The Suffrage Cookbook

15 August 2021

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 stuff, and trying to make historical stuff, so what have you been making recently?

Liz: So I cooked something that is from the book that we’re talking about today

Hazel: Ok

Liz: So I’ll talk more about that later, and maybe put up a video, but I’ve also been working on my punch-needle snail rug, and found a free knitting pattern for the jumper from Knives Out

Hazel: (uncertain) Knives Out is a film…

Liz: It is a film, it has a very nice, very complicated cable-knit jumper in it, that Chris Evans wears

Hazel: Excellent. Is this \*that\* jumper

Liz: It has three different cabling tables

Hazel: Oh boy

Liz: But Nick wants one, so Nick’s gonna get one

Hazel: Amazing! I can’t wait to see them in it. So great

Liz: It’s gonna be very slow going ‘cause, again, three different cabling tables

Hazel: Yeah, that’s gonna be so squishy though

Liz: Yeah, be good to hug

Hazel: (gasps) Hugging jumper!

Liz: Hugging jumper

Hazel: Yes. Prepare for Nick to have people just launching themselves at them

Liz: What have you been up to?

Hazel: So I made a seed cake this morning with caraway seeds, because I just bought 500g of caraway seeds from a website that you very helpfully gave me the name of, and now I have to find a use for 500g of caraway seeds, ‘cause turns out that’s a lot. But the cake was delicious, we had some family friends, a really lovely elderly couple, come over for tea in the garden and we did capital-T Tea, with actual tea cups and granny’s teapots

Liz: Very nice

Hazel: And I made a seed cake, and it was lovely

Liz: Well, if you remember the local larder that I did way way back, it talked about different things from Lancashire that are called cakes but aren’t cakes. There’s one that’s basically shortbread with caraway seeds in, the Goosnargh cake, which, you should make that, it’s delicious

Hazel: I do remember that, and I remember them being tasty, and I think I’m gonna have to do that soon. If anyone has any great caraway seed recipes out there, let me know, I know it’s not just cakes, it’s also, you can put it in stews and things right, or make tea?

Liz: I’ve heard of putting them in curry

Hazel: Ok, that’s a stew

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: Right?

Liz: Yeah, it’s just a spicy stew

Hazel: Prove me wrong

Liz: I cannot, it’s a stew

Hazel: So we have a very exciting cookbook today

Liz: We do. It is The Suffrage Cook Book, from 1915, which is available on Project Gutenberg, and I will put a link in the episode description

Hazel: That’s neat. So where was this published? Is this an American cookbook or…

Liz: Yes. It was published by The Equal Franchise Federation of Western Pennsylvania

Hazel: Ooh

Liz: And sold to raise funds for the campaign for women’s suffrage in the US. The first thing I want to say about it is that it has testimonials from eight current and former governors of US states that had some level of women’s suffrage by 1915

Hazel: Oh!

Liz: Talking about how…well, seven of them talk about how it’s great because the women are voting for things that will help families and all that stuff, and one of them’s saying that if women get all of the benefits of living in a society, then they should have to vote too

Hazel: (laughter)

Liz: Which, I love that as an argument

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: Whatever gets you there

Hazel: Not what I was thinking of but, you know, it’s…yeah. Awesome

Liz: I did make a note, it’s on page 136 of the…I’ve forgotten the term, but the modern reprinting

Hazel: Ok

Liz: From GW Cable “As to the sentiment of equal suffrage, let me say that if I had no more generous reason for approving it, I should do so on the grounds of opposition to seeing any element of our people enjoying large liberty and influence without the restraints of the corresponding responsibility in the suffrage.”

Hazel: I like that this guy’s just like “voting sucks, you should have to do it too”

Liz: I mean, like I say, whatever gets you there, right?

Hazel: Yeah. So, I’ve had a look through the sections of this book, and most of the recipes seem pretty normal, some quite old fashioned, but there are some that I have questions about

Liz: Is it the albuminous beverages?

Hazel: No, but I would also like to know about that

(crosstalk)

Liz: The albuminous beverages are basically what would also have been called “invalid drinks”

Hazel: Ok, so like beef tea and stuff

Liz: Yeah, drinks for poorly people

Hazel: Ah, right

Liz: They’re called albuminous because they have albumin, or egg whites, in

Hazel: I see

Liz: But you can tell that there’s an element of diet culture creeping in, which I find quite interesting. Just, because it’s 1915, I find it interesting that it’s that obvious, because it’s talking about, oh, it’s got all of the nutrients that you need if you can’t keep food down, but also here are some ways to reduce the calorie content

Hazel: Yeah, it’s listing how many calories are in an egg here

Liz: Yeah, initially I thought that the calorie count was so you can make sure that the sick people who can’t eat are getting enough energy from their food, but then it’s like “and here are the ways you can make there be less calories” because I guess just because you’re bed-bound that’s no reason to gain weight. Fun times. You can’t see my grimace

Hazel: Well, I’m sorry guys, but I’m not doing the 1915 egg drink diet. No. No.

Liz: Some of them are very alcoholic as well

Hazel: Well that might persuade me a bit

Liz: There’s five different eggnog recipes in here

Hazel: Wow. Egg lemonade?

Liz: Yeah. There’s also beef eggnog

Hazel: Oh no!

Liz: That’s an invalid drink. It’s basically Bovril with egg white in it

Hazel: That’ll make you get better fast enough to not have to drink that any more

Liz: Yeah, I…so again, a lot of these are invalid drinks, but it also says “The combination of egg, milk, and sugar, which constitutes eggnog, is apt to produce nausea and vomiting in a feeble stomach.” Which is why you should only use the egg whites, because apparently it’s the yolk, and not the fact that there’s raw egg in there, that’s the problem

Hazel: Yeah, maybe it’s the fact that these drinks are horrible

Liz: Do you have a favourite from that section?

Hazel: I think it might be either the beef eggnog or…I was going to say the mulled wine, but that one actually doesn’t…oh it does. It’s the mulled wine. It’s the egg mulled wine. You took something nice…

Liz: If you took the egg out it sounds like quite a nice mulled wine

Hazel: Exactly! You made a nice drink recipe, and then you just chucked an egg in it

Liz: I think my favourite is the albumenised water, for infants. You give it to your small child if they’re complaining that their stomach hurts. I bet they’ll stop complaining

Hazel: Wow

Liz: I bet they will

Hazel: Yeah, not a fan, I have to say. We’re not starting this off great

Liz: Yeah, I mean, what else would you give a sick two-year-old, if not raw egg and lemon juice in a glass of water?

Hazel: Right. Can we move on from albumated drinks?

Liz: That’s fair

Hazel: Before I start to feel queasy

Liz: (giggles)

Hazel: So, this seems to be laid out in a sort of order of a meal kind of way

Liz: Definitely, yeah

Hazel: Oh wow it’s pretty comprehensive

Liz: It is, although another thing that dates it, I think, is that there’s a recipe for boiled rice, just plain boiled rice, in the vegetable section

Hazel: How to boil rice. Which, I mean, to be fair…

Liz: It’s less having instruction to cook rice, which I’m sure lots of people in 1915 Pennsylvania didn’t really know how to do, it’s the fact that it’s listed under vegetables

Hazel: Confirmed, rice is a vegetable

Liz: But I mean some of the recipes are ridiculous, like there’s a recipe for a coffee cake, which does not contain coffee

Hazel: Ok

Liz: There’s a recipe for carrot soup that is just carrots and water. There’s a whole section of sandwich recipes

Hazel: Yes, I saw that

Liz: There’s a recipe for grape juice, which is just “juice some grapes”

Hazel: Ok. So, the one that I first have questions about is in the “bread, rolls, etc.” section. It is hymen bread

Liz: Hymen bread, yeah. I did make a note of that one in the contents page

Hazel: Which I’ve just looked at, and the recipe for hymen bread is one pound genuine old love, ⅞ of a pound common sense, ¾ of a pound generosity, ½ pound toleration, ½ pound charity, and a pinch of good humour. Always to be taken with a grain of salt, good for 365 days in the year. Now, that doesn’t sound like something you can slice with a bread knife

Liz: Yeah, there’s a few recipes like that, which I find interesting. The first one the comes up is my favourite though I think

Hazel: OK

Liz: Which is for “anti” - spelled with an i at the end - “Anti’s Favourite Hash”. “1 pound truth, thoroughly mangled

Hazel: (laughs)

Liz: One generous handful of injustice, sprinkle over everything in the pan, one tumbler acetic acid, well shaken, a little vitriol will add a little tang, and a string of nonsense should be dropped in, as if by accident. Stir all together with a sharp knife, because some of the tidbits will be tough propositions.”

Hazel: Presumably that’s anti-suffrage?

Liz: I mean I feel like that’s more likely than shipping anti’s, which is the first thing that it made me think of, I’ll be honest

Hazel: I thought it was a name or something, but now I see

Liz: Yeah, they also have Suffrage Pie and Childhood Fondant, which are similar veins

Hazel: Right, so some of these are just humorous recipes

Liz: Yeah. The way the the recipes are written is kind of weird as well, because obviously a while ago we had the Fanny Farmer recipe talking about…by this point people knew the sensible way to write recipes. But then you have stuff like, there’s a crab gumbo recipe that does list ingredients, but not all of them, so you

Hazel: Oh

Liz: Can get your ingredients together and then suddenly be like “wait, you want me to add a can of tomatoes? You didn’t say a can of tomatoes.” It also tells you that you need okra, but doesn’t tell you what to do with it.

Hazel: Huh

Liz: This is not a great recipe

Hazel: There are a lot of recipes in this book, so do you think it’s just that they weren’t proof-read that well?

Liz: I think probably, because they were sent in from suffragists, I should say, not suffragettes, because some of them were male

Hazel: Ah

Liz: From the UK and the US

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Including people like the author of The Yellow Wallpaper, and, like I say, various politicians, the first woman to head a US federal department, the second woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and various suffragettes and their husbands

Hazel: Ok, wow

Liz: Which is kind of wild, but I feel like Mrs Liz O Kleber, the compiler, should maybe have, maybe have applied some level of a critical eye to what was being sent in

Hazel: Or maybe tried some of them out, yeah. I mean, presumably they did make some of them

Liz: She claims that she tried almost all of them before putting them in

Hazel: Ok. I’m reading the one for cucumber sandwiches and it just says “slice the cucumbers, put them in between slices of bread.” Wow

Liz: Yeah, the whole sandwich section feels kind of unnecessary

Hazel: I have just had a culinary epiphany, I’m gonna go and make a sandwich

Liz: But I mean it does also follow a section which talks about picking the colours of your salads to match your decor, so I’m not convinced how much cooking these women actually did themselves

Hazel: I dunno, I kind of like the concept of (laughing) food that matches your house

Liz: It’s…when I got this I kind of thought it’d be like, you know, it’d be a fun little tidbit, there’d be some interesting recipes to try, and then I looked through it and you get stuff like that

Hazel: Yeah, it doesn’t sound like this is particularly aimed at people who are doing all of the cooking themselves

Liz: No. Or by people who are doing all of the cooking. There’s the carrot soup that I mentioned, there’s a roast duck that apparently you want rare

Hazel: Right

Liz: Which, I’m not convinced that’s the best idea. I do want to tell you about the thing from this that I did make

Hazel: Yes!

Liz: Which is Scripture Cake

Hazel: Scripture Cake?

Liz: So it lists all the ingredients, each of which has a bible verse after it

Hazel: (inaudible)

Liz: Which mentions said ingredient

Hazel: (laughs) Oh!

Liz: ‘Cause, sure. Absolutely no instructions, and then it says “follow Solomon’s advice on making good boys, and you will have a good cake”, and then lists a verse from proverbs which is basically about how you should beat children

Hazel: What?!

Liz: It’s the combination of including that specific verse, and also the only advice you’re giving me to make this cake is to beat the ingredients

Hazel: Huh. So this is a code recipe

Liz: Like I say, I did make this cake just using, you know, I know to make a cake, I figured out what I was supposed to do with the ingredients, and it was pretty tasty, but also that’s not how you write a recipe

Hazel: No. What did the cake look like?

Liz: It’s just a fruit cake. It’s got figs and raisins and almonds in it, and some honey and some

Hazel: Ok yeah, that sounds alright

Liz: It doesn’t say how much spice to put in, it’s just spices to taste

Hazel: Oh yeah

Liz: So it doesn’t say how much, or what kind of spice. I just put in some pudding spice, ‘cause it’s a fruit cake

Hazel: Makes sense

Liz: It worked, it’s probably what they had in mind, but, again, this is not how you write a recipe

Hazel: It’s a bit of a gimmick, isn’t it?

Liz: Yeah. But I mean, if you like fruit cake, make some scripture cake, it’s quite nice

Hazel: (laughs) Oh wow. This book is a lot more that I thought it was going to be

Liz: It is a lot. It even has a section talking about making soap

Hazel: I guess you can have a cake of soap

Liz: It has a soap recipe, which has more instructions than half the recipes in here, using a specific brand of lye. It claims that lamb drippings make the best soap. I have looked, I have not been able to find somewhere where I can get lamb dripping. I want to try it. ‘Cause I’ve made lard soap, I’ve made tallow soap, I’ve made Sunlight soap, I wanna make suffrage soap

Hazel: My Dad sometimes talks about how his uncle would get home from work every day and immediately be brought a slice of bread and dripping by his aunt, and just…that doesn’t sound like the most delicious snack

Liz: It’d keep you going though, wouldn’t it

Hazel: Yes it would, but he wasn’t exactly down the mine

Liz: I’m just intrigued by the claim that specifically lamb dripping makes the best soap

Hazel: Yeah that’s an interesting one

Liz: I can’t imagine that it’s that different to other fat, but also there was a difference between the tallow soap and the lard soap, so maybe? I need to find a way to get hold of some lamb fat, I think

Hazel: I’m reading this excerpt, this little quote from The Honourable Ben Lindsey, in the cake section, and I’m just…”In all moral issues, the women voters make a loyal legion that cannot be betrayed to the forces evil”

Liz: Yeah, a lot of the letters are like “women are the ultimate force for good, so we should let them vote” which is…ok…

Hazel: “I believe that when the women see the beast they will be the first to attack it”

(both laugh)

Hazel: Again, I love it, but probably not for the reason that you originally meant

Liz: Yeah, i feel like it is another case like that first one of just whatever gets you there

Hazel: Alright, come on ladies, let’s kill the devil

Liz: We’ll force-feed him albuminous beverages

Hazel: (laughs) This is great, I’m enjoying this book

Liz: But like, some of the stuff I’m genuinely interested in trying to make, there’s a stuffed tomatoes recipe that sounds quite nice

Hazel: Oh

Liz: I think it being from 1915 US rather than 1915 UK really helps with the variety of stuff in it, because a recipe book from the UK of this era would be like “the middle class ladies make the middle class food and everything is very proper and European”, but there’s a lot more spices than I would expect from something from most parts of northern Europe from the same period

Hazel: Yeah it does seem to

Liz: Even just the regular recipes have actual seasoning

Hazel: It does seem to have a few…it’s got a few recipes from various places around the world, like there’s a…ah, ok…there’s a goulash recipe that doesn’t have any paprika in it

Liz: Yeah, I’m not saying they’re all definitely good, but there’s at least more variety

Hazel: There’s also a delicious Mexican dish that doesn’t have any spices except for gravy

Liz: I think I missed that one. What’s that one?

Hazel: “Soak and scald a pair of sweetbreads, cut into small bits, take liquor from three dozen oysters, add to sweetbreads with three tablespoons of gravy from the roast beef and a quarter pound of butter, cook until sweetbreads are tender, add oysters, add a cup of cream, serve with or without toast”

Liz: I mean it sounds interesting

Hazel: Yeah. If we have any Mexican listeners, please tell us if this is a real thing

Liz: Yeah, ‘cause I have to assume not all Mexican food is spicy

Hazel: Yeah, a lot of what I probably think of as “Mexican food” is probably Tex-Mex so

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: You never know, it might be a real delicious Mexican dish

Liz: They also have a peanut butter soup, which I’m intrigued by because

Hazel: Oh!

Liz: It appears to be peanut butter and ketchup and water and sweet milk. I don’t know if fresh sweet milk is just a description of the milk or if “sweet milk” is a thing

Hazel: That sounds like just a milkshake

Liz: It’s like a hot peanut butter milkshake

Hazel: What?

Liz: With ketchup

Hazel: (genuinely distressed) No! I don’t like that

Liz: But it’s another one that says, yeah, “salt, pepper, or other season to taste”, so it’s just like “put some seasoning in it I guess, if you want”

Hazel: There’s a section here titled “Nuts as a Substitute for Meat”

Liz: Oh yeah, there’s a whole vegetarian section

Hazel: “Although many are trying to eliminate meat as an option from menus on account of its soaring cost.” Hmm. “Scientific analysis…”

Liz: Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the very old stereotypes about vegetarians like “ah you just eat nut roasts all the time”

Hazel: It says in here the scientific analysis has proven that nuts contain more food value to the pound than almost any other food product known. I wonder if that’s true. I mean nuts do have a protein in, don’t they?

Liz: They have a lot of protein, but I feel the claim “more food value to the pound”, first of all, is very vague

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: But second I think also it ignores a lot of the other stuff that is in meat that you would have to replace somehow, just eating a lot of nuts all the time you’re not going to get a lot of iron or B12

Hazel: Yeah, you need different proteins, right?

Liz: Yeah I don’t think…’cause obviously there’s supplements you can take now, I don’t think they had B12 supplements at that point, and they certainly didn’t have marmite. I don’t think this would have been a long-term solution

Hazel: No. Also I love that it says “the discomfort from eating them is often due to insufficient mastication”

Liz: “Just keep chewing it, you’ll feel the benefit eventually!”

Hazel: “Didn’t chew it enough did you?” Also just love the phrase “insufficient mastication” (laughs)

Liz: It’s certainly a choice. I guess it’s more scientific-sounding that “not chewing it enough”

Hazel: Next time I get a stomach ache I’m gonna be like “oh no! I insufficiently masticated my food!” “Excuse me, waiter, this food is insufficiently masticated” (loses it)

Liz: Wait, why is the waiter doing that to your food? What restaurant are you going to?

Hazel: Don’t you know in the fanciest restaurants they chew your food for you?

Liz: Like a baby bird

Hazel: Yeah. That’s how you know that it’s really fancy. All these peasants sitting in these Michelin star restaurants, cutting food for themselves

Liz: (giggles) Is this what happens if you get six Michelin stars?

Hazel: Yeah

Liz: That’s how you do it. You get five, and then you get the waiters to come and chew the food and you get a special sixth one

Hazel: They’ve had to go underground due to covid

Liz: Disgusting, thank you

Hazel: You’re welcome. Oh, Irvin S Cobb: “women cannot make a worse mess of voting than men have.” I mean, fair

Liz: Yeah

Hazel: You’re not wrong

Liz: I really like the Bride’s Cake as well, because you’ve got all these different cake recipes, including doughnuts and fruit cakes, and then you have bride’s cake you think “ah, it’ll be the traditional wedding of a big, rich fruitcake”

Hazel: Mm-hmm

Liz: Just a slightly dry sounding sponge

Hazel: Also I would like to rescind my support of Irvin S Cobb, because he then goes on to say that they should take the vote away from worthless and unfit men who don’t know how to use it, and give it to intelligent women

Liz: Oh, that’s a little bit eugenics-y

Hazel: Yeah, I don’t trust you to determine who the unfit people are, Mr Cobb, I don’t trust anyone to do that

Liz: So, there’s bios of some of the contributors in the back, and I’ve just found out that Irvin Cobb wrote books, two of which were adapted into films by John Ford, and hosted the 7th Academy Awards

Hazel: That’s not what I was expecting to hear

Liz: And one of the other contributors had slaves

Hazel: Ok

Liz: There’s a mixed bag of contributors

Hazel: Ok. I mean, presumably not in 1915, are we talking about historical..

Liz: This guy was born in 1844

Hazel: Yeah, ok, wow, hmm. (pointedly) Hmmm

Liz: There’s a wild mix of people in here

Hazel: This is a ride

Liz: I feel like it’s a good demonstration of how people can be progressive in one area and not in another

Hazel: Absolutely

Liz: But I love…there’s a short tips and tricks section called “The Cook Says”

Hazel: Ok, so is this at the end?

Liz: Yeah, there’s one that’s a way to make really fluffy sponge cakes

Hazel: Uh-huh

Liz: But there’s also a list of short tips, some of which are ones that I do do

Hazel: Ok

Liz: Like putting hard-boiled eggs in cold water when they’re done so they don’t cook too long and the yolk doesn’t go all weird

Hazel: That makes sense

Liz: Or mixing cocoa powder with a bit of sugar and some water before using it. Then there’s things like when you’re cooking peas put a lettuce leaf in there to help them stay green

Hazel: That one sounds cute

Liz: And prick brown bread with a needle before you bake it and then there won’t be holes in the crust

Hazel: Huh

Liz: Which, I’m not sure I see the logic of that one

Hazel: Letting steam escape?

Liz: I don’t know. But some of these are genuinely good tips, like “pie crust is best kept cold in the making, to this end an excellent substitute for a rolling pin is a bottle filled with ice-water”. Yeah, that makes sense, I’ll give you that one

Hazel: Yeah, I was just reading that one, that sounds actually useful

Liz: This book is such a mix. There’s good advice and good recipes, and then some less good stuff

Hazel: Presumably that’s a product of getting a lot of different people to send in stuff, because some of them will know what they’re talking about, and then some of them…

Liz: Yeah, there is one contributor who says “this is according to my wife” and one is “this is according to my cook”

Hazel: Ah

Liz: Obviously these people don’t get named. Are you really the contributor if you’re sending in something that your cook told you

Hazel: (suspicious hmm)

Liz: The class stuff is real, there’s a small, near the start, I think it’s meant to be an ode to the cook?

Hazel: Oh yeah

Liz: About how she gets up and she does her work, and that’s great. I’m not sure what relevance it has to it being a suffrage cook book, it’s just a little poem about the cook

Hazel: That’s random

Liz: Yeah, it’s kind of weird. But I do like…there’s an introduction, which has this great sentence. “The cookbook of the past was filled mainly with recipes for dainties rather than sane and wholesome dishes, the aim being to please the taste for the moment rather than to feed the body and the brain.” Which I really like as the introduction to a cookbook which has a whole section of invalid drinks. They’re just like “this is a workhorse cookbook. None of your fripperies, you’re self-indulgent nonsense. This is food for real people”

Hazel: But also includes totally bogus recipes that are just humorous

Liz: Oh yeah, this is food for real people who have cooks. ‘Cause, again, most of the recipes don’t have cooking instructions and some of them miss out ingredients. You need someone who can actually cook to go through each one and figure out what you’re actually supposed to be doing

Hazel: There’s a totally bizarre line at the end of this introduction, that says “in the broader view of the social world that is dawning upon us, the cookbook that tells us how to live right and well will largely supplant Shakespeare, Browning, and the lurid literature of the day”

Liz: It is a pretty hot take

Hazel: Does that mean that people will read cookbooks in the good new world instead of Shakespeare?

Liz: Yeah, it’s very wellness guru

Hazel: Is literature bad for your digestion?

Liz: I feel like they see it as more “improving” than all of this nonsense fiction

Hazel: Ah, morally improving, yes

Liz: Yeah, you know, the sorts of books you would let your wives and servants read

Hazel: Well everyone knows that novels are terribly bad for you, morally speaking

Liz: They are, they cause hysteria. Need to just sit down with your beef eggnog and read your cookbook

Hazel: (laughs) Not sure I can think of a worse evening

Liz: (laughs) I think the worse evening is being the child being given the albumenised water. I know I keep coming back to it, but it’s daft! There’s no other word for it, at least not that I can say on this podcast

Hazel: That is very silly. I just…somebody get me a copy of The Mysteries of Udolpho and a bar of chocolate, stat

Liz: (laughs) Just wait ‘til Lady Chatterley’s Lover comes out. They will be dropping like flies because they’re not reading their cookbooks instead. I don’t understand. I don’t understand this way of thinking that’s just like “well if you eat right and avoid excitement”. But do you want to live a really really long time, or do you want to have fun?

Hazel: Also what if I like excitement? What if I want to be excited?

Liz: Well it’s bad for you morally and physically and you should stop it at once

Hazel: Oh no

Liz: Go and make some soap

Hazel: Let me just put all my endorphins back where they came from

Liz: Just jam them back into your brain

Hazel: Nope, can’t come out today lads

Liz: No neurotransmitters for you

Hazel: Puts down chilli sadly

Liz: Oh no, you can have spice to taste, remember, so spice is ok

Hazel: Ok, a little bit

Liz: ‘Cause if it just says spice to taste you can put whatever you want in there as long as it’s spicy

Hazel: Yay, you found a leap…a loophole. A leap-hole?

Liz: I found a loophole

Hazel: Although, I suppose at the time that this was published there’s a massive temperance movement and all sorts of “clean” living stuff going around, right?

Liz: Yeah, I feel like it’s the first wave of wellness, really. ‘Cause that’s what it is. It’s just…it’s just wellness

Hazel: And quote-unquote “respectable society” was kind of obsessed with this kind of stuff at the time, so, given that this seems to be aimed very much at respectable ladies, it makes sense, but from a viewpoint of now, it is kind of hilarious

Liz: Yeah, there is a mention with the albuminous beverages of just, I promise this is relevant, of some people shun alcohol, and in that case you can just not put alcohol in your drinks, which, sure

Hazel: But then it’s just egg juice

Liz: Seems like an odd thing to specifically say, but you’re not wrong

Hazel: Also, are the beverages intended for ill people the only ones that have alcohol in?

Liz: Let me check

Hazel: Oh yeah, it doesn’t have a cocktail section, alas

Liz: Albuminous cocktails were a thing, is the thing about that

Hazel: I guess. I mean, that is still a thing, right, cocktails with egg in. I don’t know why, but…

Liz: Yeah, there’s one that says “brandy or some other stimulant, if required” as one of the ingredients which, first time I’ve ever seen brandy called a stimulant

Hazel: Any stimulant, huh?

Liz: Yeah. Eggnog with cocaine, anyone?

Hazel: Don’t give people ideas!

Liz: Interestingly, it does also mention diabetes, and mentions a sweetener that you can use instead of sugar, which will also reduce the calories, which is great because we don’t want to get fat while bed bound, as I said

Hazel: Well this…I can’t get over how much of a mixed bag this book is

Liz: Yeah. But I have been skipping over a whole beverage section. There’s also the starchy beverages

Hazel: Oooh (audibly scrolls towards them)

Liz: Which…it mentions the digestion of starchy beverages, and I don’t know whether it’s stating this as a positive or negative. It says “The action of ptyalin is very rapid, and if these drinks are sipped slowly, so as to be thoroughly mixed with saliva, a considerable portion of starch may be changed to sugar before reaching the intestines.” I don’t know if this is good or bad? Whether you’re supposed to drink slowly or quickly as a result of this

Hazel: Are you meant to just down these starchy drinks? Oh my god there’s one called Bread Panda. Oh no it’s bread panada

Liz: Not bread panda, sadly

Hazel: Oh, that’s disappointing. I wanna try bread panda

Liz: But the fact that, ‘cause it talks about, in the introduction to the starchy beverages chapter, how whole grains contain a lot of valuable minerals, but that these drinks don’t have a lot of that. But you should heat it, so that more of the good stuff comes out and can be digested, but I still don’t know whether the sugar content is meant to be good or bad in this case. But it does also mention the calories, and there is more than one recipe for rice water. There’s also an ersatz coffee you can make out of stale brown bread

Hazel: Oh, I love all the things that you can make fake coffee out of. Bread water doesn’t sound like it would make a good fake coffee though?

Liz: The thing is, there’s that, and then there’s separately toast water

Hazel: Oh yeah

Liz: It’s basically the same thing, except one of them is presented as coffee and one of them is presented as a nourishing drink, to which you could add milk or cream or sugar, like you do with coffee, but it’s not the ersatz coffee one, that’s separate

Hazel: Wow. Not sure how I feel about toast water

Liz: Yeah, it’s…

Hazel: It’s bread drink

Liz: It is bread drink. A joke that no-one listening will get

Hazel: Literally

Liz: I do love that one of the rice waters says about, tells you, gives you some tips to use rice water to make you less…make you have diarrhoea less, or “to reduce a laxative condition”, and then a separate rice water recipe which uses raisins and then says “do not use raisins in bowel trouble”

Hazel: Oh no!

Liz: But which way? I feel like we need to know which way the raisins will influence your bowel trouble ‘cause, you know, if they make one worse they’ll make the other better

Hazel: Yeah, you know, maybe if you’re in certain kinds of bowel trouble you might want to use the raisins

Liz: But we don’t know which bowel trouble it is. So this is useless advice madam

Hazel: Yeah, I’m not going to use any of this until I know

Liz: Actually, this is another section that has a separate one for infant feeding, barley water. I’m not sure how helpful barley water would be as a general food, but it says that it’s good if they’ve got diarrhoea, which…

Hazel: I guess it’s one of those things which are sort of meant to be nourishing, in an old fashioned way

Liz: It makes a kind of sense? I know that for rehy…’cause you get oral rehydration solution, and things made with water and grain are meant to be good for it, so there might be some logic there?

Hazel: Ok

Liz: But it’s described as more just a drink for them, which can also be useful for that, and I feel like they wouldn’t want that most of the time. It’s…there’s some very confusing notes in this book

Hazel: There’s a recipe for synthetic quince. “I put too much water with my rhubarb and had a whole dishful of beautiful pink juice left over. In this I cooked some apples, quartered, and stewed till soft, and just as an experiment added a saucerful of strawberries. The result, being served, looked and tasted exactly like quince” Which is interesting

Liz: I like that one because it almost starts out like a recipe blog

Hazel: Yeah, like it’s an accidental discovery. Is quince particularly expensive at this point?

Liz: It can be hard to get, and is also seasonal

Hazel: Ok. Yeah that makes sense

Liz: Depending where you are it can be difficult to get

Hazel: Not sure that I’ve ever eaten a quince

Liz: People also just liked ersatz foods for funsies sometimes at this point

Hazel: We do have the modern parallel of things made out of cake that don’t look like cake

Liz: Those things are not made out of cake they are made of fondant and lies, and I will die on this hill

Hazel: Some of them are made out of cake

Liz: There’s cake in there, but it’s made of fondant and lies

Hazel: But you know, I think that’s in the same vein as people liking ersatz food just for funsies

Liz: It is, but also, fondant and lies

Hazel: I know you have feelings about the fake cakes. About the cake fakes? Cake fakes

Liz: The fakey cakeys. I think I just don’t like fondant

Hazel: I like it, but not too thick

Liz: So yeah, that is The Suffrage Cookbook. I will put a Project Gutenberg link in the episode description, if you want to check it out for yourself. If you do end up making any of the recipes, do let us know, email us at breadandthreadpodcast @ gmail . com, so send us a picture @BreadandThread on twitter or tumblr

Hazel: I would love to see what some of these things look like in the flesh. And taste like

Liz: Yeah. Like I said, it takes a bit of fiddling and figuring stuff out, but the scripture cake is quite nice for a fruit cake. But yeah, those are the ways to contact us. I realise I’ve said the bit that Hazel normally says. Do you want to plug the patreon?

Hazel: Sure, we have a patreon, it is Bread and Thread, you can find recipes and discord servers and good things. We have a twitter, did you say the twitter?

Liz: I said the twitter, and the tumblr, and the email

Hazel: Excellent, ok, I don’t think that we have any other

Liz: Just look for bread and thread somewhere and we’ll probably pop up

Hazel: Whisper “bread and thread” after running three times around a yew tree in a churchyard at midnight, and we will arrive and give you historical recipes.

Liz: That’s true, it’s how me and Nick met. So yeah, thank you for listening, and we’ll be back soon