Dhaka Muslin

(6th June 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 history, and making things, and the history of making things. We usually start by talking about the things we have been making, so what have you been up to recently?

Liz

(singsong) I made soap. (normal) I got some melt and pour and I made some bars of soap

Hazel

Amazing

Liz

One of them smells of lavender and is like a blue sky with little shiny white clouds, and one of them smells of strawberry jam and looks like a PB&J

Hazel

Ok, so, I know that, because you have sent me the blue soap and I used it yesterday and it’s fantastic, but I also did see your picture of the peanut butter jelly sandwich soap, and it’s amazing

Liz

I couldn’t resist

Hazel

What made you want to try soap?

Liz

I watch a lot of Royalty Soap’s videos

Hazel

What are those?

Liz

That’s pretty much it. It is a family soap company based in Texas, and the woman that runs it posts a lot of soap making videos that are just...I don’t get on with ASMR but they’re like my version of ASMR, they’re just incredibly satisfying to watch

Hazel

I feel like I’m gonna have to look this up

Liz

And eventually I was just like “hey I could make soap”, but I was scared of lye and also have never made soap, so I made melt and pour. Except now I’ve agreed to make proper old-fashioned pre-1850s soap for the children’s archaeology club I volunteer at, so I’m gonna have to work with lye and also beef fat

Hazel

That’s kind of a difficulty jump I feel

Liz

I will probably do an episode on soap in either July or August

Hazel

I was thinking that

Liz

So I won’t go too far into it, but soap is basically, at its most primitive level it is fat and ashes and then eventually we figured out how to get the useful chemicals out of the ashes, but it’s still also...it’s always fat and alkali

Hazel

Huh. I feel like a history episode would be a good one. That’s something that is very domestic that we haven’t done yet

Liz

Yeah, I...it’s getting to special interest territory like tea did, and then we did a tea episode, so there’s gonna be a soap episode at some point this summer, watch this space. So what have you been up to?

Hazel

Just continuing things really, I’ve been cloak making, that’s almost done. So that is the 18th century cloak for our Wuthering Heights costume project, which will be done in the indefinite future, it’s gonna be great. But I have the cloak almost finished anyway

Liz

Excellent

Hazel

Yeah. Working on the hood, and it has pleats that I have never done before, so we’re gonna work that one out, and then I’ve been doing quite a lot of knitting, because it’s fun and relaxing, so I’m making a shawl, and it’s bright orange

Liz

How bright orange are we talking? Is this the full jaffa?

Hazel

Not quite, it’s not the full neon territory

Liz

Ok

Hazel

But it’s a nice bright orange

Liz

I should probably explain jaffa for our listeners who weren’t in the knitting society at the University of York. It’s basically this one shade of cheap, bright orange wool that everyone just hated because it was just such a hideous colour

Hazel

I feel like there was one person who liked it, I can’t remember who that was. Yeah, it was particularly hideous

Liz

Eye-burning orange

Hazel

Yeah. It wasn’t even proper neon, it was just...orange

Liz

Is off-neon a thing, ‘cause I feel like that’s the way to describe it

Hazel

Off-brand neon

Liz

Off-neon

Hazel

Yeah, that was it. Yeah, no, fortunately mine is not jaffa. It is pleasant orange. And I’m about halfway through

Liz

Nice

Hazel

And I enjoy it very much (inaudible). So yeah, that is pretty much what I’ve been up to

Liz

So what are we learning about today?

Hazel

So, today I am gonna talk about muslin, the fabric, specifically Dhaka muslin, which is very significant for reasons that I will go on to explain

Liz

Oooh, foreshadowing

Hazel

Yeah. And it’s quite a good time to talk about it, because there is a project that’s emerged in recent years to try and recreate and revitalise the real, handcrafted Dhaka muslin. So I’ll talk about that in the end segment, but yeah, it’s a relevant time to bring this up. But also, because I have seen a few portraits recently...well, the reason that I first started looking at this is because I read a BBC article about this project to revitalise it, and it also had some of the history of it, and it turns out that a lot of famous portraits that I’ve seen had the subjects wearing Dhaka muslin, this very very fine cotton cloth, and I didn’t realise. For example the Empress Josephine was a massive fan of this, and one of the most famous portraits of her is her wearing this sheer white dress that is made of Dhaka muslin, and also a lot of the, the portrait of Marie Antoinette wearing the chemise a la reine, the very floaty, quite flouncy white cotton dress, also Indian muslin, Dhaka muslin. Yeah, it’s actually kind of a big thing, it’s...was massively popular in Europe during the late 18th and 19th century, and historically it’s been really popular all over the world throughout history

Liz

So what exactly is muslin, as opposed to just expensive cotton fabric

Hazel

Ok, so good point, because there are many fabrics today that you can buy that are described as muslin. They’re not really. I mean, they are, because that’s not the modern definition of muslin

Liz

Yeah, ‘cause in my mind I think of cheesecloth

Hazel

Yeah

Liz

And I’m guessing that’s not what this is

Hazel

Yeah, no. So, muslin is what you would use today for making a mock-up of a sewing project, or in cooking you might use it to, my granny used it to cover puddings and stuff, or you might use it for cheese

(ringtone)

Hazel

Sorry, my phone just beeped, I apologise, turning that off. So, it’s a fine cotton fabric, that’s what the definition of muslin is. However, what I’m gonna be talking about in this episode is a kind of muslin that was available, that was coming out of India, before the 20th century, which is a completely different beast in terms of quality. The thread counts are insane. Today, a modern muslin might have a thread count, which is the number of threads per inch, so the more threads, the higher the thread count, and the better quality the fabric, so a muslin today might have a thread count of about 40-80 threads per inch, the thread count of this historical muslin that was being made in India were somewhere in the region of about 800 to 1200 threads per inch

Liz

Oh wow. So a bit higher

Hazel

That is incredibly fine. Yeah, little bit high. Just exquisite quality, and as you can imagine it took a lot of skill to make this, and part of that is why I say Dhaka muslin, because this fabric was being made in India, and most specifically associated with the region and the city of Dhaka, which is the capital of modern-day Bangladesh, and the reason that it was known, that Dhaka was known for its muslin was because of the conditions that they had that were perfect for producing it, also because of a particular species of cotton plant that grew there, and couldn’t grow anywhere else

Liz

Cool

Hazel

And that’s why Dhaka is so famous for muslin. So this cloth, just to illustrate how prized it was throughout the world, there is a quote from a Chinese traveler in India in the 7th century, who says “the cloth is like the light vapours of dawn”, which is beautiful. The Roman author Petronius, writing in the 1st century AD, says the humorous quote “thy bride might as well clothe herself in a garment of the wind as stand forth publicly naked under her clouds of muslin”. So this fabric was so fine that it was basically sheer, and there were a lot of wits of the day talking about women looking naked if they were wearing it

Liz

That’s...I wasn’t expecting that to be one of our “people have said the same thing forever” moments

Hazel

I know! But if you’re talking about…

Liz

“You can see the shape of her body! She might as well be naked”

Hazel

There’ll be another one of those later, but…

Liz

That’s my incensed old man voice

Hazel

I like it very much. I think if you’re talking about anything to do with fashion and garments that’ll come up really, the...yeah. So, it was highly prized in the ancient world, in the Middle East, in China, in Greece, as we can see from these quotes, but then also became hugely popular in Europe as soon as it was easily available to get which, we’re gonna get to that later, but that’s because of colonialism mostly

Liz

What?!

Hazel

What?! Again?

Liz

On this podcast?

Hazel

Again. Yeah, with a lot of material culture history, you kind of can’t get away from it

Liz

Should we just rename it to Colonialism Corner

Hazel

Maybe we should do that

Liz

That’s the podcast now

Hazel

Make it slightly more light-hearted, that’s what we have now. So I’m gonna address that in a bit, but I also wanted to give you a quote from Northanger Abbey, which is the second time we’ve mentioned Northanger Abbey on this podcast

Liz

I mean it is very good

Hazel

I can’t remember what the first one was, was it something to do with novels?

Liz

Possibly? I don’t have the transcripts open right now

Hazel

So muslin and dress are features of this novel as well. It’s a Jane Austin, in case you don’t know, would recommend, it’s a very good book, and the hero of the story, Mr Henry Tilney, for the first time to the heroine, Catherine Moreland, when her aunt comes up and says “Do you understand muslin, sir?” ‘cause they’re talking about dresses and fabrics, and he says “Particularly well; I always buy my own cravats, and am allowed to be an excellent judge; and my sister has often trusted me in the choice of a gown. I bought one for her the other day, and it was pronounced to be a ‘prodiguss’”...prodiguss? Can I say that again?

Liz

Go for it

Hazel

“Particularly well; I always buy my own cravats, and am allowed to be an excellent judge; and my sister has often trusted me in the choice of a gown. I bought one for her the other day, and it was pronounced to be a prodigious bargain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard for it, and a true Indian muslin.”

Liz

I realise it’s not the takeaway we’re supposed to have, or maybe it is, I don’t know the context of the quote, but just the idea of “I’m allowed to buy my own clothes”

Hazel

I know, I was thinking that. “I always buy my own cravats”, oh, how very cosmopolitan of you. Such a hard-working man. Truly a man of the people

Liz

Nick, you studied novels, do you know the context of that quote? Is he showing off how cosmopolitan he is ‘cause he knows about fabric?

Hazel

He’s kind of being nice to the aunt, who’s just very shallow and always talks about clothes, but I think it’s also meant to be a way of showing how...it contrasts him against Catherine Moreland’s other romantic interest, who’s this really macho, boorish-type guy, so I think it’s meant to show that he’s

Liz

He’s not like other boys

Hazel

A polished man, yeah, you know, a man of refined taste, because he also likes novels, and this book is about how novels are good, actually

Liz

Amazing

Hazel

Yeah. So anyway, I included it here to show how basically everyone knew what a muslin was at this point, it was a big part of dress in Europe as well at this time, and in fact he’s talking about how much of a bargain it was, which is a bit of foreshadowing as to why the Indian textile industry basically collapsed. But also, he makes a point of saying it’s a true Indian muslin, implying that the best quality ones come from India, which is true, they did, because they had the specialist skills and tools developed over centuries to make this incredible fabric.

What made it so special, it was produced...the finest muslins were produced in Dhaka, in Bangladesh, which in history was part of India, the state of Bengal, and so the conditions...one thing, you know, that I personally remember from geography, learning about Bangladesh, is there’s a lot of river, and that creates humid conditions, particularly the Meghna river, which the cotton grew along the banks of, and this cotton, this particular species of cotton that had the finest threads grew along the banks of the river, and couldn’t be transplanted anywhere else, it wouldn’t grow, it was those particular conditions where it thrived, and it produced this thread that was very very fine, but strong enough to warp on a loom, so strong enough to be the vertical threads on a loom that take most of the tension when you’re weaving, which is an important point, because if they’re not strong enough they will snap, and then it’s a nightmare, and you’re gonna have worse quality fabric

Liz

Makes sense

Hazel

So because of this river, as well, it created humid conditions, which were needed to spin the very very fine cotton threads, and this spinning was often done by young women with good eyesight, because otherwise you couldn’t see the threads, and sometimes it was done on a boat in the mornings and evenings when the humidity was most

Liz

Ok, so almost using the dew to keep it working?

Hazel

Yeah, and in fact today when they’re trying to reproduce these they actually control the conditions in the workshop to make it humid, so that it’s easier to work with, because some fibres are easier to work with when damp. I mean, particularly spinning linen, in Europe, was often done using water to moisten it to make it easier to spin, but, yeah, so they were also doing this 800-1200 thread count, and only 8% of the total cotton harvest was used to make this finest  of fine muslins

Liz

I guess that makes sense, you’re only going to be using the best bits to make the best stuff

Hazel

Yeah, so they would separate out the finest and softest fibres that’d be used to make this incredibly fine thread, and yeah, that’s why it was so expensive, and so prized, all these conditions combine to make the perfect place to make it, but that means there is a very limited supply of it, because all these processes take a long time, and a lot of people, and you can’t really reproduce that. Even with modern technology we can’t reproduce it, because it’s such a fine tolerance that we don’t have the machines to do it, it has to be done by hand, so that’s why it was so expensive and so prized and so rare, and in fact it was pretty rare in Europe before the 16th century. In Europe linen was much more commonly worn than cotton. Silk was available, because of trade through Venice and the Silk Road, but not really cotton, not muslin, although it was very very famous and traded with other parts of the world, such as China and the Middle East, and Persia.

So, it became associated with the Mughal Empire, beginning in the 16th century, which came to control Bengal and Dhaka, and they were quite well-known for wearing white muslin, it was part of their dress, and they employed people to make it as well. Mmm, I say “employed”, but also exploited

Liz

That’s the thing with colonialism

Hazel

Not as much as later, but the history of textile production is unfortunately quite often a history of people being exploited as well, because

Liz

History full stop, let’s be honest

Hazel

Yeah. As much as we love history…

Liz

It’s an empire, therefore they were not very nice to a lot of people

Hazel

Well yeah, and also just textile production in general hasn’t had a very high status. The textiles themselves have, throughout history, because it takes so much time, textile production is always an industry where people don’t get paid enough for their time wherever you are, wherever in the world. So, it was very very popular in the Mughal Empire, in fact the 17th century Mughal princess Zeb-un-Nissa, a daughter of the king Aurangzeb, who is also...she was a very interesting historical person, she was a poet and a philosopher, so interesting person to find out about, but she was once scolded by her father for appearing naked before the court, so the legend goes, to which she indignantly replied that she was in fact wearing seven layers of muslin

Liz

Is this where the seven veils thing comes from?

Hazel

I don’t know. Possibly. I have no idea

Liz

‘Cause there’s a thing, the dance of the seven veils, which comes up a lot in orientalist-type stuff, ‘cause it’s I think Salome?

Hazel

Yeah, I’ve heard it before in that context

Liz

I’m just wondering if there’s a connection but I also have no idea

Hazel

Yeah, I don’t know at all. I would have assumed hearing that that it would be silk veils, but there’s no reason it couldn’t be muslin

(crosstalk)

Hazel

It began to be exported to Europe in the 16th century, with, many countries had trade with India at that time, and at this point it was, this trade was still pretty slow, this was still production in the hands of the country that was producing it, and it was being produced in pretty small quantities because of the time and expertise needed. So, at this point it was more expensive than silk even, and, as you can imagine, that caused a bit of a demand for it, and partly that demand was one of the reasons why in the 19th century colonialism got involved, and the Mughal Empire is violently supplanted by the East India Trading Company, and eventually the British Empire

Liz

They got away with a lot by saying “Oh we’re a company, we’re absolutely not an imperial force” didn’t they

Hazel

Yeah. I feel like when you have your own army you’re a bit more than a company

Liz

Yeah there’s...there are some things where the distinctions are difficult and there are some things where you can just say “no, that one isn’t just a company”

Hazel

Yeah, I mean, the British East India Company was very much not just a company. I guess company not so much in terms of limited company as much as company as in a bunch of people who are gonna do some bad stuff

Liz

Yeah…

Hazel

So, yeah, it’s colonialism time everybody. So, the reason that we do not have this incredible muslin any more is kind of because of the British Empire, and

Liz

What?!

Hazel

Yeah

Liz

The British Empire did a bad thing?

Hazel

Gosh! I nearly spit out my tea, which of course is entirely British as well. Yeah. So, when the province of Bengal became under the control of the East India Company they were also able to control the trade for muslins and for Indian cottons, and they were, of course, controlling other parts of India as well, and eventually the British Empire came to control basically the whole subcontinent. So, they were controlling this trade, and the traditional industry couldn’t produce these fabrics fast enough to meet the massive demand for them in Europe, so they initially tried to make them produce faster, and they couldn’t because that’s not how you do it

Liz

That’s not how anything works

Hazel

Yeah, and in conjunction with the development of industry in Britain, the industrial revolution, they were then able to process cotton in Britain, so they began to produce British “muslins” and sell them back to India, but of course why would Indians buy cottons when they have a whole cotton industry at home? So, that basically led to the British Empire destroying the Indian cotton industry by a combination of economic destruction by flooding the market with these cheap British cottons that were made in factories in Britain

Liz

Yeah, this is the time when I’m embarrassed to be from Manchester

Hazel

Yeah. Which, I mean, to be fair, I don’t think the people of Manchester made a lot of money out of it either. Well, I mean the rich ones did

Liz

The ones doing the work didn’t, but even so

Hazel

I mean yeah, exploitation across the board, basically, and some people in Britain got very very rich out of it and built some very very fancy buildings which are still there. Liverpool. Manchester. Anyway

Liz

Yeah, I was going to say, I’ve been to several of them

Hazel

Yeah, very nice buildings, but also they are made out of colonialism

Liz

They are

Hazel

So yeah, back to the Indian cotton industry. Yeah, that’s the reason that we don’t have these fabrics today, and that the tradition of weaving them has died out as well, because it was kind of ruined in the early 19th century, and there is kind of, it survives in a sense in the tradition of jamdani weaving, which is a patterned muslin, so it’s essentially like a kind of tapestry weave, but a very very fine tapestry weave where the pattern parts, the coloured parts, are inlaid rather than printed on or anything like that, so that is a very skillful technique

Liz

I will tweet a picture of that, because that stuff is gorgeous

Hazel

So beautiful. Yeah, very very skilled, and it still goes on today, and it was...I believe there was a revival of it in the 60s as well, in India, it was popular, but it is still going on today. They are still around, but it’s not a lucrative profession, apparently, according to some of the quotes from weavers that I’ve read. It’s the kind of thing you do more because it’s your vocation, it’s your craft, you’re not gonna make a lot of money out of it. There’s still a demand for it, but it’s more of an artisanal demand

Liz

Yeah, it got geographical protection, didn’t it, jamdani weaving

Hazel

It did, yeah, in 2013 it was designated an intangible cultural heritage asset by UNESCO, so yeah that now has protection, and I believe it is now a lot more well-known within India and getting more funding and more development and stuff, which is cool

Liz

That is cool! Protecting intangible heritage

Hazel

Yeah!

Liz

Don’t really have an end to that sentence, just do it, it’s good

Hazel

Which brings me to the Bengal Muslin Project. This was started off by a guy called Saiful Islam, who was working with a photographic agency called Drik, in Bangladesh, which does a lot of work around India and with crafts and things like that. He found out about this heritage of Muslin and was like “well why don’t we do that any more? Why can’t we bring it back?”, so he set out to do that, and founded the Bengal Muslin Project, and what they did is they went out to the riverbank and they asked around, and they found a possibly match for the original plant, the original cotton plant that was used to make Dhaka muslin

Liz

I love that methodology. “Shall we just go ask some people, ‘cause they know more than we do?”

Hazel

It’s great

Liz

That’s how you do things

Hazel

And they also

Liz

I bet it was an old lady. Always an old lady that knows

Hazel

It is always oldest lady in the village who knows where the good stuff is. And so they also found - from an archaeological perspective it’s also interesting - they found original tools that were used that were the jawbones of catfish, really really fine teeth that were used as combs and beaters for the fabric. And so they managed to find this plant that was a partial - quite a big partial match for the DNA of the original plant, of which I think there are some samples left, because these original muslins, they sell for thousands, hundreds of thousands. They are very very prized, these examples of the original muslin

Liz

And understandably from what you’ve said

Hazel

Yeah, because you just can’t get it any more. They then set out to go and find people that could do the actual weaving, and the people they found were these jamdani weavers, who still had some of these techniques. It wasn’t to the degree of fine thread-count that the old ones were, but they still had the weaving techniques. So, they, again, went asking around, telling people “hey we’ve got this project, we want to bring back muslin, and we wanna do this insanely high thread-count, we want to bring back the real muslin”, and they pretty much all went “that’s really cool...no I’m not doing that, it’s ridiculous”. There was one guy who said yes, and that’s now their leader of the project, who teaches everyone else

Liz

I support him 100%. Do you have a name?

Hazel

Me too, and I will put a link on the twitter to the website for Bengal muslin which, by the way, I haven’t even talked about this, but the term “muslin”, nobody’s really sure exactly where it comes from. It might come a French variation on something else, but I believe the Bengali term is mulmul

Liz

Neat

Hazel

They found this guy and they started their project, and as part of this they made a film called “Legend of the Loom”, which I will link to the trailer of on youtube. I don’t know exactly where you can watch the film

Liz

That is a powerful name

Hazel

I will try to find out. It is a very good title. And on their website there are some fantastic pictures, because this guy also came from a photographic agency. So yeah, I will link to the Bengal Muslin website, and I would encourage you all to go check it out, and they have succeeded in remaking some new muslin textiles. They have not been able to get up - they have not been able to reproduce exactly the old counts yet, they’ve got up there, their highest one I believe is 300-count, that they’ve been able to do, and a lot of them have these jamdani designs woven in, which are

Liz

I mean, 100 is still impressive

Hazel

Yeah, for sure. When we’re looking at the modern ones of like 80 threads per inch max, that is incredible that they’ve been able to create this and do it by hand, so they basically had to adapt the old technology to the current practices and equipment they have, they carried out a lot of studies to be able to do this, and they got their master weaver to create some, his name is Al-Amin. So yeah, they - apparently such a fine fabric had not been manufactured in Bangladesh before this project since before the British got involved. So yeah, they’re still working with the spinners and weavers, they’re growing this old variety of cotton, and they’re continuing to do it. I believe they have a bigger team now, and yeah, they’ve, in fact, I believe they’ve brought it back. It’s now been designated, Bengal muslin is now a Thing again, by...oh I didn’t write down which agency it was, but muslin is now...where was I?

Liz

You said that Bengal muslin is now a thing

Hazel

So yeah, it has kind of succeeded. They have been given a geographical indication by WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, of muslin. So yeah, it’s kind of their thing now. So yeah the future is bright

Liz

That is very cool

Hazel

It is very cool, and hopefully they will eventually be available again, but this time owned by the actual people that made them and developed them

Liz

That would be preferably, yeah

Hazel

Yeah. So, yeah, that has been a short history of muslin. I hope you enjoyed it

Liz

So before we go on to local larder, a reminder that if you have an episode suggestion or just want to say hi, you can email breadandthreadpodcast@gmail.com

Hazel

You can also find us on twitter at breadandthread, where there are teasers for upcoming episodes, links to things that we talk about in the episode, and just things that we like

Liz

Also on tumblr at breadandthread. Yes. So, we are, I will admit, very behind on transcribing episodes for various reasons, but I was transcribing the Christmas pudding episode yesterday, and I got up to a bit where we just spend a while dunking on Yorkshire puddings for not being a true pudding, so I thought I’d learn more about Yorkshire puddings

Hazel

Excellent! To be honest, it’s one of the most obvious regional foods in the UK, so it’s about time. What did you find out about Yorkshire pudding?

Liz

I think it honestly just took a while because, even though it’s got Yorkshire in the name, you have them everywhere. It’d be weird to go somewhere in the UK and not be able to get Yorkshire puddings just in a supermarket

Hazel

Yeah definitely, it’s a Thing if you have Sunday roast. Well, Sunday roast doesn’t require Yorkshire puddings, but I think it’s a general consensus that it’s a better Sunday roast if you’ve got Yorkshire puddings

Liz

So, the first thing I learned is that Hannah Glasse, our old friend Hannah Glasse from The Art of Cookery, in 1747 seems to have been the one who started calling it a Yorkshire pudding, or at least popularised the name

Hazel

Ok

Liz

Before that it’s referred to as a dripping pudding

Hazel

Is that from you’re supposed to make it very hot in fat to make it crispy?

Liz

The idea is that you put the batter, the phrase that I found in a 1737 book “The whole duty of a woman: or, an infallible guide to the fair sex. Containing, rules, directions, and observations, for their conduct and behaviour of life, as virgins, wives, or widows”, unsurprisingly written by a very rich man

Hazel

Oh that’s a mouthful

Liz

18th century book titles are just like that. It gives instruction to “make a good batter, as for pancakes, put in a hot tosspan” which is kind of like a roasting tin “over the fire with a bit of butter to fry the bottom a little, then put the pan and butter under a shoulder of mutton, instead of a dripping pan, keeping frequently shaking it by the handle, and it will be light and savoury, and fit to take up when your mutton is enough, then turn in a dish and server it hot”. So it’s basically an idea of cooking it in a little bit of butter, but mostly in the fat dripping off the spit-roasted meat joint

Hazel

Ah, I see

Liz

‘Cause dripping is basically a phrase that just means “the fat that comes off a roasted joint”. Nowadays it normally means specifically beef fat, which is also known as tallow

Hazel

Yeah

Liz

Tallow candles and beef dripping, it’s basically the same substance

Hazel

My Dad describes his uncle as coming home every evening after work and having dripping on bread

Liz

Yeah

Hazel

As a snack

Liz

Bread and dripping is a very working class, fills you up kind of thing

Hazel

Yeah, it’s calories in handy form

Liz

You might make fun of traditional British food, but most of it is just there to keep your body going while you go and do a lot of hard work, so don’t be mean to working class food. But yeah, so the basic idea was you’re making something that is gonna fill you up to let the meat go further. You’d even sometimes serve the Yorkshire pudding, or the dripping pudding rather, as a starter, just as-is, hot, with the meat fat on it

Hazel

Ok

Liz

There was apparently a saying for a while, I need to put on my best Yorkshire voice, sorry I’ve lost the quote now, yeah, put on my best Yorkshire voice, “them as eats t’most pudding gets t’most meat”, which is basically “if you make Yorkshire pudding your meat’ll stretch further”

Hazel

That makes sense. Personally think it was very deceptive of you as a Lancastrian to put on a Yorkshire accent

Liz

I mean, it’s mostly how you do the the’s

Hazel

That’s true, you can’t do that any other way

Liz

That and Lancastrians swallow our vowels a lot more than Yorkshire does, I think. It’s hard to describe, but I know what I mean, that’s how communication works. So, there is...so, a food historian called William Sitwell speculated that possibly the association with Yorkshire is the association with coal, and the idea of using a coal fire rather than a wood fire, letting it get hotter so that batter’ll get crispier

Hazel

Ok

Liz

But considering it was being called that from the 1740s, when it was still very much a dripping pudding rather than a separate factor, I’m not entirely convinced about that

Hazel

Ok. That is kind of a mystery

Liz

But interestingly, I think, in very poor households you would actually just possibly buy dripping or leftover fat trimmings from the butcher and just make the Yorkshire puddings themselves, not actually with the meat, just get the calories from the fat portion

Hazel

Yeah, you get the meaty taste but don’t have to buy the meat

Liz

There was also like I said potentially serving the pudding as a starter with the gravy and then, this is in a much more middle class setting, and then having your roast with a parsley sauce

Hazel

Ok. I think that’s the kind of thing a fancy restaurant would do today, have a Yorkshire pudding starter

Liz

Oh it definitely would. Or go completely the other way and do what I’ve seen on some Christmas markets and that, with what is called “The Yorkshire Burrito”, which is apparently a thing since the 2010s, where you just get a big Yorkshire pudding and then you put slices of meat and a bit of stuffing and sometimes some mustard and a tiny bit of gravy, and then you just fold it like a burrito and eat it?

Hazel

You can’t see my face right now, but it’s a picture

Liz

I mean I’m probably going to...yeah, I haven’t been brave enough to get one yet, mostly because it seems like the single most filling street food that I’ve ever heard of, but I’m probably going to have to at some point just out of morbid curiosity

Hazel

It does sound like something that you have to try at least once

Liz

I need to know, is that a general you or is that just calling me out specifically?

Hazel

Everyone. No, I’m talking to everyone here. Try the Yorkshire burrito. Live life with both hands

Liz

Something about that phrase makes me uncomfortable, but I’m not sure what it is

Hazel

Me too

Liz

Interestingly, you could potentially have a three-course meal that all has Yorkshire puddings in, ‘cause you could have it as a starter, you can have it in your roast, and some people would have it left-over the next day with things like cream and fruit syrups

Hazel

Don’t know how I feel about that, if it’s got the dripping on it

Liz

I guess ultimately it is still a big puffy pancake, like there’s a pancake called a Dutch baby which is basically a big, a sweet Yorkshire pudding

Hazel

Ok, I guess, I guess. Do you remember that year that for your birthday we did a three-course pie dinner?

Liz

Are you suggesting we need to repeat that with a three-course Yorkshire pudding dinner?

Hazel

Maybe

Liz

But yeah, I was talking to a friend who’s in pastry school who was basically saying, yeah, there is basically no functional difference between a big Yorkshire pudding, made the modern way, and a Dutch baby. Interestingly, there is a version of Yorkshire puddings called a popover, in the US, that are also known as Laplanders, I cannot find a reason for that, including...there’s a version called a Portland popover which has garlic and herbs in it, which sounds delicious quite frankly

Hazel

Oh yeah, it does sound really good

Liz

It feels like just acknowledging that it’s a savoury pancake and just going for it

Hazel

Crunchy savoury pancake. Mmmmm. That would be great, if you were to have places that served a whole roast dinner in a Yorkshire pudding

Liz

My Mum has been known to do that. She will make a plate-sized Yorkshire pudding each and then put the whole roast dinner inside it

Hazel

Yes

Liz

So, there is also the toad in the hole, which is completely different to the American meaning of toad in the hole, which is basically

Hazel

There’s an American meaning of toad in the hole?

Liz

I’ve seen it used to mean when you make a hole in a slice of bread and then fry an egg and the bread at the same time, with the egg inside the bread

Hazel

Ok. I guess the rational part of me thinks that that makes sense. I mean it’s the same thing, it’s a thing within another thing, which is also what our toad in the hole is, but then the emotional part of me’s like “no, it’s sausages and batter!”

Liz

A toad in the hole is basically a giant Yorkshire pudding with sausages cooked inside it. Which is, again, a concept that pops up in both Hannah Glasse and Mrs Beeton. Hannah Glasse uses pigeon and Mrs Beeton uses steak and kidney

Hazel

Wow. And neither of them use sausages?

Liz

There’s also an Italian-British cook called Charles Francatelli

Hazel

It’s he the one that was Queen Victoria’s cook?

Liz

He was, yes, he also published a cookbook called “The Modern Cook”, where he just specifies “a shillingworth of any kind of cheap meat

Hazel

That’s something I can get behind

Liz

But he seems to be one of the first people to call it “toad in the hole” in print

Hazel

Ok

Liz

Although Hannah Glasse’s pigeon version is called “pigeon in the hole”, which suggests that it was known as that kind of thing in the 1700s

Hazel

Yeah, I feel like that was, there were a lot of things with whimsical names back then, right?

Liz

Should probably clarify there is no record of it ever being made with toad, it’s just people being silly

Hazel

(laughs)

Liz

I mean, it’s something that I assumed when I was a kid, that at some point someone must have made it with toad. People eat frogs

Hazel

Ok, yeah, I get that

Liz

I was a very literal minded child. So the last thing I want to say about Yorkshire puddings, just because it amuses me. So, there was a man in, yeah, relatively recently, moved to The Rockies and wrote to the Royal Society of Chemistry just being like “why doesn’t my Yorkshire pudding work at higher altitudes?” ‘cause it wouldn’t rise properly, the answer to which is physics physics chemistry physics, something to do with the pressure, the same as how you can’t...like water boils at lower temperatures at higher altitudes. I am not a scientist. But as a result of that the Royal Society of Chemistry decided that it was their place to say, in 2008, that a Yorkshire pudding isn’t a Yorkshire pudding if it is less than 4 inches tall. Which is quite tall

Hazel

I mean are we going round putting rules on it now? Who are they to say that?

Liz

I feel like it was a mostly joking thing, but also that’s very tall

Hazel

Yeah, that is quite tall. That’s so not fair! That guy in The Rockies is not going to be able to do that!

Liz

Actually, there is one more thing, which is that there is a thing on…’cause you know Lancashire and Yorkshire rivalry has become somewhat silly over the years

Hazel

Yeah, nowadays it’s more like just a traditional rivalry right?

Liz

Yeah, there are very few people who would actually take it seriously. But yes, there is the annual World Black Pudding Throwing Championships in Ramsbottom in Greater Manchester, where you throw your black pudding at a pile of Yorkshire puddings, allegedly to symbolise the victory of Lancashire over Yorkshire in the Wars of the Roses

Hazel

That sounds extremely made up

Liz

It absolutely is, but also it’s a thing you can now do in Ramsbottom

Hazel

That’s very funny. If you’re on the tourist trail in Manchester, there you go

Liz

I mean I still need to go to the Ramsbottom Chocolate Festival, so I think I just need to spend some time in Ramsbottom, and throw some puddings

Hazel

Can we get the pudding throwing contest marked as intangible cultural heritage?

Liz

So yeah, that’s my final Yorkshire pudding fact, is that one day a year you can throw black puddings at a stack of them in the middle of the street in Manchester

Hazel

The rest of the year it’s illegal

Liz

Andy Burnham will get you

Hazel

Personally

Liz

I’m sorry Andy, I’m sure you’re very nice

Hazel

Just imagining him running down the street brandishing a black pudding

Liz

So if you want to buy me a bus ticket to Ramsbottom, we are on patreon as breadandthread, where you can get access to the discord server, where we chat about things that we’ve been making and about the episodes, monthly recipes, and if you give us 10...can’t remember what the default currency is, I think it’s $10 or a bit under £10, we will make you a bonus episode on anything you want, up to and including throwing puddings at things

Hazel

We will intrepidly go to the pudding throwing festival and find out, with our own eyes and ears, what is going on, and report back

Liz

I mean, considering that the podcast is now on youtube it’s very tempting to go and just get some footage to put up. I don’t know when it is, hopefully it’ll be on this year, fingers crossed, and we can go

Hazel

Feel like that is quite easy to socially distance a pudding throwing event, probably

Liz

But yes, thank you for listening, and please buy me a ticket to it, lovely listeners. I want to throw the pudding

Hazel

I support your pudding throwing dreams

Liz

So yeah, our next episode will be a bio one, so stay tuned for us trying to talk about Mr Kellog’s objections while remaining a clean podcast

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