Nearly two centuries and a half ago, Gervase Markham wrote a very useful
and entertaining tract, entitled "The English Housewife, containing the
inward and outward virtues which ought to be in a compleate woman. As
her skill in physick, surgery, cookery, extraction of oyles, banquetting
stuffe, ordering of great feasts, preserving of all sorts of wines,
conceited secrets, distillations, perfumes, ordering of wooll, hempe,
flax, making cloth, and dyeing; the knowledge of dayries, office of
malting of oates, their excellent uses in a family, of brewing, baking,
and all other things belonging to a household."
By aid of a contemporary[47] we are enabled to present a curious
portrait of the Housewife from this authentic source. It should first be
mentioned that the profusion of provisions in the banquets of the time
bordered upon the barbarous magnificence, compared to the elegant modes
of preparing dishes in the present day, and called for dining-halls and
kitchens of sufficient dimensions to avoid the terrible confusion that
must otherwise have occurred. Hence, the superintendence of the
household was a labour of great extent and responsibility. It was held
that a woman had no right to enter the state of matrimony unless
possessed of a good knowledge of Cookery: otherwise she could perform
but half her vow: she might love and obey, but she could not cherish. To
be perfect in this art she must know in which quarter of the moon to
plant and gather all kinds of salads and herbs throughout the year; she
must also be cleanly, have "a quick eye, a curious nose, a perfect
taste, and a ready eare;" and be neither butter-fingered, sweet-toothed,
nor faint-hearted: for if she were the first of these, she would let
everything fall; if the second, she would consume that which she should
increase; and if the third, she would lose time with too much niceness.
For an ordinary feast with which any good man might entertain his
friends, about sixteen dishes were considered a suitable supply for the
first course. This included such substantial articles as a shield of
brawn with mustard, a boiled capon, a piece of boiled beef, a chine of
beef roasted, a neat's tongue roasted, a pig roasted, baked _chewets_
(minced chickens made into balls), a roasted goose, a roasted swan, a
turkey, a haunch of venison, a venison pasty, a kid with a pudding in
it, an olive-pie, a couple of capons, and custards. Besides these
principal dishes, the housewife added as many salads, fricassees,
_quelquechoses_, and _devised pastes_ as made thirty-two dishes, which
were considered as many as it was polite to put upon the table for the
first course. Then followed second and third courses, in which many of
the dishes were for show only, but were so tastefully made as to
contribute much to the beauty of the feast.
The banquets given by princes or nobles were much more important
affairs. They were served in this manner:--First the grand sallet was to
be marshalled in by gentlemen and yeomen-waiters, then green sallets,
boiled sallets, and compound sallets; these were followed by all the
fricassees, such as collops, rashers, &c.; then by boiled meats and
fowls; then by the roasted beef, mutton, goose, swans, veal, pig, and
capon; next were ushered in the hot baked meats, such as fallow-deer in
pasty, chicken or calves'-foot pie, and dowset; then the cold baked
pheasants, partridges, turkey, goose, and woodcocks; lastly, carbonadoes
both simple and compound. These were all arranged upon the table in such
a manner that before each trencher stood a salad, a fricassee, a boiled
meat, a roasted meat, a baked meat, and a carbonado,--a profusion that
must have been almost overwhelming. The second course comprised the
lesser wild and land fowl, which were again followed up with the larger
kinds, as herons, shovellers, cranes, bustards, peacocks, &c.; and these
by cold baked red-deer, hare-pie, gammon of bacon pie, wild boar,
roe-pie; and scattered among these were the "conceited secrets" in the
way of confectionery and sweet pastry, which were the pride of the good
housewife's heart; besides whatever fish was available, which was to be
distributed according to the manner in which it was dressed, with the
respective courses, the fried with the fricassees, the broiled with the
carbonadoes, the dry with the roast meats, and those stewed in broths
with the boiled meats. The carbonadoes consisted of any meat scotched
on both sides and sprinkled with seasonings in various combinations, and
then either broiled over the fire or before it. Roasted geese were
stuffed with gooseberries--hence the term; and, if we were to enter into
the given details of the various modes of dressing these numerous
dishes, we could mention many as long disused. Some of the terms
employed are as startling to modern ears as the ingredients: to take one
instance, pie-dishes were called coffins.
We are not to conclude that the above profusion was an every-day fact.
There are hints here and there that this was by no means the case.
Oatmeal is called the crown of the housewife's garland, as being the
largest item of consumption in the household; and whigge (whey) is
praised as an excellent cool drink, and as wholesome as any other with
which to slake a labouring man's thirst the whole summer long. On the
other hand, we know this whigge was looked upon in a somewhat similarly
scornful light as that in which we regard small beer, because it was
adopted to distinguish the political body opposed to the Tories. And the
constant supervision of the mistress of the house over every undertaking
would also be a surety against the practice of extravagance. Although
there were good men-maltsters in the land, there was no beer to compare
with that made by the mistress and her maids. These made both beer and
ale; cider from apples; perry from pears; mead and metheglin from honey
and herbs. The wines, too, were in her care. It is curious to note the
kind of care they experienced at her hands. Every _fatt_ (vat) of
foreign wine was dosed with several gallons of milk and eggs beaten up,
and each was flavoured with some gallons of another, in a mode that must
have much bewildered the palates of King Charles's lieges. If claret
lost its colour, she stewed some damsons or black bullaces, and poured
their syrup into the hogshead, when all came right again. If sack ran
muddy, she took some rice, flour, and camphor, and popped that mixture
into the butt; if any wine became hard, she knew how to make it mellow
with honey and eggs: the same with muskadine and malmsey.
The indefatigable mistress of the house was as omnipresent in the
bakehouse as elsewhere, and saw to the making up the various kinds of
bread, both for the family and the hinds or servants. There were several
kinds in use; wheat bread, rye bread, rye and wheat mixed, and barley
and wheat mixed: into the servants' barley-bread she adroitly mixed two
pecks of peas and a peck of malt. She also looked in at the dairy, saw
that it was kept as clean as a prince's chamber, and gave an eye to the
profits. She could send several cheeses to table,--new milk cheese,
nettle-cheese, floaten milk cheese and eddish or after-math cheese.
By way of relaxation to these serious duties, which, with the necessary
supervision of the dressing and spinning of wool, hemp, and flax, must
have kept the good dame pretty fully employed, she prescribed for any of
her household that were indisposed, compounded her own remedies, and
made stores of scented bags to lay among her hoarded-up linen, scented
waters for different ornamental purposes, perfumes to burn,
washing-balls, perfumed gloves, rosemary-water to preserve the
complexion (called the bath of life), violet-water, herb-water for weak
eyes, and other distillations. Plasters, ointments, lotions of all
kinds, were among her cunning secrets. These occupations serve to show
why the offices were so spacious and my lady's closet so small.
Markharn gives scores of quaint recipes no housewife could ignore who
was at all sensitive as to her reputation for skill. In these we are
reminded of the absence of really scientific knowledge in the peculiar
value set upon valueless distinctions. The milk of a red cow, for
instance, was deemed more efficacious than that of any other colour for
medicinal purposes; butter made in May without any salt in it was
esteemed a sovereign cure for wounds, strains, or aches, although that
made in any other month possessed no such virtue; and again, it was of
no use to apply certain remedies unless the moon was on the wane. This
portion of the volume is dedicated to the Right Honourable and most
Excellent Lady, Frances, Countess Dowager of Exeter.
Before we leave this Dinner-table of other days, we should add to the
Housewife's duties the Art of Carving, which, until our time, was
performed by the mistress of the house. We gather from Lord
Wharncliffe's edition of the _Correspondence of Lady Mary Worthy
Montague_, that, in the last century, this task must have required no
small share of bodily strength, "for the lady was not only to
invite--that is, urge and tease--her company to eat more than human
throats could conveniently swallow, but to carve every dish, when
chosen, with her own hands. The greater the lady, the more indispensable
the duty,--each joint was carried up in its turn, to be operated upon by
her, and her alone; since the peers and knights on either hand were so
far from being bound to offer their assistance, that the very master of
the house, posted opposite to her, might not act as her croupier; his
department was to push the bottle after dinner. As for the crowd of
guests, the most inconsiderable among them--the curate, or subaltern,
or squire's younger brother--if suffered through her neglect to help
himself to a slice of the mutton placed before him, would have chewed it
in bitterness, and gone home an affronted man, half inclined to give a
wrong vote at the next election. There were then professed carving
masters, who taught young ladies the art scientifically; from one of
whom Lady Mary Wortley Montague said she took lessons three times a
week, that she might be perfect on her father's days; when, in order to
perform her functions without interruption, she was forced to eat her
own dinner alone an hour or two beforehand."