The Historical Ponderings Society

[EverySongbirdSays]

Following on from the thread "What questions do you have about stuff from History or am I the only one?" Which is here

Ever wondered how we got from the clothes of Cave people to the clothes of today?

Who was the first person to make and eat Cheese? Or cake?

How ideas became widespread

Why the Aztecs didn't have the wheel?

Why Elizabeth I never married?

How accurate historical fiction is?

Then this your thread and we are your people.

PROCEED HISTORY LOVERS

She's not actually named in the Bible but here's a statue of her from [[http://www.aboutdarlington.co.uk/hidden-gems-of-darlington/]]. I wonder how such an obscure name came to be used.

Link failure here

Did someone mention the Marie Celeste ?

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/abandoned-ship-the-mary-celeste-174488104/

Just ask people of your acquaintance what they know about it, though? They'll likely all have the 'French' spelling and will probably have a folk memory (of sorts) about an abandoned ship, left in the middle of the ocean.

It would likely be the same with Henry VIII. Ask any acquaintances what they know about him and they'll likely become stuck at 6 wives. (And as for Henry VII?.........)

Have you read 'The Daughter of Time', lurking?

Fury, that's how I whipped cream and egg white all my childhood. Rapture when we got a rotary beater, greater rapture when we got an electrical one. Two forks until then. It's only a pain if you have to do lots eg for a large family. Ok, modern stuff makes life much easier, but it's not hard. Only if the weather is sultry.

Why would we do it? To make meringues, soufflés, lighter cakes, icing, and the cream to put in them.

Why would you whip up egg whites (and only the whites) with sugar to try to make meringue in the first place, though Orlanda?

OlennasWimple because you cracked a couple of eggs but only managed to salvage the whites, you mix them with sugar to preserve them.

Orlanda - I still whip small amounts of cream by hand, but like the rotary beater best - the food mixer can go too far, too soon!

It takes so long by hand to make any difference to the thickness - puzzles me why anyone ever thought, "I'll just keep whipping this quart of cream for half an hour or so & see what happens," rather than just using it as it was!

Whipped cream is indeed a mystery.

Butter is easier to concoct an origin story for - maybe you have some rich creamy milk in a container and you go ride your horse, shaking it into a useful-seeming solidness.

Butter is remarkably easy to make - when I was at college lots of the desserts came with huge amounts of unwanted whipped cream (real, not aerosol), but the shutters often came down before you finished your bread and main course, so if you'd forgotten to get butter you didn't have any. So one day we tried to see if one could beat the cream with a fork to make butter, and it took under 5 minutes of idle thwapping to make a pat of excellent butter.

I suppose once people realised you could get fluffier bread or cake etc if there was air incorporated, they might try getting more air into other things that were similar gloopy liquids, like egg white or cream. Maybe a scary experimental cook told their minion to stir that cream and don't stop until I tell you, and an hour later...

....Only if the weather is sultry....

Remember - no refrigerators backaways. A cool (ish) larder if you were lucky or - if you were in a great home - maybe even an ice house. Where I lived as a child, the house had an old ice house on the banks of the river nearby. I used to play in it so Gawd Knows how I wasn't killed.

I guess that many of the recipes we know these days were made up by the cooks in such houses. They would be the only ones with the time or the remit, I reckon.

I understand egg whites, if you beat them even a little bit with a fork, they start to change texture, which is odd, so I can imagine someone experimenting to see what else happened.

Finally reached the end!

This is reviving a pretty old conversation but I always thought that felt was the first fabric made and I have developed a bit of theory about this that maybe applies to the cave women periods thing as well

So you are hunter gathering and you notice the shed wool of sheep (and other animals? woolly mammoths maybe?!) caught on bushes etc. Or from the skins of animals you have killed. So this material is soft, insulating And absorbent. Obvious thing is to use it for periods and babies nappies. It's so useful that you wash it to reuse it and it matts together and you've made felt.

Because you are using the yolks for something else.

My childhood home in The North has a stone larder. We didn't have a fridge till I was about 15. The farm next door provided fresh milk everyday ( which would not have been the case in mediaeval times), we didn't have ice or ice cream.

This was DM's decision. There was a perfectly good fridge in the separate loft. But she wouldn't use it. Said it poured out warm air and was expensive. So we ate fresh or traditionally preserved ( jammed, bottled).

Thinking of meringues though, in theory they come from Meuringen, where the Reichenbach falls are that Sherlock Holmes survived. So they are probably quite late.

Tartle, yes, though sphagnum moss better as sterile. Kids used to go to pick it to send to hospitals eg during WW1. You can find it in most peaty areas, i think.

Orlanda

In medieval times, you or a relative/neighbour might have had a cow or two, though. If they were in calf, you'd have had milk on a daily basis if you needed it.

Sorry - if they had caffed......

calfed - I give up.

Yup, but less often in winter because of the need to feed them. More calves in spring when the grass is growing.

What would you do with it, though, in medieval times? Your cheese etc is made for the year and I receive the impression that, the winter diet being very basic, milk was generally only used for children and invalids.

PS - and not much then, even.

I'm weirdly pleased with myself that I knew what the "forced a pig" phrase meant, though I have no idea how.

Anyway, marking place :)

Do you have any West Country connections, Beyond? I think it came from there in my mother's case.

My immediate ancestry is all South Wales, gets to great grand parents before it heads any further afield

Ah well. People have often travelled widely in the past, though. You can never tell.