Cheese and other food...

[Hester]

Hi, Captain Tightpants:

Many thanks for your info on the history of English muffins and similar griddle breads.

Which reminds me, it's been awhile since I made my favourite type, Singing Hinnies:

http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recip...e=singinhinnies

I first came across these in an adapted form in a recipe book for wilderness campers. They're very, very rich (great for hikers or canoeists burning off lots of calories).

These cakes are "traditional" in Northumberland, but I don't know how far back the recipe actually dates.

Cheers, Hester

[Red Cat Jenny]

18Th Century Grocery and research

[CrazyCholeBlack]

Hey The English Housewife should go in Info for Women too. Lots of good stuff in there & not all of it involving meals. Good stuff indeed!

[Tall Paul]

Suffolk cheese is ideal for long voyages in every respect but one: it is cheap, it is durable (by which I mean it's very hard), it doesn't go off easily. The downside to it is that it's apparently vile and nobody liked it - I've never eaten it myself, but apparently Pepys' servants refused to.

In his diary entry for 4th October 1661, Pepys wrote

", and so home, where I found my wife vexed at her people for grumbling to eat Suffolk cheese, which I also am vexed at. So to bed. "

There is an old saying in suffolk,

"Hunger will break through stone walls and anything but Suffolk cheese"

Large amounts of Suffolk Cheese were sent to London for use by the Navy, which is probably how it came to be in the Pepys' household.

Hard cheese was usually considered the food of the poor, and Suffolk Cheese was the worst of all. its low cost made it a nesseccery choce by the poor, and a popular choice for the Admiralty.

Chedder on the other hand, although tecnically a hard cheese, was made with cream, and so, was largly the preserve of the well off.

The quality of Suffolk cheese continued to deteriorate, presumably in order to increase the profits of Navy contracts, untill, it reached the limit.

On the 16th June 1759, the following item appeared in local newspaper, The Ipswich Journal.

"To Suffolk Farmers----The Suffolk Cheese being so badly made for some years past, the Lords of the Admiralty have thought it fit to exclude it from the Royal Navy for one year. By it being made better it is recommended for the future, it being no worse than two meal sleet leaving only the morning milk of which cheese is made or four meal, putting in all the morning milk on the day the cheese is made. It is hoped the dairymen will desist from making cheese from November till the beginning of May as it is of bad quality and has brought great odium to the country cheese."

There are a number of other Cheese references in Pepys, He frequently mentions eating bred and cheese before going to bed. and apparently, the valuables that he buried to protect them from the Great Fire of London, included a parmizan cheese.

On 2nd March 1663, Pepys wrote.

"There also coming into the river two Dutchmen, we sent a couple of men on board and bought three Hollands cheeses, cost 4d. a piece, excellent cheeses, whereof I had two and Commissioner Pett one."

Hollands cheeses were obviously highly thought of.

A quick review of Dutch artists of the 17th Century shows that cheese was a popular subject for the artists of the netherlands.

so Here are a few examples of what Pepys "Hollands Cheeses" would have looked like.

IMG]http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m175/CaptainTallPaul/FlorisVanDijk.jpg[/img]

[Tall Paul]

And the other picture which i messed up the code for.

Note the mixture of light and dark cheese in most of the pictures.

[William Brand]

Thank you Paul. I thoroughly enjoyed the entreaty on Suffolk Cheese.

[Tall Paul]

And thank YOU fo an astonishingly quick response.

[William Brand]

You really can't go wrong with this book. It is my absolute favorite. You can also click here for a facsimile online, though you'll have to page through it.

a big thank you to Captain Tightpants for pointing us in the direction of The Accomplisht Cook, or The Art of Mystery of Cookery. We received our copy of it from Amazon today.

Great book.

[Captain Tightpants]

Shucks. :) I was just sharing a book I like.

Ain't it cool?

-Bob

[William Brand]

Shucks.  :)  I was just sharing a book I like.

Ain't it cool?

-Bob

Too be perfectly honest? Yes.

The facsimile in the interior is very clean and easy to read. The print quality of the overall facsimile is superb. The binding is well made and there isn't a heavy amount of modern printing apart from the forward and the glossary of terms.

The bright neon green cover throws me a bit. It threw me alot, actually. I'm going to bind it in leather to make it look period.

[CrazyCholeBlack]

Just happened to pick up a copy of Scientific American Reports special issue on food today which features a little article about the shifts in "food theory" between the 16th - early 18th centuries. Haven't gotten to far into it (or taken my notes) but from what I skimmed it looks pretty interesting & gives some good ideas for more areas to research.