Samuel Pepys : Drunk and Disorderly?

Thence Jenings and I into London (it being through heat of the sun a great thaw and dirty) to show our bills of return, and coming back drank a pint of wine at the Star in Cheapside.

Samuel Pepys diary.

Samuel Pepys, famed diarist -
recording everyday life in the second half of the 17th century.

When Pepys casually mentions drinking a pint of wine in the same sentence as the thaw and the pub, it makes me smile. Apparently, Pepys didn't think imbibing such a quantity of alcohol was anything out of the ordinary, which arguably it wasn't.

In the modern age the majority of people reading this post will have access to clean, sanitised drinking water - but this wasn't the case in the 17th century world. Although germ theory (disease is caused by micro-organisms) wasn't discovered until the late 19th century, instinct must have warned people that drinking dirty water led to awful stomach upsets. As such, alcohol was consumed more widely, by everyone from children and servants, to labourers and royalty, and perceived as being safer to drink than water.

Cheapside in Victorian times - a couple of centuries after Pepys' day

Even though people didn't understand why, they perhaps recognised the result that the brewing process made water safer to drink.  Of course we now know that boiling water, fermenting and the alcohol itself have disinfectant properties on some water-borne bugs.

Was the Population Permanently Drunk?

Possibly!

However, 17th century alcohol wasn't as strong as the modern equivalent. One reason for this was that the yeasts weren't as hardy as our modern varieties, and less tolerant of the alcohol produced during fermentation. This meant that the brews were naturally limited in strength, because once they reached a certain level of alcohol, the yeast died and the process stopped. Incidentally, these yeasts made for a cloudy drink, rather than the clear ales and wines of today, but the cloudiness was disguised by metal tankards or frosted glass.

As an aside, the small beer or wine produced was much sweeter than modern brews. Again, this was because the yeast died before all the sugar was converted to alcohol. Also, it is interesting to reflect that grain stores were vulnerable to spoilage by rodents -so the safest way to protect your harvest was to convert it to beer, which preserved the sugar and calorie content! (Don't forget, sugar was hideously expensive commodity.)

Apologies - couldn't resist this one! 

So was the population permanently drunk? Perhaps. But one knock on effect for Pepys could be that the quantity of alcohol he consumed contributed to the formation of his bladder stones.

And finally:

In this excerpt we learn that Pepys drank at the Star in Cheapside. Amongst the general population literacy rates were low and people liked places that were easily identifiable with a picture. Hence pubs, such as the Star, Bull or Bell, denoted with a painting on their sign were popular.

Pub signs, such as this one for 'The Boot' were pictorial
at a time when literacy rates were low.

The Tudor Kitchen at Hampton Court Palace

In February I visited the rediscovered Chocolate Kitchen at Hampton Court Palace and whilst there, I took the opportunity to investigate HCP's magnificent Tudor kitchens.

My current WIP (work in progress) is set in a Georgian kitchen (pssst, just for you - a sneak peek at the cover) and so I was keen to soak up the sounds, smells and sights of the kitchens at Hampton Court Palace.

Due for release - summer 2014

"The usual daily consumption is 80 - 100 sheep and the sheep are very big and fat - a dozen fat beef, a dozen and a half calves, without mentioning poultry, game, deer, boars and great numbers of rabbits."

A Spanish visitor to the English Court, in 1554

Hampton Court Palace is a place synonymous with King Henry VIII. When he held court there he was joined by a small army of courtiers who brought their servants with them - all of whom needed feeding. This involved storing and cooking huge amounts of meat, fish and vegetables, and each item of food was stored in a designated store: The Flesh Larder for meat, The Wet Larder for fish and the Dry Larder for less perishable goods. It was down to a kitchen staff of around 200 people to prepare the meals in the Great Kitchen and once cooked, the finished dishes were garnished in the Serving Place.

In 1526 around 600 courtiers were entitled to take their meals in the Great Hall or common dining room ( the King ate in his private apartments). Those of people of lower status such as general court servants, grooms and guards dined at 10am and 4pm, and the most senior man at the table served the food (a bit like doling out school dinners!) 

Higher status courtiers ate next door in the Great Watching Chamber, which was more akin to a restaurant with finer dishes and more variety. In addition, around 230 domestic servants were entitled to rations, but not allocated a place to eat and so most likely took their food to their work station or lodgings. 

"God may send a man goode meate, but the devyll may sende an evylle cooke to dystrue it."

Andrew Boorde (1490 - 1549)

As you can imagine to prepare such quantities of food took a lot of organisation. Indeed, food production was just that, a kind of factory like process. As an example take the making of a pie: pastry cooks made the case, butchers prepared the meat filling, which was then cook by the boiling house staff. The cases were then filled and baked in the pastry ovens and cooked, sent to the servery for garnishing then taken to the diners. 

A large part of the diet was made up of meat, which was prepared in a variety of ways from roasting, boiling and stewing, to griddling (similar to barbecuing). Roasting was relatively expensive since it required a lot of fuel to heat the huge open fires, plus a man to turn the spit to make sure the meat cooked evenly. 

And finally, the food consumed needed to be washed down with something and this frequently took the form of beer. The average annual consumption of beer for the Tudor court was 600,000 gallons! 

Turnspit Dogs : Every Dog has his Day

Note the dog in the wheel near the ceiling.

“How well do I recollect, in the days of my youth, watching the operations of a turnspit at the house of a worthy old Welsh clergyman in Worcestershire, who taught me to read.”

Anecdotes of Dogs, Edward Jesse, 1870

 

Before the use of dog-power, spits were laboriously turned by hand

This week’s blog post is about the ‘Turnspit’ dog – a breed now extinct. It was the purpose of these dogs to run inside a wheel which in turn powered a spit used to roast meat. Prior to this automation  roasting meats had to be turned by hand which was both labour intensive and unreliable. The invention of a dog-powered device was hailed as a great improvement.

“A dog…by a small wheel, walking round it and making it turn in such a manner that no cook or servant could do it more cleverly.”

Johannes Caius – 1576 – Royal physician and dog expert.

In the mid 1700’s Carolus Linnaeus mentions a breed of turnspit dog and later still, Charles Darwin mention their short legs as an example of genetic selection. Since the dogs had to work in a confined space short legs and heavy bodies gave them an advantage to turn the wheel. In France the breed were described as ‘Basset a jambs torses’ and pictures show a short-legged dog with a long heavy body somewhat similar to the modern Basset Griffon Vendeen.

“The Turnspits are remarkable for their great length of body and short and usually crooked legs. Their colour is generally a dusky grey spotted with black or entirely black with the under parts whitish.”

Bingley’s Memoirs of British Quadrupeds 1809

 

An example of a dog turnspit - From the White Hart Inn, Bath.

The work was hard, hot and lacking in stimulation. Whereas other working breeds had the thrill of chasing rats or pointing out game, the Turnspit dog did his work out of compulsion and a likely scolding if he slacked in his task.

“The poor animal…went about his employment like a caged mouse or squirrel with his recreation wheel…revolved in a treadwheel, which in this instance was connected with apparatus for turning the joints roasting at the fire and formed not so much recreation as extremely hard work.”

Charles G Harper – The Old Inns of England - 1906

 

See the detail above (wheel in top left hand corner)

Numerous stories exist of dogs evading their work, as mentioned by a Mr Wigstead, when writing about a pub in Newcastle where he observed:

“Great care must be taken that this animal [the Turnspit dog] does not observe the cook approach the larder. If he does, he immediately hides himself for the remainder of the day.”

In a large household where particularly heavy joints of meat were roasted, often two dogs were used, each alternating for a few hours in the wheel, or else worked on a ‘day-on-day-off’ basis. These animals soon became accustomed to this routine and if called upon to work on a day other than his usual, would hide away. Indeed, this regime is thought to be the origin of the phrase “each dog will have his day.”

Whether as testament to a dog’s intelligence or the drudgery of the work, other stories are recorded, such as that told of the kitchen of the Duke de Liancourt who had two dog-powered turnspits, used alternately. One day the ‘working’ dog went missing and so his companion was forced to work two days in a row. At the end of his duty, by wagging and whining, the dog took the kitchen staff to where his lazy companion was hiding and flushed him out.

A similar tale exists of a cook who couldn’t find the dog whose turn it was to work the spit and so attempted to put his favourite dog in the wheel. This dog rebelled and ran into the garden, found the missing dog and drove him inside where the latter went of his own accord into the wheel.

'With eagerness he still does forward tend, 
Like Sisyphus, whose journey has no end.'
- anonymous poem, Upon a dog called Fuddle, turnspit at the Popinjay, in Norwich

 

A prototype dog-powered sewing machine!

Even when not working in the kitchen, Turnspit dogs were put to other purposes. An old story exists of some turnspit dogs from Bath, who on cold Sundays were taken to church to be used as foot warmers. However, on one occaision this backfired whilst the Bishop of Gloucester gave his sermon and sited the line “It was then that Ezekial saw the wheel…”. On hearing the word “wheel” the dogs ran off, associating it with work to be done!

However, not everyone was oblivious to the hard lot of the turnspit dog. In 1866, Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, sited the dogs’ treatment as tantamount to slavery. He abhorred how the dogs were forced to trot for hours next to a blazing fire, with no access to water – and if they were tardy about their task the cook might even toss a hot coal onto the treadmill platform to enliven their paws.

 

Dogs were used to power other devices - such as a butter churn.

And finally, on a brighter note, in Robert Chambers 1869 “Book of Days” he recounts an anecdote about an 18^th century ship’s captain. When the captain docked at Bristol he became angry with the locals over their lack of hospitality to his crew. In retribution, under cover of darknes he sent his men to steal all the town’s turnspit dogs. When the roast meat was all gone and the crisis became acute, the townsfolk apologized, opened their doors to the sailors and the dogs returned.

The Georgian Chocolatier Grace Tosier - and some Historical Chocolate Trivia

Q –      When was the first chocolate bar created?

Was it: 1649, 1749, 1849 or 1949?

Answer at the end of this post!

In last week’s post about the awesome chocolate kitchen at Hampton Court Palace, we were introduced to Thomas Tosier – chocolatier to King George I. But the story doesn’t end there as Thomas had an enterprising wife, Grace Tosier, who was something of a phenomena in her own rite.

Grace Tosier with her trade mark wide brimmed hat and
posy of flowers at her bosom.

Grace seems a larger than life character. A portrait of her exists which shows a jolly looking woman wearing the trade mark large brimmed hat and a posy of flowers in her bosom. Whilst her husband worked for the king at Hampton Court Palace, she ran a successful chocolate house in Greenwich.

In the 18^th century chocolate houses were a bye word amongst the upper classes for luxury, sophistication and good company. Grace was canny enough to recognize that when it came to cocoa and Tosier’s links to the king, their surname was a brand to be reckoned with. Indeed, when her husband died and eventually she remarried, she valued it enough to retain the name Grace Tosier.

The chocolate kitchen at Hampton Court Palace -
it was here that the actual cup of hot chocolate was created.

Grace’s story is interwoven with the history of chocolate. Historically, the invention of chocolate bars is relatively recent, and for two thousand years cocoa was consumed as a beverage. The practice first took place in Mexico, when the court of Montezuma, king of the Aztecs, consumed a post-prandial chalice of chocolate which was decanted from one vessel to another until it gained a frothy head.

To create the beverage the sun-dried, roasted in earthen pots, the shells removed and the kernels ground over a fire. The heat turned the powder to a paste, the flavouring added and the mix formed into cakes which was left on banana leaves to dry ready for storage. To make the drinking chocolate the cakes were crumbled into water, heated and whipped up.

Cocoa pods and beans.
The cocoa harvest was considered unreliable and so the plants
were grown beneath banana trees for a second revenue stream.

The Aztecs gave chocolate to warriors in blocks coloured with annatto, a red dye, which stained the lips and tongue in symbolism of human blood (the Aztecs and Mayans had a penchant for human sacrifice!)

“The lips and part of the face around them, are covered with the foam, and when it has been coloured with annatoo it looks horrific because it is just like blood.”

Gonzalez de Oviedo, writing in the 16^th century.

For a long period the Spanish kept hot chocolate secret with such success that when in 1579 British buccaneers stopped a Spanish ship, they tipped the cargo of cocoa beans overboard as worthless. But by 1660 the Europeans had cottoned on to what they were missing and drinking chocolate became hugely popular.

Books of recipes appeared as early as 1609, as people experimented with ideas such as replacing cornmeal as a thickener, with ground almonds. The Aztec frothiness was mimicked by using a special swizzle stick, or molinillo, and indeed later chocolate pots can be told apart from coffee pots by the hole in the lid through which the molinillo was inserted.

Hot chocolate pots on display at the chocolate
kitchens at Hampton Court Palace

In the mid 17^th century via a succession of royal marriages chocolate drinking crossed through Spain, Portugal, Italy, France on its way to England. The drink was sold in chocolate shops which were an environment for the wealthy to discuss business and some gained reputations for being breeding grounds for radical politics. In 1675 King Charles II felt so threatened by the hotbed of chocolate houses that for a short time he closed them down. One can imagine the uproar of the public being deprived of chocolate – and they soon reopened.

And finally, the answer to the teaser question:

Q –      When was the first chocolate bar created?

Was it: 1649, 1749, 1849 or 1949?

Answer at the end of this post!

A –      1849

            The first chocolate bars were not announced with a fanfare, but created as a means of using up waste products left over from the manufacture of cocoa powder for hot chocolate drinks.

King George, the Chocolatier and Hampton Court Palace

Last week, I was privileged to preview the rediscovered ‘Chocolate Kitchen’ at Hampton Court Palace.  On a blustery, wet day my twin loves of history and chocolate fused (if there’d been a cat padding round - utter perfection!)

 

A blustery day at Hampton Court Palace

The story behind the rooms is that of a king who loved hot chocolate. Out of his own purse (rather than the publicly funded privy purse), King George I employed a personal chocolatier, Thomas Tosier. It was Tosier’s job to roast and grind the cocoa beans, mix them into the rich spicy blend and serve it to his king.

 

The room where the actual cup of cocoa would be prepared.
In recent times used as a storeroom and now restored to its Georgian function.

Way before the days of instant hot chocolate, to create the perfect cup of cocoa cost a small fortune and was a hallmark of wealth and opulence. The expenses incurred by the royal household paid for out of the Privy Purse were well documented, but because Tosier was a private employee, no such records existed. It was therefore a matter of detective work for the HistoricRoyal Palaces (HRP) restoration team to discover the location of Tosier’s kitchens.

 

The room where the beans were roasted

The rooms were eventually located in the Baroque part of the palace, the Fountain Court. This is a short walk away from the main Tudor kitchen, which prevented the precious cocoa beans from being tainted by the smell of meat and fish. In all, there are three chocolate rooms. The first for roasting and preparing the beans, has a rare Georgian folding table, original shelving, a smoke jack for roasting and charcoal ovens. The second room contains the equipment and spices for grinding and blending. The third kitchen was where the final cup of cocoa would be created, complete with authentic reproductions of Georgian cocoa cups.

 

Beans being ground over on a granite slab
over a low heat.

Tosier’s famous skill came from knowing if the finer he ground the beans, the more flavor was released. He used a saddle shaped granite slab with a low heat beneath, and a granite rolling pin, to grind the beans. Then he added spices such as grains of paradise, chilies, aniseed and all spice, to create the flavor favored by the king. Georgian hot chocolate was less sweet, and spicier than the modern palate is accustomed to. 

The Fountain Court -
away from the smell of the busy main kitchens.

Indeed, the modern visitor can use all of his/her senses and taste hot chocolate through the ages (Stuart, Georgian, Victorian and modern) by purchasing a tasting platter at the café. [As a chocoholic myself, I was surprised at how much I preferred the Stuart cocoa – with its chilli, pepper and cardamom taste – compared to the more familiar Victorian flavor that was sickly sweet to say the least.]

 

The hot chocolate tasting platter.
From left to right:
Modern, Victorian, Georgian and Stuart cocoas.

Hampton Court Palace is hugely evocative of Tudor history, but with opening of the Georgian Tudor chocolate kitchen a new dimension has been added. In contrast to the pies and meat associated with the impressive Tudor kitchens (worth a visit in their own right), the visitor glimpses the sophistication and opulence of the 18^th century. The opening of the ChocolateKitchen is part of a wider celebration of the Georgians taking place across the Historic Royal Palaces in 2014 – to mark the 300^th anniversary of George I’s Accession to the British throne.

Many thanks to the lovely people at the Historic RoyalPalaces for giving me the opportunity to preview the kitchens.

Next week’s post is a more personal look at Thomas Tosier and his wife, Grace.

Grace Tosier - wife of Thomas
More of her next week.

Of Rats, Rat-Catchers ... and Beatrix Potter!

“The large grey rats, having superior bodily powers…”

Charles Fothergill 1813

This week’s post is on the unsavoury topic of rats – or more precisely, rat-catching. More significant than just scaring gentlewomen and spoiling food in larders, rats could do immense damage to crops in the field. And if the corn was destroy the price of grain (and thus, bread) rose, leaving the common man either hungry or broke.

A rat-catcher with his dogs.

In the past with mice and rats a part of everyday life, an animal that was good at killing such vermin was much prized. Cats are perhaps more traditionally associated with catching rodents, but this is not exclusively feline territory with terriers and some famous rat-catching dogs excelling at this skill as we find out later in this post.

In the early 19^th century Charles Fothergill attempted to work out how many rats were rampant in London. He estimated that a breeding pair of rats could produce three million young during their three year lifespan and his nightmarish vision predicted:

“The whole surface of the earth in a very few years would be rendered a barren and hideous waste, covered with myriads of famished grey rats, against which man himself would contend in vain.”

Jack Black

To counter balance this scenario an efficient rat-killer could destroy around 8,000 rats a year. One such famous rat-catcher was a colourful character called Jack Black. He was well known in Victorian London from both his antics and self-made uniform of a scarlet topcoat, waistcoat and breeches, with a wide leather belt inset with iron rats.  A record of his work has come down to us as he was interviewed by the Victorian chronicler of London life, Henry Mayhew. It seems as a young boy Black enjoyed showed off his rat-handling skills in Regents Park.

“I wasn’t afraid to handle rats even then. It seem to come nat’ral to me. I very soon had some in my pocket, and some in my hands…I didn’t know the bites were so many, or I dare say I shouldn’t have been so venturesome as I was.”

Rat Baiting

However, Black’s motives for catching rats may not just have been to rid people of an infestation, because he also had a profitable side line in selling live rats to rat-baiting dens.  This was a popular pastime (I hesitate to say ‘sport’) in London taverns where dog owners set their dog in a pit and bet on how many rats they could kill. One such dog was Bulldog-Billy. His claim to fame was killing a hundred rats in five-and-a-half minutes, during a contest at Cock Pit, Duck Lane, Westminster. Billy’s owner spotted a business opportunity and charged the princely sum of £10 per mating for the dog’s stud services. Indeed, such was Billy’s fame that in 1814 Princess Charlotte, the Prince Regent’s daughter, bred her three tricolor toy spaniels with him!

A New Jersey Rat Pit

The trade of rat-catching could be potentially lucrative in more ways than one. Whilst ridding a house of rodents, Jack Black told Mayhew of a stash of silver he found in the cellar.

“I found under on floor in a gent’s house a great quantity of table napkins and silver spoons and forks, which the rats had carried away for the grease on ‘em – shoes and boots gnawed to pieces, shifts, aprons, gowns, pieces of silk, and I don’t kow what not. Servants had been discharged, accused of stealing them there things. Of course I had to give them up; but there they was.”

Black spotted the opportunity for making money from his best rat catching dogs. He had a black and tan terrier who was second to none and reportedly the father of most of the similar looking terriers in London. Black reports selling one of the dogs to the Austrian Ambassador, and he was offered a sovereign per pound of body weight for his dogs, which Black declined as too mean a price.

And finally, Black was very much poacher turned game-keeper as he was also partly responsible for establishing ‘fancy’ rats as pets. When he caught unusually coloured rats he bred them together to establish new colour varieties. He then sold these on as domesticated pets “To well-bred young ladies to keep in squirrel cages.” Beatrix Potter is reputedly one of his customers and dedicated her book Samuel Whiskers to her pet rat of the same name! 

Dog Collars - a Short History

This week’s blog post looks at dog collars through history. Dog collars are used restraint, to control and training purposed but from ancient times owners also used the opportunity to make a statement about their wealth or power.

Medieval hunting dogs wore iron collars set with spikes which supposedly gave a measure of protection against a charging boar, and it did no harm that these aggressive looking collars reflected well on their master. Illustrations found in missals, Books of Hours and bestiaries suggest that dog collars were frequently made of precious metals and it was probably just as well that in medieval times dogs were a symbol of fidelity (you wouldn’t want your dog running off with a small fortune in gold round his neck.)

This pug wearing a bell collar dates from 1800
and reflects the European fashion for bells.

In the Far East a fashion for bells on collars dated back to the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907). In the 1720’s a Japanese Emperor owned a dog, Mao Shih Tzu, that wore a gold and silver collar bearing bells and earrings also with bells attached. The collar alerted the imperial servants to the Emperor’s movements as he moved around the palace. As trade with the far east opened up with the west, these collars with bells also became fashionable in Europe.

A detail from a tapestry showing a beautiful embroidered collar.

Paintings serve as a rich source of information and since the wealthy mainly had their portraits painted, in this way we learn a lot about their dogs. Many paintings and tapestries show dogs in jewelled collars that boasted of their masters’ wealth.  King Louis XI of France, had a collar of scarlet velvet sewn with pearls and rubies made for his favourite greyhound, Cherami. Inventories of the personal effects of another famous monarch, King Henry VIII, list many precious collars.

“Two greyhound collars of crimson velvet and cloth of glod, lacking torrettes [spikes]”

“Two other collars with the king’s armes and at the end portcullis and rose.”

“A collar embroidered with pomegranates and roses with turrets of silver and gilt” [Catherine of Aragon’s symbol was a pomegranate]

“A collar of garnished …with one shell of silver and guilt, with torrettes and pendauntes of silver and guilt.”

The colour of a collar could be an important mark of ownership, in much the same way that football strips are today. King Charles VIII’s household owned 24 pets and each wore a black velvet collar with four ermine paws dangling from them – the white part symbolised the Brittany coat of arms. The French king Charles IX owned 36 miniature greyhounds and they wore red and green velvet collars, whilst the dogs belonging to his sister-in-law, Mary Queen of Scots, wore blue velvet collars.Marie Antoinette’s dogs wore diamond encrusted collars but such extravagance vanished with the French Revolution and the pugs owned by Empress Josephine wore relatively simple collars decorated with Chinese bells.

Four generations of the Dutch house of Orange-
showing their orange sashes.

Pug dogs introduced to Holland as a result of Dutch trade in the Far East, during the 16^th century wore orange ribbons around their necks as a sign of the ascendancy of the House of Orange. Whilst in the early 1720’s a Russian ambassador gave the Chinese envoy a pair of greyhounds, each wearing a yellow silk cord drawn through a small piece of wood, as a sign of it belonging to the Romanov court.

Another fashion gained popularity in the late 17th century was for collars with inscriptions. In the English court the earliest engraving were fairly dull such as this one on a gilt copper collar line with red leather and blue velvet.

“This dog belongs to his Royal Highness George Augustus, Prince of Wales, 1715.”

A collar given by Alexander Pope to Frederick, Prince of Wales, for his Great Dane, was famously inscribed:

“I am His Highness’ dog at Kew

Pray, Tell me sir, whose dog are you.”

And a silver dog collar reportedly worn by Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Italian Greyhound, was engraved with the Jacobite royal arms. 

An embroidered patch showing 'Jupiter' one of Mary Queen of Scots
favourite dogs.

And finally, from the leopard at the court of the Bavarian Duke, Albert, to Edward III’s kennel boys – it wasn’t just the dogs who wore dog collars…