[THE ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE.]
early 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."