{review} how to run your home without help

Kay Smallshaw How to Run Your Home Without Help (1949 [Persephone 2005])

All work is coloured by the spectacles worn. Look on it as fearful drudgery and it will never be anything else. See it as a job supremely worth doing, some of it creative, some more humdrum, but all demanding one's best, then running the home without help becomes a challenge and rewarding in itself.

People who think it is romantic to adopt a retro lifestyle (all those lovely clothes, pin-curls, proper stockings, etc.) should perhaps read this household manual to remind themselves that a large number of other less attractive things went along with the rose-bespectacled prettiness: limited rights for women, marriage as a career-ender, rationing, entire days spent doing the family laundry by hand, and the truly insanely Stepfordy Wifey idea that one should 'turn out' every room (EVERY ROOM) once a week. 

Source: freshcardsgifts.co.uk via skiourophile on Pinterest

Housekeeping may well (as Smallshaw suggests) be a form of "creative work to rank with the best", but there is a hell of a lot of post-war societal brainwashing going on to rebrand (unpaid) "ceaseless toil" in that way. Smallshaw's ideal housewife "has a big job, and one that can seldom be compressed into an eight-hour working day." She is a stay-at-home wife and mother or mother-soon-to-be (working [single] "career" women get a mention, but are not her target audience, despite working herself!). 

The routine, as Christina Hardyment notes in her introduction to the Persephone edition, is "uncompromising". I felt exhausted (as well as uneasy) just reading this book.

Smallshaw sets out ideas for organising the day, what one must do in each room, how much time to allocate to meal shopping and preparation (two to three hours a day - but, given that rationing is still in force at this time, some of this time is spent in the dreaded queuing). Smallshaw is interested in making her housewife more efficient, whether by introducing a smarter layout to the kitchen, better "method", or offering a review of labour-saving devices (the Bendix automatic washing machine, a crippling 65 pounds). 

Source: ebaumsworld.com via skiourophile on Pinterest

Fundamentally, however, this is a book about unremitting drudgery from dawn to dusk and well beyond: Chapter 6 "The Daily Round"; Chapter 7 "The Weekly Clean", Chapter 8 "More Weekly Cleaning", Chapter 9 "Spring-Cleaning". Round about this point I think I would have drunk a neat cocktail of Smallshaw's favourite household chemicals: soda, precipitated whitening, DDT (!), paradichlorobenzene and oxalic acid ("useful, though poisonous"; coincidentally, I have recently read Death in High Heels). This however, would likely be classed as letting oneself go, as "[s]ome women will always". Housework makes you slim, ladies! 

Before you call it a day, replace furniture and ornaments, re-hang pictures and mirrors, make up the bed and put up fresh curtains. You can sleep well tonight, knowing that even the Victorian housewife wouldn't have done a more thorough job.

In sum... I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is horrifying, and such a tonic against romanticising the past. I think my mouth started to hang open in shocked awe about midway through chapter 1 and never fully closed again. I do not own a teapot spout-cleaner or an upholstery whisk. I remain wholly puzzled by the concept of stringing currants as a leisure activity at the end of the day. (Do currants have strings?) I cannot think about the delights of "Offal Week" without feeling nauseated. I feel slightly guilty that labour-saving devices have freed up so much time that I happily waste on Pinterest rather than producing something truly and unforgettably creative, but books that are meant to make women feel bad are not going to make me change a single thing about my life of squalor independence... 

Source: weheartit.com via skiourophile on Pinterest

If you liked this... the wonderful diaries of Nella Last (for a taste of their wonderfulness, see the review at Stuck In A Book) give a first-hand view of what it is like to try to live up to these expectations.

{review} consider the oyster

M. F. K. Fisher Consider the Oyster (1941; 1954)

 

Oh M. F. K. Fisher, how I do love your writing.

I am not even particularly fond of oysters, yet MFKF makes me want to knock back a couple of dozen - despite knowing exactly what would happen should I do so - so seductive is her case for being 'broadminded' about that alarming mollusc "and its fine salt juices, more like the smell of rock pools at low tide than any other food in the world".

I was amused to read MFKF on the topic of "the smoked oysters people give you now at cocktail parties, excellent little shriveled things on toothpicks which make your mouth taste hideous unless you drink a lot, which may also make your mouth taste hideous." I prefer oysters raw, on the shell, which I think may have something to do with once having bravely consumed a repulsive canned smoked oyster on a camping trip as a child. In aside: as a result of camping, I also cannot stomach canned ham, certain varieties of cup-a-soup, dehydrated vegetables, 4WDs, and a large chunk of the Australian desert. 

Consider the Oyster, like so much of MFKF's writing, is a quasi-memoir of her eating and cooking experiences, combined with a lively overview of - always from her quirky viewpoint - of the history and myths of oysters: you know, oysters and months with 'R', oysters and lust (linked with "an oyster's odor, its consistency, and probably its strangeness"!), bad oysters, oysters and pearls, and so on. Interwoven with this are recipes and descriptions of what could have gone into a dish MFKF ate and what would definitely go into a dish should MFKF turn her hand to it.

A good tartar sauce can be bought in a bottle, like several other things, but a better one can be made from this recipe, which is easy if you have an herb garden, and impossible, but still fun to think about, if you do not...

(This sort of sort-of-cheating is also a marker of MFKF's recognition that her readers may well be time-poor working women, like herself. She was ahead of her time).

MFKF is so good at investigating her own sense of nostalgia about food - why she feels like she does about certain foodstuffs, and whether it is possible to recreate what is essentially something between a feeling and a memory about a perfect dish - "an almost affectionate nostalgic liking". So, her quest to find a recipe that resembles a story that her mother told her about the perfect boarding school oyster loaf midnight feast (!), leads her a recipe that I think I might even dream about a little:

Oyster Loaf
Cut off the top of crusty loaf of bread, and hollow out the center. Brush with butter, and put into a hot oven to heat through and toast slightly. While this is going on, coat medium-sized oysters with egg and crumbs, and fry them brown in deep or shallow fat. Fill the loaf with the oysters, pour melted melted butter over them, put on the lid which also has been toasted, and it is ready to eat. . . or to wrap thickly in wax paper and take on a picnic. A small loaf to serve two people is most convenient for serving.

Wow. Fried things inside bread and all soaked in butter. Marry me, MFKF!!

MFKF, despite investigating all of the best ways to consume the oyster, wants her reader to break the rules and to discover the magic of the oyster for herself. So, on wine bores who insist it is Chablis or nothing with oysters - 

On the other hand, I have had Pouilly-Fuissé, various kinds of champagnes nature, a pink Peau d'Onion, and both bottled and open wines of Anjou with oysters in France, and whether they were correctly drunk or not, I was. Nobody knew it except my own exhilarated senses and my pleased mind, all of which must enter into any true gastronomic experience.

I suspect that MFKF's writing may not be for everyone (just as oysters may disagree with some). Occasionally I think, 'ooooh that's pretentious', but MFKF's wit and naughtiness make bearable her occasional inaccessibility. I think she'd be a terrifying dinner companion.

If you liked this... a good starting place is her Alphabet for Gourmets which can be read online at the Gourmet archive.

{review} kitchen essays

Agnes Jekyll Kitchen Essays (1922)

I'm a bit puzzled about this book. It offers a nostalgic glimpse into an age of gracious living that has most certainly passed. It is beautifully written, with some quite wonderful turns of phrase. The writer was a bit of a celeb. at the time she wrote these newspaper columns for The Times (anonymously). It is, as one expects from a Persephone production, quite beautiful in the hands.

OK, maybe I've already answered my puzzled feeling about why this book is significant enough to reissue. Or have I? I quite liked it and I can definitely now characterise desirable food of the early 1920s as being jellied, aspic-ed and/or passed through a "hair-sieve". Couldn't anyone eat solids?! What, dodgy post-war false teeth or something? [I'm joking]

What female intelligence can decipher rapidly those hieroglyphic sheets when presented in restaurants and unerringly select the "spécialité de la maison," or the most acceptable "plat du Jour"? She will vacillate between the super-strange and the ultra-commonplace, or losing her head, will select the cheapest of the mysteries proffered, or else plunge recklessly for something expensive and out of season.

Apart from this stunning piece of misogyny (I'm reading it tongue-in-cheek, as I can't believe Agnes Jekyll would vacillate about anything), a couple of things offered themselves to me for thought. First, we are on the cusp of an era where the servant problem becomes a big problem for the type of households who would read these newspaper columns. A fair whack of these dishes (and the scenarios for which they are intended - shooting parties; dances) require staff.

"Never hesitate to do a kind action," said a cynical friend once in the writer's privileged hearing. "The burden of it almost invariably falls on some one else, whilst you get all the credit." The truth of this dictum, once heard, will often recur to the mind when promising, shall we say soup, or jelly, to some sick friend; for it is the cook who will make the offering, the boy who will carry it to its destination.

Second, I have a mental image of the cook sitting in dread awaiting the mistress's latest crazy idea taken from The Times, which requires production of something exotic and 'new' ("Italians are fond of sweets, but unimaginative in their preparation") in the absence of what we would consider such an essential as refrigeration (I keep thinking of the Provincial Lady's problems with cooks here!). One cannot wonder about the inevitability of the following:

...similar experience may befall many of us, particularly at busy holiday times of the year, when cooks, whose mothers so often specialize in sudden and disastrous illnesses, may leave us to face problems we have never really envisaged before…

You can consider this my Third point: the number of shapes and moulds and ices makes my blood run cold at the thought of the difficulties presented by their production and storage. I enjoyed this book for its writing ("For the Unpunctual, try a savoury dish of Papprika [sic]") and for purely nostalgic purposes (never, ever, ever will I make calves' foot jelly), but never does an era seem to far removed from our own when the kitchen is the subject.

Salted almonds are expensive, and by many thought indigestible; they can be understudied by a packet of the American cereal Puffed Wheat. A few spoonfuls of this, crisped hot in the oven and lying invitingly on small mother-o'-pearl shells, or in some such decorative and labour-saving receptacles before each guest, will comfort the shy, stem the torrent of the fluent-obvious, and generally promote a flow of that pleasant conversation...

Rating: 6/10.

Things that intrigued me enough to google: "centrifugal sugar", "Cerebos" salt, "peptonized cocoa", and when "Pyrex" was invented.

If you liked this... I guess someone'll look back at Jamie Oliver in 90 years and laugh their heads off. If I feel like a spot of witty food-writing I turn to M. F. K. Fisher.

 

{review} two books about wolves

M. F. K. Fisher How to Cook a Wolf (1942, rev. 1954)

Fred Vargas Seeking Whom He May Devour (2004)

In the whole Julia & Julia Child whirlwind I rather thought that the eccentric M. F. K. Fisher might get a better look-in. I've previously read her Alphabet for Gourmets – a witty A to Z of culinary delights (available on-line here from the Gourmet archives) and loved her witty style of food-writing:

W is for wanton …

… and the great difference between the way a man eats and has his lady love eat, when he plans to lead her to the nearest couch, and the way a woman will feed a man for the same end.

A man is much more straightforward, usually. He believes with the unreasoning intuition of a cat or a wolf that he must be strong for the fray and that strength comes from meat: he orders rare steak, with plenty of potatoes alongside, and perhaps a pastry afterwards. He may have heard that oysters or a glass of port work aphrodisiacal wonders, more on himself than on the little woman, or, in an unusual attempt at subtlety augmented by something he vaguely remembers from an old movie, he may provide a glass or two of champagne. But in general, his gastronomical as well as alcoholic approach to the delights of love is an uncomplicated one which has almost nothing to do with the pleasurable preparation of his companion.

A woman contemplating seduction, on the other hand, is wanton.

A wanton woman, according to the dictionary, is unchaste, licentious, and lewd. This definition obviously applies to her moral rather than her culinary side. Considered solely in connection with the pleasures of the table, a wanton woman is one who with cunning and deliberation prepares a meal which will draw another person to her. The reasons she does so may be anything from political to polite, but her basic acknowledgment that sexual play can be a sure aftermath of gastronomical bliss dictates the game, from the first invitation to the final mouthful of ginger omelette.

 

Fisher would have made an excellent blogger, with her ability to sum up perfectly and avoid the extraneous. Her authorial pose is so definitively worldly, so apposite. I suppose her nearest comparison in this culinary authority is Elizabeth David – they share a simplicity of style which makes reading a cook-book into an intellectually satisfying pursuit. It is the journey towards the meal that fascinates and inspires. 

Fisher's 'wolf' here is the 'wolf at the door' – hunger. She was brought up in poverty and her relationship with food is coloured by that experience. This may also make her a particularly good spokeswoman for wartime austerity for the gourmet cook, which is what this little book is mostly about: how to make do without dropping all of your standards. Each chapter has a catchy title ("How to Be Content with a Vegetable Love", for instance): "Almost all vegetables are good, although there is some doubt still about parsnips (which I share)." My only criticism is the up-dating that occured in the 1954 revision - Fisher's comments are included throughout the text in square brackets, as she comments on this previous austere self. This proves quite distracting as she has a lot to add. Some of the recipes look pretty vile to modern eyes, as she herself admits ("uninspired, but dependale"), but this book is an interesting insight into American wartime austerity. When contrasted with the dire food situation in the UK at the same time, it doesn't look so austere.

Rating: 7/10. Alphabet for Gourmets has aged better.

If you like this… anything by Elizabeth David.

The wolf loose in Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas is another animal entirely, though he too is hungry - for blood. If you haven't encountered Vargas' eccentric French  police inspector Adamsberg yet, you've missed a total treat. OK, yes, another flawed copper with family problems. But the plot, characterisation, setting and writing of this book is flawless. Is a giant wolf roaming the French Alps picking off its prey, or is something even more sinister going on? I sometimes think that everyone in a Vargas' book is completely barking mad and this book is a roll-call of the most eccentric and memorable characters you might ever encounter. In sum: a baffling and intelligent crime thriller. I can't imagine translating a Vargas' book – the language is so clever.

Rating: 9/10. Mysteries in Paradise has another fine review here.

If you like this… try other Fred Vargas' books: The Three Evangelists, The Chalk Circle Man, Have Mercy on Us All, etc. (aren't the titles brilliant?). Adamberg is an old school guy like Simenon's Maigret.