put your name in for a copy of Caribbean Rum, click HERE.

Frederick Smith is author of Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. He teaches Anthropology at the College of William & Mary.

Image: A West India Sportsman by Lieutenant Abraham James (1807). Barbados Museum and Historical Society

Pop Open the Champagne!

By Tilar Mazzeo, Ph.D.
Colby College

The BBC reported this summer that the owner of a castle in Scotland discovered a bottle of unopened 1893 Veuve Clicquot champagne, the oldest known to exist. The lucky laird gave the bottle to the champagne house, where it is now on display as part of their historical exhibit.

And since much of the value in this special bottle is the fact that it was preserved unopened, chances are slim that this bubbly will ever find its way to a glass. But if it were poured, what would nineteenth-century champagne look and taste like?Veuve Clicquot champagne started using its trademark yellow label sometime in the mid-1860s, and, since it was used exclusively in the beginning to advertise a drier style of champagne to the English market, chances are the wine in this newly discovered bottle is brut champagne.

The term is a bit relative. Today, brut champagne is a dry wine. But, in the nineteenth century, folks drank their bubbly cold and sweet. An average bottle of champagne for the Russian market, for example, had as much as 300 grams of residual sugar—which is about twice what we find today in sweet dessert wines.

And since champagne then was almost always a dessert wine and not an aperitif, that makes sense. Most champagne at the time was made in the style known as blanc de noirs—a white wine make with a mixture of red and wine grapes. But, in fact, calling this bottle a white wine is probably something of a misnomer. Imbibers expected their champagne to have a rosy tinge, something a quick trip to the Oxford English Dictionary will confirm.

There are early records showing that bubbly was often served as something resembling frozen slush, with that same viscosity that comes after a good bottle of vodka has been sitting the freezer for weeks. So we’d try it cold, something that’s not ideal for bubbles, of course. On the other hand, champagne then didn’t have the same sort of aggressive bubbles we find today in commercially produced sparkling wine either. The quality of the glassware wasn’t strong enough to withstand the intense pressure created by strongly carbonated wines.

We’d probably serve it in those shallow champagne goblets known as coupes and modeled, or so the legend goes, on the much-admired breasts of Madame de Pompadour. Until the Widow Clicquot discovered remuage—a system for efficiently clearing champagne of the yeasty debris that is a by-product of those bubbles—sparkling wine was often served in small, opaque V-shaped pilsner glasses, meant to disguise the floating sediment. By the middle of the century, champagne was reliably clear, and, although flutes existed, the preference was for coupes well into the mid-twentieth century.

Even if someone opens this newly discovered rarity, we won’t be among the lucky few to taste a drop. But what good historian doesn’t want to imagine this kind of first-hand research?

Tilar J. Mazzeo is the author of The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (HarperCollins 2008) and the forthcoming travel guide to The Back-Lane Wineries of Sonoma (The Little Bookroom / Random House 2009). She teaches English at Colby College.

Book of the Week: Caribbean Rum

I love to profile the books of fellow academics...especially when they write on compelling topics, like Frederick H. Smith has. Professor Smith--who also goes by Fred, depending on whether or not you're his student--is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary.

Here's a descriptive bit about his Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History: "Christopher Columbus brought sugarcane to the New World on his second voyage. By 1520 commercial sugar production was underway in the Caribbean, along with the perfection of methods to ferment and distill alcohol from sugarcane to produce a new beverage that would have dramatic impact on the region. Caribbean Rum presents the fascinating cultural, economic, and ethnographic history of rum in the Caribbean from the colonial period to the present"

On Thursday, we'll be treated to a description of how Professor Smith uncovered (literally!) his research subject. And here I was thinking that it had something to do with a love for good booze. In this case, it seems, his passion for rum came from a few fascinating items he found during an archeological dig.

It's New Year's Eve this week. Rum is just the perfect topic for Wonders & Marvels, don't you think?

To put your name in for a copy of Caribbean Rum, click HERE.

Veuve Clicquot 1893: This One’s Really Vintage

Guest post by Tilar Mazzio
The BBC reported this summer that the owner of a castle in Scotland discovered a bottle of unopened 1893 Veuve Clicquot champagne, the oldest known to exist. The lucky laird gave the bottle to the champagne house, where it is now on display as part of their historical exhibit.

And since much of the value in this special bottle is the fact that it was preserved unopened, chances are slim that this bubbly will ever find its way to a glass. But if it were poured, what would nineteenth-century champagne look and taste like?Veuve Clicquot champagne started using its trademark yellow label sometime in the mid-1860s, and, since it was used exclusively in the beginning to advertise a drier style of champagne to the English market, chances are the wine in this newly discovered bottle is brut champagne.

The term is a bit relative. Today, brut champagne is a dry wine. But, in the nineteenth century, folks drank their bubbly cold and sweet. An average bottle of champagne for the Russian market, for example, had as much as 300 grams of residual sugar—which is about twice what we find today in sweet dessert wines.

And since champagne then was almost always a dessert wine and not an aperitif, that makes sense. Most champagne at the time was made in the style known as blanc de noirs—a white wine make with a mixture of red and wine grapes. But, in fact, calling this bottle a white wine is probably something of a misnomer. Imbibers expected their champagne to have a rosy tinge, something a quick trip to the Oxford English Dictionary will confirm.

There are early records showing that bubbly was often served as something resembling frozen slush, with that same viscosity that comes after a good bottle of vodka has been sitting the freezer for weeks. So we’d try it cold, something that’s not ideal for bubbles, of course. On the other hand, champagne then didn’t have the same sort of aggressive bubbles we find today in commercially produced sparkling wine either. The quality of the glassware wasn’t strong enough to withstand the intense pressure created by strongly carbonated wines.

We’d probably serve it in those shallow champagne goblets known as coupes and modeled, or so the legend goes, on the much-admired breasts of Madame de Pompadour. Until the Widow Clicquot discovered remuage—a system for efficiently clearing champagne of the yeasty debris that is a by-product of those bubbles—sparkling wine was often served in small, opaque V-shaped pilsner glasses, meant to disguise the floating sediment. By the middle of the century, champagne was reliably clear, and, although flutes existed, the preference was for coupes well into the mid-twentieth century.

Even if someone opens this newly discovered rarity, we won’t be among the lucky few to taste a drop. But what good historian doesn’t want to imagine this kind of first-hand research?

Tilar J. Mazzeo is the author of The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (HarperCollins 2008) and the forthcoming travel guide to The Back-Lane Wineries of Sonoma (The Little Bookroom / Random House 2009). She teaches English at Colby College.

Just What the Doctor Ordered

Chocolate is a New World marvel. It did not show up in Europe until the late sixteenth century. Some people speculate the Columbus brought back chocolate for Ferdinand and Isabelle, but that seems to be a contested fact among some historians.

Chocolate was sought out especially for its medicinal properties. It was combined with vanilla (another discovery) with loads of suger to create a syrup. Two spoonfuls would help ease a cough or a sore throat. Other recipes used the lovely bean to decrease bile and heartburn, as well as to ward away diarrhea.

But by far, the most favorite use was as an aphrodiasiac. In fact, I have stumbled on a good number of stories about women who stock up on chocolate in order to perform their wifely duties, or of men who claim the "Chocolate defense" when caught with another woman. Less appetizing however is the recommendation that chocolate be used to treat venereal diseases--particularly on oozing sores. Lovely.

Reference: Nicolas de Blegny, Le Bon usage...du chocolat. (1687)

Let Them Eat Hair Garnishes

By Carlyn Beccia (Guest Blogger)

What does Marie Antoinette's infamous pouf and the starchy tuberous crop fruit known as the potato have in common? Read more to find out...

We tend to associate the potato more with Ireland and England than we do with France and that may because the humble spud had a very rocky start with French Parisians. Although already widely accepted in England, the potato did not come to France until around 1600.¹ Still, no respectable royal would dare to eat the strange, dirty, lumpy looking spud. The potato became so feared that in 1619 it was banned from Burgundy, France because it was rumored to cause leprosy. It all made perfect sense to 16th century scholars. A potato looked like leprosy so therefore it must cause leprosy.²

The leprosy spud finally got an image makeover in the 18th century with the help from a potato propagandist and French chemist named Antoine-Auguste Parmentier. Parmentier threw some fabulous parties and invited the French upper class to taste his potato creations. At one of these parties, Parmentier gave Louis XVI a bouquet of potato flowers. Knowing his wife's proclivity for putting vegetables in her hair, Louis thoughtfully placed one delicate, purple sprig in Marie Antoinette's pouf. Thereafter, the potato may not have become a fashion accesory, but it did become the new, hot foot delicacy among the upper class.

The potato then went on to feed the French peasants and everyone loved their queen and...lived happily ever after.

Ok not exactly. Unfortunately, it took a few bread shortages, a nasty revolution, and some beheaded monarchs for the government to finally see the potato's full potential for feeding the rest of the starving country. In 1794, a year after Marie Antoinette was beheaded, the queen's beloved flowerbeds in the Tuileries were plowed over to make way for the purple blossoms that would feed a nation and become one of France's biggest exports.

Carlyn Beccia is author of The Raucous Royals and Who Put the B in the Ballyhoo? She writes about the scandals, rumors, and gossip of royalty over at The Raucous Royals.

Notes
(1) Some historians have blamed the slower populations grown of France in the 18^th century to their dependence of grain while other countries had the starchy potato to fall back on. In reverse to France’s grain dependency, reliance on the potato backfired in Ireland during the Great Potato Famine. (2) This was at a time when walnuts were eaten to treat headaches because they looked like a brain and eating the brains of another animal would make you smarter.

Sources and Further Reading:

Langer L. William, "American Foods and Europe's Population Growth 1750-1850." Journal of Social History 8.2 (1975): 51-66.

Salaman N. Redcliffe, The History and Social Influence of the Potato, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Complaints against coffee!

We just replaced our limping, fully automatic espresso machine with a manual one. For several years, our coffee ritual has been something straight out of a lab-rat experiment. Line up, press a button, hear the coffee beans grinding, start salivating, feel caffeine headache dissipate, coffee delivered in cup: rinse, repeat.

Now: it's a full out Starbuck's show our house. Too much work, I say! And so much worry about whether the coffee is "tamped" as the appropriate PSI (pounds per square inch, for the uninitiated). I've also gotten some grief about not expelling the "puck" (the gooey grounds) when I'm done.

This all makes me wonder if there was life before coffee. When? How? Coffee first arrived to Europe in the late seventeenth century. It was a curious luxury, available only to the wealthiest. Writers such as Nicolas Blegny offer up entire treatises about its medical uses. Coffee was recommended for coughs and diarrhea. It was also considered an aphrodiasiac and a treatment for SDT's (now that's a curious mix). Le bon usage du thé du caffé et du chocolat: pour la preservation & pour la guerison des maladies. Lyon & se vend à Paris: Jacques Collombat, 1687.

Maidens may have complained about it--but I won't. Even if I do have to work so hard to get a good cup of brew chez nous!