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Sep. 15th, 2008 07:12 pmI've been clearing out past recordings from the Sky+ hard drive (memo to self: watch and delete, or burn to DVD - don't just let the stuff pile up!) and found a couple of the Supersizers Go... series. This is an odd show: it pretends to be a look at food from various periods of British history over the past 500 years (Tudor, Victorian etc.) but seems more a backdrop for Giles Coren and Sue Perkins to do a costumed comedy double-act.
The two progs I'd saved – or more correctly, hadn't deleted yet – were "Restoration" and "Regency." Probably my notion was that the Restoration one would be useful for Blood's Ruby (it wasn't), and the Regency one was recorded by accident.
Hey ho, once again ye olde laddish observations were trotted out: Oo, look, they drank ale all the time so they must have been sloshed all the time… One of the experts, food writer and chef Allegra McEvedy, described the all-day ale for the Restoration episode thus: "that's small-beer, it's the weaker one, about 3½ percent…" In fact 3½-4 percent is the strength of some regular session bitters; small beer runs between only about half-a-percent or maybe one. It's called 'small' for a reason.
On the subject of drinking beer all day, Sue Perkins had this to say:
The reason ale was drunk all the time was that drinking straight water could and did kill you, while ale-making involves boiling, which germs don't like, and fermentation produces alcohol, which germs also don't like. Even so, I suspect that any form of period ale was weaker than most modern equivalents – you certainly got drunk and threw up (the Sumerians, Babylonians and Egyptians left enough catty remarks about that in cuneiform and hieroglyphics) but you probably had to swill down more for the effect. My own notion about the whys and wherefores is based on the use of hops. This additive gave more flavour and that attractive bitterness, but also acted as a bactericide and preservative. Unhopped ale became undrinkable in a matter of days, which is why alewives brewed at least once or twice a week. Once the stuff was able to sit around for a while, the yeasts had longer to turn sugar into alcohol and CO², producing a stronger, gassier brew known as beer. Beer gave the same effect as ale, but now you had to drink less to get there. Oh yes, and all the extra gas meant that you could fart tunes.
There was a lot more laddish stuff, including valiant attempts at over-eating from a dozen plates or supersized servings. Olio Podrido, a sort of multi-meat casserole based on a recipe in The Accomplish't Cook (1660) by Robert May, had everything but the kitchen sink in it, and needed two servers to carry the monstrous basin to the table. From the look of it, another few hours of cooking wouldn't have hurt either.
Though these huge dishes were indeed a demonstration of wealth and conspicuous consumption, in period context they were also meant to feed many more than the 4-8 people of a Supersizer reconstruction, and over more meals than just the one. The modern equivalent is to go into a restaurant and order everything on the menu, because if you're not supposed to eat it all then why's it all printed out for you?
Because you're supposed to make a choice, that's why – a concept which gets dropped out of reconstructed period dining more often than not.
As for Coren peeing into a bucket in the corner of the dining-room, well, maybe at a men-only dinner, but when ladies were present, it just wasn't done. There would have been a health risk – that of someone taking offence on milady's behalf, challenging the pee-er to a duel and turning them into a human kebab. Safer to go to the closet…
The Regency episode also contained what looked like a deliberate-error-for-effect; the reason why, I don't know, but the error was one I could check. From Coren:
Their roast (it looks like about 4 lbs of rolled sirloin) didn't deserve any two hours (30 minutes per pound) either. In a modern oven, it should get about an hour, though oven-cooked meat is described by Ben Rogers in Beef and Liberty (2003) as "not roasted, but half-baked, half-braised." The unfortunate TV cut of beef did get the full two hours in the oven, got dried out and overdone, and was rightly compared by Coren to a chunk of firewood.
He'd have liked the authentic version better. Beef at this period was spit-roasted in front of an open fire, turned constantly, often by clockwork – a spit-jack was one of the earliest kitchen machines – and basted constantly by a roast-cook with an experienced eye for when the meat was done. The difference in finished product was probably like that between an oven-roasted chicken and one from a rotisserie (and I know which I prefer…!)
In addition, a metal spit big enough to handle large joints transmits a lot of heat right through the centre of the meat, cooking it from the inside as well, and that will definitely speed up the process. A modern food writer like Elizabeth Luard (in European Peasant Cookery (1986)) calls for about 15 minutes per pound, in an oven starting at 425°F/220°C and reducing to 400°F/200°C after the first twenty minutes to give rosy rare beef. Glasse, however, writes "To roast a piece of beef of about ten pounds will take an hour and a half at a good fire." That's only about 9 minutes per pound, and suggests that her 'good fire' was not only very hot but the massive spit was conducting that heat right to the core of the joint, because Rogers's book doesn't mention that historical beef was notably bloody.
If you haven't seen The Supersizers go…, keep an eye open for it; the programme is quite good fun. But it's not terribly informative, the accuracy is open to question, and there's a constant need to keep a cruet handy - because you'll need to take things about this cookery show with a big pinch of salt.
The two progs I'd saved – or more correctly, hadn't deleted yet – were "Restoration" and "Regency." Probably my notion was that the Restoration one would be useful for Blood's Ruby (it wasn't), and the Regency one was recorded by accident.
Hey ho, once again ye olde laddish observations were trotted out: Oo, look, they drank ale all the time so they must have been sloshed all the time… One of the experts, food writer and chef Allegra McEvedy, described the all-day ale for the Restoration episode thus: "that's small-beer, it's the weaker one, about 3½ percent…" In fact 3½-4 percent is the strength of some regular session bitters; small beer runs between only about half-a-percent or maybe one. It's called 'small' for a reason.
On the subject of drinking beer all day, Sue Perkins had this to say:
"I have been off my face since 9 o'clock this morning, and whilst it's a good idea to drink two litres a day, I don't think it's that good an idea to drink two litres of ale a day…"If 2 litres – about 4 pints – of 3½ percent beer spread over the course of a 16-hour waking day is enough to make her that tiddly, she has a real problem, and should stay well away from the Munich Oktoberfest…
The reason ale was drunk all the time was that drinking straight water could and did kill you, while ale-making involves boiling, which germs don't like, and fermentation produces alcohol, which germs also don't like. Even so, I suspect that any form of period ale was weaker than most modern equivalents – you certainly got drunk and threw up (the Sumerians, Babylonians and Egyptians left enough catty remarks about that in cuneiform and hieroglyphics) but you probably had to swill down more for the effect. My own notion about the whys and wherefores is based on the use of hops. This additive gave more flavour and that attractive bitterness, but also acted as a bactericide and preservative. Unhopped ale became undrinkable in a matter of days, which is why alewives brewed at least once or twice a week. Once the stuff was able to sit around for a while, the yeasts had longer to turn sugar into alcohol and CO², producing a stronger, gassier brew known as beer. Beer gave the same effect as ale, but now you had to drink less to get there. Oh yes, and all the extra gas meant that you could fart tunes.
There was a lot more laddish stuff, including valiant attempts at over-eating from a dozen plates or supersized servings. Olio Podrido, a sort of multi-meat casserole based on a recipe in The Accomplish't Cook (1660) by Robert May, had everything but the kitchen sink in it, and needed two servers to carry the monstrous basin to the table. From the look of it, another few hours of cooking wouldn't have hurt either.
Though these huge dishes were indeed a demonstration of wealth and conspicuous consumption, in period context they were also meant to feed many more than the 4-8 people of a Supersizer reconstruction, and over more meals than just the one. The modern equivalent is to go into a restaurant and order everything on the menu, because if you're not supposed to eat it all then why's it all printed out for you?
Because you're supposed to make a choice, that's why – a concept which gets dropped out of reconstructed period dining more often than not.
As for Coren peeing into a bucket in the corner of the dining-room, well, maybe at a men-only dinner, but when ladies were present, it just wasn't done. There would have been a health risk – that of someone taking offence on milady's behalf, challenging the pee-er to a duel and turning them into a human kebab. Safer to go to the closet…
The Regency episode also contained what looked like a deliberate-error-for-effect; the reason why, I don't know, but the error was one I could check. From Coren:
"In the kitchen, Rosemary (Shrager, chef and cookery teacher) is rustling up a very British dinner. The first recipe for Yorkshire Pudding is found in Hanna Glasse's book The Art of Cookery (1747). (The first recipe for "dripping pudding," same ingredients and same cooking method but without the regional name, appears in The Whole Duty of a Woman (1737), ten years earlier.) Her recipe requires the beef and pudding to be cooked for two hours…"No it doesn't. How do I know? Because I have a copy of The Art of Cookery, from Prospect Books who publish a range of, among other things, facsimile period cookbooks. (I've got the May facsimile as well.) Even though several of the other pudding recipes have a cooking time, the Yorkshire pud doesn't: 'hours', never mind something as specific as 'two hours', doesn't appear. Instead the recipe just has that usual period estimate, "let it cook on the fire till you think it is nigh enough," after which it's finished under the spitted roast, to catch the savoury drippings and "turn a fine brown."
Their roast (it looks like about 4 lbs of rolled sirloin) didn't deserve any two hours (30 minutes per pound) either. In a modern oven, it should get about an hour, though oven-cooked meat is described by Ben Rogers in Beef and Liberty (2003) as "not roasted, but half-baked, half-braised." The unfortunate TV cut of beef did get the full two hours in the oven, got dried out and overdone, and was rightly compared by Coren to a chunk of firewood.
He'd have liked the authentic version better. Beef at this period was spit-roasted in front of an open fire, turned constantly, often by clockwork – a spit-jack was one of the earliest kitchen machines – and basted constantly by a roast-cook with an experienced eye for when the meat was done. The difference in finished product was probably like that between an oven-roasted chicken and one from a rotisserie (and I know which I prefer…!)
In addition, a metal spit big enough to handle large joints transmits a lot of heat right through the centre of the meat, cooking it from the inside as well, and that will definitely speed up the process. A modern food writer like Elizabeth Luard (in European Peasant Cookery (1986)) calls for about 15 minutes per pound, in an oven starting at 425°F/220°C and reducing to 400°F/200°C after the first twenty minutes to give rosy rare beef. Glasse, however, writes "To roast a piece of beef of about ten pounds will take an hour and a half at a good fire." That's only about 9 minutes per pound, and suggests that her 'good fire' was not only very hot but the massive spit was conducting that heat right to the core of the joint, because Rogers's book doesn't mention that historical beef was notably bloody.
If you haven't seen The Supersizers go…, keep an eye open for it; the programme is quite good fun. But it's not terribly informative, the accuracy is open to question, and there's a constant need to keep a cruet handy - because you'll need to take things about this cookery show with a big pinch of salt.
