Fishing Miseries - an 1833 advice book for fishermen

Cartoons and descriptions of the hazards of fishing.

"Wading half an inch deeper than the tops of your boots, and finding afterwards that you must carry about with you four or five quarts [of water] in each, or must sit down on the wet grass whilst your attendant pulls them off, in order that you may empty them, and try to pull them on again."

800 pound Plum Pudding - boiled in huge brewing kettle for a June fair

A plum pudding for the June 7, 1809 Bartholomew Fair at Paignton was so enormous it had to be boiled in a "brewer's copper."  How big?  400 lbs of flour, 175 lbs of suet, 140 lbs raisins and 240 eggs to make a pudding weighing in at 800 lbs!  It was boiled from Sat. morning until Tues. evening and pulled in a wagon by 8 oxen.

Flour mill and bakery onboard naval ships during Crimean War

To support the British troops with their daily bread ration during the Crimean War in 1855-6, two iron steamers were refitted – one named “Bruiser” as a floating mill and the other “Abundance” as a bakery.

Greek and Turkish confectionary

These fabulous colored images are from Conditorei des Orients (1838) by Friedrich Unger, the German confectioner to King Otto I of Greece.
The first picture is a confectionery in Athens.

Brown-Eyed Susan Cake

The yellow and brown (chocolate) marble cake is from the 1933 Betty Crocker New Party Cakes.  The Black-eyed Susan is the official drink of the Preakness.

Calling bees - Tanging or ringing

"Why does the old lady knock with her key on a frying-pan?"  Bees swarm when the hives "be too much crowded by the young brood" and the weather warms in late April or May.  To settle/calm the bees into an empty hive people would beat a kettle, pan or ring a little bell.  Perhaps to sound like thunder or it was done to claim ownership of the swarm.

Kentucky Bourbon Balls

Ruth Hanly (1891-1973) and her friend Rebecca Gooch, both in their 20s, left teaching in 1919 to start a candy business – Rebecca Ruth Candies - in Frankfort Ky.  The company, still in business, still sells the famed Bourbon Balls it created in 1938.

Maple Sugar described in Goodrich/Parley books

Generally maple syrup is the end result from the sap tapped from maple trees.  However the following excerpts detail how maple sugar was made.  Samuel Griswold Goodrich (1793-1860)  wrote numerous books (excerpts from 1832-1856) under his name or as 'Peter Parley". 

H. L. Barnum's cookbook from Cincinnati

Not the great showman P. T. Barnum, but H. L. Barnum (another of the vast Conn. family), lived in Cincinnati in 1831 when he compiled the 400 page Family Receipts, including an egg and boiling tea substitute for milk. 

Good Friday Hot Cross Buns kept for a year

Hot Cross Buns stored for a year?  Cornish folklore- "In some of our farmhouses the Good Friday cake may be seen hanging to the bacon-rack, slowly diminishing..."  Poor Robin's Almanack of 1753 noted it would not get moldy and was used to cure illnesses in humans and farm animals.

Easter in Germany - hares laying eggs?? decorations, egg hunt and toss

It is very interesting, to those of us raised accepting a bunny delivered Easter eggs, that writers outside of Germany and the German areas of the US were perplexed by the tradition.  And surprised by the egg hunt.  The following excerpts and sketches from an 1878 article also show the range of chocolate or sugared figures far exceed our chocolate bunnies and eggs...

Barley Lemonade

Generally found in the foods for the sick section, barley water was often flavored with lemons and sugar, but this recipe was actually named lemonade by famed chef Alexis Soyer.  The pearl barley is boiled in water, strained and added to the sugar water and lemon. Then the lemonade is strained.

Nott's Barley Gruel

John Nott's The Cook's and Confectioner's Dictionary went through four editions from 1723-1733.  His gruel is enriched with cream, wine, sugar, currants and egg yolks. A rather fine gruel!  Other barley recipes in Nott's book are broth, cream, pottage, posset, pudding, and barley sugar.

Melting snow with salt - in Victorian England

"Persons can do few more silly or injurious things than to sprinkle salt upon snow before their doors. The result is to change dry snow or ice at the temperature of 32°, to brine at 0°. So low a temperature affecting the feet of passengers is a prolific source of colds. If, then, any one does sprinkle salt upon snow in the street, he ought to feel it a matter of conscience to sweep it away immediately."

Geometry in food

In the 1841 book The Childs Pictorial Geometry a slice of cake is an equilateral triangle and a sugar loaf is a cone.

Those annoying cries of London

The following excerpt from 1827 describes "the incessant bawling of" street vendors to the annoyance of those "who have not the happiness to be deaf."  From the "muffin man's little bell," the bakers barking dogs, to a "stentorian bawler" for beer bottles until "the characters thicken, and tenfold cries distract the worried ear."

Baker's cart guard dogs

The little dogs under the cart to the left, did not pull the cart, but would protect the contents by wildly barking while the baker delivered his bread.  The image is by the British artist WH Pyne, 1827 and the write up below about terriers in New York is from an 1872  magazine.

Queen Victoria's chef Charles Elme Francatelli

A famed chef and cookbook author appears in the TV series "Victoria" - Francatelli (1805-1876).  Born in London, trained in France by Careme, he became "Chief cook and Maitre d'Hotel" from 1840-1842 for Queen Victoria (crowned 1838). After a "fracas" at Buckingham Palace in 1841, he was let go in and his first, highly popular, cookbook The Modern Cook was released in 1845.

Baron von Steuben's French chef at Valley Forge

Cooking beef on a string.  Steuben's "cook of celebrity" couldn't prepare their ration of beef and bread without utensils. He asked their 'wagoner" how to cook the meat and was told "by hanging it up by a string, and turning it before a good fire..."

Cranberry Muffins

This 1908 recipe has a very rich, thick batter loaded with baking powder.  The berries were fresh and softened during the baking.