As I, and others, have always said "rubbish to one person can be a treasure to another" or in Quest TV Channel Show speak "one person's junk is someone else's antique".
This certainly applied to a bit of salvage by my daughter a few days ago when she spotted, in the contents of a large waste skip, a very small booklet.
It will have been difficult to see because of its predominantly black and white cover but the image on the front is instantly recognisable to those who live in the East Riding of Yorkshire as the western elevation of the historic Beverley Minster. If the booklet had been lying face down in that skip it would not attracted any attention whatsover in that the only script is the name of the Printer and a gothic looking lettering of "10p".
If you work on the premise of price as an indicator of quality then again you will have walked past the pile of rubbish with no curiosity aroused. However, the lino cutting type church print was interesting enough to my daughter for her to, tentatively, retrieve the small object but being wary in case anything nasty was lurking underneath.
The 10p price is partly explained by the publication date of 1973. I can vouch for the buying power of this amount back in '73 which corresponded with my tenth year and in our family you got, in weekly pocket money, one decimal penny for every year of your age.
I always spent the two shillings in old money, which I regarded as a small fortune, immediately and would blow it on a magazine "Speed and Power" on its monthly arrival at the local newsagent or just on goodies.
The small booklet rescued from landfill was produced to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the presentation of a Charter by Queen Elizabeth the First of England to the town of Beverley.
This significant document granted the Right to the Town to appoint its own Mayor and 12 Aldermen or Councillors.
The contents of the booklet provide an insight into Medieval Culture and with a particular emphasis on recipes and customs derived from historical publications local to Yorkshire.
The ingredients for a fragrant Pot Pourri mix for a Parlour are an interesting insight into the need to mask and cloak domestic and other odours which will have been quite overwhelming in that era.
They are listed as 2 parts damask rose petals, stock flowers or phlox mixed in with single measures each of coloured rose petals, clove pinks, rosemary leaves, jasmine flowers, lemon thyme, lavender heads, bay salt, nutmeg and cloves plus half part of mint leaves, quarter of marigold flowers, rinds of two lemons thinly pared and a sprinkling of orris root.
The gardens of the larger and well-to-do residences of Elizabethan England must have been very fertile and varied to provide for the pot pourri constituents.
Popular main meals of the time included "Henneys in Bruette" or Boiling Fowl cooked in broth and with the following instructions to make it in olde Englishe:
"Take the henneys and skald them and open them and wasshe them clean and smite them in gobbets and sethe with fresh pork and take pepyr and ginger and bread ground fine and temper it with some brothe or a little ale and colour it with saffron. Fill to your liking with water and set to cook all night over a slow fire. Let get cold and skimme off fat. Sort out the mass of bones and keep the tender leane meat in the golden broth, boil up and serve".
The process sounds a lot like hard work and not really that appetising.
The derivation of foodstuff names is also explained for example the simple biscuits in shortbread called Petticoat Tails which date back further than the Middle Ages. Early mentions in historic archives refer to them as "petty cotestallis" as in cut in the shape of triangular parcels of land from the French words "petit"- small, "taille" for shape and "cote" being a small enclosure for domesticated animals.
Other baked products which had cultural importance were gingerbread which was given as a gift from Noble Ladies to favourite combatants at tournaments, marzipan originating from its production by Nuns to commemorate massepain or St Mark's Pain and Sally Lunn fruited tea cakes thought to be a derivation of the cries of the sellers of the cakes which resembled the sun and moon in colour as in "soleil lune" which was misheard as a woman;s name.
Although the large modern supermarkets do sell the likes of Game Pies at Christmas they would struggle to match an old recipe for Goose Pie which comprised, in addition to a goose, a turkey, two ducks, six woodcocks and a hare all encased in a thick pastry lid.
Religious Festivals and Saint's Days also dictated the menus of the time with a particular favourite being a Good Friday Supper Fish Pie, Apple Cakes and Tarts and special biscuits to be served to those attending a funeral.
Things alcoholic also featured highly in Period dining including a bubbling drink using Champagne from Sillery which is just to the South East of the French Cathedral City of Rheims and frothing cream which became known in popular language as Syllabub.
Strong spirits were also used to make, for example, brandy snaps which have a long association with Hull Fair which was founded around 1279 and continues as a modern fun fair to the present day.
Some dishes have easily survived through the ages and remain popular and the 10p booklet mentions how to preserve eggs in pickle ( still sold at Fish and Chip Shops) , bacon and egg pie ( a cafe favourite) and fruit cake (to be found accompanying a good cup of tea).
The rescue from the skip of something at first so insignificant is a unique combination of a resonance from the distant past and yet an enduring relevance to our modern lives.
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