Category Archives: British children’s books

A Recipe for Mince Pies in The Lilliputian Magazine (1752)

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English Christmas continues to be associated with mince pies, even though the recipe has changed a good deal over the centuries.  There are no shortage of recipes in the eighteenth century, but the one in verse submitted by “Miss Taste” to the first number of The Lilliputian Magazine, the first children’s periodical, seems to have been overlooked by historians of holidays and of English food ways. The issue was published in March 1752, not December 1751, which may explain why Miss Taste says nothing about Christmas.

Here it is:

A Receipt to make Mince-Pies, of such Materials as are cheap, agreeable to every Palate, and will not offend the Stomach.  Communicated by Miss Taste.

Take golden pippins pared, two pound,

                Two pounds of well-shred beef suet,

Two pounds  of raisins, chop’t and ston’d,

                And put two pounds of currants to it;

Half an ounce of cinnamon, well beat,

                Of sugar, three-fourths of a pound,

And one green lemon peel shred neat,

                So it can’t with ease be found;

Add sack or brandy, spoonfuls, three,

                And one large Seville orange squeeze;

Of sweet-meats a small quantity,

                And you’ll the nicest palate please.

Although a relatively small recipe yielding around eight pounds of mincemeat, it represents hours of work peeling the apples, seeding and chopping the dried fruit, and shredding the suet, a task the doyenne of English Christmas cookery, Elizabeth David, hated so much that she substituted ready made.  With just a cup and a half of sugar, a touch of sherry or brandy, a couple spoonfuls of cinnamon, some orange juice, and green lemon peel (a kind of Italian lemon which stays green when ripe then much appreciated), Miss Taste’s mincemeat would not have been especially sweet, alcoholic, or spicy.

Her recipe does look relatively digestible and inexpensive compared to some others circulating in steady selling cookbooks.  The “best way” Art of Cookery author Hannah Glasse recommended in 1747 called for “half a hundred apples,” a pound more suet, a full pint of liquor, mace, cloves, nutmeg, citron, and orange peel–but only half a pound of sugar. For a more hearty pie, Glasse directed that filling be laid on top of two pounds of ox tongue or beef sirloin. This variation required doubling the amount of fruit!  This surely would have produced enough for more than one baking and any extra stored in crocks.

The Compleat Housewife  (1727) by Eliza Cook contained a recipe for a much richer mixture: four pounds of meat cut off a leg of veal, nine pounds of beef suet, seven pounds of currants, four pounds of raisins, eight pippins, nutmeg, mace, cloves, grated and candied lemon peel, citron and a speck of sherry or red wine.  Martha Custis Washington’s recipe was very similar, except for the addition of rosewater.

Instructions are  terrifyingly short on details, compared to modern ones which specify yield, precise quantities of ingredients, oven temperature, and baking time and much more.  Not a word is said by the eighteenth-century ladies about the crust—they seem to assume that any cook will know that the pan should be lined with the preferred type of pastry and baked blind before filling.  Or should the cook make hand pies instead of large ones?

Of the three recipes, that of Miss Taste is certainly the most affordable, as it calls just for suet instead of pounds of suet and meat.  Why did she make such a point of promoting her way with mincemeat as “cheap?”  A clue may lie in the introductory “Dialogue between a Gentleman and the Author.”  The author points out to the gentleman that educational books “are to be made as cheap as possible; for there are a great many poor people in his majesty’s dominions, who would not be able to afford to purchase it at a larger price, and yet these are the king’s subjects, and in their station, as much to be regarded as the rest.”   Would the inclusion of a grander recipe for mincemeat of the sort circulating at the time been regarded as excluding a certain class of reader, which was a natural constituent for it?  Certainly John Newbery  expressed more faith in social advancement through merit rather than birth, so perhaps it was no idle sentiment…

 

 

Play the Board Game: A Race Game through a Magical Hand-drawn Shared World

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Two weeks ago the Princeton Board Games Club visited Special Collections to look at a selection of Cotsen’s board games.  Here they are battling it out over Election: The Game of the Day, a 1950s board game very loosely based on Monopoly where players try to win seats in the House of Commons.  The battle for voters in Coventry and Bedford was spirited.

But when they walked into the large classroom, they made a beeline to the game shown in the foreground of the photograph and asked what it was?  The playing surface appears to be a drawing covering four sheets of paper which have been mounted on board, varnished, and hinged with fabric. The only evidence for the materials that were used if the label shown to the left pasted on the back. The creator didn’t sign the front anywhere obvious, although it’s possible a name could be concealed somewhere among all the figures.  Sometimes the rules for published board games are printed down the vertical sides, but this feature was not copied.  Perhaps they were written out and made into a little booklet. The tokens and dice probably went missing decades ago.

Was this pastime based on Snakes and Ladders or is it a variation of the Game of the Goose, the most popular race game of all?  There’s no way to know unless players line up at the castle in the upper left hand corner and advance down the track.

[Antique Manuscript Board Game]. [London?, 1920s?]. (Cotsen)

Like any version of the Game of the Goose, players lucky enough to land on certain squares  get a leg up on their competitors.  The Bull of Norway from the fairy tale waits at number 88 to carry the player to number 111.Among the obstacles to advancement is a fiery salamander, who will detain a play until a six is thrown. There two dragons to avoid…  Land on number 25 (notice that there’s one in bold in a circle and another above) and the knight kills the lion waiting to maul travellers and the the player can jump over the scaly brute to number 35. The second dragon can be slain if Excalibur is pulled from the stone at number 93.  Otherwise it will eat the unfortunate player who lands on number 94, eliminating him or her from play.  The satyr facing it is perhaps piping a tune to improve its digestion.  The elves to the right look disinclined to intervene. 
Tramp through the Forest of Sherwood and meet  Dick Turpin, the highwayman, who will relieve the player of unnecessary baggage.  Avoid  him and there’s a chance of nabbing the Seven League Boots that will skip ahead to number 73.
Hurry down to the sea and sail a tall ship around Neptune and bypass Long John Silver on Treasure Island.Turn north to head for home, a stately country home.  Perhaps it is a picture of a real place, the actual site where this quirky shared world cum board game  was made.  So far there aren’t enough clues to figure out who drew the game board, although it seems a good guess that the person lived in England before the first World War and was very familiar with the classics of Victorian literature.    When it’s digitized and up in the Cotsen module of DPUL, the board game club can figure out how it’s played!