An Examination in Domestic Economy.

November 1 …

Candidates wishing to apply for a Queen’s Scholarship to a training college in London in the mid-nineteenth century were required to sit for an examination to determine their eligibility. A student hoping for a scholarship to study Domestic Economy had to perform very successfully on a three hour paper which covered laundry work, health, needlework, and cookery.

Those of you who rather fancy yourselves as good housekeepers – how would you fare with this exam paper from 1859? You have three hours. Remember to only answer one question from each section.

Note: A First-Class Scholarship for male was worth ₤23 for the year, with a personal allowance of ₤4 (but as a mid-Victorian male it is unlikely that you would be sitting a Domestic Economy examination). For a female, a First-Class Scholarship was worth ₤17, with a personal allowance of ₤3.

Puzzle: if you can already answer these questions, why do you need to go to College?

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

Three hours allowed for this Paper.
N.B. Do not answer more than one question in each Section.

SECTION I.

1. Describe, step by step, the processes of washing – ironing - drying. Mention common faults, and give practical rules.
2. What is starch ? and what is the use of it ?
3. What is the difference between calico, flannel, and linen? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each for clothing ? What is the price per yard of a good sort of each ?

SECTION II.

1. Describe the component parts of air, and shew the necessity for ventilation.
2. Describe the component parts of water, and name some simple methods of purifying water.
3. How does a fire act upon the ventilation of a room ? What would be the effect of a fire-place, and door-place, opposite each other ?

SECTION III.
3. Explain the methods you would adopt for teaching needlework to 30 girls, aged from 7 to 14 years, and explain the meaning and use of the following : - hemming,
sewing, felling, running, gathering, whipping, stitching, back-stitching, and herring-boning (add, as often as you can, illustrations by drawing to the several parts of your
answer).

SECTION IV.
1. Write out plain directions for making bread, for brewing, and for curing bacon.
2. Write out recipes for pea soup, gravy soup, Irish stew, potato pie, and boiled apple pudding. What are the advantages and disadvantages of salted provisions ?
3. Write out recipes for making barley water, beef tea, gruel, and toast-and-water.

SECTION V.
1. How would you treat burns, scalds, sprains, colds, chilblains, stings of wasps and bees ?
2. Name the most common vegetable and mineral poisons, and state what course you would adopt in the case of a person who had taken poison.
3. What is to be said for and against the mother of a family going out to work ? Illustrate your answer by money reckonings.

SECTION VI.
1. Describe each of the following articles, explaining how it acts - an oven, a spit, a frying-pan, a saucepan. What do you mean by stewing? Is it an advisable mode of cookery ? Why ?
2. What do you mean by a drain ? Why is a house unhealthy if it has no drains, or is near to open ones ? In what situations are houses most likely to be ill drained ? Why ?
3. What is vaccination? What is the object of it? How is it commonly performed ?

To help you with Section IV Question 2, who better to help you than the wonderful Eliza Acton? From her book Modern Cookery, in All its Branches … (1858), here is one of her recipes for Gravy Soup.

CLEAR, PALE, GRAVY-SOUP OR STOCK.
Rub a deep stewpan or soup-pot with butter, and lay into it three quarters of a pound of ham freed entirely from fat, skin, and rust, four pounds of leg or neck of veal, and the same weight of lean beef, all cut into thick slices; set it over a clear and rather brisk fire, until the meat is of a fine amber-colour: it must be often moved, and closely watched, that it may not stick to the pan, nor burn. When it is equally browned, lay the bones upon it, and pour in gradually four quarts of boiling water. Take off the scum carefully as it rises, and throw in a pint of cold water at intervals, to bring it quickly to the surface. When no more appears, add two ounces of salt, two onions, two large carrots, two turnips, one head of celery, a two-ounce faggot of savoury herbs, a dozen cloves, half a tea-spoonful of whole white pepper, and two large
blades of mace. Let the soup boil gently from five hours and a half, to six hours and a half; then strain it through a very clean, fine cloth, laid in a hair sieve. When it is perfectly cold, remove every particle of fat from the top; and, in taking out the soup, leave the sediment untouched ; heat in a clean pan the quantity required for table, add salt to it if needed, and a few drops of Chili or of cayenne vinegar. Harvey's sauce, or very fine mushroom catsup, may be substituted for these.
When thus prepared, the soup is ready to serve: it should be accompanied by pale sippets of fried bread, or sippets a la reine. Rice, maccaroni in lengths or rings, vermicelli, or nouilles, may in turn be used, to vary it; but they must always be boiled apart till tender, in broth, or water, and well drained before they are slipped into it. The addition of young vegetables, too, and especially of asparagus, will convert it into an elegant spring-soup; but they, likewise, must be separately cooked.

Tomorrow’s Story …

A Poetic Tea.

Quotation for the Day …

The true cook is the perfect blend, the only perfect blend, of artist and philosopher. He knows his worth: he holds in his palm the happiness of mankind, the welfare of generations yet unborn. Norman Douglas (1868-1952)

Hardy’s Ale.

Today, January 11th…

The novelist Thomas Hardy died on this day in 1928, and forty years later a commemorative ale was released in his honour in his home county of Dorset. This is a very special ale. It is matured in sherry casks for nine months, bottle fermented in individually numbered bottles, designed to be laid down for 5-25 years, and - at 12.5% ABV - decidedly not for wimps.

The ale was inspired by a passage in Hardy’s novel “The Trumpet Major”. The action of the novel occurs in the fictional county of Wessex (which is certainly Dorset), and Hardy describes the local beer as:

“……of the most beautiful colour that the eye of an artist in beer could desire; full in body, yet brisk as a volcano; piquant, yet without twang; luminous as an autumn sunset; free from streakiness of taste; but, finally, rather heady. The masses worshipped it, the minor gentry loved it more than wine, and by the most illustrious country families, it was not despised."

There were some anxious moments for beer aficionados around the world when the Eldridge-Pope brewery was sold in 1997 and it looked like the beer would not survive. There was no 2000 vintage, but happily common (and commercial, it seems) sense has returned, and the beer is once again available.

A recipe for the ale is clearly out of the question, and a recipe using it as an ingredient would clearly be sacrilege. Luckily, Dorset is also famous for its apples, and a recent competition was held to determine what would be the signature dish of the county. The local Dorset Apple Cake won, and fine recipes for it can be found on the sites belonging to my fellow-bloggers, Andrew at Spittoon Extra, and Anna at Baking for Britain.

My offering to you is a mid-Victorian apple cake from Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery (1845), and leave it to you to decide if it is actually cake, or tart, or pie.

Apple Cake, or German Tart.
Work together with the fingers ten ounces of butter and a pound of flour, until they resemble fine crumbs of bread; throw in a small pinch of salt, and make them into a firm smooth paste with the yolks of two eggs and a spoonful or two of water. Butter thickly a plain cake tin, or pie mould; roll out the paste thin, place the mould upon it, trim a bit to its exact size, cover the bottom of the mould with this, then cut a band the height of the sides, and press it smoothly round them, joining the edge, which must be moistened with egg or water, to the bottom crust, and fasten upon them to prevent their separation, a narrow and thin band of paste, also moistened. Next, fill the mould nearly from the brim with the following marmalade, which must be quite cold when it is put in. Boil together, over a gentle fire at first, but more quickly afterwards, three pounds of good apples with fourteen ounces of pounded sugar, or of the finest Lisbon, the strained juice of a large lemon, three ounces of fresh butter, and a teaspoonful of pounded cinnamon, or the lightly grated rind of a couple of lemons. When the whole is perfectly smooth and dry, turn it into a pan to cool, and let it be quite cold before it is put into the paste. In early autumn, a larger proportion of sugar may be required, but this can be regulated by the taste. When the mould is filled, roll out the cover, lay it carefully over the marmalade that it may not touch it, and when the cake is securely closed, trim off the superfluous paste, add a little pounded sugar to the parings, spread them out very thin, and cut them into leaves to ornament the top of the cake, round which they may be placed as a sort of wreath*. Bake it for an hour in a moderately brisk oven. Take it from the mould, and should the sides be not sufficiently coloured put it back for a few minutes into the oven upon a baking tin. Lay a paper over the top, when it is of a fine light brown, to prevent its being too deeply coloured. This cake should be served hot.
Paste: flour, 1 lb.; butter, 10 oz.; yolks of eggs, 2; little water. Marmalade: apples, 3 lbs.; sugar, 14 oz. (more if needed); juice of lemon, 1; rinds of lemons, 2; butter, 3 oz.: baked, 1 hour.
*Or, instead of these, fasten on it with a little white of egg, after it is taken from the oven, some ready-baked leaves of almond-paste, either plain or coloured.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Victory Sausages.

A Previous Story for this Day …

The story on this day last year featured the explorer David Livingstone.

Quotation for the Day …

I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale. George Farquhar, Irish dramatist (1678-1707?)

Funny fish bits.

Today, January 9th …

The London Times carried an article on this day in 1999 reporting the death of a fugutsu - an aficionado of the fugu or puffer fish, which is an expensive delicacy. There is a traditional Japanese saying: “those who eat fugu soup are stupid, but those who do not eat fugu soup are also stupid.”

In its natural habitat the puffer fish gives its potential predators a more than reasonable warning; it puffs itself up into an ugly spiky ball, becoming very unappetising looking to put off those who do not already know that this is puffer-fish-speak for “Danger! I contain a lethal tetradoxin which is similar to curare, and is 1200 times more dangerous than cyanide”. Each fish contains enough poison to kill 30 adults and it kills quickly, but probably not quickly enough for the unfortunate (or stupid) victim, by paralysing the respiratory muscles so that breathing stops while consciousness is maintained.

The training of a fugu chef is very rigorous: the internal organs of the fish, which contain most of the poison, must be carefully removed without any contamination of the flesh as an amount that will fit on the head of a pin will kill the customer. In the unfortunate event that this happens, the chef would once have been expected to fall on his sword – quite literally, by committing seppuku or ritual suicide by disembowelling.

If you want an exciting seafood dining experience, but aren’t quite prepared to play Japanese roulette, there are some scary sounding fish bits that no-one eats anymore.

From Eliza Acton’s “Modern Cookery for Private Families” (1845)

To boil Cod’s Sounds.
Should they be highly salted, soak them for a night, and on the following day rub off entirely the discoloured skin; wash them well, lay them into plenty of cold milk and water, and boil them gently from thirty to forty minutes, or longer should they not be quite tender. Clear off the scum as it rises with great care, or it will sink and adhere to the sounds, of which the appearance will then be spoiled. Drain them well, dish them on a napkin, and send egg sauce and plain melted butter to table with them.

A cod’s sound is the swim (or floatation) bladder of the fish. You can batter and deep fry the bits after the preliminary boiling, if you prefer.

I’ll risk Death by Chocolate, thanks.

Tomorrow: Getting the sauce on vegetables.