Humble, Culinary Pleasures.
Reader, Potato.
Salaman, History and Social Infl uence of the Potato.
Smith, Eating History.
Soyer, A Shilling Cookery.
Zuckerman, Potato.
Simple Industrial-Age Dinner
Contrary to the image we have of the wealthy in the mid-19th century being
completely uncaring toward the poor, starving working classes, a number
of people took up charitable causes, including Alexis Soyer and a chef who
worked for Queen Victoria named Charles Elmé Francatelli, whose A Plain
Cookery Book for the Working Classes was designed to offer cheap and
nutritious meals. Equally interesting is his assumption that this generation of
working women had no idea how to cook very basic food. Presumably working
in factories since a young age, they never had the opportunity to learn basic
skills. This is a very typical British dish and a technique very different from
that common in the United States when dealing with bacon. For this recipe,
you should use a whole slab of cured, smoked pork belly, not sliced American
bacon or cut English rashers. It is, incidentally, as Francatelli claims, excellent.
Boiled Bacon and Cabbages
Put a piece of bacon in a pot capable of containing two gallons; let it boil
up, and skim it well; then put in some well-washed split cabbages, a few
carrots and parsnips also split, and a few peppercorns, and when the whole
has boiled gently for about an hour and a-half, throw in a dozen peeled
potatoes, and by the time that these are done, the dinner will be ready. And
this is the way in which to make the most of this excellent and economical
dinner. First, take up the bacon, and having placed it on its dish, garnish
it round with the cabbages, carrots, parsnips, and potatoes, and then add
some pieces of crust, or thin slices of bread, to the liquor in which the bacon-
dinner has been cooked, and this will furnish you with a good wholesome
soup with which to satisfy the fi rst peremptory call of your healthy appetites.
Culinary Activity