I was not intending to do a recap of each episode of The SupersizersGo [1], but they are so interesting and just right up my alley. So, if you don’t have access to BBC 2, are here for the Japanese recipes, or both, please indulge me. I’ll try to be brief.
In Episode 2, Giles and Sue visited the >Restoration period, in the 17th century - the time of the restoration of the monarchy (Charles II), the Great Plague, the Great Fire of London, and perhaps most importantly, Samual Pepys [2], one of the best diarists in the English language. When the Great Fire broke out, Pepys took care to bury his prized Parmesan cheese in the back garden to protect it - never mind his wife or his house, the cheese was more valuable.
It seems that this was a time of great indulgence by the upper classes, who felt liberated and happy after their beloved monarch was put back on the throne. Indulgence in those days mainly meant lots and lots, and lots, of meat.
And boy did they eat meat. All kinds of meat. This was supplemented by fish and shellfish, but it was mostly meat. It was mixed together and stewed, or made into great big pies. The one that Sue and Giles are enjoying in the screenshot is called a ‘coffin’, and is filled with all kinds of game birds and chicken and meat, including whole chicken heads. The coffin is supposed to last a week, and the pastry is reused. Cockscombs, the fleshy wavy part on top of a cockerel’s head, were great delicacies - mainly, it seems, because they were so difficult to prepare.
Water was undrinkable in London, so everyone, even babies, drank ale (mostly ‘small bear’, a weak ale), wine (for the upper classes) and other alcoholic drinks. The lack of water really seemed to wear down the intrepid pair of food time travellers.
Vegetables were considered to be rather unsafe and dirty, because they were covered in dirt! That is until a forward thinking gentleman called John Evelyn [3] wrote a treatise about the health benefits of vegetables, and market gardens sprang up all over. (Sue, who it seems prefers to be a vegetarian, almost cried with joy when she tucked into an all-vegetable meal on Day 5.) Cheese also became more popular at this time - mainly because there was no other safe way to consume dairy products that were shipped a far way, say to London.
Still, it seems most people who could afford to do so ate tons and tons of meat. An unfortunate side effect of this was that people got very stinky. (This reminded me of the prejudice that used to exist in Japan about gaijin or Japanese people who ate too much like those gaijin - that they smelled of butter (and not in a good way) because they ate so much meat and dairy products!) The sight of so many piles of uncooked and grey, stewed meat made me feel rather queasy, but this big pot of stewed ground beef and almonds (I think), with a great big sprig of rosemary sort of growing out of it, was quite fetching.
Other fun facts:
Next week’s episode will be about the Victorians. Now, I do have one big beef (no pun intended) about the series: why not present the episodes in chronological order? It seems from Giles Coren’s article [4] that they started in the 16th century and went up to the 1970s. The jumping around from era to era makes it a bit confusing. But still, this is one of the most fun food related TV shows that I’ve seen in a good while. Down with competition reality shows, more of this kind of stuff!
1st course:
2nd course:
1st course:
2nd course:
The Banquet course:
Each course is served with wine - no water!
(Charles II’s mistress Nell Gwyn allegedly began her career as an orange seller.)
Remedies for the Great Plague.
To celebrate the anniversary of the removal of his bladder stone; held every year. Lots of toasts; with each toast a whole glass of wine was quaffed.
Several wines
Sack posset
Links:
[1] http://www.justhungry.com/the-supersizers-go-bbc-two-a-fun-look-back-food-history
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pepys
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Evelyn
[4] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article3932000.ece
[5] http://www.justhungry.com/2006/11/an_evening_at_the_pudding_club.html
[6] http://www.justhungry.com/edwardians-and-their-food-bbc-four
[7] http://www.justhungry.com/the-supersizers-go-restoration-no-water-lots-meat
[8] http://www.justhungry.com/the-supersizers-go-victorian
[9] http://www.justhungry.com/the-supersizers-goto-1970s-grooovy
[10] http://www.justhungry.com/the-supersizers-go-elizabethan
[11] http://www.justhungry.com/the-supersizers-go-regency