One of you recommended The Greedy Queen by Annie Gray and I thank you for it. The Village Book Group theme was 'Food', I had bought it especially and read it and it would have fitted the bill perfectly had I remembered to go. But it was back in the days of Tinker’s Cott preparations and we were knee deep in paint and curtains. It was only the 'Are you joining us?' text at 7.30pm that had me putting my brain back in and remembering. I walked over the next day to apologise (except everyone was out).
Meanwhile you'd need some stamina to keep up with Victoria's appetite...
'Food was the only true constant in her life: it didn't judge, it didn't moan, it rarely disappointed and there was always something new to discover around the corner.'
Food it seems can often be a means of control for troubled Royals.
The book is awash with fascinating information and anecdotes...
En route to Balmoral the party would stop in York for an eight course lunch that had to be consumed in thirty minutes. I don't like to think how many times the coaches might have had to stop by some bushes on the next leg of the journey.
There are some wonderful recipes for the adventurous to try, Lait de Poule for example...
Beat two egg yolks with 10 oz of pounded sugar and a teaspoon of orange flower water and stir in half a pint of boiling water or milk.
Lait de Poule should be taken very hot, and will be found very soothing for coughs and colds.
But what emerges are the sheer quantities of food consumed and the number of people required to prepare and serve, and all this alongside a fascinating social history. The kitchen hierarchy ruled and created jobs for life but there were stark contrasts between the lavish wealth and gluttony at Court and the subsistence and poverty beyond the palace gates.
I was (being me) particularly interested in Victoria's ailments...flatulence, indigestion, trapped wind, ventral hernia, a prolapsed uterus; onset of the latter doubtless aided by successive pregnancies and impressive weight gain. These things, 'women's ailments', are rarely addressed with any openness because I'm guessing there are no factual details, but who can doubt the impact on Victoria's physical well-being. We tend to blame reclusiveness on mental state but I'd bet my last pound that her physical state felt equally precarious and vulnerable.
Seeing the old recipes reminded me of the Family Heirloom of which I only have a partial photocopy and I have no idea where the original went, but it is my great grandfather's hand-written recipe book. Born in 1866 in Liverpool, he was a successful confectioner for Barker & Dobson, the sweet manufacturers, before getting into the drink, losing his job and moving to work as a journeyman for Victory V Lozenges in Nelson in Lancashire, where family legend has it that he drank himself into an early grave in 1910. I often look at Alfred's picture and that of his wife Annie and wonder what their life together must have been like, and of course, perhaps it explains why their daughter, my grandmother, was such a tartar and a disciplinarian where my poor hen-pecked grandfather was concerned.
But the recipe book is a gem of a thing. Nougat according to Anne Gray is devilishly difficult to make but was a favourite of Victoria's. Great Grandad Alfred's recipe for Best Nougat as follows...
10 tbs of Crystallised sugar
8 tbs of Glucose
4 tbs of HoneyBoil to 280
Vanilla flavour, almonds (something illegible) and pour slowly into the whites of twelve eggs well beaten.
Pour in a frame, wafer paper top and bottom.
Then there's Throat Essence but you'll have to decipher Alfred's handwriting for yourself...
Victoria would die in 1901 to be succeeded by her son Edward (known, for obvious reasons, as 'The Caresser'). Though 'jolly lovely but a bit dim' Edward would rework the monarchy and ensure its survival into the twentieth century but, as Annie Gray suggests, Victoria's culinary legacy would live on. 'A greedy queen was replaced by a greedy king', but what comes across throughout this fascinating and very revealing book is Victoria's ability to embrace her food wholeheartedly even when life and its attractions may have palled.
If you have read The Greedy Queen please do add your thoughts in comments...
Meanwhile... Victorian women's lives hindered by the unsayable physical consequences of childbirth...what do you think...
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