Mrs Beeton

7th November 2021

(opening music)

Liz: Hello and welcome to Bread and Thread, a podcast about food and domestic history. I’m Liz

Hazel: And I’m Hazel. We are two friends who studied archaeology together and love talking about history and old stuff, and making things, either historical or not, and we normally start by talking about what we’re currently making, so, what are you up to?

Liz: I don’t think I’ve started or finished any projects since we last recorded. The thing is, I had a birthday, so I’ve mostly just been having birthday fun

Hazel: You mean birthday fun doesn’t include obsessively making things?

Liz: I’ve been working on existing projects. But I did buy some new hair ribbons, because I am a Victorian lady, apparently, who requires new hair ribbons to celebrate my date of birth

Hazel: Who isn’t a Victorian lady in these times of pandemic?

Liz: That’s true, I relate strongly to Victorian ladies right now

Hazel: Just enjoying fripperies and sighing by the window

Liz: I mean, I did spend a whole £4.50 on earrings, so, you know

Hazel: I would consider that a frippery, in a good way

Liz: Well it’s not my fault Claire’s had all of their Halloween stuff on offer

Hazel: That is not your fault, I agree

Liz: So, what have you been up to? Presumably more that me

Hazel: I wouldn’t say that. Yeah, working on some stuff. I mentioned I was making stuff for this community garden craft fair, I think, a couple of episodes ago, but I can elaborate on that. So, this community garden my parents are involved with, they have a stall at our village’s Christmas market. Well, not just the Christmas market, there’s an old…so, my village, well, the next village over from me, but still kind of my village, I think, has a cattle market, that is now a car park, but the original cattle market and everything is still there, which is kind of cool, and then next to that is the world’s tiniest town square, because the village used to be a lot more important, and was considered a decent-sized town by mediaeval standards, and it’s now, because of rivers silting up and stuff, it’s now no longer an important port, no longer im-port-ant, ha-ha

Liz: (groans)

Hazel: I know, and it’s now a tiny village, but it still has this little town square that is owned by the town trust, and it has a licence for a market that it’s had for hundreds of years, because they used to have one. So they brought back this market fairly recently, which is cool

Liz: That’s fun

Hazel: Yeah, tiny village market, it’s fun. The community garden has a stall there, so I’m making some stuff for their Christmas stall, to raise some money for the garden, and it’s just little amigurumi insects and things

Liz: Nice

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: We love a bug

Hazel: They are very good. Actually, I will put the link to the patterns that I’m using on the twitter, because they’re really great, and the designer allows them to be sold for a profit, which is really nice of them

Liz: Nice

Hazel: Yeah, but…actually, I showed it to my Mum the other day and she was like “oh, I don’t think we should sell that, I think we should keep them to use as educational displays”, so I was like “hmm, ok, maybe”. But yeah, I’m making a little butterfly, and there’s a whole lifecycle set of patterns, so it’s a caterpillar, and there’s an egg that you can put it into, and then you take out the caterpillar and there’s a cocoon that goes with it, and then you put wings on the caterpillar and it becomes a butterfly. It’s amazing

Liz: Very cool

Hazel: Yeah, the designer…I think the website is laylee? Lala? Something. I will link to it, because they are great, and it’s coming out pretty well, so I have a cocoon and a caterpillar so far, and that is it

Liz: So, this is a bio/book episode, and I mentioned Victorian ladies

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Would you like to hear about a Victorian lady?

Hazel: I sure would. Which one? There were quite a lot

Liz: Have you heard of Mrs Beeton?

Hazel: Now, I have indeed come across Mrs Beeton, yes, but the thing is, as I was saying earlier when we were just chatting before this episode, I have heard of Mrs Beeton, because she’s a big deal in Victorian cooking, but I don’t actually know much about Mrs Beeton other that “wrote a cookbook which is a big deal in Victorian cooking”, so yeah, I am excited to find out more

Liz: So Mrs Beeton is very definitely Victorian. She was born in 1836, so she would have been about a year old when the Victorian era started

Hazel: Ok, that is super Victorian

Liz: Yeah, firmly Victorian, I think. In a part of London that I never know how to pronounce but I’m gonna go with Marylebone? (pron. marril-bone)

Hazel: Marylebone? (pron. mar-le-bone)

Liz: I’ve heard it pronounced like five different ways

Hazel: Ok

Liz: To a linen merchant and his wife. She had two younger sisters, and then her father died and her Mum remarried and got four step-children, and then had lots of children with the new husband, so Isabella Mason, as he was, ended up the oldest of 20 children

Hazel: Oh wow. Ok. Also, Isabella, I was about to ask what her first name was, because I assume it wasn’t Missus. That is a lot of siblings to have

Liz: Yeah, I can’t find information on how many survived, because obviously Victorian families

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But she referred to her siblings as “a living cargo of children”, so we have to assume probably most of them

Hazel: Yeah that sounds like a lot. I mean, if by Victorian standards you’re like “oh that’s a lot of kids”, it’s probably a lot

Liz: Yeah. Apparently the younger ones, Alfred, thought that the number of children that his father and mother had was ridiculous, so he sent his father a condom as a practical joke

Hazel: Oh wow

Liz: And in response his father sent him into the merchant navy, ‘cause at that point, well just generally it’s a bit much, but apparently at that point they were mostly used by sex workers, so it was (posh voice) an unwelcome implication and impropriety

Hazel: I can see how that could be taken the wrong way in, presumably, the 1840s or 50s

Liz: I mean also now, frankly

(crosstalk)

Hazel: It’s probably not usual to send your parents a condom

Liz: So yeah, she went to boarding school in Islington and in Heidelberg

Hazel: Oh wow

Liz: Heidelberg is where she learned a lot of baking skills, especially, and when she came back she took pastry lessons from a baker in Epsom

Hazel: I’m surprised they could afford to send her abroad to study, with that many children

Liz: I guess they were just doing very well. But the, yeah, her step-father was one of the first clerks of Epsom racecourse, so presumably he had a lot of money

Hazel: Aah

Liz: From that

Hazel: Fingers in many pies, as it were

Liz: Mmm

Hazel: Although not as many as his daughter

Liz: But yeah, so eventually she marries Samuel Beeton, who was the founder of Boy’s Own magazine. That’s Boy’s Own, not Boyzone

Hazel: I was thinking that, and I’m glad you said it. I mean, it makes sense that it would not be Boyzone with a Z. Although I would like to see Victorian Boyzone

Liz: But that was a very popular magazine for, for boys

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Which was basically a newspaper for children, almost

Hazel: I think I have heard of that, is that where stuff like The Boy’s Own Book of Adventures comes from?

Liz: Yeah, they all spin off from that

Hazel: Ok

Liz: He was also the first British publisher of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, so he was obviously very well off himself

Hazel: Ok

Liz: But he actually also started publishing Mrs Beeton’s writings, including recipes but also general domestic writings in The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine

Hazel: It does help when your husband is a publisher

Liz: Definitely. Yeah, so that was a magazine for middle-class women

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: She started out translating French fiction to serialise, and then started working on a cookery column

Hazel: Oh, interesting. So she started out in fiction, not cookery

Liz: She did, and some would argue she stayed in fiction

Hazel: Ah

Liz: So, there was a controversy about her books and recipes ‘cause…so, she got a letter from one of her sisters, Henrietta, saying “cookery is a science which is only learned by long experience, and years of study, which of course you have not had”

Hazel: Oooh!

Liz: And advising her to maybe borrow from other things, compile recipes from other books

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: So she ended up straight-up copying recipes, including from quite famous chefs and cookery writers, including Eliza Acton, Hannah Glass, Antoine Carême

Hazel: Ok, so she took that very literally

Liz: Yeah, it’s thought by some of her biographers that she just full-on copied most of her recipes

Hazel: Wow. See me after class, Isabella Beeton

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: I didn’t know that

Liz: There’s a little bit of a debate, because a lot of her recipes are at that basic level of you could argue that it’s uncopyrightable, some of the stuff, but some of it is just very blatantly copied from, especially from French cookery writers

Hazel: Ok. Hmm. My opinion of Mrs Beeton is less favourable now

Liz: Some of the editing is also just bad. On the same page she talks about how tomatoes are wholesome and stimulate the appetite, and also how they “omit a vapour so powerful as to cause vertigo and vomiting”. Which is it, Isabella?

Hazel: (laughs) Ok. I mean, I can’t say that I’ve ever thrown up at the smell of tomatoes

Liz: Yeah, so the editing isn’t great, the recipes are largely not her own, and some of them do use ingredients that she also talks about not liking, like potatoes are apparently “suspicious”, and mangos taste like turpentine

Hazel: Is she eating it green or something, because even that can be delicious

Liz: I don’t know

Hazel: What?

Liz: It’s very much a thing of upper-class British people going “ah, all of these places that we’re profiting from colonising, their food is awful and evil and I won’t touch it”

Hazel: “Except to pretend that I invented it”

Liz: It’s just, it’s wild to me

Hazel: I dunno though. Potatoes, man. Sometimes I feel like they are giving me an eye (sarcastic laughter)

Liz: Terrible. Yeah, there’s also just some questionable advice. Not Victorian questionable, just regular questionable. She talks about cooking vermicelli for half an hour, boiling it. Whatever else you do with it at that point, I don’t think that’s pasta any more

Hazel: Everyone likes mush, right?

Liz: But this is especially for putting in soup, so you’re just

Hazel: No

Liz: So, the word pasta comes from the word for paste

Hazel: Uh-huh

Liz: And I think maybe she’s taking that a little bit too far by making a pasta soup that’s just some nice broth with some mush in the bottom

Hazel: Urgh. I can imagine that. I can imagine the texture, and I do not like it

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: Mmm, no

Liz: Interesting saying about pasta though, she does also have some sweet macaroni dishes

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Including a macaroni baked in a custard, which honestly sounds kind of nice. It’s a lemon custard with a little bit of nutmeg

Hazel: Yeah, I feel like that could be good

Liz: Except once again she cooks the macaroni for 50 minutes

Hazel: Oh no! Ok, so you’re basically breaking it down into just starch

Liz: Yeah, I…I don’t know

Hazel: That just sounds like a stiff custard

Liz: Would you like me to read out the recipe for this?

Hazel: By all means

Liz: “Put the milk into a saucepan, with the lemon-peel and sugar; bring it to the boiling-point” - so you’re already boiling milk, which is not gonna taste good - “

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Yeah, “bring it to the boiling-point, drop in the macaroni, and let it gradually swell over a gentle fire, but do not allow the pipes to break”. Again, she says it takes 40-50 minutes for this. Even cooking it from dried, which I have to assume is what she’s doing when she’s talking about letting it swell, that’s…that is not going to be “tender, should be firm, and not soft”. You’re boiling this past for 50 minutes!

Hazel: Good luck, I guess. Wow. That is unappealing

Liz: Mmm. But, you know, most of her recipes are pretty good, which is probably why this book has never been out of print

Hazel: Ok

Liz: For reference, this year is the 160th anniversary

Hazel: Oh wow

Liz: Of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Hazel: I didn’t realise it was continuously in print, that’s amazing

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: I wonder how many people actually use the recipes regularly

Liz: I am unclear on that part, because at a certain point it’s going to be more for historical interest

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: But also, because it was largely marketed at middle-class women - there’s stuff about how to hire servants and the rights and responsibilities of landlords

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: So I don’t think it’s for Cooks, TM, if you know what I mean

Hazel: Ok

Liz: I feel like it’s one of those cookbooks that we’ve talked about before, that’s more so you can keep an eye on what your cook is going

Hazel: Ah, I see

Liz: Rather than cook for yourself

Hazel: Yeah, ok, and you can maybe go into the kitchen every now and then and make some of the dish

Liz: Yeah, you know, you can make the macaroni custard yourself one day, when it’s Cook’s day off

Hazel: Yeah, that does give a vibe

Liz: Interestingly, the first edition after her death contained an obituary notice

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But most editions didn’t mention the fact that she’d died only four years after it was published

Hazel: Oh!

Liz: And there’s a lot of speculation that this was basically so that it’d continue to sell, that people could imagine her out there cooking all of the recipes herself

Hazel: I see. Ok, so people would theoretically think that Mrs Beeton was a continuing presence. Wow. That’s almost like trying to create a celebrity when they’re not there

Liz: Mmm. But I mean especially considering that she was only not-quite-29 when she died

Hazel: No way, I also did not know that. Wow

Liz: 1836 to 1865

Hazel: Wow

Liz: Which kind of hits you like a slap in the face when you realise that

Hazel: I mean yeah, that’s not far off our ages. Ok

Liz: And publishing it basically saved Samuel Beeton’s business, apparently. He made some very bad investments the same year that it was published

Hazel: I guess it doesn’t really surprise me though, that they would try and carry on the brand even though she’d died, because that does seem to be a thing with popular things in that era. I remember in the Thérèse de Dillmont episode they had her niece, I think it was, take over her name, essentially, so they could continue selling the book

Liz: Yeah, and I mean especially when it’s, her husband is basically entirely in charge of the Mrs Beeton brand

(crosstalk)

Liz: …he was kind of exploiting it a bit

Hazel: Mm-hmm. Was everything that she wrote published through him?

Liz: From what I can find. I haven’t been able to find anything that wasn’t

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: She basically owed her entire career to him

Hazel: Ok. I wonder if there was a contract or anything, or if it was literally just him doing it

Liz: That’s the thing, because he was her husband, and it was the 1860s, so I think it would be expected that he would just run all of the business end of it even if it was a different publisher

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: But yeah, there is some interesting stuff outside of the cooking part, including…there’s a lot of talk about…she writes a lot about how the human body works. Some accurate stuff, some less accurate stuff

Hazel: Ok. In what context is it?

Liz: Mostly talking about infant health. There’s a lot, there’s a whole chapter on raising children and the nursery and childhood diseases

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Including a bit where she talks about being very thankful that the state makes people vaccinate their children against smallpox

Hazel: Oh!

Liz: Which I just find interesting

Hazel: Yeah definitely

Liz: But yeah, she talks about the digested food going straight into the arteries

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: There’s kind of a rudimentary understanding of digestion, but not really an accurate on

Hazel: Ok

Liz: And there’s instructions for infant CPR, including in the case of stillbirth

Hazel: Oh wow

Liz: Some of it is stuff that you’ll see on things like Call the Midwife, where they’ll rub the baby’s back really vigorously. But apparently, if that doesn’t work, you can try plunging the child up to the neck in 80 degree, Farenheit, presumably, water

Hazel: Wow. I mean, that’ll do something I guess

Liz: I guess sometimes a chock’ll do it?

Hazel: Maybe?

Liz: It’s not an unpleasant temperature, it’s about 27 degrees

Hazel: Ok

Liz: But I’m not really sure what it would do to help

Hazel: Yeah, if they’re choking, I don’t know what. I did my

Liz: Apparently if they’ve been born not breathing because their “impure blood” is going to their lungs rather than going through the heart like it’s supposed to

Hazel: Oh I see, so it’s birth advice. That’s interesting

Liz: Yeah, it’s some interesting stuff. But there is also a pharmacy section where most of the treatments are some sort of narcotic mixed with sugar

Hazel: Yay

Liz: Which’ll do something

Hazel: I actually did my infant CPR training quite recently, and it was quite interesting. The holding them upside-down and bashing on the back thing is still a thing, but also they demonstrate it and then they give you the baby dummy and you’re suddenly like “oh my gosh, I don’t want to hurt the baby

Liz: Interestingly, a lot of her breastfeeding advice matches current advice

Hazel: Oh!

Liz: She talks about breastfeeding for a few months and then gradually introducing solid food, and saying you can breastfeed for longer, but there’s not really much benefit to it after 15 months, which about matches the current advice, they tend to say 12 months now

Hazel: Ok

Liz: She says that it is “uncalled-for” to breastfeed after 15 months, and that you must feed them other things as well, which, I guess people who don’t have food security might well try and breastfeed exclusively for longer to try and save on food?

Hazel: Yeah, I can see that

Liz: But I don’t think they’re going to be buying Mrs Beeton’s book

Hazel: Yeah, they’re probably not the people who are going to be making the vermicelli custard

Liz: She also warns against co-sleeping, which is actually illegal now, because it is dangerous

Hazel: Yeah. Oh well, at least that’s some good advice

Liz: Yeah, there is some genuinely good advice in there, but it seems to largely be stuff that would be received wisdom. This is probably stuff that she learned from her mother

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: And helping to raise 20 children, because she was the oldest sister, and that’s what happens

Hazel: Oh yeah, that’s a good point. I can see how the child-related advice would probably be fairly good

Liz: But yeah, she talks about how she had the benefit of helping to raise younger siblings, and a lot of people don’t

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So she’s passing on all of that wisdom, which, I think is quite cool. Like I say, a lot of it is received wisdom, but I guess the thing with received wisdom is not everyone receives it

Hazel: And sometimes it is quite useful to receive it from somebody

Liz: She talks a little bit about various weaning foods, including baked flour mixed with various things like arrowroot as a kind of low nutritional value but gets them used to food kind of thing

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Interestingly, there’s also a whole section on “convulsions or infantine fits”

Hazel: Oh

Liz: And also describes rickets as “a frequent result of dental irritation” while talking about teething

Hazel: Right. Huh. Not sure how you make that connection

Liz: Yeah, and one of the first aid advices she gives for convulsions is, again, submerse the child in a hot bath up to the chin, which, I’m not sure how helpful that’s gonna be

Hazel: No

Liz: And there’s a whole section, ‘cause like I said, she talks about how important it is to vaccinate against smallpox, she also talks about chicken pox

Hazel: Ok

Liz: And how even though it is mild, it is still bad, and you shouldn’t deliberately infect your children, and it just makes me think about pox parties

Hazel: Hint hint, people of today, yeah

Liz: Apparently that’s been a thing for a while

Hazel: Ok

Liz: But she also reassures parents that they shouldn’t worry about disfigurement from chickenpox like you get from smallpox

Hazel: Mmm. Wow. I mean, yeah, I don’t remember actual chickenpox parties being a thing, but I certainly remember it just being no big deal, you just expect your kid to get it, you certainly don’t try and stop them

Liz: I’ve mostly heard of pox parties as an affluent antivax American thing, although I’m sure they do happen here as well

Hazel: Uh-huh, ok

Liz: And yeah, she also, as I said, she has a whole section of pharmaceutical things, including a very long list of “the principal poisons, with their antidotes or remedies”

Hazel: “Here’s a list of all of the poisons, everyone”

Liz: Including, you know, multiple kinds of arsenic

Hazel: Ok. Good to know, I guess

Liz: Apparently for food poisoning it’s emetics and castor oil

Hazel: Actually, I suppose if these are things that you might have in your household reasonably, it’s good to know how

Liz: Oh yeah, definitely. One of the arsenic things is listed as “fly powder”

Hazel: Mmm

Liz: And there’s also some poisonous plants that you might encounter just in a garden, like foxgloves

Hazel: Ok, yeah, if you’re having these around I suppose it’s good to know how much of them is poisonous

Liz: It doesn’t say how much is poisonous

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Or how much of the antidote or remedy to give them

Hazel: Oh, ok. Just “these things are poisonous”

Liz: It’s just like “if your child has eaten smelling salts, give them lemon juice and vinegar”, apparently that’ll help

Hazel: Ok (laughs)

Liz: But she does also go in-depth about the symptoms of poisoning from these different things, which I imagine is genuinely useful

Hazel: Ok, yeah, I can see that

Liz: Which, I just find it interesting, ‘cause I know it’s called The Book of Household Management, but it does generally get talked about as a cook book

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: But it’s got all this stuff, like I say, about poisons, being a landlord or being a tenant, hiring staff

Hazel: Yeah, that’s a whole…that’s almost like the upper class Victorian version of Bull Cook

Liz: Yes! Interestingly, as well, every recipe has a cost on it

Hazel: A what, sorry?

Liz: Every recipe has a price

Hazel: Oh, right. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh

Liz: The average cost per portion

Hazel: Oh, ok, that’s interesting

Liz: Which is quite cool

Hazel: Yeah, that’s really

Liz: She talks about thrift a lot, actually, she also talks about the correct amount to pay various domestic servants

Hazel: Ah. That’s really interesting to have as a historical evidence for what things cost

Liz: Definitely, yeah. So yeah, like I said she died in 1865, probably of puerperal fever, sometimes known as childbed fever

Hazel: Hmm

Liz: And in 1866, ‘cause Samuel continued to not be very good at this, actually sold the rights to the book to another publisher

Hazel: Oh, ok, well done Samuel

Liz: Biographers generally agree that it was a terrible deal that he made, and it was these publishers, Ward, Lock & Co, who apparently decided to just ignore the fact that she’s dead, because people find it more…palatable, I guess? Find it…it’s more marketable to sell a book by someone who’s alive, apparently

Hazel: Yeah, I can imagine for a cookbook or a domestic sort of book, yeah

Liz: But the posthumous criticism of it is a lot

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Especially from modern chefs. Clarissa Dickson Wright

Hazel: Uh-huh

Liz: Says that she basically irreparably damaged English cookery and is responsible for the decline in gastronomic innovation in Britain

Hazel: Oh!

Liz: In the 19th and early 20th centuries

Hazel: Go off, Clarissa

Liz: And people basically say, because she became this ubiquitous thing, people were kind of reluctant to step outside of her particular brand of early Victorian cuisine. Mrs Beeton was just a generic way of referring to an authority on cooking by the 1890s, according to the Oxford Dictionary

Hazel: Oh right, wow

Liz: So I think she’s definitely an influential woman. Whether she deserves to be seen as an influential woman, it seems, has been questioned for pretty much the whole existence of the book

Hazel: Yeah. I mean, I suppose when something is that big, it’s gonna get a lot of criticism, but then there are also a lot of collections like that from the past where

Liz: There’s criticism, and there’s criticism

Hazel: Yeah, if it’s still getting vehemently criticised today

Liz: Yeah, you know, influential, some definitely useful information, holistic approach to the running of a household, but also plagiarism, some not particularly good stuff in there in the first place

Hazel: Yeah. Bit of a mixed bag, it sounds like

Liz: Yeah. Overall I think it’s worth having a copy of just for historical interest

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: And there’s some genuinely good recipes in there, it’s just unclear how many of those genuinely good recipes are by Mrs Beeton

Hazel: (laughs) Wow. Ok. Let us know what you think, I guess. Mrs Bee-con. Mrs Bee-con? Mrs Beacon. Can I do that again

Liz: Can’t even say her name

Hazel: Let us know what you think, I guess, Mrs Beeton, icon or ruined cookery for hundred of years

Liz: Not necessarily ruined, but I think stagnated is…I dunno, ‘cause blaming her for the stagnation from her thing people popular

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: When she was only alive for the first few years of its existence seems unfair

Hazel: Yeah, exactly, if she’d lived she might have published something better

Liz: I think it’s interesting to think about. So, if you have a suggestion for an episode, or you just want to say hi, you can email us at breadandthreadpodcast @gmail.com

Hazel: You can also find us on twitter at breadandthread, and the same on youtube and tumblr, for all of your Bread and Thread social media needs

Liz: And if you want to to support us, we also have a patreon, Bread and Thread, where you can get access to a discord server, where we talk about things that we’ve been making and baking, and monthly recipes, which are not plagiarised from Eliza Acton

Hazel: Allegedly

Liz: I stand by this. They’re mostly my recipes. So, thank you for listening, and we will see you next time