giblets, pigs’ pettitoes, and so many other
boiled meats, forced meats, and made dishes.
Things were hardly so very bad, however, if,
as he states previously, the curtailment of
the expenditure on the table still left, as a
medium repast, two or three dishes, with
fruit and cheese after. The black jack here
mentioned was not discarded till compara-
tively modern days. Nares, who published
his Glossary in 1822, states that he recollects
them in use.
“A meal’s meat twice a week, worth a
groat,” is mentioned as the farm servant’s por-
tion in “Civil and Uncivil Life,” 1579. In
“A Piece of Friar Bacon’s Brasen-heads
Prophesie,” a unique poem, 1604, we read
that at that time a cheesecake and a pie were
held “good country meat.” The author adds :
“ Ale and Spice, and Curdes and Creame,
Would make a Scholler make a Theame.”
Breton, in his “ Fantasticks,” 1626, ob-
serves : “ Milk, Butter and Cheese are the
labourers dyet; and a pot of good Beer
quickens his spirits.”
1 92 Diet of the Yeoman and the Poor.
Norfolk dumplings were celebrated in John
Day the playwright’s time. He has put into
the mouth of his east-country yeoman’s son,
Tom Strowd, in “The Blind Beggar of Beth-
nal Green,” written long before it was printed
in 1659, the following : — “ As God mend me,
and ere thou com’st into Norfolk, I’ll give
thee as good a dish of Norfolk dumplings
as ere thou laydst thy lips to and in another
passage of the same drama, where Swash’s
shirt has been stolen, while he is in bed, he
describes himself “as naked as your Nor-
folk dumplin.” In the play just quoted,
Old Strowd, a Norfolk yeoman, speaks of
his contentment with good beef, Norfolk
bread, and country home-brewed drink; and
in the “City Madam,” 1658, Holdfast tells
us that before his master got an estate, “ his
family fed on roots and livers, and necks of
beef on Sundays.” I cite these as traits of
the kind of table kept by the lower grades of
English society in the seventeenth century.
MEATS AND DRINKS.
“ Slender : You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you
not?
Anne : Aye, indeed, Sir
Slender : That's meat and drink to me, now.”
HE manufacture of wine and of fruit
preserves, and many of the processes
of cookery, could have scarcely been accom-
plished without a large and constant supply
of sugar.
The exact date of the first introduction of
the latter into England continues to be a
matter of uncertainty. It was clearly very
scarce, and doubtless equally dear, when, in
Merry Wives of Windsor, i, x.
O
194
Meats and Drinks.
1226, Henry III. asked the Mayor of Win-
chester to procure him three pounds of
Alexandria sugar, if so much could be got,
and also some rose and violet-coloured
sugar; nor had it apparently grown much
more plentiful when the same prince ordered
the sheriffs of London to send him four
loaves of sugar to Woodstock. But it soon
made its way into the English homes, and
before the end of the thirteenth century it
could be procured even in remote provincial
towns. It was sold either by the loaf or the
pound. It was still exorbitantly high in
price, varying from eighteen pence to three
shillings a pound of coeval currency; and
it was retailed by the spice-dealers.
Page 61
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
giblets, pigs’ pettitoes, and so many other boiled meats, forced meats, and made dishes. Things were hardly so very bad, however, if, as he states previously, the curtailment of the expenditure on the table still left, as a medium repast, two or three dishes, with fruit and cheese after. The black jack here mentioned was not discarded till comparatively modern days. Nares, who published his Glossary in 1822, states that he recollects them in use.
“A meal’s meat twice a week, worth a groat,” is mentioned as the farm servant’s portion in “Civil and Uncivil Life,” 1579. In “A Piece of Friar Bacon’s Brasen-heads Prophesie,” a unique poem, 1604, we read that at that time a cheesecake and a pie were held “good country meat.” The author adds :
“ Ale and Spice, and Curdes and Creame, Would make a Scholler make a Theame.”
Breton, in his “ Fantasticks,” 1626, observes : “ Milk, Butter and Cheese are the labourers dyet; and a pot of good Beer quickens his spirits.”
1 92 Diet of the Yeoman and the Poor.
Norfolk dumplings were celebrated in John Day the playwright’s time. He has put into the mouth of his east-country yeoman’s son, Tom Strowd, in “The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green,” written long before it was printed in 1659, the following : — “ As God mend me, and ere thou com’st into Norfolk, I’ll give thee as good a dish of Norfolk dumplings as ere thou laydst thy lips to; and in another passage of the same drama, where Swash’s shirt has been stolen, while he is in bed, he describes himself “as naked as your Norfolk dumplin.” In the play just quoted, Old Strowd, a Norfolk yeoman, speaks of his contentment with good beef, Norfolk bread, and country home-brewed drink; and in the “City Madam,” 1658, Holdfast tells us that before his master got an estate, “ his family fed on roots and livers, and necks of beef on Sundays.” I cite these as traits of the kind of table kept by the lower grades of English society in the seventeenth century.
MEATS AND DRINKS.
“ Slender : You are afraid, if you see the bear loose, are you not?
Anne : Aye, indeed, Sir
Slender : That's meat and drink to me, now.”
HE manufacture of wine and of fruit
preserves, and many of the processes of cookery, could have scarcely been accomplished without a large and constant supply of sugar.
The exact date of the first introduction of the latter into England continues to be a matter of uncertainty. It was clearly very scarce, and doubtless equally dear, when, in
Merry Wives of Windsor, i, x.
O
Meats and Drinks.
1226, Henry III. asked the Mayor of Winchester to procure him three pounds of Alexandria sugar, if so much could be got, and also some rose and violet-coloured sugar; nor had it apparently grown much more plentiful when the same prince ordered the sheriffs of London to send him four loaves of sugar to Woodstock. But it soon made its way into the English homes, and before the end of the thirteenth century it could be procured even in remote provincial towns. It was sold either by the loaf or the pound. It was still exorbitantly high in price, varying from eighteen pence to three shillings a pound of coeval currency; and it was retailed by the spice-dealers.