Word of the Week: Tory

n.s. [A cant term, derived, I suppose, from an Irish word signifying a savage.] One who adheres to the antient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, as opposed to whig.

The knight is more a tory in the country than the town, because it more advances his interest. ADDISON.

To confound his hated coin, all parties and religions join whigs, tories. SWIFT.

From: Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language: An Anthology.

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Georgian Cooking: Stuffed Liberty Turnips

Welcome to my new series on Georgian food and cooking. Each week I'm going to be featuring a recipe or a bit of food history from one of three books: The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse (the 18th-century's Delia Smith), Benjamin Franklin Book of Recipes(edited by Hilaire Dubourcq) and Lobscouse and Spotted Dog(a gastronomic companion to the novels of Patrick O'Brian by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas). In some cases (if I'm feeling brave enough) I may even try to make the recipes myself (you can already check out my attempt to make French Flummery here).

So to kick off, I give you this recipe for Stuffed Liberty Turnips. In Benjamin Franklin Book of RecipesHilaire Dubourcq has cleverly adapted recipes from the period and combined them with anecdotes about Franklin's life; this one accompanies an entertaining description of a gala, held by Benjamin Franklin at his home, to celebrate the third anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Stuffed Liberty Turnips

8 young turnips
Half a cup diced bacon
Half a cup chopped chives
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup beef stock
Half a cup dry sherry
Half a cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon white pepper
3 teaspoons salt

Method: Hollow out the turnips and cook them in boiling water for 10 minutes. Rinse under cold water, dry with a towel and sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of salt. Fry the flesh in butter and purée in a food processor. Fry the diced bacon in butter until crispy and blend in the purée with the chopped chives. Pour in the lemon juice and the dry sherry. Mix and season with white pepper and salt. Fill the turnip shells with the purée and arrange them in a well-buttered gratin dish. Pour in the beef stock and coat the turnips with the breadcrumbs. Place the dish in a 400 degree f (gas mark 6) oven and cook for 25 minutes.

And just in case that's not enough turnip for you, here's Hannah Glasse'srecipe for Turnip wine:

Take a good many turnips, pare, slice, and put them in a cyder-press, and press out all the juice very well. To every gallon of juice have three pounds of lump-sugar, have a vessel ready, just big enough to hold the juice, put your sugar into the vessel, and also to every gallon of juice half a pint of brandy. Pour in the juice, and lay something over the bung for a week to see if it works. If it does, you must not bung it down till it has done working; then stop it close for three months, and draw it off in another vessel. When it is fine, bottle it off.

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Mrs Pitt and Congreve's The Way of the World

When I jokingly said to my partner, who was at a loose end in London yesterday, 'look for something 18th-century that I can blog about' I didn't expect that he'd come back with this lovely engraving. It shows Mrs Pitt as Lady Wishfort in Congreve's The Way of the World and was printed on October 26th 1776. As you can see from the label, it's an original, not a reproduction (and the lady in the shop was at pains to back this up apparently).

It comes from a line of print/bookshops in Cecil Court, off St Martin's Lane, which Mr Woffington stumbled on entirely by chance. The shop was a bit of an Aladdin's cave and had a large selection of theatrical prints from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Mrs Pitt appears to be lost in the mists of time, but The Way of the World still survives: a comedy about the lovers Mirabell and Millamant whose union is opposed by Millamant's dreadful aunt, Lady Wishfort. There are some extracts from the play (including the scene depicted on my engraving) on an excellent CD called An 18th-century Comedy Album with Dame Edith Evans playing the imperious Lady Wishfort. If you can track it down it's well worth a listen.

Photograph © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.
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Boom and Bust in 18th-century Yorkshire

Trade card, 1730-1742, V&A Museum
With Britain on the cusp of a new coalition government - an alliance that will have to tackle major economic problems - I thought this news item from the University of York might draw some interesting parallels with boom and bust, 18th-century-style.

I talked a while back about Tulipomania and the South Sea Bubble, but in this instance, economic ruin threatened the people of Yorkshire, who were not taking it lying down...

The coming of Industrial Revolution in the latter part of the 18th century changed West Yorkshire from a remote landscape to an industrial powerhouse. Because of the fertile pasture land where sheep could be raised, and the soft water - handy for cleaning wool - Yorkshire was particularly suited to the developing textile trade. As steam power was explored, the coalfield south of Leeds would also come into play as a source of energy for the machinery.

Yet, despite the consumer revolution of the 18th century - which saw the market for luxury goods expanding to tempt a new middle-class - cash was in short supply and the markets could be volatile. When the wool trade suffered a decline in the 1760s and 1770s, hundreds of people from rural Yorkshire communities took matters into their own hands and began counterfeiting British and Spanish coins to save themselves from poverty.

1787 Proclamation Shilling
The Yorkshire Coiners, as they were known, were concentrated around Halifax and led by a ‘royal family’ of King David (David Hartley) and his brothers, known as The Duke of York and The Duke of Edinburgh. In the 1700s counterfeiting was a serious offence - punishable by hanging - and the Government took the matter seriously, sentencing many of the gang to death at York's Tyburn. Yet the characters live on in the old ballads, and many people today can trace their ancestry back to members of the The Yorkshire Coiners.

And in a further interesting twist to this story, soon the plucky northerners will be immortalised on film. Original research on the coiners by University of York historian, Dr Hannah Greig, has led to a collaboration with Harrogate-based film-maker Peter Kershaw who is making a feature film called The Last Coiner, which promises to give a more accurate flavour of life in 18th-century Britain than your average period drama. Check out The Last Coiner movie site and the Official Movie Blog for more details.

And... please don't try this at home!

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Twitter's Dr Johnson To Publish Dictionary

There can be no doubt of Dr Samuel Johnson's great achievement with his Dictionary: an astonishing work of scholarship that transformed our language. Now, after a hiatus of over 250 years, I am pleased to reveal that our favourite lexicographer has been putting the finishing touches to a brand new dictionary called Dr Johnson's Dictionary of Modern Life. The result of much painful labour at his home in Gough Square, the book will accompany Dr Johnson's popular Twitter feed and promises to address 'Divers Contemporary Phenomena, from Top Gear Unto Twitter'. I do not know as yet when this work will be released to the public, but I feel sure that it will meet with your warmest approbation.

Enquire at Amazon Booksellers for further details.

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Word of the Week: Garret Election

A ludicrous ceremony, practised every new parliament: it consists of a mock election of two members to represent the borough of Garret (a few straggling cottages near Wandsworth in Surrey); the qualification of a voter is: having enjoyed a woman in the open air within that district. The candidates are commonly fellows of low humour, who dress themselves up in a ridiculous manner. As this brings a prodigious concourse of people to Wandsworth, the publicans of that place jointly contribute to the expense, which is sometimes considerable.

From: Captain Grose's 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

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English Eccentrics

With Horace Walpole's gothic mansion Strawberry Hill almost ready to reopen after the completion of its £9 million restoration project, the V&A in London is currently staging an exhibition of some of Walpole's most treasured objects.

Apart from his tireless activities as a politician, man of letters and waspish social commentator, Walpole was a keen antiquarian and collector; Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill (running until Jul 4) offers a tantalising sneak preview into his considerable collection of paintings, ceramics, miniatures and curiosities, as well as some personal possessions related to Strawberry Hill itself.

It's the first major exhibition on Walpole and a welcome look at his contribution to many different spheres of 18th-century society. His 'little gothic castle' (pictured below), which stands beside the Thames at Twickenham, and his outstanding collection of antiquities, became a tourist destination even during his own lifetime. Here we can see exquisite entrance tickets (printed at Walpole's private press) on which he has scrawled directions to the servants; nearby are several sketches by Rowlandson satirising the public obsession with antiquity, as symbolised by Strawberry Hill.

Other notable exhibits include the famous bust of Colley Cibber and the actual goldfish bowl into which Walpole's tabby cat, Selima, fell and drowned in 1747 (thus inspiring Gray's famous Ode On The Death Of A Favourite Cat Drowned In A Tub Of Goldfishes). Many objects are testament to Walpole's playful humour and imagination; we learn that when greeting some French guests Walpole delved into his collection and donned a pair of James I's gloves and a fake wooden cravat by Grinling Gibbons - the guests were too polite to say anything, imagining that this was simply an example of English eccentricity (both gloves and cravat are on display).

Being on the search for a decent collection of Walpole's letters I was a bit disappointed with the offering in the V&A shop, though Horace Walpole's Cat by Christopher Frayling has turned out to be a joy, skilfully using the stories of Walpole's pets (including two hapless dogs who met grisly deaths on the Grand Tour) to illuminate aspects of 18th-century culture. And if all this isn't encouragement enough, pick up the free exhibition guide and you get a voucher on the back page offering 2 for 1 entrance into Strawberry Hill when it opens on September 25 2010. What are you waiting for?

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