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Victoria's Family Christmas

That would be Victoria H. not Victoria R. — you’ve already heard about her Christmas.

My family always had an English Christmas dinner, complete with Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding and for dessert, Plum Pudding made by my grandmother, known as Mimi, from a recipe suposedly brought to the U.S. by her grandmother (my great-great grandmother) Elizabeth Stanley about 1850.

Elizabeth and Thomas Stanley came by ship from Liverpool to New Orleans and up the Mississippi to St. Louis. They traveled east across Illinois almost to the border with Indiana, the Wabash River.

 There, in the little town of Albion, Illinois, they settled.  They had come from their home in Yorkshire with eight children including a pair of 2-yr.-old twins.  I can’t begin to imagine what they endured.  A final son was born to them in 1852, named George Washington Stanley, my great-grandfther.  He became the sheriff of Edwards County, IL, of which Albion was the seat.  So Mimi (1890-1975) spent a part of her childhood in a house on Court House Square which also held the office and jail as well as the residence of the county’s leading law enforcer.

Some weeks before Christmas, Mimi chose a piece of flour sacking which she boiled until it was absolutely sterile.  Once the batter and fruits were mixed, they were piled onto the cloth, then it was gathered up and tied at the top and steamed in a large boiler, the kind of copper boilers they did laundry in.

This hanging pudding-filled cloth on a broomstick over the boiling water steamed the pudding into a round shape.  One of the crucial moments was after the puddding had cooled — peeling the cloth off without tearing the “skin” of the pudding.  Many laments often accompanied this operation, but it had nothing to do with the taste of the pudding.
What does affect the taste of the pudding (besides the ingredients) are the sauces — my Grandmother always served two, one warm, one room temperature — and the ceremonial flaming with warmed brandy in a darkened dining room, at which moment everyone oohed and aahed and Mimi said, “Well, it isn’t as good as last year’s.”  We all disagreed, to her pleasure, year after year.  If you try it, warm the brandy before pouring it over the pudding. If it is not warmed a bit, it won’t have the lovely blue flame you want. 
Plum pudding is a traditional dish and a traditional symbol of Britain. Here is a cartoon by James Gillray from 1805 called the Plum-pudding in Danger — showing the English possessing the sea while the French carve off Europe.
Here is my Grandmother’s recipe, accompanied by the two sauces.

Mimi’s Old English Plum Pudding

4 C. flour
1 C. butter or 3 scant C. suet, finely chopped
1 box currants, washed and dried well
1 box seedless raisins
1 box golden raisins
Optional: other dried fruits and nuts, such as candied orange or lemon peel, dried apricots, cherries, dates, chopped almonds, etc.
2 C. granulated sugar or brown sugar or one C. each
1 t. cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
Sprinkle of nutmeg
½ t. cloves (optional)
3-4 eggs
1 t baking soda
Milk by the spoonful

Sift flour, sugar and spices into large bowl. Add butter or suet, currants and raisins, and other fruits and nuts, as desired. Beat eggs and add to dry mixture, stirring well.

Add baking soda dissolved in a little hot water. Mix and stir to a stiff batter with milk. The mixture should be stiff enough that a wooden spoon will stand up in the batter.

Dip a pudding cloth (cotton flour sacking) in hot water, then dredge with flour. Add pudding mix and bring edges of cloth together and tie loosely (not real close to the pudding at the top).

Boil four hours in large kettle, placing the pudding into boiling water to cover. For round shape, tie top of cloth to a stick across the top of the pan.

OR: put pudding into a mold and steam according to directions for steamed puddings in any cookbook.

Note: Pudding should be served hot; may be prepared several days before serving and resteamed when served.

Place on platter and stick Holly in the top. Pierce with fork in several places. Warm brandy and pour over the pudding. Light and present to table with blue flames dancing on the surface of the pudding. Serve with warm lemon sauce and/or hard sauce. Keeps well in refrigerator if wrapped in foil.

Mimi’s Lemon Sauce for Plum Pudding

1 c. granulated sugar
2 T cornstarch
2 C boiling water
4 T butter
3-4 T Lemon Juice
¼ t. salt

Mix sugar and cornstarch, add water gradually, stirring constantly. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add butter, lemon juice and salt. Serve warm over slices of plum pudding.

Mimi
’s Hard Sauce for Plum Pudding
1-2 C. powdered sugar
½ C. Butter
2 t. vanilla
Dash of rum or rum flavoring

Mix ingredients and beat until light and creamy. Refrigerate.

Happy Christmas!!

A Christmas Complaint

The following letter, published under the heading It Is Lucky That Christmas Does Come But Once A Year, first appeared in an 1853 volume of Punch.

DEAR PUNCH.-I live in lodgings. I am one of those poor unfortunate helpless beings, called Bachelors, who are dependent for their wants and comforts upon the services of others. If I want the mustard, I have to ring half-a-dozen times for it; if I am waiting for my shaving water, I have to wander up and down the room for at least a quarter of an hour, with a soaped chin, before it makes its appearance.

But this system of delay, this extreme backwardness in attending to one’s simplest calls, is invariably shown a thousand times more backward about Christmas time. I am afraid to tell you what I have endured this
Christmas. My persecutions have been such as to almost make me wish that Christmas were blotted out of the Calendar altogether.

I have never been called in the morning at the proper time. My breakfast has always been served an hour later than usual—and as for dinner, it has been with difficulty that I have been able to procure any at all!
This invasion of one’s habits and comforts is most heart-rending; and the only excuse I have been able to receive to my repeated remonstrances has been, ‘Oh, Sir, you must really make some allowances; pray recollect, it is Christmas time.’

Last week I invited some friends to spend the evening with me—but I could give them neither tea, nor hot grog, nor supper, nor anything—because, ‘ Please, Sir, the servant has gone to the Pantomime—she’s always allowed to go at Christinas time.’

Hang this Christmas time! My canary died this morning. Upon inquiry I found that it had not had any seed or water for three days, Every one was so busy at. this time of the year. It was lucky, I thought, that I had some more expressive means of making my wants known than my poor starved canary, or else I should have shared its unhappy fate a week ago.

A day or two before Christmas Day my dress boots burst, and I sent them to be mended, with a pressing request that they might be sent home immediately. Well, Sir, from that day to this, I have never seen my dress boots. The only explanation I get to my frequent inquiries is, “Very sorry, Sir, but it is impossible, Sir, to get the men to work at this time of the year.” It has been the same with a dress coat, which was split down the back. The tailor informs me, with a face as long as his pattern-book and containing nearly as many colours, that ‘he regrets it extremely—but every one of his workmen have been drunk since Christmas Day – they always do at this period of the year.’

What has been the consequence, Sir? Why I have only one pair of dress-boots, one dress-coat. I am not ashamed to confess I cannot afford more. And the consequence has been, that I have not been able to accept many pleasant Christmas invitations, because I had not the proper attire to go in to them! Instead of amusing myself and others elsewhere, I have been obliged to mope at home over a sickly fire, expiring by inches for the want of a few nourishing coals, and without even a drop of hot water to make myself a comforting glass of grog. Servants, it would seem, have a time-honoured privilege to go out and do just as they please at Christmas time!

I suffered cold, incipient rheumatism, and violent tooth-ache, for three sleepless nights, because there was a broken window in my bedroom. I stamped, I swore, I rung the bell like a madman, but not a person could I get to put in a fresh pane for me. No: ‘It was Christmas time, and the men wouldn’t work, to please anybody.’

The worst yet remains. As I was out walking, a coalheaver knocked against me. He then abused me, and because I complained rather warmly, he bonnetted me, and ultimately knocked me down. I have still the marks of his brutality on both my eyes. Yet, Sir, will you believe it, this savage met me the following morning in Court; his wife was with him, and she said, half-crying, ‘Her husband was very sorry, and so was she; but the fact was, he had taken a little drop too much, but she hoped I would excuse it—it was Christmas time.’ Pretty compensation this to a man who has received a couple of black eyes !

Now, Sir. it seems to me, from the above grievances, (and I have not enumerated one half of them), that Christmas is, with a certain class of people, a privileged period of the year to commit all sorts of excesses, to evade their usual duties, and to jump altogether out of their customary avocations into others the very opposite of them. For myself, I am extremely glad that Christmas does come but once a-year. I know I shall go, next December, to Constantinople, or Jerusalem, or the Minories, or some place where the savage customs I have described do not exist; for I would not endure another Christmas in England for any amount of holly, plum-pudding, or Christmas-boxes in the world.

I have the misfortune to remain, Mr. Punch,
Your much-persecuted Servant,
An Old Bachelor.

Jane Austen's 235th Birthday in Wisconsin

JASNA-WI celebrated Jane Austen’s 235th Birthday on Saturday, December 11, 2010.  We had a wonderful time at the North Hills Country Club where we looked over the avenues of trees along the snowy golf course, which looked for all the world like a wintry English landscape garden, Capability Brown-style.

l-r Judy Beine, Victoria, Diana Burns, Liz Cooper,
Kathy O’Brien, Coral Bishop, Kim Wilson

We ate the lovely individual Beef Wellingtons and oh-so-English Trifle courtesy of our members Susan Flaherty and her father — many thanks for your continuing generosity. Right, members of the JASNA-WI executive committee.

Among the many wonderful things for sale at the luncheon were the offerings of Austen Authors,l-r, Jack Caldwell, Kathryn Nelson, Abigail Reynolds, Marilyn Brant, and C. Allyn Pierson, all of whom have written sequels and/or continuations of Austen novels. More about them here.

Here C. Allyn and Victoria pose in front of one of the many christmas trees — and over V’s shoulder is our pal, Pat Latkin of  Chicago, who brought along some of her collection of JA books for sale.  She always tempts us beyond belief with the rare finds she uncovers.
Also available was our wonderful Jane Austen Calendar, put together by Liz Philosophos Cooper and Kim Wilson, adorned for 2011 with Brock color illustrations, honoring the 200th anniversary of the publishing of Sense and Sensibility.
This shows a page, with almost every day filled in with an event in Jane austen’s life or an incident in her writings.  It is great fun for all the JA fans on your Christmas list.  To order, contact http://www.jasnawi.org/
Presenters of the annual Joan Philosophos Lecture were Victoria and Kim Wilson. We presented our colorful power point talk on “About Those Abbeys…in Fact, Fiction and Landscape” first heard at the recent AGM in Portland, OR. For details, see our blog post of Sunday, November 21, 2010, for a brief summary. Below, a rather blurry view…sorry, but I am certain JA won’t mind. We can all recognize her picture behind us!

Washington Irving's English Christmas

 
Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born in Manhattan, NYC, and traveled in Europe as a young man and later for business.  He was one of the first genuine American literary geniuses, famous for many stories and essays, especially The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. 

During his travels in England he wrote about Christmas celebrations in the countryside.  Below are a few excepts…for the entire text click here.  This is a long account, so I have eliminated large parts, which may be of interest to you, but in the spirit of the season, here is a taste…

Christmas in England

“…Of all the old festivals that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of the church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. They gradually increase in fervour and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony.

It is a beautiful arrangement, also derived from days of yore, that this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the religion of peace and love, has been made the season for gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose; of calling back the children of a family who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the endearing mementoes of childhood. …

The English, from the great prevalence of rural habits throughout every class of society, have always been fond of those festivals and holidays which agreeably interrupt the stillness of country life; and they were, in former days, particularly observant of the religious and social rites of Christmas. It is inspiring to read even the dry details which some antiquarians have given of the quaint humours, the burlesque pageants, the complete abandonment to mirth and good-fellowship with which this festival was celebrated. It seemed to throw open every door, and unlock every heart. It brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm generous flow of joy and kindness. The old halls of castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and the Christmas carol, and their ample boards groaned under the weight of hospitality. Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season with green decorations of bay and holly–the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, and join the gossip knot huddled around the hearth, beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and oft-told Christmas tales.

… The traditionary customs of golden-hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and lordly wassailings, have passed away with the baronial castles and stately manor-houses in which they were celebrated. They comported with the shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlour, but are unfitted to the light showy saloons and gay drawing-rooms of the modern villa.

Shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive honours, Christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in England. It is gratifying to see that home feeling completely aroused which seems to hold so powerful a place in every English bosom. The preparations making on every side for the social board that is again to unite friends and kindred; the presents of good cheer passing and repassing, those tokens of regard, and quickeners of kind feelings; the evergreens distributed about houses and churches, emblems of peace and gladness; all these have the most pleasing effect in producing fond associations, and kindling benevolent sympathies. Even the sound of the waits, rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mid-watches of a winter night with the effect of perfect harmony. As I have been awakened by them in that still and solemn hour, “when deep sleep falleth upon man,” I have listened with a hushed delight, and, connecting them with the sacred and joyous occasion, have almost fancied them into another celestial choir, announcing peace and good-will to mankind.

How delightfully the imagination, when wrought upon by these moral influences, turns everything to melody and beauty: The very crowing of the cock, who is sometimes heard in the profound repose of the country, “telling the night-wa
tches to his feathery dames,” was thought by the common people to announce the approach of this sacred festival:

“Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;

The nights are wholesome–then no planets strike, no fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm, So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.”

Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits, and stir of the affections, which prevail at this period, what bosom can remain insensible? It is, indeed, the season of regenerated feeling–the season for kindling, not merely the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the heart….”

Have a happy, old-fashioned holiday!!

Walter Potter's Museum of Curiosities



The Kitten’s Wedding

Until his death in 1918, Walter Potter created numerous scenes from everyday domestic life – a cricket match, a tea and croquet party, a wedding, a schoolroom – using taxidermied guinea pigs, rabbits, kittens, squirrels, and other small birds and animals, all of which were on view at Potter’s Museum in Bramber, West Sussex. While now-a-days Potter’s use of animals would draw a hue and cry from activists, one cannot deny that the collection is a wonder and that it offers a view on Victorian ingenuity.

The Bride

The eccentric world of taxidermist Walter Potter, where stuffed animals mimic human life, occupied various homes after Potter’s death, one of them being Jamaica Inn in Cornwall. However, the 10,000 item collection was broken up and sold for more than £500,000 in 2003. Many people were outraged that Potter’s historic dioramas were not kept together, but the quirky display is being reassembled in an exhibition at the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, London co-curated by artist Sir Peter Blake.

The Death and Burtial of Cock Robin

Walter Potter was born in a small English village called Bramber, near Steyning in West Sussex on the 2nd of July, 1835, his family ran a local public house in the village called The White Lion (now believed to be known as ‘The Castle’). At the age of 15, Walter made his very first attempt at taxidermy when he preserved his own beloved pet canary. Walter told the story of how this led to bigger things for him to a correspondent from The Idler Magazine in 1895 –

“Well, after I’d done my canary, people encouraged me to persevere. If they saw any bird or animal they thought I would like, they’d bring or send it to me. At last I get the idea of putting a case of birds together to illustrate ‘ The History of Cock Robin.’ It took me all my spare time for over six or seven years, and I used over a hundred specimens of British birds, including, though not actually necessary to the story, the cuckoo, nightingale, goldfinch, hawfinch, bramblefinch, and buntings. I also threw in a few butterflies. The bull himself was the most difficult of all. At last I bought a model, as it was impossible to get a real bull, however small, into the case. When I had bought my model it hadn’t any hair or skin, so I got a calf-skin, cut the hair off, and stuck it on the model with glue. When I had finished my ‘ Cock Robin ‘ cage I was living at the Castle Hotel here, and exhibited it in the garden bower. All the young ladies from the school here came to see it, and one of them took her hat off and collected a few shillings from her companions. From that time I gradually began to keep a collection. I never thought, when I started, to make a Museum, but the thing gradually grew of itself. Soon I began to want more room. My father had a new tea-shed put up in the garden, and so I used that as a show-room.

Walter Potter and a Friend

Soon Walter needed to move his experiments of preservation, to the stables loft as his interest and hobby grew. As legend has it, he was inspired by his sister, Jane Potter, who showed him the illustrations in her nursery rhyme book, he took particular interest in the well known rhyme, ‘The death and burial of cock Robin.’ Potter was thus prompted to produce his most famed diorama, which included 98 species of British birds housed in a large glass case.

The tableaux went on display in a summer house in 1861 behind his parents inn and was a huge success with received commissions to create taxidermy animals for wealthy Victorians. Before long, Walter discovered he could make a living via taxidermy and at the same time fund his passion for his more creative dioramas/tableaux, for which he was to become famous.

After several moves of premises, likely to have all been in Bramber, in 1880 Walter secured a specially constructed building, which soon had to be extended to include other unusual exhibits from the animal kingdom, such as the four legged chicken and the two headed lamb.
Walter married a local girl called Ann Stringer Muzzell and went on to have three children, Walter, Annie and Minnie all thrived as the museum grew in both size and popularity, coming to be known as ‘Mr. Potters Museum Of Curiosities’ and hailed as a ‘World Famous example Of Victorian Whimsy.’ At the peak of its popularity, special coach trips were laid on from Brighton and the Museum drew such large crowds to the village that an extension had to be built on to the platform at Bramber railway station.

Walter suffered a stroke in 1914 and never to fully recovered, dying in 1918 at the age of 83. He was buried in Bramber churchyard, in the little villiage in west Sussex that he had scarcely left. By this time the museum contained about 10,000 specimens.

Potter’s Museum, Bramber, Sussex

The museum closed in the 1970s, and, after having been moved to Brighton and then to Arundel, was sold in 1984 to the owners of Jamaica Inn, Cornwall, where it attracted more than 30,000 visitors each year. The death of their taxidermist and economic considerations led to the collection being auctioned by Bonhams in 2003, when a total of £500,000 was raised. P
resent at the auction were Peter Blake, Harry Hill and David Bailey. A bid of GBP£1m offered by Damien Hirst for the entire collection had apparently been rejected by the auctioneers, and the owners sued Bonhams, arguing that this offer should have been accepted.

Potter’s taxidermy collection was broken up and taken to the four corners of the world by their new owners. However, right now the collection has once again been reassembled and will be exhibited at the Museum of Everything until the end of December. The iconic pieces,  “The Kitten’s Wedding”, “The Kittens’ Tea Party” and “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin” will also be on display. James Brett, the Museum of Everything’s founder said : “Potter was . . . a true original and himself an outsider artist as much as a craftsman. I can tell a Potter from the work of another taxidermist at a glance across a room – he was a genius”.

Other loans for the exhibition come from the comedian Harry Hill, the photographer David Bailey, other passionate private enthusiasts, and Pat Morris, a retired academic and expert on the history of taxidermy who intends to leave his own collection to a museum. “The Death of Cock Robin,” which displays more than 100 birds including a weeping robin widow and an owl gravedigger who has tumbled some tiny bones out of the soil while preparing space for the dead robin. Phone calls were still coming in every day from Potter fanatics, according to Brett. The three-legged pig, the two-headed lamb and the four-winged chicken are already in place. He hopes the rabbits’ school, and the guinea pigs playing cricket, a piece believed to be in France, may yet turn up.