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What was in season 146 years ago? Here’s Mrs Beeton’s list of Things in Season in April (each food links to a search of food bloggers’ thoughts and recipes).
Fish
- Brill
- Carp
- Cockles
- Crabs
- Dory
- Flounders
- Ling
- Lobsters
- Red mullet
- Gray mullet
- Mussels
- Oyster
- Perch
- Prawns
- Salmon
- Shad
- Shrimps
- Skate
- Smelts
- Soles
- Tench
- Turbot
Meat
Poultry
Game
Vegetables
- Broccoli
- Celery
- Lettuces
- Young onions
- Parsnips
- Radishes
- Small salad
- Sea kale
- Spinach
- Sprouts
- Various herbs
Fruit
-
(Source – Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management 1861 – Mrs Beeton on amazon.com
/ amazon.co.uk
I started to wonder how our ideas the seasons have changed over time, after drawing up my seasonal food cloud for April and getting thinking about the meaning of seasonality. A quick trawl through some old cookery books revealed the inevitable Mrs Beeton placing the greatest importance in the concept -
To be acquainted with the periods when things are in season, is one of the most essential pieces of knowledge which enter into the “Art of Cookery”.
She goes on to list the TIMES WHEN THINGS ARE IN SEASON, comprehensively listing the food in season each month.
Mrs Beeton’s take on seasonality is illuminating, not just of her time but also for our own. Hers was a time of more restricted seasons – there was less international trade in food, especially fresh food, though she includes a number of European foods, particularly fruits like “French and Spanish plums”. Growing seasons were similarly restricted, with strawberries not making their appearance till May, though April sees “forced cherries, etc for tarts”.
Essentially, it seems to me that Mrs Beeton’s things in season mostly fit our modern notion of the natural or real seasons – British strawberries may now be available in December or March, but they’re not really in season then, are they?
7 Comments
Fantastic post, how interesting! I recently bought that book, I must to get round to reading it.
What an informative post. I know about the book, of course, but I’ve never actually seen it. I might put in a bid for a copy as a birthday present or something. It’s a very different world from the one that Isabella Beeton knew in her short life, but some things don’t change very much!
I have spent hours reading Mrs Beeton and many other cooks from past centuries and it’s seems somehow sad to read about how some foods have just slipped from fashion. Some foods are probably best left there though…
Interesting that she lists ‘rabbits’ and ‘leverets’ under Poultry, but ‘hares’ under game – I’d guess that the rabbits and leverets were farmed, rather than wild?
Things don’t seem to have changed that much – except my two local greengrocers had local asparagus this weekend (partly due to the unseasonable weather I would imagine) which when paired with the traditionally in-season crab for a salad was terrific…
It is a fantastic book. It is interesting how little has changed in terms of what we think of as being seasonal, despite the fact that many of us don’t buy seasonally at all. I wonder if french and spanish plums refers to fresh plums, or to the sweet crystalised ones. It seems rather early for plums, even in France and Spain…
The refernce to forcing suggests people then were just as impatient for soft fruit as we are now. I wonder how much that was due to it being a status symbol to be able to afford or cultivate forced, rather than seasonal, food? I suppose the irony is that now it is sometimes cheaper to eat out of season food, however tasteless it may be, than local seasonal food.
Richard – I think you must be right about the rabbits and leverets being farmed. And asparagus has been early this year, partly because of the weather but also because of increasing efforts to extend the season, by covering the crop etc.
Paula – I hadn’t thought that the plums might be preserved, though they’re not in Mrs Beeton’s list for April but for later in the year.
As for the hunger for forced out of season food, I suppose it’s only natural to crave the tastes of summer in the depths of winter. But you’re right that so much of the out of season food available so cheaply today is ultimately unsatisfying. And while it may be cheap to the supermarket shopper, there are hidden costs to the environment etc.