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Black Butter: A Christmas Recipe Popular in Jane Austen’s Day

December 12, 2009 by Vic

Making traditional black butter

Inquiring readers: Reader Cora Harrison recently placed this comment on my blog: “In one letter, Jane [Austen] spoke of serving ‘black butter’ with wigeon and that she thought the butter was bad … Poor Jane, I thought. However, in reading a book called The Feast of Christmas I discovered that black butter was not butter at all, but what I would call a fruit cheese, made from equal quantities of apples, blackcurrants or blackberries and less sugar, and then boiled until it sets – and of course, the colour would be black!”

Her comment so intrigued me, that I decided to look up the topic. Jane wrote to her sister on December 27, 1808:

The first pot [of black butter] was opened when Frank and Mary were here, and proved not at all what it ought to be; it was neither solid nor entirely sweet, and on seeing it Eliza remembered that Miss Austen had said she did not think it had been boiled enough. It was made, you know, when we were absent. Such being the event of the first pot, I would not save the second, and we therefore ate it in unpretending privacy; and though not what it ought to be, part of it was very good.”

The recipe for making black butter, or apple butter as it is commonly known today, harkens back to medieval times. After the winter crop was picked, the preserve was made in huge quantities. In the 18th century, twenty percent of Jersey’s arable land was made up of orchards, and the tradition of producing ‘black butter’ or ‘Le Niere Buerre’ became an annual social  and festive occasion.  Jersey black butter was made from cider apples that were slowly boiled over a fire. Women would peel hundreds of pounds of apples, while the men and children would gather enough wood to keep the fire going for almost two days. After the cider was ‘reduced’ by half, apples, sugar, lemon, liquorice and spices were added. The Jersey tradition of making black butter included singing, dancing, and storytelling all through the night and until early morning. Jersey Island black butter is characterized by the addition of liquorice, which made the preserve quite dark. – RecipeZaar & BBC Jersey Black Butter.

According to Food Legends, black butter “contains no butter, the butter in the name being like the cheese in lemon cheese, more a description of the consistency and application of the product than anything else; and second, it is not really black, indeed a great deal of effort goes into avoiding the burning that would change the dark brown mass to black.” The following is likely Jane Austen’s recipe for Black Butter. Traditionally, the preserve is spread on bread, or it can be eaten by itself:

    Take 4 pounds of full ripe apples, and peel and core them. Meanwhile put into a pan 2 pints of sweet cider, and boil until it reduces by half. Put the apples, chopped small, to the cider. Cook slowly stirring frequently, until the fruit is tender, as you can crush beneath the back of a spoon. Then work the apple through a sieve, and return to the pan adding 1lb beaten (granulated) sugar and spices as following, 1 teaspoon clove well ground, 2 teaspoons cinnamon well ground, 1 saltspoon allspice well ground. Cook over low fire for about ¾ hour, stirring until mixture thickens and turns a rich brown. Pour the butter into into small clean jars, and cover with clarified butter when cold. Seal and keep for three months before using. By this time the butter will have turned almost black, and have a most delicious flavour. – Copyright Maria Hubert von Staufer March 1995

Black butter on bread

This recipe, which Cora must have at first thought Jane Austen was referring to, is a black butter that is generally served with fish, such as skate or salmon:

Black Butter: Put into a frying pan the necessary amount of butter, and cook it until it has a brown color and begins to smoke. At this moment add a large pinch of concassed parsley leaves and spread it immediately over the object to be treated. – Chest of Books

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Posted in Christmas, Holiday, jane austen, Jane Austen's letters, Jane Austen's life, Jane Austen's World, Regency food, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency style, Regency World | Tagged , , | 17 Comments »

These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer: A review

December 9, 2009 by Vic

Inquiring readers: I have no doubt you shall enjoy this post by my good friend, Lady Anne, an expert when it comes to the subject of Georgette Heyer. Lady Anne has read Georgette Heyer’s novels for most of her years upon this earth. Smart, sassy, fabulous, well tressed and well dressed, she has read every GH book backwards and forwards. There is not one tiny detail of Georgette’s novels that escapes Lady Anne’s attention or opinion. As to her review of  These Old Shades- please enjoy.

Set in the Georgian period, about 20 years before the Regency, These Old Shades is considered to be the book that launched Heyer’s career. It features two of Heyer’s most memorable characters: Justin Alastair, the Duke of Avon, and Leonie, whom he rescues from a life of ignomy and comes to love and marry.

The title of the book, These Old Shades, is a subtle allusion to the fact that this book is a far superior reworking of Georgette Heyer’s first book, The Black Moth, a book she wrote for the amusement of her brother who was ill. The characters in The Black Moth are at best two dimensional, but like most of Heyer’s creations, have enough humor and idiosyncrasy to catch our interest. In her case, it was the character of the villain whom she wished to revisit, develop and deepen.

These Old Shades is the first of the Alistair trilogy – she really did like these characters – and is not Regency, nor does it take place primarily in England. Like many of her early books, it falls more accurately into the category of historical romance, and is cast in mid-18th century Paris, with a short idyll at the English county seat of our hero, Justin Alistair, the Duke of Avon. He is known by the soubriquet Satanas, for his cold exactitude and prescient understanding of what his opponent will do next, as well as a certain elasticity in his moral fiber. The Duke has restored his family’s fortune through gambling; he is, as one would expect of one of the first peers of the realm, an arrant snob, careful, although certainly flamboyant, in his dress, and punctilious in manner. The historical background is the court of Louis XV, complete with its intrigues and excesses. It is the perfect backdrop for this story, for which one must be willing to suspend disbelief for pages at a time. It is such fun, and so sparkling in its writing, that one is indeed willing.

We first meet the Duke, dissolute, languid, apparently unaware of his surroundings, when a gamin comes hurtling from a side street and provides Avon with the weapon he has been waiting for to bring about the destruction of the Comte de Saint-Vire, the man who famously insulted Avon beyond courtesy. Avon buys the youngster from his brother, and establishes him as a page dressed in sober black, who attends Avon at parties, assemblies, and the Court at Versailles. The youngster, called Leon, attracts considerable attention, not only for his utter adoration of his master, whom he calls Monseigneur, but also for his startling red hair and dark eyebrows. Such hair and eyebrow combination is evident in the Saint-Vire family. As le tout Paris buzzes, Avon begins laying his plans. Leon is revealed to readers as Leonie, and goes to England in the country to learn how to be a lady. The Duke adopts her and returns to Paris with his ward. His friend Hugh Davenant returns to Paris at the same time and Avon tells him, in a passage that makes clear both the character and performance of this Duke:

“I am becoming something of a patriarch, my dear.”
“Are you? Davenant said, and smiled to himself. “May I compliment
you on your ward?”
“Pray do! You find her to your taste?”
“Infinitely. Paris will be enchanted. She is an original.”
“Something of a rogue,” conceded his Grace.
“Justin, what does Saint-Vire to do with her?”
The thin brows rose.
“I seem to remember, my dear, that your curiosity was one of the
things I deplored in you.”
“I’ve not forgot the tale you told me – in this very room, Justin. Is
Leonie the tool with which you hope to crush Saint-Vire?”
His Grace yawned.
“You fatigue me, Hugh. Do you know, I have ever had a fancy to
play my game — alone.”
Davenant could make nothing of him and gave up the attempt.”

But it is not the plot that carries the reader along; it is the delightful characters. The Duke, the darkest of Heyer’s heroes, has real charm, albeit a little sinister. He is not one you would wish to cross, as we see. Leonie, the heroine, is an effervescent charmer with a ferocious temper and an inherent sense of her own worth that grows through the book. Her character is honest and instinctively noble. She also, like any adorable pet of a large circle, gets away with being outrageous – except when Monseigneur is displeased. The supporting characters have charm and individuality as well. It is no wonder that Heyer comes back to the family twice: once in The Devil’s Cub – to revisit the Duke and his family, with a focus on the Cub, definitely the son of both his parents, and then in what is generally considered her finest novel, in An Infamous Army, where the grandchildren of the second book’s couple play out their roles at Waterloo.

If the story that unfolds is outrageous and unbelievable, the characters develop beautifully, the dialog bubbles delightfully, and we love the rollicking ride.

These Old Shades/Black Moth comparison from Wikipedia

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Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, Georgette Heyer, Georgian Life, Georgian London, jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency style, Regency World | Tagged , , , | 28 Comments »

Colin Firth, Pride and Prejudice, and Regency Fashion Seen Over the Ether

December 8, 2009 by Vic

Colin Firth wearing a reindeer jumper in Bridget Jones' Diary

The blog, Built on Facts, discusses Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s Diary in a post entitled: Metafiction and Self-Reference in Bridget Jones’ Diary

..not only is [Bridget Jones’ Diary] a retelling, it’s a retelling that’s very explicit about that fact. But that’s just the start; in fact Bridget meets him at a party wherein Mr. Darcy is standing around being standoffish, precisely as in Pride and Prejudice. And Bridget comments on this, pointing out to herself that if one is going to be named Darcy one shouldn’t be standing around standoffishly at parties.

More Intelligent Life dot Com features a long interview with Colin Firth about his movie, “A Single Man,” and his life and career. Quite insightful.

LOOK UP Firth’s name in a casting director’s address-book, and you’d find it under “a” for Archetypal Englishman. He has played the comedy version (the cuckolded, tongue-tied writer in “Love Actually”), the villainous version (a Blackadderish lord in “Shakespeare in Love”) and the subtle, smarter-than-he-first-appears version—decent Clifton, the young buffer who’s actually a spy, in “The English Patient”. Yet in reality Firth doesn’t have much time for England.

Both his major relationships have been with women from other countries—first the Canadian actress Meg Tilly, with whom he has a son, and now his wife Livia Guggioli, an Italian documentary producer and mother of his two younger children.

Trousseau features fashion from the 19th century through the early 20th century. This page shows gowns from 1801-1839. Clicking on a dress will lead you to a page; clicking on each image will lead you to an enlarged detail.

Detail of embroidered muslin dress, 1810-1814

Posted in Fashions, jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's World, Popular culture, Regency World | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments »

Books to Keep You Company During the Holidays: The Harlot’s Progress: Yorkshire Molly

December 6, 2009 by Vic

T’is the season to purchase books for a Christmas gift or to curl up with a novel in front of a fire as the cold weather settles in. Without hesitation, I would urge the casual reader to read a Jane Austen novel they have not yet read. Her works are as equally satisfying to read in print as to listen to as a podcast, CD, or tape.  

In addition to Jane’s outstanding novels,  I’d like to suggest several new books this week for your consideration. The first is The Harlot’s Progress: Yorkshire Molly, by Peter Mottley. This is the first in a trilogy and a fictional actualization of Hogarth’s series of etchings called “The Harlot’s Progress”. Each story follows one of three 18th Century harlots who have all been seduced into a life of prostitution at The Bell, a Wood Lane brothel in the City of London run by the notorious bawd, mother Wickham. Underlying each story is the tale of a young woman’s struggle against overwhelming misfortune.

The Harlot’s Progress: Yorkshire Molly by Peter Mottley
This excellent book is for the history buff whose image of years past is NOT colored by sweet nostalgia. Tough, gritty, more realistic than the Hogarth prints on which the story is based, Peter Mottley portrays a harsh, predatory world in which a maid from the country steps down from a wagon on Wood Street to meet her fiance, and is swiftly seduced and turned into a harlot. Sweet 17-year old Molly Huckerby, her head filled with fancies about her new life as a dressmaker in London, can think of nothing but meeting her cousin Tom, who has prepared a room in his lodgings for her visit. But it is Mother Wickham, looking down from an upper window of The Bell, a seedy Ale-house, who intercepts her and introduces her to Colonel Charnell. He plies the young maid with bread, and brandy, and honey. And more bread, more brandy and honey…until she wakes up choking with despair, too ashamed to weep, and realizing with a start that “Instead of saving herself for Cousin Tom, she’d allowed herself to be taken to market by Mother Wickham. And she’d been bought.”  And so Miz Molly’s career as a Cheapside Whore had begun.

Author and playwright Peter Mottley died in 2006, before this book was published. He was an actor, writer, and director and an active member of the Oxford Theatre Guild. One of his radio plays had been performed on radio by Bob Hoskins. Once gets a sense of his colorful personality in this obituary: “Peter Mottley (1935-2006), for many years a cheery presence at Pangbourne pub gatherings, died on 16 July; he was 71. Martin Hoare writes: ‘He had been a novelist, playwright, actor, producer and philosopher as well as having a career in advertising. His contribution to sf was the comic novel The Sex Bar (1972), about an aphrodisiac and contraceptive chocolate bar. His best known play was After Agincourt (BBC Radio 3, 1988).’ Goodbye, Peter, and thanks for all the birthday parties.”

Mr. Mottley’s sense of stage and scene are apparent in his writing:

The York Wagon. A canvas-covered bone-shaker full of hopefuls who had travelled two hundred miled to The great City, two hundred miles to escape the cattle and sheep of Yorkshire, two hundred miles to fall prey to the wolves of Wood Street. Out of the rat-holes crept the cutpurses, the bawds, the pimps, the harlots, all the Cheapside predators who might earn a shilling or steal a florin or gull a fledgling or find a fresh piece of meat to peddle.

To get a stronger flavor of the book, watch the excerpt below of the author’s daughter, Josselyn, reading a portion of his book. She performs it marvelously well, capturing the grittiness of the writing. Unfortunately, the book is only available in the UK at present. Many of us who have had the privilege to read it will keep you apprised of its U.S. publication date when it arrives.

I give this book my highest rating and strongest recommendation. Again, it is not for the faint of heart. For those with a keen interest in reading about London in the early 18th century, this book is a must have.

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Posted in Book review, Georgian Life, Georgian London | Tagged , | 9 Comments »

Historic Fruit Trees at Ickworth Estate

December 1, 2009 by Vic

Historic fruit trees were discovered in a National Trust garden in Ickworth House estate, Suffolk.

A notebook packed with unique garden history has been discovered in a filing cabinet in a gardener’s shed at the National Trust’s Ickworth estate in Suffolk. The notebook documents more than 200 varieties of local plum, gage, pear and apple trees, all planted at Ickworth from 1898 to 1930. Some of these varieties, which include Blickling, King of the Pippin, Lady Ludeley, Hoary Morning and Court of Wick, were previously unknown to Ickworth staff. – Country Life

Ickworth garden wall

Re-planting of Ickworth’s historic wall fruit (fruit trees trained against the garden walls) will start in autumn 2010 when research is complete. – History Times.com

Ickworth silver garden

Elizabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, with the artist's daughter Julie as subject

Elizabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun painted three original and authenticated self-portraits, one of which hangs in Ickworth.

Hoary Morning apple

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Posted in Architecture, English Garden, jane austen, Regency gardens, Regency Life, Regency Period | Tagged , , | 5 Comments »

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