Category Archives: history

01/01/2024 · 10:48 am

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I’m only a little worse for wear after a night out in the bustling metropolis that is Levenshulme, South Manchester. Going out didn’t mean I negated on cooking up my annual New Year’s Eve pudding though: this year it was plum pudding (it is still Christmas remember!) which did a great job of lining my stomach. The recipe was of course the one I picked up last year, courtesy of Sam Bilton’s Great Aunt Eliza.

Well what a year it has been with regard to my writing: I wrote a few articles for Country Life (you can read them on my Media page), and my second book Before Mrs Beeton – a biography of food innovator and entrepreneur Elizabeth Raffald – came out in March and it seems to have gone down well. The big news was my previous book, A Dark History of Sugar, won the Best First Book Award at the Guild of Food Writer’s Awards 2023; little old me! Completely unexpected, but very pleased as I’m sure you can imagine.

The blog has continued to do well, receiving more views in 2023 than in any other year, and the podcast has gone from strength to strength; according to Spotify, my listenership has increased by 125%.

I wouldn’t have been able to do all of this without you all reading and commenting, listening and downloading. It is you who spurn me on to keep on making more content, so thank you all very, very much.

A special shout out too to everyone who supported the blogs and podcast financially by treating me to a virtual coffee or pint, or by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber. It’s becoming increasingly more expensive just to have podcasts and blogs these days, so I really appreciate it.

If you like the blogs and podcast I produce and would to start a £3 monthly subscription, or would like to treat me to virtual coffee or pint: follow this link for more information. Thank you.

Some of the foods I cooked up for the blogs this year (L to R: Lincolnshire chine, wigs, Elizabeth Raffald’s flummery, malt loaf, roast venison and 18th century mince pies)

There has been a variety of posts on the blog this year. There were some classic recipes including a step-by-step guide to making steamed sponge puddings, English butter sauce, malt loaf, sago pudding (needs reappraisal in my humble opinion), barley water and roast venison. Of course, there were some unusual recipes gleaned from Britain’s gastronomic past: those delicious teatime treats called Wigs, Elizabeth Raffald’s flummery table decorations, dock pudding, sweet lamb pie, Edward Kidder’s curiously shaped mince pies and, er, porpoise.

The other blog, Neil Cooks Grigson, has very much slowed down as I inch toward the completion of the project, and I only managed to cook one recipe for it. It was a good one though: #446 Lincolnshire Chine. It was the last recipe in the Cured Meat section of the book, so I wrote a little review of it. Many recipes from this section made it into both my personal and professional repertoires.

Just a handful of my podcast guests of 2024 (L to R: Charlie Taverner, Louise Middleton, Brigitte Webster, Kevin Geddes, Marc Meltonville and Jane Steward)

There were some great podcast episodes published too: 19 in all, the most I have made in a single year, taking the number of episodes up to 49! The most popular episode was 18th Century Dining with Ivan Day. Other favourites included London’s Street Food Sellers with Charlie Taverner, Invalid Cookery with Lindsay Middleton, Tavern Cookery with Marc Meltonville and Tudor Cooking and Cuisine with Brigitte Webster. I also collaborated with Sam Bilton of the Comfortably Hungry podcast about tripe. Season 7 kicked off in December with an episode about mince pies and another collaboration this time with Thomas Ntinas of the Delicious Legacy podcast about 18th-century women cookery book writers.

18th Century Dining with Ivan Day was the most popular episode of the podcast in 2023.

So, that’s the look back, and now it is time to look forward to the new year and to what it will bring. New podcast episodes are being lined up and the next episode will be out on 5 January (all things being well). I have two book deadlines this year, so I shall tell you about those as and when I can, and I will – of course – be continuing to write posts for the blogs (though January and February may be a little sparse – those deadlines are looming!)

I hope you have a great rest of Christmas. Remember it doesn’t finish until the 5th of January, so keep eating, drinking and making merry up to then, and beyond.

Thanks again for all of your support,

Neil x

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24/12/2023 · 10:22 am

Negus

Wine, Cyder, Negus, Purl,[1] and Porter;

Are liquors for any Courtier.

The Free-Mason’s Calendar, 1776[2]

Merry Christmas everyone! It’s time for my annual boozy Christmas drink, and this year’s is so good, you can even give it to the kids; if you take Mrs Beeton’s advice (I advise against it, but what do I know). It is called negus; the ingredients are simple, and you are almost guaranteed to have them this time of year: wine, sugar, citrus fruit, spices. Easy.

Its origin lies with the English officer class of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, who got into the very sensible habit of watering down their wine to avoid getting too drunk of an evening. They still wanted something to drink though. It is named after Colonel Francis Negus (1660-1732), ‘a well-connected gentleman’, who, aside from being a noted member of the officer class, was also an MP, and a talented horse rider and hunter, so-much-so he was given the position of Master of the Horse and Warden of Windsor Forest. Quite the chap it would seem. The earliest description known comes in the form of a handwritten note in a 1725 edition of Tacitus’s works. It said: ‘After a morning’s walk, half a pint of white wine, made and hot and sweetened a little, is recond very good. – Col. Negus, a gentn. of tast, advises it, I have heard say.’[3] Initially it was a heated mixture of white wine and water, sugar and then some citrus juice, sometimes lemons, or sweet or Seville oranges, and it hasn’t really changed that much.

Its low alcohol made it especially good for the infirm or chronically ill. One Dr William Buchan in his 1797 book, prescribes claret negus for those with ‘Slow or Nervous Fever’, what we would call depression today.[4] In the book Oxford Nightcaps (1827), the author tells us that a doctor friend of his, a certain Doctor Willich, thinks ‘Negus is one of the innocent and wholesome species of drink especially if Seville oranges be added’. He also recommends lemons, cinnamon, cloves and all-spice. And calves’ foot jelly, which was thought very nourishing to those who couldn’t digest anything too rich or challenging.

Mr Fezziwig’s Ball as depicted by John Leech

Into the mid-19th century, negus settled down as a drink to be enjoyed by everyone, the wine most often used now being port (a drink which had been made popular since the Napoleonic Wars). It is mentioned in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). When the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to show him the wonderful parties put on by his old boss, the kind and caring, Mr Fezziwig: ‘There were dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.’[5] What a sight they would have been!

Isabella Beeton’s considered negus a children’s drink

So inoffensive was negus that it became a popular drink with kids, with Mrs Beeton informing us in 1861 that ‘[a]s this beverage is more usually drunk at children’s parties than at any other, the wine need not be very old or expensive for the purpose.’ Her proportions are 1 pint of port to every quart of water, plus a quarter of a pound of sugar, zest and juice of one lemon and some grated nutmeg. She adds: ‘Allow 1 pint of wine, with the ingredients in proportion, for a party of 9 or 10 children.’[6]

It’s essentially a weak version of my favourite hot-booze drink, smoking bishop, but child-friendly. Hm. I suppose it’s one way to get them to sleep on Christmas Eve night!

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The recipe

Use whatever wine you prefer and your favourite citrus fruit. I went with port and a clementine and added some nutmeg and cinnamon. I must say it was very drinkable.

I’ve metricated the volumes, but the rule of thumb here is 1 part wine to 2 parts water, and you can sweeten the mixture to your taste.

Makes 1.3 litres:

400 ml wine (port, claret or white wine)

Zest and juice of 1 citrus fruit (lemon, sweet orange, Seville orange, clementine, etc)

Spices: ¼ freshly grated nutmeg, a snapped cinnamon stick, a teaspoon of cracked allspice berries or bruised cloves; choose your favourites.

800 ml boiling water

100 to 120 g caster sugar.

Heat the wine slowly with the zest and juice of your chosen fruit, and the spices until scalding hot (but not boiling). Add the hot water, then add sugar to taste. Pass through a sieve into a punch bowl or jug. To serve, ladle into beakers or cups.

One final note before I go: in Jerry Thomas and Christian Shultz’s How to Mix Drinks (1862), there is a very interesting-sounding soda negus recipe. The wine is warmed up with sugar and spices, then left to cool, then soda is added before serving.[7] Worth a try I think!

Notes

[1] Purl was an ale that had been infused with wormwood. Sounds full-on. Potential future Christmas booze post.

[2] Anon. (1776) The Free-Mason’s Calendar: or, an Almanac for the Year of Christ 1776.

[3] Wondrich, D. (2021) The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. Edited by D. Wondrich and N. Rothbaum. Oxford University Press.

[4] Buchan, W. (1797) Domestic Medicine, Or, A Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases, by Regimen and Simple Medicines. Edited by I. Cathrall. Richard Folwell.

[5] Dickens, C. (2010) A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings. Penguin Classics.

[6] Beeton, I. (1861) The Book of Household Management. Lightning Source.

[7] Thomas, J. and Schultz, C. (1862) How to Mix Drinks, Or, The Bon-vivant’s Companion. Dick & Fitzgerald.

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22/12/2023 · 10:12 am

Edward Kidder’s Early 18th Century Mince Pies

This post complements the 2023 Christmas special of The British Food History Podcast called ‘Mince Pies’:

As promised on this year’s Christmas episode of the podcast, all about mince pies, here is my pastry recipe and method for making the shaped-mince pies in E. Kidder’s Receipts of Pastry and Cookery. It was originally published in 1721, but I used the 1740 edition of the book (here’s a link to the document). If you go to the end of the book, you will see lots of different minced pie templates, just like the ones below. The idea was that you rolled out your pastry and cut a shape out, then made pastry walls, filled them with mincemeat, placed on lid on top and baked it. Really beautiful, but fiddly-looking shapes, I’m sure you’ll agree.

I felt a little nervous making them, so let me at this point, say a massive thank you to Ivan Day for the advice he gave me on shaping these pies. Ivan has an excellent blog with a fascinating article about mince pies (click this link to read it).

In the Christmas episode, I considered making some of the pie designs in Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook (first published in 1660), but I found Edward’s designs much easier to extrapolate into three-dimensional pies! However, here are a few from May’s book to give you an idea of the sorts of minced pies he was making:

The Materials

The first thing you need to do is get organised with your templates. I simply took screenshots of the book, printed them out and cut them out. You can make them any size you like. My shapes were around 10cm wide, and I went for the ones that looked the easiest!

Then you need the correct tools for the job. I have collected over the years various pastry tools, both antique and modern. The wheels are called jiggers, which are used for cutting pastry. The antique ones usually come with a crimping tool attached, and these are used to fuse two pieces of pastry. The one I own with what looks like a flat pair of tweezers was particularly helpful for the pies I made here. I used a paring knife to cut out the shapes – the jiggers weren’t appropriate for these smaller pies.

Jiggers do come in handy for cutting out the pastry walls – essentially strips of pastry – I have a tool that’s made up of 5 jiggers on one expandable frame so you can cut several strips of the same thickness in one go.

That’s the tools of the trade, but now let’s look at our ingredients: we need mincemeat (I used the lamb mincemeat, recipe here) but you can use any you like.[1] Then we need some pastry that is mouldable (we don’t want the walls collapsing in the oven!) yet edible.

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Mouldable Hot Water Pastry

I came up with the following recipe, based on one given by Jane Grigson in English Food.[2] It’s very good for moulding, but not particularly delicious, I made a few changes and I think it’s pretty good. It is simple to make, and this was enough for 8 to 10 pies, depending upon how large your templates are (you could, of course, make one large one!)

500 g plain flour

125 g salted butter, diced

125 g lard, diced

75 ml hot water

2 tbs icing sugar

First, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Put the lard in a saucepan and pour the hot water over it. Heat gently, but be careful – you don’t want it to boil and splutter. Stir in the icing sugar and when it is dissolved, make a well in the centre of the flour-butter mixture and pour into it three-quarters of the hot liquid. Cut the liquid in with a knife, then pour the remaining hot liquid to pour over any dry patches that remain. Once all of the water has been added, give the pastry a knead (leave it to cool a little if you need to). It should be smooth, pliable and waxy. Cover with cling film and allow to cool completely, but do not refrigerate.

Constructing the Pies

Now you can roll out a third of the pastry thinly – aim for the thickness of a pound coin, 2 to 3 millimetres – and cut out your bases. Now roll out another third into a long strip, long enough to go around the perimeter of your shapes. To do this, use a piece of string to trace around the shape. When the appropriate length, use a ruler to cut your strips at your desired thickness. I went for 2 cm, but I could have gone thicker than that, I think.

Now the fiddly bit: brush the edges of the bases with plain water and glue the sides on. Use your finger and thumb to pinch them together, and then crimp them with a crimper tool if you have one. Repeat with all of your shapes and place in the fridge for a few hours to firm up. When firm, roll out the final third of the pastry and cut out your lids.

Fill your pies with your chosen mincemeat, brush the rims of your pies with water and fix on the lids in the same way as you did the bases. Make a steam hole and place back in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up again. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 200°C.

If you like, brush your pies with an egg wash before you bake them for 25 minutes, or until a good golden-brown colour. If you are making large pies, turn the heat down to 175°C and cook longer: you should see or hear the filling bubbling, telling you it is ready!

Notes:

[1] Though it is best to use a low-sugar recipe, not a gloopy one from the supermarket shelves. I recommend Jane Grigson’s orange mincemeat or Mrs Beeton’s traditional mincemeat.

[2] See Oldbury Gooseberry Tarts on the other blog.

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20/12/2023 · 6:57 am

Westmorland Sweet Lamb Pie

This post complements the 2023 Christmas special of The British Food History Podcast called ‘Mince Pies’:

I have written several times about mince pies and mincemeat over the years on the blog. There are my two go-to mincemeat recipes: Jane Grigson’s Orange mincemeat, and Mrs Beeton’s traditional mincemeat, along with instructions on how to make small, individual mince pies. This year, however, I wanted to make an old-fashioned sweet lamb pie, once eaten in  Westmorland in the Northwest of England, a defunct county now making up parts of Cumbria and North Yorkshire. It was one of the last areas of the country to carry on putting meat in its mincemeat mixtures.[1] Like all mince pies of the past, they were not eaten only at Christmas, but much of the year, though because of the dried fruit content, they were associated with wintertime.

I was first introduced to this pie by Jane Grigson, and I made it many moons ago, for the Neil Cooks Grigson blog, I really liked it and have been meaning to revisit it.[2] These pies were not of the small individual type, but large plate pies, baked in a pie plate made of earthenware, tin or enamel.[3]

I’ve based the recipe on hers, but I did make some changes inspired by other recipes found on the Foods of England Project website.[4] The mincemeat isn’t cooked, but because of the booze and sugar content, it keeps very well. Don’t be put off by the meat content, it makes the filling succulent – and you can taste it, but this blurring of sweet and savoury is most delicious, something I have come to embrace after so many years of making historical British food.

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The filling:

This makes around 2 ¼ litres of well-packed filling, but I do intend to make two large pies at least and lots of smaller ones, so scale down if need be. It keeps for months if left somewhere dark, dry and cool; and remember mince pies are for life, not just for Christmas.

500 g lean lamb

200 g lamb or beef suet, membrane and sinew removed (packet stuff is acceptable if fresh is unavailable)

350 g apples, peeled and cored

120 g almonds

250 g each currants, raisins and sultanas

300 g soft, dark brown sugar

100 g chopped candied peel

Juice and zest of 2 oranges

120 ml dark rum

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp each ground mace and cinnamon

½ freshly grated nutmeg

To make a truly ‘minced’ meat, you need to chop the meat, suet, apples and almonds quite finely. (You can, of course, use minced lamb, slivered almonds and grated apple and suet).

My ‘minced’ lamb and suet

Mix everything together in a large bowl and pack tightly into sterilised jars.[5] Leave to mature for at least a week before using.

The pie:

These pies were made on pie plates, but you can make them in any flan or pie tin you like. For my 26 cm diameter pie plate I used the following amounts, though the pastry was quite thin, so you may want to proportion things up in line with perhaps 360 g flour. I will leave it to you to judge size and thinness. There are instructions on how to make small, individual mince pies here.

300 g plain flour

150 g butter, or 75 g each butter and lard

75 g caster or icing sugar

80-100 ml cold water

Egg wash: 1 egg beaten with ½ tsp salt

Dice the fat and rub into the flour until breadcrumbs are formed (or use the flat beater on a machine, set to slow), then add the sugar, mix, and add the water slowly mixing and stirring. Bring everything together to form a firm dough. You might not need all of the water. Knead briefly to smooth the dough, cover and then leave to rest in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

Roll out two-thirds of the dough into a round, lift and lay it over the plate neatly. Prick the base with a fork. Spoon the filling in. Again, go with your gut – do you want a thin amount or loads? I added enough to come up to the lip of my plate.

Roll the remaining third of the pastry out into a round. As it rests, wash the rim of the pie plate and place the lid on top, securing it with a crimping tool or fork prongs or with your thumb or forefinger. Cut a steam hole and brush with egg. You can sprinkle a little sugar over the top if you fancy.

Place in the fridge to firm up and preheat the oven to 200°C. When the oven has come up to heat, slide the pie onto the centre shelf and cook for around 35 minutes, or until a good golden-brown colour and you can see the filling bubble through the steam hole.

Best eaten warm with thick cream, or rum butter.

I ate my first piece so quickly, I forgot to photograph it. This is my seconds.

[1] Mason, L. and Brown, C. (1999) The Taste of Britain. Devon: Harper Press.

[2] Read the original post here: http://neilcooksgrigson.com/2014/01/02/388-sweet-lamb-pie-from-westmorland/

[3] Grigson, J. (1992) English Food. Third Edit. Penguin.

[4] Hughes, G., ‘North Country Sweet Pie’, The Foods of England Project. http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/northcountrysweetpie.htm

[5] To sterilise jars, heat them in the oven for 25 minutes at 120°C. Any rubber seals – or lids with rubber seals, can be sterilised in very hot water.

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09/11/2023 · 7:04 pm

Free Zoom talk in collaboration with the Museum of Royal Worcester, 15 Nov 2023

Hello everyone. Just a very quick post to let you know that I am giving a talk as part of the Museum of Royal Worcester’s Winter Online Talk series. The title of my talk is ‘Navigating Nineteenth-century English Meals – changing manners and fashions explored through Worcester porcelain’.

The talk is free and can be viewed online via Zoom. It’s on 15 November 2023 at 6pm (UK time). Click here to book your place.

It’s been really fun writing it and looking through the museum’s collection to find some interesting specimens to show and tell.

I do hope you can make it.

I’ll be talking about this item, amongst many others, but what is it? Find out on 15 November! (pic: Museum of Royal Worcester)

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31/10/2023 · 5:54 pm

Book review: A. Cook’s Perspective by Clarissa F. Dillon & Deborah J. Peterson

A. Cook’s Perspective is an investigation into the work of the rather obscure and eccentric 18th-century cook and cookery writer Ann Cook, her methods and her infamous hatred of the popular cookery writer, and her contemporary, Hannah Glasse and her book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. The book is essentially a transcript of Cook’s Professed Cookery garnished liberally with comments and insights into Ann and Hannah’s recipes, their cooking methods as well as Ann’s state of mind. The book is authored by experienced food historians and historical cooks Clarissa F. Dillon and Deborah J. Peterson who investigate Cook’s spleen-venting by cooking her and Hannah’s recipes to understand whether Cook’s vitriolic take-down of Glasse has any grounding.

A. Cook’s Perspective is a very useful book – firstly because it’s an edited transcription of Cook’s work (including her bizarre preface which attacks Hannah Glasse in rhyming couplets and long-form poetry) which is very handy for those who prefer to read a book over a digitised PDF. But the book adds so much more than that because Dillon and Peterson really get to work on fact-checking and inspecting the minutiae of Cook’s methodologies by making the recipes themselves – and it’s a mixed bag, sometimes landing in favour of Cook, other times Glasse. Their work also exposes Mrs Cook as a vindictive, petulant, embittered woman, and it gives this reader more insight into the bizarre one-sided acrimony (it is unknown whether Hannah Glasse ever met, or even knew, Ann Cook) which I had previously thought was generally in agreement of Cook’s assessment. The reality is – as usual – much more complex. Having a physical book in my hand allowed me to read Cook’s work more closely (something difficult to do when reading digitised texts online), and it shed light on the evolution and pedigree of some dishes. For example, I spotted elements of Cook’s recipe ‘To make a White Fricassey of Rabbets’ in Elizabeth Raffald’s recipe ‘Rabbits Surprized’, a dish I thought to be totally unique to Raffald.

Dillon and Peterson’s approach of writing comments beneath original prose is a good one: it helps us to understand how some recipes work, and how the writers go about interpreting them. They also demonstrate the importance and benefit of cooking the recipes oneself, rather than simply reading them. There are several occasions too where the authors are at a loss as to Ann’s meaning or point in some of her comments, many of which seem to be nonsensical or simply ‘whining’. By criticising Ann Cook’s own criticisms we do glean an extra layer of understanding of 18th-century cooking.

As someone with an interest in the cookery writers of the 18th century, I would have liked to have seen the introduction, i.e. the backstory, fleshed out a lot more: the two ladies’ biographies, achievements and inter-relatedness. Photos of the food would have helped bring the dishes to life, as would some images, say contemporary artwork, of 18th-century foods being served or prepared.

Overall, A. Cook’s Perspective is a worthy addition to the home library of anyone interested in 18th-century cookery because it provides us with practical knowledge of cooking at this point in history, but it also gives us an almost voyeuristic view of Ann Cook’s psyche and her deep-seated, intense dislike of a cookery icon at a time when the personal thoughts and feelings of female cookery writers are so rarely captured.

A. Cook’s Perspective: A Fascinating Insight into 18th-century Recipes by Two Historic Cooks by Clarissa F. Dillon & Deborah J. Peterson is out now and is published by Brookline Books.

If you like the blogs and podcast I produce and would to start a £3 monthly subscription, or would like to treat me to virtual coffee or pint: follow this link for more information. Thank you.

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03/10/2023 · 5:39 pm

A Dark History of Sugar: online talk 26 October 7pm

Hello everyone!

After A Dark History of Sugar won Best First Book at the Guild of Food Writers Awards 2023 last month, I thought I would give a free online Zoom talk about the project and the history. I’ve given the talk several times, but I never did one via Zoom like I did with Before Mrs Beeton. Well, I am rectifying that with a talk on 26 October at 7pm (UK time), and I would really like it if you came. Like last time the tickets are available via Eventbrite.

The talk itself will be about 45 minutes long, but there will be plenty of time at the end for questions and general chat.

Since the last time I did a talk, both Zoom and Eventbrite have changed their packages and I can only offer 100 tickets for this event, so make sure you book quickly. Click this link to book via the Eventbrite website.

I’ll hopefully see you later this month!

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28/08/2023 · 9:05 am

School Dinner-Style Pink Sponge & Custard

As promised on the ‘School Meals Service with Heather Ellis’ episode of the podcast, I have written a recipe for a stone-cold school dinners classic for my monthly subscribers. I went for the pink-sponge and custard because quite a few people have mentioned this as a favourite on social media, so it was the obvious choice. Heather Ellis said on Twitter that there were several different colours of these sponges: I also remember brown (though I don’t think it was chocolatey, just coloured brown). Others remembered white, and I wondered if yellow was perhaps a colour? Let me know your thoughts/memories.

Listen to the podcast episode here:

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21/08/2023 · 8:03 am

Sago and Tapioca Pudding

This post complements the episode of The British Food History Podcast called ‘The School Meals Service with Heather Ellis’:

Speaking with Heather Ellis on the podcast about the School Meals Service and school dinners really fired off some food memories, good and bad. If it has in you too, please let the School Meals Project know about them – and let me know about them too – there’s a postbag episode of the podcast coming in just two or three weeks’ time. Three stuck in my mind: sago or tapioca pudding, pink sponge and custard, and Spam fritters. Of those, my favourite is sago/tapioca pudding – it genuinely is one I cook at home regularly. I know it was called frogspawn by children across the country, but if made well, it is delicious. Honest.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, it is one of a tribe of puddings known as milk puddings which are essentially a starchy ingredient cooked in milk and sweetened with sugar, but in my opinion, they need to also contain cream and flavourings such as bay leaves, vanilla or lemon rind. The best-known of these is rice pudding, but there are also semolina, macaroni and arrowroot puddings. They became popular in schools because they were an excellent way of providing children with their calcium. Sago and tapioca come in the form of small balls or pearls, which turn translucent when cooked in liquid – tapioca pearls are used to make the ‘bubbles’ in bubble tea.

Sago and tapioca can be used interchangeably in recipes and taste the same, but there is a difference between the two; sago comes from the sago palm and tapioca from the cassava plant. The former is found in India and some parts of East Africa, and the latter in the Americas. The starch is extracted from the plants’ pithy centres by grating and squeezing. It is then suspended in a little water to make a paste, which is then passed through a colander to form little pellets that are then dried.[1]

Both are very much associated with Empire, and recipes using sago begin to appear in 18th-century cookery books. In Sarah Harrison’s The House-keeper’s Pocket-book sago is simmered in water and flavoured with sugar, cinnamon and lemon.[2] Elizabeth Raffald has a complex, red-coloured sago pudding containing red wine, sugar, bone marrow and egg yolks. She does have a simpler version closer to what we would recognise today: sago simmered in milk and cream, and flavoured with sack, sugar, eggs and nutmeg.[3] Through the 18th and 19th centuries, the typical way to prepare the pudding would be to cook it on the hob and then bake it in pastry. Mrs Beeton uses sago in two more recipes: a sweet sago sauce for desserts and a sago soup.[4]

If you are unsure about making sago or tapioca pudding (or returning to it after eating the runny school kind of years past), the great food historian Alan Davidson provides some words of encouragement: ‘[I]t is sometimes despised by the ignorant, that is to say, persons who have no knowledge of how good they are when properly made.’ He casts down a caveat, however: ‘[The] texture delights a few cognoscenti in Britain but is repellent to the majority and has no doubt contributed to the virtual disappearance of the pudding from British tables.’[5] And I say that it is a crying shame. It is rarely included in cookery books anymore, not even those specialising in puddings. Justin Gellatly is a fan though, and there are a couple of recipes in Helen Thomas’s excellent Pudding Book, but that’s about it.[6]

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The typical way to cook the pudding these days is to either bake it I the oven or cook it on the hob, and I provide methods for both, though I prefer the latter. It is quick to make and, despite what other recipes say, requires no soaking – just a careful swish in some cold water.

I’ve left the amount of sugar to you. If you intend to eat the pudding with sweet jam, go for around 90 grams, if you are eating it on its own, or with tart fruit like rhubarb or gooseberry, perhaps use 120 grams of sugar.

Serves 6 to 8 people, depending upon greediness. If more appropriate, half the amounts.

Around 30 g butter (if baking)

120 g sago or tapioca pearls

90–120 g caster sugar

1 litre full-fat milk

150 ml double cream

Flavourings: 3 or 4 strips of pared lemon rind, a lightly-crushed fresh bay leaf, a few drops of vanilla extract (or replace caster sugar with vanilla sugar), almond extract, cocoa, etc.

Oven method:

Preheat the oven to 160°C. In a baking dish of 1¼ litre capacity dot the bottom with small knobs of butter. Place the sago pearls in a jug and pour over plenty of cold water to release any starch. Pour through a sieve and then scatter the sago over the base of the dish with the sugar, milk, cream and flavourings. If using cocoa powder, whisk it into the milk before pouring into the dish. Place in the oven and bake for 60-90 minutes, stirring every now and again to disperse lumps. When the time is up, and you want a browner top, you could place it under a hot grill for a few minutes. Leave the pudding to stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Hob method:

Wash the sago pearls as described above and place them in a saucepan with the remainder of the ingredients, bar the butter. Bring slowly to a simmer, stirring gently. Leave to simmer for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. After the 15-minute mark, keep a closer eye on it: cook a further 10 to 15 minutes, but stir more frequently, scraping any stuck bits from the base. Sago pearls stick and catch easily!

Stop cooking when the pearls are soft and gelatinous. Let the pudding stand for 10 minutes before serving. If it seems a little on the thick side, stir a little more milk through it.

References

[1] Beeton, I. (1861). The Book of Household Management. Lightning Source; Davidson, A. (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press.

[2] Harrison, S. (1751). The House-keeper’s Pocket-book And Compleat Family Cook (5th ed.). R. Ware.

[3] Raffald, E. (1769). The Experienced English Housekeeper (First Edit). J. Harrop.

[4] Beeton (1861)

[5] Davidson (1999)

[6] Gellatly, J. (2016). Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding: Sweet and Savoury Recipes from Britain’s Best Baker. Penguin Books Limited; Thomas, H. (1980). The Pudding Book. Hutchinson & Co.

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03/08/2023 · 5:21 pm

Three live in-person September events

Hello everyone, a quick message for any readers in, or around, Manchester, Ludlow and Chelsea this September because I am taking part in events in all of these places, and I thought you might be interested in attending:

I’ll be speaking at Manchester Central Library about Elizabeth Raffald. The event is called ‘Elizabeth Raffald – England’s Most Influential Housekeeper’, and not only will folk hear a talk about Elizabeth, but the library with be showing items from their Elizabeth Raffald archives – so something not be missed! The event is on 13 September 2023 at 6pm. Tickets are free but you do need to book. Click this link to book a ticket.

I will be at Ludlow Food Festival talking about Elizabeth Raffald, her achievements and her legacy. The talk is on 10 September at 2.30pm For more information, and to book a ticket, click on this link.

I am talking at Chelsea History Festival on the dark history of sugar on 29 September at 6pm. Tickets are £10/£8. Click here for more information to buy tickets.

I will also be selling and signing copies of my books, A Dark History of Sugar and Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper.

I do hope that you can come to one of these events – if you do, please and say hello!

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