Category Archives: Article Round-Ups

19th Century History, Article Round-Ups, Experimentation, Series: Beer, Women and Gender

Brewing up some history: recreating historical beer recipes

2 Comments

By Tiah Edmunson-Morton

At the expense of sounding cliché, historic recipe recreations are a way to taste the past. Figuring out proper ingredients, considering environmental conditions, and using appropriate equipment all bring you closer to what people ate and drank in “days of yore.”

Barclay and Perkins brewery, Southwark: visitors watching beer fermenting in a large brewhouse, 1847. Image Credit: Wellcome Images, London.

Home brewer forums are full of threads on authenticity, and a Google search for “home brewing ancient recipes” nets millions of pages with ideas and results. Commercial breweries are also in on this, researching and experimenting for single brews or regular releases. In 1989, Anchor Brewing made a Sumerian beer for the Institute of Brewing Studies’ Micro Brewery Conference based on the “Hymn to Ninkasi,” an 1800 BCE song that praises the Sumerian goddess of beer and an ancient beer recipe. Even grander in terms of production and promotion is Dogfish Head Brewery’s series of beers “Ancient Ales,” which they’ve recreated with molecular archeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern. The company reports that Midas Touch, Theobroma, and Chateau Jiahu are “truly liquid time capsules.” Brewing scientists from Oregon State University collaborated with the Heurich House museum to recreate a batch of Christian Heurich Brewing Company’s “Senate Lager” after a researcher discovered the recipe in the National Archives. A final example comes from Dupont Brewery in Belgium. The recipe for “Cervesia Archeosite” came from a beer made a thousand years ago in their region; they drew on traditional styles and ingredients as a point of pride.

I knew about projects like these when I started the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives in 2013 and could see the outreach potential immediately. Oregon became a state in 1859, and much of its nineteenth-century beer history lore details a brewery on every corner. The story goes that wherever a community formed around an industry (farming, mining, logging), businesses to make and serve alcohol were among the first essential services. While I don’t doubt that plenty of alcohol was consumed, and probably made at home, the census records show that a brewery on every corner is an exaggeration at best and a myth at worst.

When I started to look for nineteenth-century brewery records, I was surprised to find so little. While the majority of Oregon’s earliest breweries were small and short-lived, if local breweries were omnipresent in the nineteenth century, I assumed there would be a treasure trove of information in libraries or archives.

Initially, I reached for the sources in my library, which included state history books with information on “prominent people,” laboratory publications that focused on the technical aspects of the brewing process, manuals on facilities management, and books on beer gardens. For historic recipes, I had the most luck in household management books; not only were there recipes for brewing beer, but also instructions for making bread and keeping bees. The Sanborn Fire Insurance maps were quite helpful in determining the size, layout, and location of breweries. Once I looked outside my building, I found probate records in county and state records, census records with biographical information about individual brewers, and mortgages and lawsuits that listed brewery assets.

The Roadshow, 2015

While these physical print sources are lovely for browsing, locating recipes from specific breweries or that used specific ingredients was really difficult. Both Google Books and the Hathi Trust are invaluable because they are both keyword searchable. In 2015, I worked with a brewery to make a beer for a public archaeology event; they wanted to make a lager with rice, and I found a short recipe in an 1883 brewing book published in England.

Roadshow 2015: The Recipe.

For the same event the following year I worked with a home brewer. I sent her links to several books and she chose one she found in a home management published in New York in 1872; the recipe was 10 pages long and the product was delightfully hoppy. Some of my favorite books are:

Choosing a recipe for the 2016 event.

In six years, I still haven’t found a recipe for an Oregon pre-Prohibition beer; however, I have gathered clues about nineteenth-century Oregon beer styles. Probably the most valuable source are the advertisements found in digitized newspapers. Breweries of all sizes made a range of styles, though they all regularly advertised a traditional German-style lager or steam beer, which uses a lager yeast but is fermented at ale temperatures to compensate for the lack of refrigeration. Oregon brewers also sold less familiar styles such as Philadelphia XXX Ale, XX Cream, and Flat. Those county probate records I mentioned sometimes included receipts, which meant I knew details about hops or barley orders, as well as bottling equipment and supplies. Those census records give clues about a brewer’s country of origin and the brewery income.

My most recent research has focused on the women involved in Oregon’s pre-Prohibition breweries, with an eye towards redirecting the need we have for women to be brewers. Since the records don’t indicate that they were, I am working with three female brewers to design a recipe based on the biographies of wives of brewers. Our goal will be to share the brewers’ creations, but also to engage consumers with the stories of nineteenth-century women in Oregon.

I still have hope that I’ll uncover a recipe gem, but I am also a realist. In the meantime, I know that my work in the twenty-first century to collect records will help the next generation recreate our present.

Article Round-Ups, Beauty, Bodies, Women and Gender

Beauty and the Beaumont Magazine: Transgender Make-Up

1 Comment

By Daisy Payling

For Charlie Craggs, transgender activist and nail artist, make-up is vital. Interviewed by Stylist in February 2019, she spoke about its transformative power:

“Some people think beauty is trivial. As a trans woman, I believe it’s a privilege to feel that way… I would love not to spend an hour feminising my face every morning. Make-up is crucial to transition: it enables me to be seen how I see myself and how I want to be seen by society.”

In a recent article on the Boots No. 7 cosmetics range, Richard Hornsey notes how feminist scholars have described how political debates around make-up are often split between two analytical frameworks. Whereas one side argues that make-up paints women into patriarchal regimes of objectification, triviality and expense, the other celebrates make-up for encouraging self-expression and agency. Yet, as Charlie Craggs’ account suggests, both positions can fall short of reflecting lived experience. In describing the hour it takes her to get ready in the morning Craggs makes clear the work involved – the ‘aesthetic labour’ to use the terminology of Ana Elias et al – but Craggs also emphasises how make-up enables her self-expression.

Lipstick in application. Photo by Sholeh, Wikimedia.

Cosmetics have played a role in trans lives for a very long time, but in more recent history we can find evidence of how make-up was used to build community among individuals who transgressed gender boundaries in diverse ways. The Beaumont Society is the longest running support organisation for the transgender community. In 1993, the Society reworded their constitution with the aim of bringing together people who ‘cross-dress[ed]’ with ‘transsexuals’ to ‘reduce the emotional stress, eliminate the sense of guilt’ and ‘promote and assist… the study of gender role differences.’ In the same year, they launched a new Beaumont Magazine to encourage communication between members (available at the British Library). Focusing mostly on ‘cross-dressing’ and feminine gender expression, the magazine also provided space for the discussion of gender dysphoria, and printed occasional articles which explored trans masculinity and ‘third gender’ lives. It made space for readers to share photographs, send in letters and put questions to other readers: ‘You ask the questions… we give you an answer and invite you, the READER, to give us your wisdom. Send your solutions to us!’ (Volume 1, No. 4). Like mainstream women’s magazines of the period, the Beaumont Magazine utilised readers’ letters to help create a sense of community.

Make-up and beauty featured heavily on the ‘questions’ page and were integral to this formation of community. In the Summer Holiday 1993 edition (Volume 1, No.4), Cheryl wrote; ‘I always take care with my eye make-up. Then I ruin it by mis-managing my mascara brushes. Any pointers?’ She received a sympathetic answer lamenting the difficulty of the ‘acquired skill’ of make-up and encouragement to try false eyelashes: ‘The only problem is high temperatures, such as at a disco, when perspiration can unglue them. Better than having mascara running down your cheeks!’

Another reader Ann asked, ‘How do I stop my lipstick ‘bleeding’ along the outer line and looking smudgy?’ In the Christmas issue her question was answer by Davinia, who wrote: ‘This is how Estee Lauder suggest you do it in their handouts…’ before detailing a lengthy six step process. Make-up helped these individuals be seen as they wanted to be seen and build community through shared knowledge and experience.

Artefacts collected in Brighton Museum’s Museum of Transology exhibition illustrate that while some trans and non-binary people now learn about make-up through Youtube, certain cosmetic items continue to represent forms of community. A lipstick donated to the collection came with the explanatory tag attached: ‘This lipstick was from my wonderful sister who was the first family member to accept and support my transition.’ Sisterly support imbued this everyday object with an emotional significance.

Stories like these show how make-up is anything but trivial. At Made Up: Health and Beauty Secrets Past and Present – an event series organised as part of the Being Human Festival (14-23 November 2019) – we will be exploring the role of grooming in everyday lives in post-war Britain.

If you are in Colchester or the wider Essex area, join us for Beauty School Drop In on Saturday 16 November – a historical beauty salon where you can get your nails done by Charlie Craggs, hear historical talks, take part in craft activities, and share your own memories and photographs of past hair and make-up choices. Photographs and recordings collected at Beauty School Drop In will be shown as part of Faces: An Exhibition of Changing Essex Style on Saturday 23 November. This one-day pop-up exhibition will also host Glow Up – a zine-making workshop with artist Lu Williams of Grrrl Zine Fair.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter to see more from Made Up and the Body, Self and Family project.

 

 

 

 

Article Round-Ups, Food and Drink, Ingredients, Knowledge Transmission, Medicine

Restorative Jelly and Strengthening Soup

Leave a comment

By James Stark and Richard Bellis

Victorians were obsessed with diet and appetite. Discussions about how to provide adequate nutrition to different human bodies spanned specialized scientific practice, domestic cookery, and manufacturers of new food products, not to mention popular culture and discourse.

Fig. 1. Recipes Books courtesy of The Cookery Collection at the University of Leeds

As part of a British Academy Digital Humanities project – Eating Yourself Young – we have been exploring the relationship between theories and practices of nutrition and health. Beyond scientific papers and newspaper articles on the subject, manuscript recipes from the period reveal how food and health were intimately intertwined in everyday cookery habits. The Cookery Collection at the University of Leeds, recognized by Arts Council England as one of its Designated Collections – a programme which ‘identifies and celebrates outstanding collections’ – includes around 50 manuscript recipe books from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, with a particular concentration in the early-to-mid-Victorian period. Striking in many of these are the claims made about the health benefits of various foodstuffs.

Fig. 2. "Mixing a Recipe for Corns." Etching by G. Cruikshank, 1819, after Captain F. Marryat. Courtesy of Wellcome Collection, CC BY
Fig. 2. “Mixing a Recipe for Corns.” Etching by G. Cruikshank, 1819, after Captain F. Marryat. Courtesy of Wellcome Collection, CC BY

In one anonymous collection of recipes, including regional specialities from Surrey and Yorkshire, we can see the integration of foods described as healthful. In this particular manuscript, amongst a list of 111 recipes for a wide variety of foods from sportsman’s beef and twirligigs to endless variants on plum pudding, the author (or, probably more properly, the compositor) included instructions for preparing restorative jelly and strengthening soup. The former consisted of sago, rice, pearl barley and ginger root, boiled in water until the volume was reduced by half. Strengthening soup, by contrast, consisted of stewing very slowly knuckles of lamb and veal with shin of beef, “mixed with sweet herbs,” in water, before adding “best rose water.” In contrast to all other recipes in the manuscript folio, the author also indicated when and how it should be consumed, “a tea cup-full to be taken every Night & Morning warm.”                 

Certain dishes could, of course, restore health. But foodstuffs were often incorporated into medical recipes as well. A collection of culinary and medical recipes – co-existing comfortably in the same volume – included “an excellent recipe for sprains.” This involved mixing “old ale” with turpentine and applying it to the skin. Ingredients for one of many preparations designed to treat a cough included lemon juice, “Spanish juice,” “Sugar Candy,” and a freshly-laid egg. The preparation of this particular cough remedy is particularly intriguing; it involved adding the lemon juice to the egg whilst still in its shell and waiting for the shell to dissolve before introducing the remaining ingredients.

Several medical remedies were also supposed to require other dietary and lifestyle changes to be effective. A “Cure for Influenza” required, for example, that the “patient [should be] … careful to keep the feet warm & dry [and subsist] … on a light diet.” Immediately following these clearly medical preparations were instructions for how to clean silk, devise a French polish, and remove grease from cloth fabric.

As much as these recipes were practical, the presentation of recipes was just as often playful as healthful and helpful. A somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference in a recipe for Paradise Pudding instructed the reader to “take of the same fruit which Eve once did taste, Well pared + well clipped, half a dozen at least.” Remarking on the experience that the diner might expect on eating this divine dish, the author noted that “Adam tasted this Pudding twas wonderous.”

Across all these, we can gain further insight into exactly where the expertise of everyday medicine in Victorian Britain was located. Of the recipes in this collection which were attributed to a particular person, almost all were women. The medical recipes employed much the same modes of preparation as culinary recipes, and many were written in the same hand. This suggests that the intersection of cookery and domestic medical practices were deeply intertwined. Whilst this is scarcely revelatory or unexpected, a more fine-grained analysis of these medical-related recipes in their social, cultural, and scientific context is needed to further highlight the importance and construction of domestic medicine and its practitioners.

Article Round-Ups

A Teaching Round-Up

Leave a comment

By Jess Clark

It’s August, which means that some of us are prepping course materials for the coming year (unless you’ve already got your syllabus and teaching plans in order — to you, I tip my hat!).

Here at RP, we believe that recipes can be illuminating and productive sources to mobilize in the classroom. Next month, our co-editor Lisa Smith will feature all new posts in the fifth instalment of our Teaching Recipes: A September Series, including strategies for incorporating recipes into a range of educational settings. But for those of you prepping this month, we’ve put together a round-up of posts from our archives that explore how to make recipes a part of your classroom, for a range of levels and interests. Please join us as we revisit some of the fantastic contributions from previous teaching posts.

A First Aid lesson in a school classroom. Photograph, ca. 1920. Credit: Wellcome Collection.

 

Some of our authors have pointed out the value of recipes in bringing food history into the classroom, offering opportunities for experiential learning. These contributors cooked with their students or designed assignments involving cooking from historical recipes.

 

Recipes also provide opportunities to interrogate practices of reading and writing,  both historically and among our students. These contributors highlight the various skills developed through using recipes as primary sources in the classroom, while thinking about the unique form of recipes.

 

Another key means of using recipes in the classroom is via transcription projects and assignments. This includes participation in Early Modern Recipes Online Collective (EMROC)’s annual Transcribathon, which is a fantastic way to get students involved in major online projects. These contributors explain how to incorporate transcriptions into your classroom, offering practical, step-by-step advice.

 

 

As we move into September, we hope that you’ll join us for our teaching series. We’d also love to hear more about how you use recipes in your teaching and public outreach projects, so please join us in the comments or contact us at recipes@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de.