Ceramics 3 - Victorian kitchens and patent cookery aids

We had a frivolous time considering the triumphs and disasters of the kitchen.

Our Victorian forebears had no microwaves, induction hobs or electric gadgets of any kind BUT they had Grimwade's Quick Cooker (no pudding cloth required) and Sam Clarke's "Fairy" Pyramid Food Warmer - price 6 shillings; and many other wonderful inventions to ease their culinary burden.

This moving poem is an example of copywriting at its finest:

These words are inscribed on the "Fairy" and must have brightened many a long, dark night...

And as if this wasn't enough we also had Penelope Shuttle's poem, In the Kitchen, to inspire us. It begins:

A jug of water

has its own lustrous turmoil

The ironing board thanks god

for its two good strong legs and sturdy back

Then we moved on to the exciting subject of puddings and Grimwade's splendid "Quick Cooker" which has a rather nice string guide ...

and many other splendid features.

And of course, considering the pudding at this time of year led on to that famously meagre pudding served up by Mrs Cratchit in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". 

Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up and bring it in... Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper which smells like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quarter of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Charles Dickens – A Christmas Carol, first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. 

Mrs Beeton had things to say about the British appetite - basically it seems to translate as "quantity is far more important than quality".                                                                                           

Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

“General observations on puddings and pastry”

1178. HOWEVER GREAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE QUALIFICATIONS of the ancients, however, in the art of pudding-making, we apprehend that such preparations as gave gratification to their palates, would have generally found little favour amongst the insulated inhabitants of Great Britain. Here, from the simple suet dumpling up to the most complicated Christmas production, the grand feature of substantiality is primarily attended to. Variety in the ingredients, we think, is held only of secondary consideration with the great body of the people, provided that the whole is agreeable and of sufficient abundance.

We also discussed and wrote about our intense love-hate relationships with kitchen gadgets. There is definitely a "lustrous turmoil" in our feelings about kitchens, food and gadgetry. 

I hope that your puddings are both abundant and of excellent variety. 

Our thanks go to Catherine Willson and all the other staff at the Museum Resource and Learning Centre, Friars Street, Hereford. 

Next year - Segments will be borrowing from the Costumes Collection.  We start again on Monday February 4th -  All are welcome.