Subject: Re: Victorian kitchen

From: [email-masked] (Bill Venables)
Date: 22 Nov 92 14:59:30 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked]
> (John Trimble) writes: Seeking reccomendations of books on English
> kitchen practices and cooking with information that would have been
> current from about 1850 to 1900.  We are interested in class
> distinctions, foods, hygiene, layout of kitchen, utensils, everything
> that was likely to be found or to occur in a kitchen of that time in
> London.  We are particularly interested in the treatment of oysters and
> ordinary to sophisticated knowledge of them at that time.  Many thanks.
> [email-masked]
>

You might be lucky and find "Kettner's Book of the Table" by E. S. Dallas.
Kettner was a famous London cook in the 1870s and Dallas "ghosted" this
collection of recipes, lore, ettiquette, customs, and notes on the origins
and even etymology of the words related to, cooking.  It first appeared in
1877 but it was re-issued in 1968 with a preface by Derek Hudson by Centaur
Press, Ltd., London ("900000 06 6" - I think it's pre ISBN).  It's a
fascinating book in it's own right, but seems to have all the information
you want.

For example it has entries on Oysters (general and anecdotes), Oyster Sauce
(recipe), Oyster soup (recipe), Oyster Forcemeat (recipe and method),
Scalloped Oysters (recipe), and on Oysters in France (anecdote).  Too much
to post, but would anyone like a small part of this stuff?

Bill

--
___________________________________________________________________________
Bill Venables, Dept. of Statistics, | Email: [email-masked]
Univ. of Adelaide, South Australia. | Tel: +61 8 228 5412  Fax: ...232 5670