Wichita eagle., 1889-12-24
FARE OF OUR ANCESTORS.
WHAT THEY ATE SOME TWO AND
THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

WHAT THEY ATE SOME TWO AM
THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
Very Fond OF Grease-SuSar at High Fig
ures-Breed Was a Staple and Made il
Many varieties-The English Pudding
From Fingers to Forks.
The most interesting part Of history is tina
which the historians often omit to notice
The wars and the laws and who made then
we know. They are what the historian
chiefly cares for; but while these are i'm
portant, scarcely less so and far more inter
esting are toe social customs, the dress anC
food and the every day life Of past centuries
If in all eras the Englishnlan's appetite ha
been famous, he has not always been able t.
employ it upon the same material In Anglo
Saxon times end long after the staple food o.
the multitude was bread, butter and cheese
A few Of the coarser vegetables were added
and it was only on occasions that this wa,
diversified by ''saited bacon and pancakes
| beef or fish," The meat when it was to bt
had, was usually boiled over a tripod. 1.-THE
| kettle" in which this was DONE says the
author of "Old Cookery Books" was "the
universal vessel for boiling purposes, and the
bacon house, or Iarder, was the warehouse
for the winter stock Of provisions" In al
| most all the foods strong condiments like
| garlic and pepper were freely used Phil
| ology shows that the Saxon food was bread
butter and cheese, for beef, veal mutton,
! pork and bacon retain the names given by
| the Normans
| THE EVOLUTION OF THE FORK.
| 'In the Tenth century colloquy of Arch
| bishop Alfrto," says Mr.. Carew Hazlett, 1.-The
bog is made to say that he is too young e -:
| meat, but suhsists on cabbages, eggs fish,
| cheese, butter and BEANS" and the drink,
| which was rarely ale, was usually water
The nursery rhyme tells us of King Alfred's
''bag pudding Of barley meal with raisins
and meat" The frying pan, Mr.. Hazlett
says, preceded the grill, Just as the fork
Jagged behind the spoon, from which it is a
seeming evolution" For centuries in Eng
land there was a prejudice against the fork,
which displaced the fingers, and forks at first
were the privilege only of kings. When
Coryat employed one after his visit to Italy,
where the instrument originated in the Elev-
enth century, he was nicknamed Furcifer 1t
took six hundred years, or until the Seven
tenth century, to establish it England, and
even then it did not attain general use. A
country boor 'still eats his bacon or his her.
ring with his fingers, just as Charles XII of
Sweden buttered his bread with his royal
thumb"
Ii is said that the origin OF washing the
hands before eating arose from the fact that
food at first was eaten wholly-au around the
table dipping into one dish-with the hands.
No VIII tl,a 10.
as well as preceGes the meal Carving knives,
like the fork, were at first luxury, and as
late as the close of the Fifteenth century were
confined to kings tables and those OF the no
bility. Butter was not much used in England
before the Norman conquest, although the
Englishman, unlike the Italian, had no oil for
substitute. OF the introduction Of sugar
there is no certain date given. Mr. Hazlitt
thinks it must have been scarce and dear in
1896, "when Henry III asked the mayor OF
Winchester to procure him three pounds of
Alexandria sugar, if so much could be got,
and also some rose and violet colored sugar;
nor had it grown more plentiful when the
same prince ordered the sheriffs of London to
send him four loaves of sugar to Woodstock
Before the end Of the Thirteenth century,
however, it gained ground and could gener-
ally be produced. 1t was then sold by the
loaf or pound at what would be 371S to 20
cents pound in American currency.
There were several kinds of bread used in
the Fifteenth centary. Palm main was bread
made Of very white -four In addition to
this, there was to be had coarser wheat
bread, also barley meal bread, bran bread,
pea bread oat bread or oat cakes, hard bread
and unleavened bread" Rye lentils and oat-
meal were sometimes mixed for bread for the
poor. Certain coarse fish were once eaten
which have not been in modern times much
esteemed. Porpoise pie, once eaten, was
finally ridiculed in the time of James as "a
dish which not even a dog would eat" al
though in our own times Oh the Hudson river
it is the sturgeon, very like a porpoise," that
used to be called ALBANY beef, u perhaps SO
called because the early Dutch may have
gone to that city, market to get it.
COOKERY n THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
In the Seventeenth century English cookery
began TO improve and took hints from the
continental nations. Travel increased and
tourists brought home recipes like the follow
ing: ITO make a Portugal DISH" ''To make |
O Virginia dish, "a Persian DISH" "a Span.
ish Olio,' etc. The following also were prob |
ably by travellers: ITO make the Lady |
Abergavenry's cheese" Lord Conway's re-
ceipt for amber puddings," ITO make !
posset, the Earl of Arundel's way When |
the fame of foreign dishes was well estab- |
hshed French and Italian cooks came to |
England and entered service But the oppo- |
sition to French cookery was heard from |
more than one voice Mr. Hazlitt says Charles !
Lamb IN more modern times did not like II.
The critics of the time said it disguised the |
real flavor Of the meat. 1t might do for
hot climate, but lit is here" says the author
of Earthquakes Culinarie," 1.-The art of
spelling good meat"
Addison says that living in in the days of
Queen Anne was plain and plentiful. il din
ner was only two courses Two plain
dishes, he says with two or three good
cheerful, ingenious friends would
make me more pleased and vain than all that
pomp and luxury can bestow" Dinner then,
IS later, was the main meal Nilsson SAYS:
The English eat a great deal at dinner.
They rest while and to it again till they
have quite stuffed their psunch. Then sup
per is neutrality-suspicious. at noon and absti-
1ent at night heard that they were great
lesh eaters, and found il trua' Many peo-
pie IN England, he says, never eat any
bread, while they chew meat BY whole
nouthfuls. Their vegetables fairly swim in
grease" Deep rotations were common every
where. You see SO late as in Dickens novels
low good cheer IN eating and drinking is
'eally an English inheritance The English
pudding came down from two or more CEN