"English Food - A People’s History" by Diane Purkiss

- Started: [[2022-12-05]] - [[∙Melvil Decimal System (DDC)]] - [[3 - Social sciences]] - [[39 - Customs, Etiquette, Folklore]] - [[394 - General Customs]] - [[394.1 - Eating, drinking, using drugs]] - [[394.12 - Eating and drinking]] ## New Words - Viniculture - the cultivation of grapevines for winemaking. - Gleaning - “**the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest**.” p90 - Gimcrack - showy but cheap or badly made. - Argot - the jargon or slang of a particular group or class ## Mentions - [[Virginia Woolf]] - [[John Clare]] ## Notes One page 5 there’s a sentence on the hardships of people during the [[Great Depression]]. And after a sad, brief mention of a woman named Annie Weaving who [died aged 37](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1248066/In-search-Arcadia-In-Hungry-1930s-mothers-starved-death-feed-children.html) potentially due to not being able to feed both her and her family there’s a reference to something called “protective foods”. I’d never heard the term. I thought they might be “protected” as in having their price controlled by the government. But it’s actually the precursor to the food pyramid idea. One poster I found promoting it suggests this: > PINT MILK, 1 EGG, 1 POTATO AND TWO OTHER VEGETABLES (ONE OF THESE A GREEN LEAFY ONE), 2 SERVINGS OF FRUIT (AT LEAST ONE RAW), 1 SERVING OF MEAT OR FISH, 1 OZ. BUTTER. And I think it still holds up. Could it be improved? Probably. But it’s simple and realistic. I like it. *Clowes.blog post [here](https://clowes.blog/2023/12/05/1930s-protective-foods/).* *** There’s a passing reference to the number of people involved in a single meal. And by that I don’t mean a restaurant meal – with its chefs, waiters and managers. But even a home cooked meal. Think of just how many people were involved. The real, modern food chain isn’t hunter and hunted. It’s the chain of the people involved for just one meal. If it’s a meal with some meat, vegetables, potatoes, sauces, salt, pepper and seasonings then there’s probably been hundreds and hundreds of people who were **directly** involved in the chain. It’s quite a thought. [Clowes.blog post](https://clowes.blog/2023/12/05/the-modern-food-chain/). *** > [[Virginia Woolf]], on the other hand, was in the [[1920s]] treated, if that is the right word, by the then recommended regime of complete rest not even books were allowed, lest they excite the brain - milk, weight gain, fresh air and early nights. One of her doctors, Sir George Savage, was especially keen to treat neurasthenic women by excessive feeding and complete rest. Woolf was given four or five pints of milk every day, half a pint every two hours. After five days of [[Milk]] on this scale, she was allowed to add a cutlet, malt extract, cod liver oil and beef tea. The rather brainless thinking behind the regime was that since patients like Woolf stopped eating and lost weight when depressed, they could be forced back into wellness by being made to gain weight. P7 Imagine having [[Depression]] and your ‘treatment’ is being forced to do nothing and drink loads of milk. [Clowes.blog post](https://clowes.blog/2023/12/05/1920s-depression-treatment-lots-of-milk-and-lots-of-nothing/). *** [[Carrots]] in the early and high [[Middles Ages]] were overwhelmingly like [[parsnips]]. They were essentially indistinguishable from them. It was the [[Dutch]] farmers in the [[1500s]] who bred the yellow carrots. Maybe to honour the Dutch royal family, but more than likely just because bright colours were prized. P10 *** The English word for the first meal of the day, “[[Breakfast]]”, is different to the French and German versions in that both of those have in the name that it’s a minimal lunch in the former and a “bit” or “piece” in the later. This helped the English breakfast expand in size. P11 *** ### Toast is very English [[Toast]] is a very English thing. “No other country does toast”. And believe it or not toast was actually a [[middle class]] dish. Firstly, the bread had to be high quality – made with fine flour – as coarse bread “would have fallen apart on the toasting fork”. And also because the lower classes would have likely had a more a grain-based liquid like [[Gruel]]. Toast was labour intensive before the invention of the toaster in [[1909]]. The maid or cook would have to pierce bread with a fork. The bread was meant to be thin, but couldn’t be so thin that it would break. Then it had to be held in front of the embers of the range. Close enough to toast but not close enough to get smoke all over it. And this all has to be done whilst other parts of breakfast might be cooked. This meant you either had one very over worked cook, or the house had to hire more cooks. P17 *** The [[Full English]] came a bit after the full Scottish. In the [[1700s]] the Scots were known for their breakfasts. They were bigger and more varied. [[Samuel Johnson]] on his tour of the Hebrides was impressed when instead of the usual tea, rolls and butter was given those plus coffee, marmalade, conserves and honey. P18 *** We’re unsure who invented [[marmalade]]. But it appears in Rebecca Price’s personal cookbook (that was handed down to her by her mother) in [[1681]]. And by [[1714]] it appeared in a published cookbook. P19-21 *** It’s hard to date personal [[Cookbook]]s. As they were rarely books. They were often pages loosely bound together. And they were often updated, annotated and added to. And these cookbooks were often handed down from mother to daughter. So you might have a recipe in there that might have been placed in there 100 years after the book ‘started’. P20 *** For a century or two a common middle class ‘[[Full English]]’ would likely be egg and bacon, followed by toast and marmalade. P24 *** I have never heard of “baker’s lung” before. But it’s from inhaling flour every day. [[Baker]]s in the [[1500s]] didn’t live very long lives. P27. It was a tough job. The day was long, with their shift starting at 2pm and ending some time in the morning (the bread would be ready at 2am, then they’d have to sell it). And it was stop start. So bakers rarely got a full 8 hours sleep, having to wake up to do another task. So it was boredom mixed with moments of immense energy. It was backbreaking work. You had to be strong and dumb to be a baker, went an old saying. They were also working usually in unlit basements with no natural light. Sometimes the ceilings were low enough that they couldn’t stand up. It was by no means a cushy job. P29. *** Baking and the job of a [[baker]] barely changed for thousands of years. You could probably plonk a baker from the [[1700s]] in a bakery from the [[300s]] and he would largely know what to do. *** The potato was an improvement on wheat. It was easy to grow and wasn’t easily ruined by bad weather. In a time when wheat prices could cause starvation and social disorder the potato was a useful replacement. However the potato had a weak point. Unlike wheat, it couldn’t be stored for long periods of time. So when the [[Irish Potato Famine]] arrived it caused starvation and misery. P62-63 *** In [[1822]] the government got rid of the [[Assize of Bread and Ale]]. The old [[guild]] structure was gone and it became a [[free market]]. More bakers popped up and they all fought each other on price. This meant that the conditions of bakers got worse (and they were already bad). Because of the lack of regulation and the increase of competition the quality of bread plummeted. Bakers tried lots of tricks to save money. P65-66 *** Before the invention of the [[bread]] pan/tin around [[1800]], bread was just cooked loosely. This meant that it went into a round, flat shape in the oven. P66 *** The popup [[toaster]] predates sliced bread. The first electric toaster was invented in [[1893]] and it becomes commercially available in [[1909]]. The popup toasted was invented in [[1919]]. The first commercial bread slicing and wrapping machine was installed in the Wonderloaf Bakery on [[Tottenham]] in [[1937]]. P70-71 *** England has always been happy being a trading nation rather than a primary producer. Wine(?) from the Balkans or southern France has been discovered in England from 6000 B.C. P71-72 *** [[Neolithic]] Britons it seems used grain for ritual purposes than for food. Probably because it was rare and expensive. P72 *** You might imagine agriculture replacing [[hunter-gathering]]. But it was gradual. Hunter-gathers existed at the same as and alongside farmers. They even traded. P72 *** The weather in 900 to 1200 was milder than it is today in the 2020s. About a Celsius higher. It was warm enough for [[wine]] making in southern England. P79 *** The population of Britain in [[1300]] was 5 million. By [[1400]] it was 2.5 million. It wasn’t until the [[1630s]] that the population recovered. P80 *** By [[1500]] there was three [[sheep]] for every one person in England. P84 *** After multiple harvest fails between 1594-7 people starved to death. In [[Stratford-upon-Avon]] 100 died. People starving didn’t stop people from fraud and exploitation. ‘Engrossers’ bought up supplies and charged extortionate rates. Or they hoarded. In [[1597]] [[William Shakespeare]] was found guilty of hoarding ten quarters of ale. P86 *** In the [[1780s]] farm workers were employed at annual hiring fairs (called mop fairs). They would usual serve for the whore year and often work side-by-side with their employer and share meals at the same table. But the gulf between them started to widen. By the time of the 1830 [[Swing Riots]] people would often be working on monthly or weekly contracts. And they were paid less. The landowners knew that parish relief, under the old Poor Law system, would raise top up their works wages to subsistence level. P91 *** After the [[Swing Riots]] more and more of the landless poor were given allotments. The allotment movement began in 1793 as a response to [[Enclosure]]. The idea, being that by allocating land to labourers to grow their own food, they would be less tied to their wages and less susceptible to fluctuations in food prices. P92 *** Samuel Pepys write in his diary that his wife “cut me a slice of brawn… good as ever I had any”. I’d never heard of brawn before. Its modern name is “Head Cheese”. It’s a terrine made from the head of a calf or pig. Despite being called “Head Cheese”, it contains no cheese. P93 *** [[Samuel Pepys]] notes in his diary in March 1664 France is the “best place for bread in the world”. P94 *** The diet of the poor was so basic and simple. Their diet was largely just bread, butter, tea, pork, potatoes, cheese and beer. That was all they would really eat. And for many bread and butter was the bulk of it. P96 *** There was a lot of pressure for women to provide dinner. And they were often at the bottom of the food chain. > Bread is all that stands between the vulnerable and starvation. Not even Charles Dickens understood just how bad it could really be. At bottom of society, a week's food looked like this: > >> Fried bacon. Bread. Sugary tea. Cold pork and boiled potatoes for lunch. Bread, butter, and tea. Bread, cheese and a glass of beer. > > This diet of a very poor widow in the nineteenth century makes frightening reading. On Tuesday, a treat was in store: afternoon tea consisted of bread and butter, with jam. The bread, notably, was eaten fresh on Monday and Tuesday, toasted from Wednesday to Saturday; by then it would have been stale if the widow had bought a single loaf on Monday. But at dinner every day she had bread rather than toast, probably because toast required a fire. ¹30 Why were Tuesdays her treat days? Did the staling bread by then need jam as a pick-me-up? Did the nameless widow check the bread every day to see if today was the day for jam? Very new bread is too soft for jam; it goes soggy. > > Elderly single women were the poorest of the poor. One poor woman in mid-nineteenth century Wiltshire had four gallons of bread, made from the wheat she raised and ground herself, with 1/2 lbs cheese, and she looked back on this as the good old days. After her husband died, she and her son had only 1/2 gallons of bread, 14 lb butter, tea, and some sugar. She also had some potatoes. Bread, potatoes and tea dominated the diets of the poor. Dominated means that often enough, that was all there was. The food of the poor did vary from place to place; in Lincolnshire it was better than in Wiltshire, and labourers had bacon every day, sugar and treacle. They ate more and more varied vegetables too. Yet even there 'the women say they live on tea; they have tea three times a day, with sop bread, and treacle'. > > Husbands and grownup children held mothers to a standard beyond their resources; mothers could only respond by giving their portion to everyone else. On Thursdays and Fridays, even comfortably off mothers ate bread and butter. A Poplar woman ended the week with a kettle of crusts with hot water, pepper, salt and a knob of bender, a cup margarine. Joseph Williamson described his mother: > >> How my mother existed is a mystery. I am reminded of the Lord saying 'I have meat ye know not of.' She would sit at table watching us eat, and she would make little balls of dry bread and put them in her mouth. One of us would urge her, 'Have some dinner, Mother,' and she would reply quite cheerfully, I'll have mine presently. > > 'Women's hunger was unmentionable and self-starvation common. A Barnsbury couple in 1876 pawned their children's shoes to get Sunday dinner. The rural poor might by Friday be eating boiled bacon, greens, potato, apple dumpling (the husband) or bread, butter, cake, hot tea (mother and child). P96-97 *** In [[Medieval|mediaeval]] England most beer was made in the home and consumed there (even it was made by a different home). There were pubs, but they were a bit of a novelty and not common. P100 *** The first [[coffeehouse]] in England opened in [[1650]] in Oxford. [[1652]] was the first in London. By [[1663]] there was 82 coffeehouses in London. Most of them near the Exchange. There’s been a long association between business and [[Coffee]] drinking. P102 *** Coffeehouses “also sold chocolate, tea, sherbet, cock ale, cider, and other drinks, according to the season.” P102 *** I’d never heard of cock ale before. But it’s ale with a chicken in it! P102 *** Coffeehouses were like social clubs. And they often had a specific clientele. > Coffeehouses appealed to the new middle class that had arisen due to the increasing bureaucracy of government, port and banks. An individual might use a specific coffeehouse for breakfast, another for lunch, and yet another for after-dinner refreshment. The Grecian, in Devereux Court, was known as a meeting place for the learned and for people adjacent to the law'.' Will's was on Russell Street in Covent Garden, and poet John Dryden was a regular visitor. Even more literary was Button's coffeehouse, also on Russell Street, where the stars of literary London would assemble. The coffeehouse turned into a place of wits and satires that was largely attended by poets and playwrights. At Waghorn's and the Parliament coffeehouse in Westminster, politicians were shamed for making tedious or ineffectual speeches; at the Bedford coffeehouse in Covent Garden hung a 'theatrical thermometer' with temperatures ranging from 'excellent' to 'execrable', registering the company's verdicts on the latest plays and performances. At all coffeehouses, men would read political pamphlets and newspapers and discuss them with their friends. In the evenings, literary coffeehouses might host groups of writers; the Spectator and the Tatler each had their own coffeehouse where men of letters could meet and read early versions of essays and poems. They were the very epitome of civilised urban life. P103 *** The decor of English coffeehouses were fairly spartan compared to the rich interiors of Paris cafes and Viennese and Venetian coffeehouses. But they were clean and safe. Rules were posted on the wall. And gambling, swearing, quarrelling or cardplaying. P105 *** Like nearly all new substances, tea was demonised by a subset of the population. Tea was only for the very rich at first. As the tax on it was 119%. Until William Pitt the Younger slashed it to 12.5% and overnight it was more affordable. During the high tax era most people drank smuggled tea. P111 One of the reasons tea took off more than coffee in England was that coffee and the coffeehouses were associated with men and nearly only men. P112 The strength of your tea could show your class. Lower class people would make it weak or with tea alternatives. Whereas high class people would make it strong. Originally China had a monopoly on tea. But around the 1840s tea was discovered in India and began to be grown on a large scale. Though it wasn’t until the 1930s that Indians themselves took to tea. Teabags didn't make their to England from America until the 1930s. And even in the 1970s teabags only had 10% of the market. But now they are dominant. Tea sales peaked in 2010 and have suffered a 13% decline since then. P115 *** Distilling gin is so easy that soldiers in German prisoner of war camps could do it. P116 Gin shops were often just someone’s front room. And often run by poor women. The poor drank like they ate. Quickly, on the go, or standing up. P118 The high classes consumed gin whilst demonising the working class for their usage. A lot of the fears were around the next generation. The powers to be feared that children were being aborted, abdanoned and made infirm via gin. They also feared that the working classes were becoming less interested in working as their reliance and addiction to gin took over. It took eight act of Parliament to get gin consumption under control. By the 1820s gin wasn’t really consumed in the old, squalid gin shops but in gin palaces. These were gaudy places. P122 The modern image of a pub essentially comes from gin palaces. As beer tax was lowered and gin tax was increased beer and pubs become more popular. Pubs took inspiration from gin palaces and made their establishments more refined and decorative. P123 *** When chocolate first arrived in Britain in the middle 1600s it was never eaten in bar form. Only as a drink. The Aztec's drank their chocolate cold. In Britain and elsewhere it was drank hot. P126 The first person to combine chocolate with milk was Hans Sloane, Queen Anne’s physician. It was a closely guarded secret remedy, later sold to an apothecary. The secret was then bought in 1824 by the Quaker Cadbury brothers. In 1828 “a Dutch chemist found a way to make powdered chocolate by removing around half the natural fat (cacao butter) from chocolate liquor, pulverising what remained and treating it with alkaline salts to cut the bitter taste.” It soon led to the creation of the solid chocolate bar. P128 In the Royal Navy sailors would recieve a one ounce block of chocolate in their rations. The book says this was started in 1824. But how can this be if chocolate bars weren’t invented until around 1828? P128 “Let it ever be remembered, that it is the direct influence of commerce to make the interval between the richest and the poorest man wider and more unconquerable.” – Shelley. P129 ## Fishes In ancient Europe, trout enjoyed cult status. P131 What is doggerland? Nam pla Indonesian fermented fish sauce? “The normans toook to the larger fish available in the sea in part because of their tradition of wanting to share a single beast between diners.” P135 Saint Blaise is the patron saint of throats. P137 Some large households had wet larders with a water source or well so that fish could be kept alive until needed. They were usually transported there on the back of pack horses. P137 *** The term of something being a “red herring” comes from hunting. A red herring (which is smoked herring) is smelly and the scent would throw a hound off the scent. P140 *** The English have never really been into preserved fish. They were always a lower-class food and eaten by that class due to having little other choice. The English taste seemed to always find the taste too strong and the smell too powerful. Smoked salmon did catch on with the upper classes. But as a rule the English prefer their fish fresh. P140-141 *** A “bloater” is a cold smoked and ungutted herring. P141 *** Because the English liked their fish fresh they would try and keep them alive as long as possible. They were transported alive in wooden barrels. Ultra rich households would have ponds to keep them. They would usually have these ponds right be their gates or on the edge of their estates within the fences and walls to show off how rich they were. P142. They were often more for showing off wealth than eating. The bishops of Winchester had 400 acres of ponds but ate barely a tenth of the fish they produced. Another reason the fish weren’t eaten was because freshwater fish aren’t that tasty. Bream, pike, perch, tench, roach and dace are “bony, slow-growing, muddy-tasting *** In the 1200s people saw the pike as a religious fish. They felt that the marks on its body resembled the marks that a crucified Christ would have: the marks of nails, whip, cross and thorns. To eat it was a status symbol and a mark of religiosity. P142 ## Apples It appears that eating raw apples is a fairly new thing. [[Medieval]] cookbooks only mention cooked apples. Apples would have been a lot more bitter in the past, but medieval palates were fine with bitter foods. In fact our palates demand many times more sweetness from our foods compared to them. But despite this there simply isn’t mention of eating apples raw. The author speculates that maybe apple’s crispness might be to do with it. To us its crispness is a good thing, a sign of freshness. But to medieval people, who associated crispness with bread that’s gone stale, they might have found uncooked apples to taste unprepared. P241-242 --- The book mentioned that French and Flemish Huguenots were the first refugees in England. P245 According to LLM Claude this isn’t the case. There was the Flemish Weavers in the 1100s and 1200s. But also Jewish people before that. Edward I expelled Jews from England in 1290. They weren’t officially allowed to return until 1656 under Oliver Cromwell. “ During this period, England was the only European country to have a complete expulsion of Jews for such an extended period.” ## Highlights > [[Gruel]] is barely or oats, mixed to a paste, then boiled. Runny, lumpy and flavoured only with salt, it provided few calories and even fewer vitamins or minerals, but it was warm, cheap, and easy for a single cook or maid to manage. What made it worse was its dilution, which was meant to make it easy on the stomach but actually turned it into little more than flavoured water. P14-15 ^0cf0eb *** > The result is starkly visible in the archaeological record: average male [[Height]], having risen from 165cm to 172cm between the Mesolithic and the early medieval period, fell to 171cm; Britons had become taller under Roman occupation, their average height increasing from 167cm to 170cm. This coincided with the Romans' improved water supply and sanitation systems and a more varied diet. Height decreased from 600 AD and then began to climb again, increasing to 173cm in the 1100s, very close to average heights in the twentieth century. But after 1200, men became shorter in stature, and archaeological evidence shows that at this time rural populations were decreasing, farmland had become degraded and there were shortages of crop seeds as temperatures turned colder over the century, with weather becoming far more changeable until the early 1300s. Height decreased again after 1650, reaching just 169cm in the late 1600s - a decline that continued until the early 1800s. Average [[life expectancy]] declined too, as [[infant mortality]] soared; people born between 1650 and 1750 could expect to live just thirty-five years - down from forty years in the late 1500s. (Page 46) *** > Reading seventeenth-century recipes, one is struck by how dark people's taste was - dark, slow-cooked meats, especially old meats like [[Mutton]], game and offal; rich spicing; heavy [[wine]] and meat-based sauces; relatively few salads or vegetables. They had a taste for sourness or bitterness, as in the nowadays-none-too-edible tansies they ate, and the frequent use of [[vinegar]]. Palates were really intense. Added to which, they were drinking a lot of very strong ale strong in both senses and also wine that had been spiced and sugared. p51 *** > [[Bread]] could reveal [[occult]] secrets: if a loaf of bread over-rose and many very large holes, it meant the woman of the family was pregnant. Every crumb had to be carefully swept up, and thrown forth as food for some of God's creatures. It was believed that anyone guilty of casting bread into the fire, or in any way destroying it, would sooner or later be hungry. If a young woman was in the habit of burning bread when baking, the saying was: 'Never marry the lass,/ It [that] burns the bread or spills the meal,/ She'll ne'er do well t' child nor chiel [man]'. A woman should not sing while she was baking, or she would shed tears before the bread was eaten. > > Because the transformation going on behind the closed oven door remained mysterious, bread-making was itself ritualised. The [[1600s]] folklorist John Aubrey wrote that when the Bread was put in the oven, they prayed to God and Saint Stephen, to send them a just batch and even', a prayer that reflects the likelihood that something could go wrong. An understanding of bread as porous to death was manifest in other beliefs: 'Bread will not rise when there is a dead body in the house'; 'A hole in the newly-cut loaf signified a grave'. Bread also had curative and prophylactic properties. Bread hung around a baby's neck was believed to keep the fairies away. Loaves that joined together during baking signified a wedding, and separating them over the head of a tongue-tied child would cure it by sympathetic magic. > > Barm or liquid yeast was called [[Goddisgood]], yet in folklore such good' names are most often ambiguous; it was almost as if a blessing was needed to make it behave, as with the fairies, usually called the good people or the good neighbours to defray any possible wrath. And yet, though bewitchment of ale was common, breadmaking was seldom bewitched. Indeed, eating bread could cure bewitchment. (Page 53) *** > [[Henry Mayhew]] says in London Labour and the London Poor that a man with a rich musical voice sold Chelsea buns all year round in Westminster, crying: 'One a penny, two a penny, hot Chelsea buns! Burning hot! Smoking hot! R-r-r-reeking hot! Hot Chelsea buns!' > > The 'Chelsea' in the bun was important. Buns began to announce their locality. The Bath bun arrived, not necessarily in Bath, along with its fellow, the Sally Lunn, and its attendant romantic fictions about Huguenot refugees; it was accompanied by the Yorkshire cake, the Eccles cake, the Kentish huffkin and the Goosnargh cake, the Colston bun from Bristol and the Wood Street Cake from the City of London. The last-named, a lightly yeasted fruitcake with rosewater icing, was marketed with a royal story, relating that when in [[1648]] Lady Anne Halkett helped smuggle the future James II from London into Europe dressed as a woman, she gave him a Wood Street Cake for the journey, for she knew he loved the cakes. The story illustrates the kind of pedigree being claimed for the new baked goods- old and very posh. (Page 54) *** > In [[Wiltshire]], however, a new law of 1766 made it a crime to take wood, with punishments including flogging. Rights to gather wood were lost. Self-sufficiency was not only a question of access to arable land but also about the right to gather fuel; a major cause of rural misery was that by 1800 most labourers' houses had no fire at all, not even for the provision of light and heat. (Page 58) *** > People associated dark bread with poverty. They wanted bread that was whiter than white. Painter [[William Hogarth]] wrote impatiently in [[1753]], 'They eat no Bread of Wheat and Rye, but ... as white as any Curd. Meanwhile, a free and rather red-top kind of press gave vent to fresh scandals blaming bakers: 'There is another ingredient, which is more shocking to the heart and if possible more hurtful to the health of mankind' - 'sacks of old ground bones', scavenged from charnel houses. "Thus the charnel houses of the dead are raked to add filthiness to the food of the living. Whether true or false, the tale was of a piece with the public's view of bakers. Not only were they incendiary cheats, they were dirty too. In the midst of nineteenth-century progress economic liberalism, Charles Astridge remembered the bread he and his family were forced to eat: 'We mostly lived on bread, but it wasn't bread like ee [you] get now; twas that heavy and doughy ee could pull long strings of it out of your mouth. They called it gravy bread. But twas fine compared with the porridge we made out of bruised beans. (Page 60) *** > And bread was 'that damp you had to dig it out o' the middle with a spoon'. Or as another memoir recalled, in wet summers, a slice, when cut, if pulled apart, was as though cobwebby, the colour then black, and it stank'.68 What was wrong with the bread was rope spores, aka Bacillus mesentericus or pumilus or subilis, a bread spoilage organism which especially affects the bread crumb, particularly at the centre of the loaf, leaving behind a sticky, pasty, stringy mass. It also smells exotically of pineapple. The cause was the wheat becoming wet prior to harvest and/or being harvested in a wet state, a frequent occurrence in wet years. Rope spores survive the baking process, germinate, and make the menacing cobwebs Astridge recalled. Nowadays, nobody in England would eat the horrible result. > > This was the era of the [[Corn Laws]]. In the early nineteenth century, during the [[Napoleonic Wars]], it had not been possible to import from Europe. This led to an expansion of British wheat farming and to high grain prices, which led inexorably to high bread prices Landowners were encouraged to grow wheat on every tiny scrap of land, under fences and below gates and stiles. It was a boom time for landowners. And like all booms, it had a use-by date. The wars ended. with Napoleon's defeat at [[Waterloo]] in [[1815]]. Grain could be imported from the Continent once more, and the price of wheat fell sharply, from 126s 6d a quarter (8 bushels) in 1812, to 65s 7d three years later. > > Landowners applied pressure to Parliament, and Parliament - largely of landowners- responded by passing a law permitting the import of foreign wheat free of duty only when the domestic price reached 80s. per quarter. During the passing of this legislation, the Houses of Parliament had to be defended by armed troops against a huge crowd, who knew full well that the law would mean that the staple of their diet, bread, would become unaffordable. With lower prices, farmers planted less wheat. There was a dreadful harvest in [[1816]]. Bread prices shot back up. This was followed by industrial action as workers demanded higher wages in order to pay the increased food prices. As well as strikes, there were food riots all over Britain. > > Protests against the Corn Laws were one of the objects of a peaceful gathering of workers at a place called St Peter's Field in Manchester on 16 August 1819, leading to the [[Peterloo Massacre]]. (Page 60)