Cockpole Green WI

ON WEDNESDAY, October 18, President Adrienne welcomed members, new member Linda

Weal, guest Gini Hayden-Cadd and speaker Catherine Sampson, whose talk was entitled Georgian Cookery.

Catherine’s passion is social history focussing on cookery during the Georgian era of British History from 1714 to 1830.

This was a period of great social change, which included the largescale move from medieval strip farming into enclosing land into uniformly rectangular fields and of course, increasing industrialisation. Particularly in the Midlands and the North of England. Georgian society was portrayed in the novels of Jane Austen, which tell us a lot about the etiquette of that period.

Catherine illustrated her talk with some very interesting slides including one depicting a typical, aristocratic dining room table from the mid- to late-Georgian period, laid with beautiful Georgian silver and glassware and a very long tablecloth, a throwback from the early Georgian period when the tablecloth was used in the absence of napkins.

Members were amused by the “delicate” way of using bathroom facilities: ladies discreetly left the room with a commode, while gentlemen merely lifted the lid on a commode. Some commodes were built into the sideboard, turning their backs on the other diners and leaving them free to continue their conversation!

The exquisite Georgian cutlery, with delicate scroll designs was very expensive and in the early 1700s guests were often requested to bring their own; they became more affordable and widely available when the Sheffield cutlers began to mass produce silver plate.

A new fork was introduced featuring four prongs rather than three, which led to people using their fork, rather than their knife, to transfer the food from their plate to their mouth. Despite increasing attempts to isolate the fire, cooking remained an activity over an open fire in the kitchen for the whole Georgian period.

By 1750, French chefs had begun to move to England to practice their culinary skills, and numbers increased significantly when the French Revolution swept away many of their former aristocratic employers.

Members learnt that to make a cake, cookery writers would advise how many hours were needed to beat the eggs, generally around two, as no raising agent had yet been invented. Catherine had made a plain cake following a Georgian recipe by Margaretta Ackworth, including caraway seeds and brandy, which members enjoyed.

The next meeting will take place on Wednesday, November

15, at Crazies Hill Village Hall at 2.30pm, when we will welcome the return of Francis Benton, who will demonstrate the art of Pearlknotting.