Bonus Episode 50.5 The Quickening - What 17th and 18th Century Cookbooks have to say about Pregnancy & Women's Bodies

-
Listen to "050.5 Bonus The Quickening - What 17th & 18th Century Cookbooks have to say about Pregnancy & Women's Bodies" on Spreaker.

 Link to the Episode:

A Necessary Detour in these days of strange men once again wanting to fiddle with lady bits they would normally never want nothin’ to do with.

 

Funny what people pretend to be experts in on their journeys to grab at power.

And not just right now.

 

This blog post is mainly praise for Internet Archive and The Library of Congress.  These are some of the cookbooks I was able to access – I did not have to purchase them, or run through the other magic of Inter Library Loan.  Support your local library.  The American Public (and publicly funded) Library was a nearly unique idea when they began – and made American education leap ahead in its time.


Paul Revere's family - from the last post - helpfully illustrates the state of women and childbearing in the 18th century.

At 21, he married 20 year old Sarah Orne (ca. 1736–1773).  Sarah Orne Revere died at age 37, seven months after giving birth to her 8th child in 14 years.


Sarah's death was in May of 1773.  She left behind 6 living children, including the infant.   Paul married Rachel Walker in October of 1773.  It is recorded that Rachel was drawn to the family because of these motherless children, especially the baby.  She was 28 and Revere was 34.  Rachel would give birth to eight more children over the next 14 years - the last child born in 1787.




The family is typical in that 5 of the children died before age 5, and 3 of those before the end of their first year.  The family data illustrates well that "average lower life expectancy" didn't mean everyone died at 30.  Rather - lots of people died before the age of 5, and plenty lived beyond age 60 - even to their 80's and 90's, especially if they came from a prosperous family, like the Revere's. 


Caring for 8 or 16 children is exhausting - and expensive.  It would beyond the means of most people.  So while a prosperous silversmith, with children who were able to support the family venture - either in the workshop, or by providing house and kitchen help - many a household would find themselves burdened, impoverished or even ruined by so many children.

Many women - then as now - wanted some control over their fertility.  And the information was around, including in these early English Language Cookbooks I accessed:

The Gentlewomans Companion or a Guide to The Female Sex - Hannah Woolley
















The Accomplish’d Ladies Delight, in preserving, physick, beautifying and cookery - Hannah Woolley






Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery - transcribed and annotated by Karen Hess (1981)

This does not exist as an internet archive volume.

This was a handwritten manuscript, collected by at least 3 authors.  Recipes started being collected in England beginning i the early 17th century.



English Hus-wife – Gervase Markham


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Episode 65 Pudding & Cream & Cake that is Not a Lie

-
Listen to "065 Cream & Pudding & Cake that is Not a Lie" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode:  Episode 65 Pudding & Cream & Cake that is Not a Lie 18th Century, pre-revolutionary cake was generally a heavy dense thing compared to our modern, airy baking powder assisted cakes.  The only leavening was yeast and eggs.  And sugar?  Expensive.  Cakes were definitely less sweet.  If you were not wealthy, or it wasn't a wedding, birth or a death,  molasses and maple syrup (more generally known as "maple molasses" in the 18th century) would stand in.  And these too would tend to make your cake more dense as well. It was also common for cakes to be only slightly sweetened and then studded with dried or sugared fruit - think fruit cake.  Either the dense bricky stuff of English descent - or the new Italian star of the modern American winter holiday scene, panettone 18th century cake American cakes were largely thick, moist things that were lightly sweetened.
Read more

Episode 61 - 18th Century North American Rice – A History

-
Image
Listen to "061 18th Century North American Rice - A History" on Spreaker.  Link to the Episode: Episode 61 Rice has Arrived & It is Boiled Rice comes to America at least three separate times.  The first time is in the end of the 17th and the start of the 18th century, when it becomes an economic force in South Carolina - and later Georgia. Unlike later rice, this rice is came most recently from Africa.  The export rice that will build family fortunes is an Oryza sativa  or Asian sourced variety, but it was a variety that was grown previously in Africa - by Africans.   But there was also Oryza glaberrima a rice of entirely African extraction.  Unlike the O. sativa  rice, it grows more like other cereal - simply in the dirt, instead of in rice paddies that must be transplanted, flooded and drained. Navigational Alchemy View the world like a compass and astrolabe only sailor.  As someone who recently felt proud of herself for being able to go a single kilometer without loo
Read more

Episode 64 Milk & Butter Money

-
Image
Listen to "064 Milk & Butter Money" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode: Episode 64 Milk & Butter Money The Dairy Maid arrives on the scene.  Unlike so many depictions of this or that type of colonial person or other, which tend to be overly idealized depictions, the representation of Dairy Maids is not too far off. She's going to be seen in a colonial dress (don't forget the cap or head wrap), and apron and carrying pails, hanging out with cows, or seated at a churn.  The main place they miss is giving her slim forearms and shoulders.  Between the milking,  the carrying and the churning, she would be a first pick for any arm-wrestling team.   Colonial Williamsburg did lots of the heavy lifting for me - and has excellent photographs of 18th century dairymaid dress , and the dairy out buildings - as well as longer explanations of how they functioned. Dairy House in Colonial Williamsburg Long eaves and slats - but no windows.  And a stone foundation. Dairy Cow and
Read more