It’s the end of the current run so that means it is time for the now traditional end-of-season special postbag edition. Doubtless the UKIP representative’s attitude combined nostalgia for a remembered past with a not unreasonable desire for the government to do something to revive the area’s economy to create a better future for the entire community. There are hundreds/thousands of sadly decayed seaside resort towns across the country (though on the coast, obv) and our best political minds (haha) have for generations failed to provide a solution for their plight. It happened through other projects. Firstly, through the work I’ve done on witchcraft. Secondly, through the work I did on the English Civil War. Both of those projects were about trying to get beyond the intellectual history-type position, where the Civil War was caused by people having a rational response to autocracy, and witchcraft trials were caused by people not being sufficiently post- Enlightenment. I really dislike that kind of historical approach, because it’s completely untrue to the way people behave. I mean, how rational is our current government, I ask you? In many respects, other things that were perhaps a bit more primal were probably at stake.

English Food: A People’s History (Audio Download): Diane

The openness and plurality of food culture is an uncomfortable but ongoing reminder of the importance of empire” Kevin’s Food and Foodways paper: https://napier-repository.worktribe.com/output/3133885/accompanying-the-series-early-british-television-cookbooks-1946-1976 We talked about how she came to live in her Tudor house; how the food changed going in and coming out of the Tudor period; food and the four humours and how ideas about those also changed; favourite cookbooks; fritters; sops; mince pies; cheese; and many other things. We talked about how he found out about Richard Briggs and his book; the similarities and differences between life and cooking then and now; who may have influenced Briggs’ writing; his death; broiling and other older English words the Brits no longer use but North Americans do; authenticity; and much more. I have a story that explains this, although it’s not from the book. I had an acquaintance, who used to be senior in the Food Commission. She taught an adult cookery class in England, and at the end of the course, she said to the women: ‘To celebrate we will make a cake next week, so everyone remember to bring in a tin.’ Nothing more than that. The next week, they all came in with their idea of a tin. One brought a beer can, another brought a washed-out tin of sardines. They didn’t really know what a cake tin was, nor did they have the money to go and buy one. This was only in the 1990s.If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Diane Purkiss (born 30 June 1961) is an Australian historian, and Fellow and Tutor of English at Keble College, Oxford. She specialises in Renaissance and women's literature, witchcraft and the English Civil War. The vicar in the village tells you that the dead that remain in the earth are those condemned to hell. Some people say that the dead riders are wreathed in flames, and their saddles are red-hot iron. Those people say that if you do get any power from the riders, it’s the power of hell and devils. Purkiss uses the story of food as a revelatory device to chart changing views on class, gender, and tradition through the ages. Sprinkled throughout with glorious details of historical quirks – trial by ordeal of bread, a fondness for ‘small beer’ and a war-time ice-cream substitute called ‘hokey pokey’ made from parsnips – this book is both an education and an entertainment. This is at least partly a work of fantasy; it’s Markham’s idea of how a household ought to be run, rather than what anyone actually did. Nonetheless what it reminds us of is the attenuated role of the modern housewife in comparison with what it used to be. It used to be like running a small business—you might typically have a staff of between five and five hundred people working for you to manage. And what Markham really clarifies is just how much knowledge this involved.

English Food by Diane Purkiss review – a mouthwatering

This is one of two books that really changed my approach to the whole subject of food. Because most books about the history of food focus on what the rich eat—just like most histories of fashion focus on that tiny one percent of society. And that’s fine, if you recognise that it’s all a daydream. But it doesn’t give you a good holistic picture of what the past was actually like. It’s interesting that the food revolution in Britain has been modelled on food cultures of France, Italy, Iberia: it’s all about the local, the local cheeses, breads, growers. That’s lovely, I’m not against it. But one reason it hasn’t percolated far down the food chain—we still eat more ultra-processed food than any other country in Europe—is because it’s inimical to the food culture we’ve historically tended to have, which is creolized dishes of the kind highlighted in Collingham’s book. And I uncovered quite an interesting riff, I guess, in English Civil War history, which was a preoccupation with food, and with writing cookbooks, and with expressing political views through cookbooks. That, for me, intersected with the fact that a lot of witchcraft accusations are actually caused by food shortages, in quite a straightforward way. One of the things that they reportedly do, that upsets their neighbours, is spoil food production—like, you’re making butter, the witch comes into the room, and—by some kind of undefined negativity—makes your butter fail to set. Then you’ve wasted the expensive primary ingredient, cream, which you can’t just go down to the shop and replace. after newsletter promotion It transpires – no one tell Liz Truss – that more than 70% of the cheese consumed here in the 1920s was imported

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That’s very interesting. Because so much of the identity of France, at least to an outsider, seems to be tied up in the boulangerie. Where I live, we have issues growing wheat due to the climate. We have a local type of barley called ‘bere’ which is very hardy but quite rough. You can cook with it, but better to bake those flat scone-like breads. At the trial, those who submitted written complaints will take the stand and give their evidence aloud and under oath. You, as the accused, will also take the stand and your confession will be read aloud. If you like, you can add to it, or deny that you said bits of it, but that might just make you look inconsistent. After that, the jury will decide on your guilt. Among other things, she would need to be a shrewd bargainer, who could manage her own time and everyone else’s. She would assign tasks to people according to their skills, provide training for people coming through. It’s extraordinarily sophisticated.

Diane Purkiss - Athenaeum Review Diane Purkiss - Athenaeum Review

He is also talking at Chelsea History Festival on Friday 29 September 2023, at 6pm about the history of sugar: https://chelseahistoryfestival.com/events/dark-history-sugar/ Clip of Philip Harben demonstrating boiling techniques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj-tapF1kgU As an accused witch, you could be tried in a church court, at quarter sessions (local courts), or at an assize court, where you could be condemned to death. The process, however, was similar at every level. Somebody would complain to the local justice of the peace (JP) that you had bewitched an animal, or a foodstuff, or a child. Whether or not the complaint is taken any further depends on how energetic the JP is and how much he believes in witchcraft. There are two kinds of food historians. Ones who try out the recipes, and the ones who just copy them down. I’m the first kind. So I got really interested in how very few of us there are—there are honourable exceptions. Others will study without ever making their own bread or their own jam, or trying anything out themselves. To return to idea of ”restorative nostalgia” with regard to Poland’s past, for example: I mean, crikey. Unless we are talking about a wish to return to the golden days of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, surely Poland’s history has been an endless story of oppression by its more powerful neighbours (since the 18th century at least). Apart from periods of independence between 1919 and 1939, and the post-communist era since 1989, I’m not sure where this nostalgia would come from; unless it is nostalgia for a Parisian garret in the 19th century in which one can plot a romantic uprising against the Russians/Prussians or Austrians.So that kind of story about marginal subsistence and starvation got me really interested in food history. Which I thought was dispiritingly top-down. Today Neil talks with Brigitte Webster about her new book Eating with the Tudors which has just been published by Pen & Sword History.