The kettle which is mentioned, as we ob-
serve, in the tale of “Tom Thumb,” was the
universal vessel for boiling purposes,”* and the
bacon-house (or larder), so called from the
preponderance of that sort of store over the
rest, was the warehouse for the winter stock
of provisions.! The fondness for condiments,
especially garlic and pepper, among the higher
orders, possibly served to render the coarser
nourishment of the poor more savoury and
flavorous. “ It is interesting to remark,”
says Mr. Wright,! “that the articles just
mentioned (bread, butter, and cheese) have
preserved their Anglo-Saxon names to the
present time, while all kinds of meat — beef,
veal, mutton, pork, even bacon — have retained
only the names given to them by the Nor-
mans ; which seems to imply that flesh-meat
was not in general use for food among the
lower classes of society.”
In Malory’s compilation on the adventures
• An inverted kettle was the earliest type of the diving-bell.
t What is called in some places the keeping-room also accom-
modated flitches on the walls, and hams ranged along the beams
overhead ; and it served at the same time for a best parlour.
J “Domestic Manners and Sentiments,” 1862, p. 91.
and the Poor.
183
of King Arthur and his knights, contem-
porary with the “ Book of St. Alban’s,” we are
expressly informed in the sixth chapter, how
the King made a great feast at Caerleon in
Wales; but we are left in ignorance of its
character. The chief importance of details
in this case would have been the excessive
probability that Malory would have described
an entertainment consonant • with the usage
of his own day, although at no period of
early history was there ever so large an as-
semblage of guests at one time as met,
according to the fable, to do honour to
Arthur.
In the tenth century Colloquy of Arch-
bishop Alfric, the boy is made to say that he
is too young to eat meat, but subsists on
cabbages, eggs, fish, cheese, butter, beans, and
other things, according to circumstances ; so
that a vegetable diet was perhaps commoner
in those days even among the middle classes
than at present. This youth, when he is
asked what he drinks, replies, water, or ale if
he can get it. The dish so deftly constructed
by King Arthur, according to one of his
184
Diet of the Yeoman
numerous biographers, exhibited that wedlock
of fruit with animal matter — fat and plums —
which we post-Arthurians eye with a certain
fastidious repugnance, but which, notwith-
standing, lingered on to the Elizabethan or
Jacobsean era — nay, did not make the gorge
of our grandsires turn rebellious. It survives
among ourselves only in the modified shape
of such accessories as currant jelly and apple
sauce.
But the nursery rhyme about Arthur and the
bag-pudding of barley meal with raisins and
meat has a documentary worth for us beyond
the shadowy recital of the banquet at Caerleon,
for, mutato nomine , it is the description of a
favourite article of popular diet in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. The narrative of
Mrs. Thumb and her pudding is more cir-
cumstantial than that of King Alfred and
the housewife : and if the tradition is worth-
4 '
less, it serves us so far, that it faithfully
portrays a favourite item of rustic consump-
tion in old times. We are told that the pud-
ding was made in a bowl, and that it was
chiefly composed of the flesh and blood of a
and the Poor.
185
Page 58
Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
The kettle which is mentioned, as we observe, in the tale of “Tom Thumb,” was the universal vessel for boiling purposes,”* and the bacon-house (or larder), so called from the preponderance of that sort of store over the rest, was the warehouse for the winter stock of provisions.! The fondness for condiments, especially garlic and pepper, among the higher orders, possibly served to render the coarser nourishment of the poor more savoury and flavorous. “ It is interesting to remark,” says Mr. Wright,! “that the articles just mentioned (bread, butter, and cheese) have preserved their Anglo-Saxon names to the present time, while all kinds of meat — beef, veal, mutton, pork, even bacon — have retained only the names given to them by the Normans ; which seems to imply that flesh-meat was not in general use for food among the lower classes of society.”
In Malory’s compilation on the adventures
• An inverted kettle was the earliest type of the diving-bell.
t What is called in some places the keeping-room also accommodated flitches on the walls, and hams ranged along the beams overhead ; and it served at the same time for a best parlour.
J “Domestic Manners and Sentiments,” 1862, p. 91.
and the Poor.
of King Arthur and his knights, contemporary with the “ Book of St. Alban’s,” we are expressly informed in the sixth chapter, how the King made a great feast at Caerleon in Wales; but we are left in ignorance of its character. The chief importance of details in this case would have been the excessive probability that Malory would have described an entertainment consonant with the usage of his own day, although at no period of early history was there ever so large an assemblage of guests at one time as met, according to the fable, to do honour to Arthur.
In the tenth century Colloquy of Archbishop Alfric, the boy is made to say that he is too young to eat meat, but subsists on cabbages, eggs, fish, cheese, butter, beans, and other things, according to circumstances ; so that a vegetable diet was perhaps commoner in those days even among the middle classes than at present. This youth, when he is asked what he drinks, replies, water, or ale if he can get it. The dish so deftly constructed by King Arthur, according to one of his
Diet of the Yeoman
numerous biographers, exhibited that wedlock of fruit with animal matter — fat and plums — which we post-Arthurians eye with a certain fastidious repugnance, but which, notwithstanding, lingered on to the Elizabethan or Jacobsean era — nay, did not make the gorge of our grandsires turn rebellious. It survives among ourselves only in the modified shape of such accessories as currant jelly and apple sauce.
But the nursery rhyme about Arthur and the bag-pudding of barley meal with raisins and meat has a documentary worth for us beyond the shadowy recital of the banquet at Caerleon, for, mutato nomine , it is the description of a favourite article of popular diet in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The narrative of Mrs. Thumb and her pudding is more circumstantial than that of King Alfred and the housewife : and if the tradition is worth-
4 '
less, it serves us so far, that it faithfully portrays a favourite item of rustic consumption in old times. We are told that the pudding was made in a bowl, and that it was chiefly composed of the flesh and blood of a
and the Poor.