Les Bas Bleus, The Bluestocking...

[ErrolTheDragon]

En franglais, in English .... open to all women for company, fun and fabulous artworks. Leave unwanted reality in the porch and come along in.

I told it off about the rabbits and turnips, it readily agreed those weren't native and amended the recipe to omit those, include cabbage and also specified ancient varieties of carrot.

I don't know! I was wondering if 'brogue' was a loan word, like jodhpurs and that triggered an AI brainfart. Or...I did Google a recipe for daal last week.

<reaches for tweezers>
I also use DH's middle-aged-man-ear-hair-zapper for the extra fluff that my face insists on growing.

As for trimming fat off game meat, AI needs to clock that a) ancient types ate all the fat they could get and b) you don't tend to get a lot on wild game (I have butchered quite a lot of it in my time).

Didn't the post-Iron Age types use nice big cauldrons a la Asterix?

I was wondering if 'brogue' was a loan word, like jodhpurs and that triggered an AI brainfart.

It's from the Irish bróg or Scottish Gaelic bròg , which are from the old Norse brók 'leg covering'. Yes, I love googling etymology!

So feck all to do with Asia. If I were a betting cake I'd have guessed a Gaelic root.

Naturally my resolution to stop using AI lasted about five minutes. I have a couple of representations of women casually guarding the Bluestocking, and an indoor scene in the bluestocking pub which suggests that although the women in there are actually quite diverse, they may not be very welcoming to all and sundry... they are just smiling for the camera. If a stranger comes in they may set the Quokkas on them

While I'm primarily a very modern crop scientist, if anyone wants a Bluestocking Kitchen Garden and Smallholding, I'm sure I could give it a go. Authentic seasonal eating can be accommodated. Although there's an awful lot of cabbage involved in Northern European seasonal winter eating so we might also need a pot pourri and cut flower garden to disguise the effects of all those brassicas.

Spices! They must have had horseradish or mustard or something nice and hot .... ?

It's not authentically ancient but if we have a running stream I can do wasabi! Watercress is more traditional, mustard is a brassica and easy enough, wild garlic also easy. If we can find some money down the backs of all the comfy chairs, we could stretch to a small heated greenhouse and grow our own ginger.

the effects of all those brassicas

A lot of cabbage in the everyday diet up until very recently; my theory is that that's why they used to use caraway seeds (or dill). Carminative.

Not sure what the prehistoric / early medieval version would have been.

I am assured that anise, borage, dittany and mint are good for digestive problems and are authentic - we still favour mint, do we not?

I've always wanted an excuse for a mint garden. Although apparently if you grow different flavours of mint next to each other they all just end up generically minty, so we'd need to separate them out a bit. Could give the quokkas something to do, tending the plants?

Mint, of course, lots of it and easy to dry.

I find frozen chicken nuggets are multi seasonal.

Very true, Boily, but modern nutritionists tend to suggest one should eat some vegetable matter every so often... Very unreasonable of them...

Bit more of a monoculture than I was intending.

Vegetables?

You've lost me there!

The beetle will occasionally eat vegetables if someone else cooks but for about 355 days of the year not a single solitary vegetable passes my lips.

I'm happy to eat pretend Bluestocking vegetables just as long as no one makes me eat the real thing!

(I did try a few years back and ended up with gallstones as reward for my efforts!)

Ah, the Sto Plains.

With quokkas 😂

The general advice with mints is to grow it in pots as it tends to spread, so it should be easy enough to have them distributed around the garden. And also some inside to see us through the winter.

Actually I prefer growing all my herbs in pots, it puts them above Colin's cocking height. And that's another reason for preferring dachshunds over taller dogs - they can't pee on the herbs or steal food from the table and counter tops.

Ah, the Sto Plains

I have to confess my first thought was Bedfordshire but I think that's sprouts. Ew. I'm very fond of most veg but they're something else.

Oh yes, mint is a total thug if not contained. We can keep some on windowsills indoors. Plus basil, parsley, chives etc. And a bay tree in the kitchen garden for flavouring bread sauce etc.
Is now the time to mention I could run a still too?

Aren't vegetables what food eats?

I have to protect my tomatoes from one of my dogs, who tastes and then spits out the green one, and guzzles the ripe ones.

Speaking of dogs, I am just in from a very wet dog walk. I came across some people who were very lost, in the sort of way that makes me eye-roll and wonder why it's us yokels who are considered stupid... If you want to find the church on the knoll where the footpath divides, don't go sharply downhill along a random farm track that quite obviously goes to the river.

<Sigh>
I need a gin.

I'm growing three mints at the moment (chocolate, apple and spear) in pots. Although I've given away so many cuttings of the chocolate it'll serve me right if it creeps back into my garden from one of the neighbours. Mint varieties are kind of addictive.

I believe ancient Britains used to eat native plants like fat hen and sea pea, the Romans introduced ground elder as a vegetable.

If we're going foraging, no offence Beetle, but watch out for any mushrooms she brings in. My vision has only just returned to normal after that cocktail of her devising.