The Marvellous Mrs Beeton, with Sophie Dahl


The Marvellous Mrs Beeton, with Sophie Dahl

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'I'm not the only person who loves reading cookbooks,

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'and the grande dame of them all is Mrs Beeton's Household Management.

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'A bestseller for a hundred years,

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'there was a time when no British kitchen was without one.

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'And as a food-lover and writer,

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'I have long been fascinated by its author.

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'Isabella Beeton was a fantastically modern woman -

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'one who shaped the appetites and habits of the British Empire.

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'But she remains a bit of an enigma.'

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I want to find out what made her write this book.

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I want to find out more about the extraordinary life she led.

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I also want to find out

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what made this book have such a heavyweight reputation,

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and why so many of us have got it in our kitchen.

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'Household Management was the domestic Bible for Victorians.

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'But is it at all relevant today?

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'I want to find out why Mrs Beeton's voice was so influential,

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'and to see how she shaped our idea of the perfect housewife.'

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I think it looks absolutely spectacular.

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'Can I get a sense of her through her recipes?'

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It is really effectively prosthetic snot.

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'Is the original book of any practical use today?'

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How many does it make? That'll give you some idea.

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'I'm even going to attempt

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'one of her rather impressive dinner parties. My aim -

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'to find the woman behind the book, and see if domestic goddesstry

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'a la Isabella Beeton is remotely achievable today.

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'I inherited my copy of Mrs Beeton from my grandmother.

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'It has always been a constant in the kitchen.

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'It might look dusty and inaccessible to a modern eye,

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'but 150 years ago, Household Management revolutionised cookery books,

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'presenting food in a whole new way.'

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This must have been stunning for somebody to flick through.

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'Alice Hart is a food writer,

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'but she's never seen the original Household Management before.'

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-And that is beautiful.

-They are gorgeous!

-Yeah.

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Total fantasy food there.

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She was the first person to have colour plates in a cookery book.

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I just wouldn't expect that with a book of this time.

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'For women of my grandmother's generation,

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'Household Management was an essential wedding present.'

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You can imagine a new wife at home being given this

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for a wedding present,

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wondering how she's going to achieve all of it.

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I think I might get stage fright.

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'And it wasn't just the colour pictures that were new.

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'Mrs Beeton combined all of this racy modernity

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'with unprecedented practicality.'

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Carrot jam's a Mrs Beeton staple.

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It was her economical recipe for people who couldn't afford apricots.

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You make carrot jam with almonds.

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'I want to know what the book means to other people,

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'so we're making a couple of her most iconic jams

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'to try out on the great British public.'

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"Simmer the damsons over the fire till they are soft,

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then beat them through a coarse sieve."

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'First published in 1861,

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'Household Management was a revelation.'

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And what was amazing about this book was,

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she was the first person to list ingredients first,

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then the method, and then the cost.

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There had been a lot of cookbooks written by male French chefs

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who didn't give that instruction, expected people to know.

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So it must have been with a huge sigh of relief

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that these housewives...

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Finally you really could plan your week's recipes

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-and your week's shopping, because you'd be able to budget.

-Yeah.

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"Stir the sugar in and simmer the damsons for two hours."

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'And Household Management was about more than just food.'

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This book is brilliant because it's not just recipes.

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It's how to run your entire household.

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So she has how to hire staff, how to fire staff,

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how to wash your linens, what to do if you've got difficult tenants.

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We've got here "Substitute for milk and cream",

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"Stye in the eye". It just goes on and on.

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So this would become your domestic Bible, I suppose.

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This is what you would refer to.

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"Put the carrot pulp in a preserving pan

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with the sugar, and let this boil for five minutes."

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"When cold, add lemon rind and juice,

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almonds and brandy."

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I'm pleased with my plum cheese.

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-It's a lovely rich, wintry...

-It's a beautiful colour.

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-How's your carrot jam?

-Looking apricotty.

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Yes. See? That looks just like my granny's apricot jam.

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Gorgeous!

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'I'm taking our jams to market

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'to find out whether Mrs Beeton's recipes withstand the test of taste and time.'

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Would you like to try some jam?

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'The British palate has changed hugely since the Victorian era.

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'We've opened ourselves up to flavours from all around the world.

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'I wonder what today's foodies really know about the quintessential British cookbook and its author?'

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-Do you know anything about Mrs Beeton?

-Just the book. It's massive.

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I think my mother-in-law still uses the book.

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-Plain, basic cooking.

-That sort of simple...

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Simple... Very good for you, too.

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All these wonderful pictures of how to truss a chicken,

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and how to bake a cake! I don't remember this recipe.

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Mm! Very tasty.

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'So we have an idea of the book, but what about the woman who wrote it?'

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And do you know anything about her?

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Large, bosomy Victorian lady.

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-Do you imagine her at an age or looking a certain way?

-Old and grey.

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-A spinster.

-I'd have liked to have met her,

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especially if she could cook like this.

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-THEY LAUGH

-Thank you very much.

-Cheers.

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'It seems most people have heard of the book,

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'and their sense of the author is much the same -

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'starchy, authoritative, all-knowing.

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'But the real Isabella Beeton was something quite different.

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'At the National Portrait Gallery there is a rare photo of her,

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'taken when she was halfway through writing Household Management.'

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So, here she is - Isabella Beeton, aged 23.

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And what's amazing about this picture in particular

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is that she's already writing the book.

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She's writing this tome of domesticity,

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this young woman.

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She looks very prim and buttoned up.

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She looks very much the staunch Victorian matron,

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from her posture to her dress.

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-You wouldn't mess with her.

-SHE LAUGH

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She looks very serious.

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'I don't think it's an accident we imagine this 23 year old

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'as a bossy old woman. She sounds like one, in the book.'

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"As with the commander of an army, or the leader of any enterprise,

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so it is with the mistress of a house."

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"Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment."

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I think, from the portrait we've just seen

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and the tone that she takes in the book,

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she wanted to portray a tone of matronly authority.

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You don't imagine her as a young woman,

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and I think the reason for that was,

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young women weren't listened to in Victorian times.

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They were considered flibbertigibbets. They didn't know anything.

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You had to earn your stripes, and so that sort of matronly stance,

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the matronly tone, it was a very, very good selling tool.

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How could you doubt that a person that looked like that

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and wrote like that wouldn't know what they were talking about?

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But the truth about Isabella Beeton was far more complex.

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She was born to Elizabeth and Benjamin Mayson in 1836,

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and was brought up above her father's drapery business

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in London's Cheapside.

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The London she was born into

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was the biggest and wealthiest city in the world.

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Money was creating huge social change in Britain,

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and a whole new class, the middle class, was emerging.

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STALLHOLDERS SHOUTING

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How'd you like to get your hands on me buns, m'dear?

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The historian Kate Williams knows the impact food had on Isabella

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and her future readers.

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19th-century London was really the time

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of the growth of what we call now the middle classes.

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Industrialisation created this huge, aspirational middle class,

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so many people gaining their money from trade,

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from the great empire. And these were the new power, the new money,

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and they wanted to prove themselves as excellent through taste.

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Where was the food coming from?

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From all over the empire. By the end of her reign,

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Queen Victoria ruled a quarter of the world's population.

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She ruled huge swathes of the world,

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and these places produced incredible foodstuffs

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for Londoners to enjoy.

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-Was there an abundance of food?

-Absolutely.

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Nuts, meats, wonderful vegetables,

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exotic fruits... You could buy lemons out of season.

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The great foods, you could buy them.

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Of course, not everyone got to experience these riches.

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An expanding working class struggled to survive

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on low-quality street food.

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For them, a hot meal might be a simple baked potato,

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used as a hand-warmer until it was eaten.

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So, if you'd escaped from the clutches of poverty,

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you wanted to make damn sure everyone knew about it.

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The middle classes wished to differentiate themselves

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from the working classes, who didn't have kitchens,

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who didn't have servants. They prided themselves

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on dining at home, and they needed guidance on what to do

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with all these amazing ingredients.

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There's no point having all this abundance

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if you don't know what to cook.

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Small wonder, when it was published in 1861,

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Household Management was an immediate bestseller.

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It provided the perfect blueprint for how to be middle class.

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'To get a sense of how these new middle classes were living,

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'I'm attempting a Mrs-Beeton-style dinner party.

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'I want to road-test some of the recipes beforehand,

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'so I've enlisted the help of Annie Grey.

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'She lives and breathes food history,

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'and also looks very fetching in a corset.'

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Annie, you're in full Victorian costume. Will you tell me why?

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I'm dressed as a middle-class housewife would be

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in 1861-ish, when the book was published.

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'I've decided to try out one of the most fashionable recipes

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'in the book.'

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Would this have been one of the new recipes for the young housewife

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-who was entertaining?

-Yes. A French dish upon the table

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shows that you have arrived.

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"Take one lobster, pick the meat from the shell,

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and cut it up into small, square pieces."

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'Victorian dinner parties were epic feasts,

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'designed to impress. You would serve several dishes

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'at each course. Annie's constructing a pie

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'that would have been served at the same time as the lobster.'

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So, Annie, you're making pigeon pie over there.

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Yes. And of course I've plucked them earlier.

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-Good housewife, you are.

-Yes. Plucked and gutted them.

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-What goes in your pie?

-It's a pie dish, which is lined with pastry,

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and then there'll be layers of rump steak,

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then some pigeon - pigeon breasts in this case-

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with a piece of butter and ham, seasonings,

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and then the yolks of some hardboiled eggs

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just to make sure that the surface is beautiful,

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so when you put your puff pastry lid on and decorate it,

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it looks absolutely gorgeous.

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It wasn't just the food that was alien.

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Many of Mrs B's housewives were learning how to work with staff

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for the first time,

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and the ovens and kitchen accessories were new, too,

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nothing like what they'd grown up with.

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This kitchen would have been new to Mrs Beeton and her readers.

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Do you think that's why there was a gap in the market

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for a cookbook? There needed to be a guide

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-to cooking and running a household like this.

-Yes.

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She really sees the desperation of a lot of middle-class girls

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having to turn out middle-class dinners

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to entertain their husbands' prospective business colleagues.

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"Take the white stock,

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cream, mace and cayenne, and add to the lobster."

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"Serve it in the shells, which should be nicely cleaned,

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and have a border of puff pastry."

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There's an awful lot of aspiration in Mrs Beeton's cookbook.

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She has, er, recipes for turtle soup,

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which no-one in the middle class would have made.

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In fact, mock-turtle soup, which she also has a recipe for,

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ends up being THE middle-class dish, because you can make it with a calf's head.

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She's writing not only in an aspirational way,

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but also, because this is an era where people shoot up and down the social scale very quickly,

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all of a sudden the housewife might find herself in the position

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where she has to cook a wedding breakfast for 100 people

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because her daughter has married someone further up the social scale than she is. Panic!

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But Mrs Beeton has the answer.

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'I'm not convinced that this pie has a great deal going for it.'

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"Clean three of the feet and place them in a hole

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made in a crust at the top. This shows what kind of pie it is."

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The feet look like they're trying to climb out.

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I think it looks absolutely spectacular.

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There's something quite Gothic about it.

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'Household Management's promise

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'was that it would always have the right recipe,

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'whatever your circumstances.'

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'And Isabella herself knew that circumstances could change

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'very, very quickly.

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'In 1841, when she was just five,

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'Isabella's father died.

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'Her mother Elizabeth was pregnant, and had three young children.

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'With no welfare state, and the looming possibility of the workhouse

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'the family were hugely vulnerable.'

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I think losing her dad at five was a formative lesson for Isabella.

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I think she realised how fleeting life could be,

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and you really get a sense of that from the book.

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She has recipes for 19-course meals,

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and she also has these sweet, quite meagre recipes

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for bread soup or a toast sandwich.

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Living in a city that heaved with both the very rich and very poor,

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Isabella's childhood had shown her that everything was possible,

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but that everything could also be whisked away.

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So she understood the need for a guide that you could rely on

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whatever life threw at you.

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'But Isabella was fortunate.

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'Her sensible mother did what any young Victorian widow

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'with children would do - she married again.'

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Elizabeth's second husband, Henry Dorling,

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was a well-to-do widower who ran the racecourse at Epsom,

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'home of the Derby.

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'Swapping London, with its smoke and poverty,

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'for the bucolic pastures of Surrey,

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'Isabella had entered the world of the middle classes.

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'Like Elizabeth, Henry already had four children of his own,

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'so the couple started with eight, and carried on.

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'Models of Victorian productivity,

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'Elizabeth and Henry eventually produced a brood

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'of - deep breath - 21 children.'

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'With so many brothers and sisters,

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'the young Isabella took on a lot of responsibility.'

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How can I help?

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Could I have, a, um...a tea, please?

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-Tea? Would you like any cakes?

-Um, no, thank you.

-I'll just get that for you.

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This is a card that Elizabeth made for Henry Dorling

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for his birthday in 1848,

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and it gives a real insight into what childhood would have been like

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for Isabella. You've got her, aged 12,

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surrounded by... You can't even tell.

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I think it's 13 children.

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She's the only one that's shaded in, like her mother,

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so she's a little miniature mother.

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They look happy, they look loving, but it looks quite chaotic,

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and Henry's standing to the side, looking, um, a bit baffled.

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It's unsurprising to me that, out of that,

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she entered into a life of lists and order and...

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But that could be my own projection on it.

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'Given Isabella's chaotic childhood,

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'perhaps it is unsurprising that Household Management

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'places so much importance on creating the perfect family home.'

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"It ought to enter into the domestic policy

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of every parent to make her children feel

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that home is the happiest place in the world."

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"To imbue them with this delicious home feeling

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is one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow."

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CROWD CHEERING

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Isabella's own childhood became ever more extraordinary.

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Come on! Come on, now! Come on!

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Though the family were by now very comfortable,

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not even wealthy Henry Dorling could provide a house big enough for 21 children.

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As the brood rapidly expanded, Isabella and some of her siblings were sent to live,

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of all places, in the grandstand of Epsom racecourse.

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Come on, now!

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'I want to get a sense of what it was like for the young Isabella

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'to grow up in the havoc that is a racecourse.'

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CHEERING

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'Having never been to the races before,

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'who better to go with than the doyenne of the racing novel,

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'writer Jilly Cooper?'

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I can't believe you've never been. You've missed so much.

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It's incredibly exciting. The horses, they're so beautiful,

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and they race their hearts out. And very, very glamorous people.

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Somehow racing attracts very, very good-looking men

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and very beautiful women,

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and that helps a lot. And also it's lovely,

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because at the races, all classes mix.

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Would it have been like that at Epsom, where Isabella grew up?

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Tremendous amount of drinking went on, and bad behaviour,

0:19:360:19:39

lots of aristocratic young men gambling and fighting,

0:19:390:19:43

and all the gypsies would turn up, and the crowd would be quite extraordinary.

0:19:430:19:47

-The royal family would be there too.

-I'm asking you all of this

0:19:470:19:50

because Mrs Beeton grew up in the grandstand.

0:19:500:19:53

-In the grandstand? At Epsom?

-At Epsom.

0:19:530:19:56

-Mercy!

-Yes. Sleeping in camp beds. Her stepfather was the clerk there.

0:19:560:20:00

There wasn't enough room for her and her brothers and sisters at home

0:20:000:20:04

because there were so many of them, and she was responsible for all these small children.

0:20:040:20:10

A lot of weight on her shoulders. You can imagine this bunch of raggle-taggle children...

0:20:100:20:14

And ghosts of punters, ghosts of horses floating round.

0:20:140:20:17

And tobacco on the floor, and what it might have smelled like.

0:20:170:20:21

Absolutely extraordinary! What an extraordinary thing to do!

0:20:210:20:24

But it makes sense, why she would sort of have...

0:20:240:20:27

somewhat sought order and lists, and...

0:20:270:20:31

-Yes, and Household Management...

-Yes.

0:20:310:20:34

-..probably is how she...

-Chaos.

-Chaos, yes.

0:20:340:20:36

-Yes.

-Very good for a writer, very good material for a writer.

0:20:360:20:40

She had plenty to draw on. All the seeds were there at the Derby.

0:20:400:20:45

I believe this early responsibility was a key part

0:20:460:20:49

of Isabella's success. Out of that rambling, child-ridden chaos,

0:20:490:20:53

she emerged, her heart set on practised domesticity.

0:20:530:20:56

'After all, by the time she was a teenager,

0:20:580:21:00

'Isabella was already well versed in mothering.

0:21:000:21:03

'Her small shoulders were loaded with responsibility.'

0:21:030:21:06

'But she was no poor Cinderella.

0:21:110:21:13

'Perhaps mindful of the early burden she'd borne,

0:21:130:21:17

'her stepfather Henry sent her to Heidelberg

0:21:170:21:20

'to finish her education.

0:21:200:21:22

'She learnt French, she learnt German,

0:21:230:21:25

'and she learnt how to bake.

0:21:250:21:28

'She was clearly pretty passionate about it.

0:21:280:21:30

'There are 179 baking recipes in her Household Management,

0:21:300:21:34

'the largest chapter in the book.

0:21:340:21:36

'150 years on, there are still plenty of people

0:21:430:21:46

'building their afternoon teas round Mrs Beeton's recipes.'

0:21:460:21:50

Hello, Mary!

0:21:500:21:52

'To find out why she still has such a powerful reputation,

0:21:520:21:55

'I've come to Suffolk for a baking session with some of her biggest fans, the WI.'

0:21:550:21:59

-So, you're the fun, modern WI.

-I hope so, yes.

0:22:010:22:03

What sort of things have your WI done?

0:22:030:22:05

-We did The Full Monty last year.

-I have to know.

0:22:050:22:08

-You have to expand.

-Eight of us stripped down

0:22:080:22:11

to very skimpy aprons, which we did in front of our entire village,

0:22:110:22:16

-and we just shocked them rigid.

-SHE LAUGHS

0:22:160:22:18

Did you have a stiff drink beforehand?

0:22:180:22:21

We did, actually, girls, didn't we?

0:22:210:22:23

We had a lot of drinks before we did it.

0:22:230:22:25

'The WI has clearly modernised, and so has Household Management.

0:22:260:22:30

'Over the years it's been regularly updated.

0:22:300:22:33

'In fact, there are over 60 editions,

0:22:330:22:35

'with recipes added or altered in line with our changing tastes.

0:22:350:22:39

'Today we're comparing a recipe from the first book

0:22:410:22:44

'with more modern editions. The WI are making scones and Swiss rolls

0:22:440:22:47

'from the more recent Mrs Beetons.

0:22:470:22:49

'I'm making ginger nuts from the original.'

0:22:490:22:52

Mrs Beeton's ginger nuts call for a great deal of ground coriander!

0:23:020:23:06

-Really?

-Yes. So I have no idea what they're going to taste like.

0:23:060:23:10

"Take allspice, coriander and ginger,

0:23:130:23:15

freshly ground. Put them into a basin with flour and sugar,

0:23:150:23:19

and mix well together."

0:23:190:23:21

Carol, are those Mrs Beeton's scones?

0:23:210:23:23

They are, yes, from one of the more modern, adapted recipes.

0:23:230:23:27

There is such a connotation of Victorian food

0:23:270:23:30

being very stodgy. You could whack people over the head with it.

0:23:300:23:35

I suspect that my ginger nuts may be heading in that direction.

0:23:350:23:39

There you go!

0:23:390:23:41

"Warm the treacle and butter together."

0:23:420:23:44

"Then, with a spoon, work it into the flour

0:23:440:23:47

until the whole forms a nice smooth paste."

0:23:470:23:50

Mary, can I call on you for a non-pregnant arm?

0:23:500:23:53

-Yes. Let me give you some help.

-Thank you.

0:23:530:23:56

-Oh, my goodness!

-SOPHIE LAUGHS

0:23:560:23:59

They must have had very strong arm muscles.

0:23:590:24:03

'This mix needs the full resources of the WI sisterhood.

0:24:030:24:07

'My pregnant arms can't take it any more!'

0:24:070:24:09

Would you like to have a go?

0:24:090:24:11

-What size was Mrs Beeton?

-THEY LAUGH

0:24:110:24:13

-Was she a petite woman?

-A little sturdy-looking.

0:24:130:24:16

-Does that look better?

-That looks perfect.

0:24:160:24:19

-Over to you.

-Thank you very much.

0:24:200:24:23

-How big?

-There.

0:24:230:24:26

How many does it make? That'll give you some idea -

0:24:260:24:28

-how many it makes.

-559.

0:24:280:24:31

-Lovely.

-Thank you.

0:24:340:24:36

-Can I be on tea duty?

-Yeah.

0:24:360:24:40

'Afternoon tea was a Victorian invention.

0:24:400:24:43

'Household Management contained all the recipes

0:24:430:24:46

'Isabella's early readers needed, and in the following 150 years,

0:24:460:24:50

'it continued to supply fashionable recipes

0:24:500:24:52

'for entertaining at home.'

0:24:520:24:55

-THEY LAUGH

-They're not round.

0:24:550:24:57

-Now, these look so tasty.

-Well, yours might look very tasty.

0:24:570:25:01

The proof is in the eating, though.

0:25:010:25:04

But can we just be honest about these?

0:25:040:25:07

-They look like rabbit-turd biscuits.

-THEY LAUGH

0:25:070:25:10

They're not a thing of beauty. They're really not.

0:25:100:25:14

THEY LAUGH

0:25:140:25:16

You can certainly taste the ginger. You've got a really crispy outside

0:25:160:25:21

and quite a heavy, dense inside. It's a bizarre combination.

0:25:210:25:26

-I quite like them, actually. I do.

-She's got weird tastes.

0:25:260:25:30

-I am weird.

-We know that she learned to bake in Heidelberg,

0:25:300:25:34

so do we think they're possibly a little German in influence? Yes?

0:25:340:25:38

The white icing, the spices?

0:25:380:25:41

I think white icing would actually help them.

0:25:410:25:44

THEY LAUGH

0:25:440:25:47

-What would you like next, girls?

-Carol has made scones

0:25:470:25:51

from one of the modern ones, and that was 2005.

0:25:510:25:55

Mm! Absolutely beautiful!

0:25:550:25:57

They are so light and fluffy, aren't they?

0:25:570:26:00

-They're so good.

-Mmm!

0:26:000:26:02

Mrs Beeton is this enduring character.

0:26:020:26:05

We've all got variants of her, but what does that say about her?

0:26:050:26:09

I think it's what she stands for - the household management,

0:26:090:26:13

the domesticity, the getting some standards and rules in place,

0:26:130:26:17

and I think everybody knows the name Mrs Beeton,

0:26:170:26:22

so there's an element of trust.

0:26:220:26:25

I think because it's what our mothers did,

0:26:250:26:28

and it's so nice to carry that tradition on

0:26:280:26:30

-from our mothers to us, and then on to our children.

-Mm.

0:26:300:26:35

Household Management became much more than a Victorian phenomenon.

0:26:360:26:40

Its contents are regularly updated, but the name has stayed the same,

0:26:400:26:43

and so we have continued to trust in the reliability of its author.

0:26:430:26:47

The name Mrs Beeton was one of the first and most powerful brands

0:26:470:26:51

in Britain.

0:26:510:26:53

So, how did the young Isabella Mayson transform herself

0:26:560:27:01

into the enduring character of Mrs Beeton?

0:27:010:27:04

In the first place, through marriage.

0:27:040:27:07

Sam Beeton was a young, ambitious publisher

0:27:080:27:11

who Isabella first met when they were children in Cheapside.

0:27:110:27:15

He was a very modern man.

0:27:150:27:17

He was very forward-thinking in his attitude toward women,

0:27:170:27:21

and you can really tell that from the tone of their letters to each other.

0:27:210:27:25

There's, um...

0:27:250:27:27

..one from her to him. She says, "In a very short time

0:27:280:27:30

you will have the entire management of me,

0:27:300:27:33

and I can assure you that you will find me a most docile and willing pupil."

0:27:330:27:36

And he writes back,

0:27:380:27:40

"I don't desire, I assure you, to manage you."

0:27:400:27:43

"You can do that quite well yourself."

0:27:430:27:45

So there must have been... rather a sense of relief,

0:27:450:27:49

in that she wasn't off to marry someone

0:27:490:27:52

who was going to boss her around, and she was marrying an equal,

0:27:520:27:55

and throughout their life together, you get a huge sense of that,

0:27:550:27:59

that they were partners. They were proper equals.

0:27:590:28:02

Isabella married her beloved Sam

0:28:030:28:06

on Thursday the 10th of July 1856,

0:28:060:28:08

at St Martin's Church in Epsom.

0:28:080:28:11

She was 20, and ready to set up her very own family home.

0:28:110:28:15

And the British home was changing.

0:28:180:28:21

This was the time of sudden railway expansion in Britain,

0:28:210:28:24

allowing people to live away from the cities they worked in.

0:28:240:28:27

Suburbs were being built for the very first time.

0:28:270:28:30

'And suburban homes were marketed heavily at new middle-class couples

0:28:340:28:38

'like Sam and Isabella.'

0:28:380:28:40

This is a copy of the original prospectus

0:28:410:28:43

of Sam and Isabella's first marital home,

0:28:430:28:46

Chandos Villas in Pinner.

0:28:460:28:48

And this would have been the thing that Sam used

0:28:480:28:51

to tempt Isabella, in her chaperoned glory,

0:28:510:28:54

to say, "This is what I can give you when we get married."

0:28:540:28:57

You get a real sense from this what they were buying into.

0:28:570:29:01

It's leafy suburbia at its best,

0:29:010:29:06

so you have, "In short, real country air, food,

0:29:060:29:09

seclusion and society can only be had

0:29:090:29:12

by going into the country, by leaving London a dozen miles behind,

0:29:120:29:16

and thereby getting beyond the smell of its smoke,

0:29:160:29:18

the range of its bad characters, and the influx of its population."

0:29:180:29:23

Look at their house here.

0:29:240:29:26

Incredibly grand.

0:29:260:29:29

It's probably very difficult for us to imagine in modern times,

0:29:290:29:33

a young married couple moving into this grandeur.

0:29:330:29:38

Isabella must have felt relief,

0:29:380:29:40

coming out of her enormous, chaotic family

0:29:400:29:43

with all those children. Suddenly sort of shutting the door

0:29:430:29:46

and getting peace and quiet must have seemed like total heaven.

0:29:460:29:50

'Although the Beetons' beautiful house was bombed

0:29:500:29:53

'in the Second World War, I know one of the original houses

0:29:530:29:56

'from the estate still stands.

0:29:560:29:58

'I want to walk the streets she walked.

0:29:580:30:00

'I want to breathe the neighbourhood that she and Sam first called home.'

0:30:000:30:04

'In new suburbs like Pinner, many women were for the first time

0:30:070:30:11

'living far away from their families.

0:30:110:30:13

'They didn't know their neighbours, and new rules

0:30:130:30:16

'about how to call on people were needed.'

0:30:160:30:18

'This is where the book really came into its own.

0:30:210:30:24

'Mrs Beeton guided these inexperienced women

0:30:240:30:26

'through every moment of daily life.'

0:30:260:30:28

-Hello!

-Hi! Hi, there. Hi.

0:30:310:30:34

I'm Sophie Dahl. I'm making a programme about Mrs Beeton.

0:30:340:30:37

-I do recognise you, yes. Hi!

-Did you know anything, really,

0:30:370:30:40

-about the history of Mrs Beeton?

-No.

0:30:400:30:42

She was probably our first celebrity cook, I suppose.

0:30:420:30:46

"After luncheon, morning calls may be made and received."

0:30:460:30:50

"These visits should be short, a stay of from 15 to 20 minutes

0:30:500:30:53

being quite sufficient."

0:30:530:30:55

"A lady paying a visit may remove her boa or neckerchief,

0:30:550:30:58

but neither her shawl nor bonnet."

0:30:580:31:01

Since we've moved in, we've got the bug. We all love cooking,

0:31:010:31:05

and our neighbours and the neighbours before,

0:31:050:31:07

so I think her spirit lives on.

0:31:070:31:09

The one problem with these idyllic suburban homes

0:31:180:31:21

is that it meant a new separation between the place men worked

0:31:210:31:24

and the place women stayed.

0:31:240:31:27

'Preparing a delicious dinner to lure your husband home

0:31:300:31:33

'was a key task for the novice housewife.'

0:31:330:31:35

In the beginning of the book, Mrs Beeton stresses the importance

0:31:350:31:39

of having a hot meal on the table for your husband,

0:31:390:31:41

because there are so many temptations in the city,

0:31:410:31:44

so much that could tempt a man from home.

0:31:440:31:47

So she has this very funny bit in the opening of the book,

0:31:470:31:50

which says,

0:31:500:31:52

"Men are now so well served out of doors, at their clubs,

0:31:520:31:56

well ordered taverns and dining-houses,

0:31:560:31:58

that, in order to compete with the attractions of these places,

0:31:580:32:01

the mistress must be thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of cookery,

0:32:010:32:05

as well as be perfectly conversant with all the other arts

0:32:050:32:08

of making and keeping a comfortable home."

0:32:080:32:11

The thing about so many of her recipes is,

0:32:220:32:25

they're for whatever's available,

0:32:250:32:27

and apples in England, quite a plentiful thing.

0:32:270:32:30

'Every Victorian dinner would start with soup.

0:32:300:32:33

'I'll try this one out now to use at my party later.'

0:32:330:32:37

"Peel and quarter the apples, taking out their cores."

0:32:380:32:41

"Put them into the stock. Add the cloves."

0:32:410:32:45

"Stew gently till tender."

0:32:450:32:47

"Rub the whole mixture through a strainer."

0:32:490:32:52

One of the reasons Mrs Beeton was so invaluable to her readers,

0:32:520:32:55

she would provide monthly charts,

0:32:550:32:58

breakdowns of what to serve, how much it cost,

0:32:580:33:01

so here you've got, "A plain family dinner for February".

0:33:010:33:06

"Sunday, ox-tail soup, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding,

0:33:060:33:09

broccoli and potatoes, plum-pudding and apple tart, cheese."

0:33:090:33:13

One meal.

0:33:130:33:15

"Monday, fried soles, butter and potatoes,

0:33:150:33:17

cold roast beef, mashed potatoes. The remains of the plum-pudding

0:33:170:33:21

cut in slices, warmed and served with sifted sugar sprinkled over it. Cheese."

0:33:210:33:25

"Tuesday, the remains of ox-tail soup from Sunday."

0:33:250:33:29

There's a lot of meat,

0:33:290:33:31

there's a lot of boiling, and there's a lot of re-use

0:33:310:33:34

of leftovers. Leftovers would see you through the week.

0:33:340:33:39

"Add cayenne and white pepper,

0:33:390:33:42

give it one boil-up, and serve."

0:33:420:33:45

This would have been the smell to tempt the man back from the city.

0:33:480:33:51

Looks like it might appear in Oliver!

0:33:530:33:56

It's, um... It's quite heavy going.

0:33:580:34:01

But while Mrs Beeton was teaching her readers

0:34:020:34:05

to be patient homemakers, her own life was something rather different.

0:34:050:34:10

'Isabella was not tied to the stove like many of her young readers.

0:34:110:34:14

'She was off to the office.'

0:34:140:34:16

She was an extremely successful journalist,

0:34:190:34:23

and, together with Sam, she commuted into London each day.

0:34:230:34:27

With more and more women becoming educated,

0:34:300:34:32

female literacy was booming. 60 percent of women could now read,

0:34:320:34:36

and they were crying out for new literature.

0:34:360:34:39

There was a huge gap in the market just waiting to be filled.

0:34:390:34:42

'Sam already published several popular magazines,

0:34:420:34:45

'but it was when he collaborated with his wife

0:34:450:34:48

'on The English Woman's Domestic Magazine

0:34:480:34:50

'that they struck gold.

0:34:500:34:53

'I'm going to the Women's Library in East London

0:34:530:34:55

'to see Isabella's first printed endeavours in the flesh.'

0:34:550:34:59

You get a real sense, through looking at the contents pages

0:35:030:35:06

of English Woman's Domestic,

0:35:060:35:09

really how varied the information they're giving to women was.

0:35:090:35:12

So here you've got the poetry of the month,

0:35:120:35:16

Home Arrangements And Domestic Economy,

0:35:160:35:18

my favourite, Curious Weddings And Remarkable Marriages,

0:35:180:35:23

and then, in a flash, the first time we see Isabella's name

0:35:230:35:27

in print, "The Paris Fashions, Edited by Mrs Isabella Beeton,

0:35:270:35:31

from material supplied direct from the capital of 'Le beau monde'."

0:35:310:35:34

And it's so funny, because we're used to thinking of her

0:35:340:35:39

in only terms of this domestic voice of kitchen reason,

0:35:390:35:43

and here she is, she's a fashion journalist. She's off in Paris.

0:35:430:35:46

She's writing about what all the pretty women of Paris are wearing.

0:35:460:35:49

I think they realised, with the success of English Woman's Domestic,

0:35:490:35:53

that there was this huge audience that they could reach

0:35:530:35:56

and somewhat exploit.

0:35:560:36:00

They put out a request to all their readers

0:36:000:36:03

to supply them with recipes for a forthcoming cookbook,

0:36:030:36:07

Mrs Beeton's Book Of Household Management.

0:36:070:36:10

"We shall be exceedingly obliged to any lady

0:36:100:36:12

who will spare a few moments to write out for us

0:36:120:36:15

some of her choice recipes." Very, very, very clever.

0:36:150:36:19

You look back, and you think, "How brilliant!"

0:36:190:36:22

They knew who their audience was,

0:36:220:36:24

they knew how they wanted to be treated,

0:36:240:36:26

and they knew that they could keep profiting from them.

0:36:260:36:31

So, out of all this came this, the Book Of Household Management.

0:36:330:36:37

It's a compendium of knowledge for a generation of women

0:36:370:36:42

that were really missing that authority,

0:36:420:36:45

missing...mothers,

0:36:450:36:49

living in different towns, missing a sisterhood.

0:36:490:36:53

It took Isabella four years to pull together recipes and advice

0:36:550:36:59

from her readers and other experts. But it was worth it,

0:36:590:37:02

for, though she was just 26 when she finished it,

0:37:020:37:05

Isabella had produced the ultimate domestic Bible.

0:37:050:37:08

It sold 60,000 copies in its first year,

0:37:080:37:13

more than Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, published at the same time.

0:37:130:37:17

Its genius was that it covered much more than recipes.

0:37:180:37:21

From hiring domestic staff to tending to sick children,

0:37:210:37:24

Isabella instructed her readers on everything they needed

0:37:240:37:27

to run a home and care for a family.

0:37:270:37:30

'But how reliable was that broader household instruction?

0:37:320:37:35

'I'm going to ask some modern-day experts

0:37:350:37:37

'what they think of Isabella's advice,

0:37:370:37:39

'and find out whether it could still be considered of use to young women today.'

0:37:390:37:43

I always regard myself as a bit of a Mrs Beeton, actually,

0:37:530:37:56

because I'm very bossy with my clients,

0:37:560:37:59

and I tell them exactly what to do.

0:37:590:38:01

'Clare Byam-Cook is a midwife and breastfeeding consultant.'

0:38:010:38:05

What I think is interesting is that, in Victorian times,

0:38:050:38:08

they started having a new attitude to breastfeeding babies,

0:38:080:38:11

and what Mrs Beeton was saying was that,

0:38:110:38:13

as a mother, you actually should feed your own baby,

0:38:130:38:16

and get great pleasure from it.

0:38:160:38:18

Motherhood itself was redefined in the Victorian era.

0:38:180:38:23

For the middle classes, childcare had previously been the domain

0:38:230:38:26

of servants. But now, tending to the needs of your little ones

0:38:260:38:29

was elevated to one of the chief womanly virtues.

0:38:290:38:32

Women wanted guidance on how to get to grips with this new role.

0:38:320:38:36

A lot of the advice she was giving back in the 1860s

0:38:380:38:41

is very similar to the advice that mothers either do get now,

0:38:410:38:45

or, in my opinion, should get.

0:38:450:38:47

Mrs Beeton gives a lot of advice about what you should eat

0:38:470:38:50

as a nursing mother.

0:38:500:38:52

Well, I think her sort of old-fashioned advice

0:38:520:38:55

of "eat regularly", and she even tells you what to eat,

0:38:550:38:58

is actually quite good.

0:38:580:39:00

There's very amusing diet advice.

0:39:000:39:04

It's, er, "The food itself should be light, easy of digestion,

0:39:040:39:09

and simple - boiled or roast meat with bread and potatoes,"

0:39:090:39:12

then her big suggestion is, "Half a pint of stout

0:39:120:39:15

with a Reading biscuit at 11 o'clock

0:39:150:39:18

will be abundantly sufficient between breakfast at eight

0:39:180:39:21

and a good dinner with a pint of porter at one o'clock."

0:39:210:39:24

I have to say, I think if the modern mother started tucking into alcohol

0:39:240:39:28

at 11 in the morning, she would be deemed an alcoholic,

0:39:280:39:31

-not a good mother.

-Social Services would be at the door in minutes.

0:39:310:39:35

Absolutely. So I think generally her advice is good.

0:39:350:39:38

Obviously there weren't opportunities to bottle feed

0:39:380:39:41

in Mrs Beeton's time, so the next best thing,

0:39:410:39:44

-a wet nurse.

-Absolutely.

0:39:440:39:46

Just because breastfeeding's natural doesn't mean everyone can do it.

0:39:460:39:50

And it's very funny to imagine her wet-nurse interviewing.

0:39:500:39:53

Yes, exactly. I love the way she describes how to do it.

0:39:530:39:57

"The best evidence of a sound state of health

0:39:570:39:59

will be found in a woman's clear, open countenance,

0:39:590:40:02

the ruddy tone of the skin, the full, round and elastic state of the breasts,

0:40:020:40:06

and especially in the erectile, firm condition of the nipple,

0:40:060:40:10

which in all unhealthy states of the body

0:40:100:40:12

-is pendulous, flabby and relaxed"...

-Yes.

0:40:120:40:14

.."in which case the milk is sure to be imperfect

0:40:140:40:17

in its organisation, and consequently deficient

0:40:170:40:20

in its nutrient qualities."

0:40:200:40:22

Well, that's clearly her opinion, and actually I do agree.

0:40:220:40:26

My local dairy farmer tells me

0:40:260:40:28

that when he needs to replace some of his cows,

0:40:280:40:31

he examines their udders very carefully,

0:40:310:40:33

and he can often tell, just by examining the udders,

0:40:330:40:36

whether they're going to be good milk producers,

0:40:360:40:39

and Mrs Beeton clearly felt the same.

0:40:390:40:41

I think the thing that's so impressive about Mrs Beeton

0:40:410:40:44

is that, at the age of 23, she's got the voice of...

0:40:440:40:48

-It's extraordinary.

-..the mother.

0:40:480:40:50

Can you imagine many 23 year olds today

0:40:500:40:52

knowing anything at all about household management,

0:40:520:40:55

or parenthood, or...you know, in the detail that she does?

0:40:550:40:58

And I think she was a great boon to mothers in those days.

0:40:580:41:02

-We all need a Mrs Beeton.

-You do! Exactly. You do.

0:41:020:41:05

Looking after children often meant managing their illnesses.

0:41:060:41:10

Isabella was determined to equip her readers

0:41:100:41:13

for this vital responsibility,

0:41:130:41:15

and so she commissioned a surgeon to produce a full chapter

0:41:150:41:19

of essential first aid.

0:41:190:41:22

James, in the 1850s, women weren't just responsible for the cooking, domestic duties.

0:41:300:41:35

They were also responsible for the health of their families.

0:41:350:41:39

Health would have been considered akin to the raising of children

0:41:390:41:42

as one of the domestic duties.

0:41:420:41:44

'I've asked ethnobotanist James Wong

0:41:440:41:47

'to help me explore the science behind Mrs Beeton's home remedies.'

0:41:470:41:50

This is a cold remedy. This actually has some relative plausibility

0:41:500:41:54

-behind it. It might work. I'll take you through the ingredients.

-OK.

0:41:540:41:58

The first thing here is a cupful of linseed.

0:41:580:42:00

-What does it do for a cold?

-When you stick linseeds in water,

0:42:000:42:04

they start to swell up. They produce this mucilage,

0:42:040:42:07

this slimy, gel-like substance that coats them.

0:42:070:42:10

I'm going to put another thing, what she calls sun raisins.

0:42:100:42:13

Grape polyphenols, which is the chemical

0:42:130:42:17

responsible for the colour in grape skin,

0:42:170:42:19

actually has been linked to reduced incidence of inflammation,

0:42:190:42:23

and is also antiviral and antibacterial

0:42:230:42:26

in certain situations. There's evidence, in fact,

0:42:260:42:28

that people who drink red wine in reasonable amounts

0:42:280:42:31

-have a 60 percent less incidence of catching colds.

-Marvellous!

0:42:310:42:35

So... Another one of the ingredients that she would have used a lot,

0:42:350:42:38

and that's in this recipe, is liquorice.

0:42:380:42:40

This is the original liquorice stick,

0:42:400:42:43

and it has a chemical in it called glycyrrhiza,

0:42:430:42:45

which has an antiviral effect. It has been demonstrated

0:42:450:42:48

in some tests to stop the virus invading the cells of the lungs,

0:42:480:42:52

so it's a really useful thing to have.

0:42:520:42:55

So there really is a genuine plausibility

0:42:550:42:57

about how this could work. I'll just pour some water on here.

0:42:570:43:01

This looks unpromising now,

0:43:010:43:02

and I can tell you will look even more unpromising

0:43:020:43:05

when we boil it up. But surprisingly, it tastes wonderful.

0:43:050:43:08

-I've made it quite a few times.

-I'm not sure of a promise of that.

0:43:080:43:12

-It's kind of a very old-school hot toddy.

-OK.

0:43:120:43:15

"Let it simmer over a slow fire till reduced by one quart."

0:43:150:43:19

"Add a quarter of a pound of pounded sugar candy."

0:43:190:43:22

It's really exciting to do a cold remedy,

0:43:220:43:25

because there were huge influenza outbreaks during the 19th century

0:43:250:43:29

that killed hundreds of thousands of people,

0:43:290:43:31

including at about the time this book was published,

0:43:310:43:34

so this would have been a very important form of first aid.

0:43:340:43:38

Have a look at that.

0:43:380:43:40

-Appetising!

-Mmm!

0:43:400:43:42

-Now, if I do this...

-Although...

0:43:420:43:45

-it smells much better than it looks.

-It smells great.

0:43:450:43:48

-It smells kind of raisiny...

-It smells like Christmas. Exactly.

0:43:480:43:52

If you don't have enough mucus to coat your mucous membranes,

0:43:520:43:55

this gives you the next best thing. It is effectively prosthetic snot.

0:43:550:43:59

-HE LAUGHS

-Do you want to try some?

0:43:590:44:02

-Well...

-I've got a spoon.

-..for the sake of science.

0:44:020:44:05

A full half pint is the recommended dosage,

0:44:050:44:08

taken every couple of hours, I believe.

0:44:080:44:11

-Hang on. Look at that. Oh, yeah!

-THEY LAUGH

0:44:110:44:14

Yours gets improved with rum, and I don't get the benefit of that...

0:44:170:44:20

-You can get some lemon juice.

-..because I'm up the duff. OK.

0:44:200:44:24

-Yeah, that's rum. Pop that in.

-I'm jealous of your rum. OK.

0:44:240:44:27

It is improved by the lemon.

0:44:300:44:32

Extremely sweet. Tastes a bit of raisins. Bit slimy.

0:44:320:44:36

-It's just quite snotty.

-SHE LAUGHS

0:44:360:44:39

But if you were ill, not altogether unpleasant,

0:44:390:44:41

particularly because you feel it coating your throat.

0:44:410:44:44

It actually isn't that bad. Cheers.

0:44:440:44:47

'So obviously some of her remedies do work.'

0:44:470:44:50

But as a Victorian mother, you could only do so much.

0:44:500:44:54

Diseases we now control with vaccinations and antibiotics

0:44:540:44:58

were then terrifying killers.

0:44:580:45:00

When Household Management was published,

0:45:000:45:03

nearly one in three children in Britain died

0:45:030:45:05

before their fifth birthday, and no-one was exempt.

0:45:050:45:09

In the year she began writing the book,

0:45:130:45:15

Isabella lost her first baby, who was three months old.

0:45:150:45:18

And in the year that the book was published,

0:45:180:45:20

she lost her second child, who was three.

0:45:200:45:22

What's extraordinary about the book

0:45:220:45:24

is that it covers the gamut of medical information,

0:45:240:45:27

how to look after your babies, everything from cold

0:45:270:45:30

to consumption.

0:45:300:45:32

But there's a very finite passage,

0:45:320:45:36

which just acknowledges that sometimes...

0:45:360:45:39

infant death is...

0:45:390:45:41

..is unavoidable.

0:45:420:45:44

"Sometimes, however, all these means will fail

0:45:450:45:48

in effecting utterance from the child,

0:45:480:45:51

which will lie, with livid lips and flaccid body,

0:45:510:45:54

every few minutes opening its mouth with a short gasping pant,

0:45:540:45:58

and then subsiding into a state of pulseless inaction,

0:45:580:46:01

lingering probably some hours,

0:46:010:46:05

till the spasmodic pantings growing further apart,

0:46:050:46:08

it ceases to exist."

0:46:080:46:10

I think although we know infant mortality was very high

0:46:110:46:15

in Victorian times, what becomes so clear

0:46:150:46:18

from reading the descriptions of it

0:46:180:46:20

is that it didn't become any more palatable.

0:46:200:46:23

It didn't become any easier just because it was commonplace.

0:46:230:46:27

There's a letter from Sam to Isabella

0:46:270:46:29

seven years after their son died, and he's sleeping in the room

0:46:290:46:33

in Newmarket where their son died, and he writes to her,

0:46:330:46:36

"I slept in the room last night - it made my heart ache -

0:46:360:46:40

you may know - where our first little chappy went away from us."

0:46:400:46:43

So you get this...

0:46:430:46:46

It's really heartbreaking,

0:46:460:46:48

this sense of their loss, and just their total...

0:46:480:46:51

There was nothing they could do about it, absolutely nothing.

0:46:510:46:54

'There's an emotional tone in the personal letters

0:47:010:47:03

'that is avoided at all costs in the book.

0:47:030:47:06

'While Isabella suffered horrendous tragedies at home,

0:47:060:47:09

'Mrs Beeton exuded only serenity and calm confidence.

0:47:090:47:13

'And the poor Beetons' fortunes continued to fail.

0:47:130:47:16

'Despite the book's commercial success,

0:47:160:47:18

'Sam got into debt. They had to give up their suburban idyll

0:47:180:47:22

'and move back into London.

0:47:220:47:25

'Their chances of living out the domestic dream were ruined.'

0:47:250:47:29

In 1863, now living in the flat above the office on the Strand,

0:47:310:47:35

Isabella gave birth to a third son.

0:47:350:47:37

He survived, and the family struggled on.

0:47:370:47:40

But one year later, just seven days after the birth

0:47:400:47:43

of her fourth son, Isabella died.

0:47:430:47:45

She was 28 years old.

0:47:470:47:49

With his beloved wife gone, Sam's life unravelled.

0:47:500:47:54

He accrued more debts, got into complex legal battles,

0:47:540:47:57

and his writing became pornographic. He appeared to be going mad.

0:47:570:48:01

'Recent research has suggested Sam's behaviour

0:48:010:48:04

'and the death of the children could be put down

0:48:040:48:06

'to one shrouded source.'

0:48:060:48:08

'Household Management covers almost every illness,

0:48:090:48:12

'but there is one glaring omission - sexually transmitted diseases.

0:48:120:48:16

'I've come to ask clinician Peter Greenhouse

0:48:190:48:22

'if it's really possible that Sam Beeton

0:48:220:48:25

gave his wife and children syphilis.'

0:48:250:48:27

As a sexual-health consultant, can you help me put the pieces together

0:48:270:48:31

-over whether Mrs Beeton could have had syphilis?

-Yeah, sure.

0:48:310:48:34

We need to know how many children she had

0:48:340:48:37

and what sequence she had them in. That'll give you the clue.

0:48:370:48:41

So, the history. She had two children who died.

0:48:410:48:44

-The first one died three months old...

-Yep.

0:48:440:48:48

..of reported cholera,

0:48:480:48:50

although there were no other reported cholera cases

0:48:500:48:53

in the area at the time the child died.

0:48:530:48:56

-No reported cases, and they labelled the child as having cholera?

-Yes.

0:48:560:49:00

Then, there's no way that the kid had cholera. Absolutely.

0:49:000:49:03

Suspicious. Her second child died at the age of three

0:49:030:49:07

of suppressed scarlatina.

0:49:070:49:10

That will give you a rash, and it's interesting

0:49:100:49:12

that some scarlatina rashes, particularly the trunk,

0:49:120:49:15

will look exactly like syphilis. I do have some illustrations

0:49:150:49:19

that were produced in Germany exactly around the time.

0:49:190:49:22

Not very nice pictures at all,

0:49:220:49:24

but syphilis would tend to cause rather unpleasant skin rashes,

0:49:240:49:28

and so you'd get this child born

0:49:280:49:32

with this rash all over the body,

0:49:320:49:34

and there's very little else that would cause a rash like that.

0:49:340:49:38

-What happened after that?

-Then...

0:49:380:49:40

for four years, no children reported,

0:49:400:49:43

and then two healthy children

0:49:430:49:45

-who lived to be in their 80s and...

-Lived for a long time.

-Yes.

0:49:450:49:49

A big gap is going to be miscarriages that are just not recorded.

0:49:490:49:53

This pattern of births is absolutely classic for syphilis.

0:49:530:49:57

-It really can't be anything else.

-So Isabella gave her children syphilis.

0:49:570:50:00

-Would she have caught that from her husband?

-Tell me a bit about him.

0:50:000:50:04

Er, Sam died in his late 40s.

0:50:040:50:08

-He died of, er, reported TB.

-Yeah.

0:50:080:50:11

But there was evidence of dementia.

0:50:110:50:14

Then, that's syphilis until proved otherwise.

0:50:140:50:16

It stays under the surface for ten, 15, 20 years,

0:50:160:50:19

until it may come back later in life

0:50:190:50:22

when they might go mad, get a stroke or they might get heart disease

0:50:220:50:26

or a number of other features that are really quite obvious to see,

0:50:260:50:29

and which may not have been properly recorded at the time.

0:50:290:50:33

Syphilis was rife among prostitutes and the men who frequented them,

0:50:330:50:37

and prostitution was extremely common

0:50:370:50:39

because of Victorian double standards.

0:50:390:50:41

Nice girls couldn't have sex before marriage,

0:50:410:50:44

but the boys could, and did.

0:50:440:50:46

It's a tragic reality of Victorian existence

0:50:480:50:51

that lots of people would have had perfectly monogamous relationships,

0:50:510:50:55

but the syphilis would have been in the relationship beforehand

0:50:550:50:58

because the young man will have sown his wild oats, acquired it,

0:50:580:51:01

and passed it to his wife. Neither of them may have known.

0:51:010:51:05

-They wouldn't have the foggiest...

-He wouldn't have known?

0:51:050:51:08

They would probably not have had the foggiest idea.

0:51:080:51:11

So could syphilis have been an explanation

0:51:110:51:14

-for why Isabella died?

-How old was she?

0:51:140:51:16

-She was 28.

-Oh, very unlikely. That's very early

0:51:160:51:19

to die of syphilis. Do we know anything more about it?

0:51:190:51:22

Her death was reported as childbed fever.

0:51:220:51:24

That was the commonest cause of death in childbirth. It was so common

0:51:240:51:28

that, from Samuel's point of view, a man of his background

0:51:280:51:31

would expect to lose at least one wife in his lifetime.

0:51:310:51:35

-It was that widespread, and that tragic, actually.

-Mm.

0:51:350:51:39

'Household Management went on to sell millions of copies.

0:51:460:51:49

'Publishers brushed over the fact

0:51:490:51:52

'that its author had died years before.

0:51:520:51:55

'While the motherly caricature of Mrs Beeton flourished,

0:52:000:52:03

'the real, resourceful, flesh-and-blood young woman

0:52:030:52:06

'was forgotten.'

0:52:060:52:08

"In affectionate memory of Samuel Orchart Beeton,

0:52:140:52:17

author, editor, publisher,

0:52:170:52:20

and his wife and fellow worker in many of his literary enterprises,

0:52:200:52:25

Isabella Mary, (Mayson)

0:52:250:52:27

born 1836 - died 1865".

0:52:270:52:31

Well,

0:52:330:52:35

it's quite surprising, because when I began,

0:52:350:52:38

I saw "author, editor, publisher", and I thought, "Oh, fantastic!"

0:52:380:52:42

"She's been properly acknowledged."

0:52:420:52:45

But it would seem that she's not properly acknowledged.

0:52:450:52:49

She's...simply Sam's wife and fellow worker

0:52:490:52:54

in many of HIS literary enterprises.

0:52:540:52:56

There's something very sad about that to me.

0:52:560:53:00

28's so young. So young.

0:53:010:53:04

Um, five years younger than me,

0:53:040:53:06

but she was the mother of four children.

0:53:060:53:10

Edited this book. She was a journalist,

0:53:100:53:14

she was a wife, and there's something particularly sad

0:53:140:53:17

when you look back, this book, this sort of manual of how to live.

0:53:170:53:21

And she...she didn't get to live.

0:53:230:53:25

She had all of that snatched away from her.

0:53:250:53:28

So, you know, how to rear your babies,

0:53:280:53:31

how to...

0:53:310:53:33

how to set the table, how to throw a party -

0:53:330:53:36

those were not things she got to do.

0:53:360:53:39

At the end of my journey, a dinner party seems like a fitting way

0:53:560:54:00

to celebrate Isabella.

0:54:000:54:03

"The half hour before dinner has always been considered

0:54:090:54:12

the great ordeal through which the mistress, in giving a dinner party,

0:54:120:54:17

will either pass with flying colours or lose many of her laurels."

0:54:170:54:21

'The menu features all the dishes I've been experimenting with...

0:54:250:54:29

'..and I've invited all those who have helped me get to know Isabella

0:54:300:54:34

'to share the celebration and find out what they make

0:54:340:54:36

'of her original recipes.'

0:54:360:54:39

-So, what have we got here?

-We've got Mrs Beeton's apple soup.

0:54:390:54:43

-Apple soup?

-Mm.

0:54:430:54:45

It's slightly tart. It's not sweet,

0:54:450:54:48

-which I'd assumed an apple soup would be.

-Yeah.

0:54:480:54:50

It's actually quite interesting.

0:54:500:54:53

Is it basically apple sauce diluted with stock?

0:54:530:54:56

-Kind of.

-THEY LAUGH

0:54:560:54:59

The Victorians loved thin soups. It was their favourite thing,

0:54:590:55:03

because you were preparing for the big courses to come.

0:55:030:55:06

-You don't want to be too full before the main thing.

-Exactly.

0:55:060:55:10

It was like the warm-up for a culinary marathon.

0:55:100:55:13

In that case, this serves its purpose very well.

0:55:130:55:15

-So this is our second course of five.

-Sensational!

0:55:150:55:20

-Aha!

-Oh, no! Claws!

0:55:200:55:22

-Jurassic Park meets Alien, isn't it?

-That's what it is.

0:55:220:55:26

-Jurassic Park in pastry. En croute.

-Astonishing!

0:55:260:55:30

-What, no claw?

-Oh, you want a claw?

0:55:300:55:32

That can be arranged!

0:55:320:55:34

The lobster's great.

0:55:340:55:37

'It may be that many of the original recipes are too bland

0:55:370:55:40

'or foot-ridden for the modern palate,

0:55:400:55:42

'but Household Management endures,

0:55:420:55:44

'because at its heart is an idea that has been imprinted

0:55:440:55:48

'on our national DNA.'

0:55:480:55:49

Unless you actually live nowadays in a house like this,

0:55:490:55:52

you don't really have a household. You have a flat.

0:55:520:55:55

But I think actually it's "household" as an idea,

0:55:550:55:58

so it transcends where you live. It's about family.

0:55:580:56:02

It's about who your house consists of.

0:56:020:56:05

So it could be a tiny flat. It could be an enormous house.

0:56:050:56:08

But I think what Mrs Beeton represents

0:56:080:56:10

is the idea of the hearthstone of family,

0:56:100:56:14

and that's what her enduring appeal has been.

0:56:140:56:18

That's a serious trifle. How heavy was that, James?

0:56:180:56:21

That's a good seven or eight kilos of trifle.

0:56:210:56:25

-So you reckons Mrs Beeton had a bit of muscle about her?

-Yeah!

0:56:250:56:28

'I believe Isabella was both Renaissance woman

0:56:280:56:31

'and a culinary fairy godmother, who earned her place in history.'

0:56:310:56:35

It's only about perspective,

0:56:350:56:37

whether you consider domesticity inferior to a professional life

0:56:370:56:40

outside the home. I kind of like the idea

0:56:400:56:43

of making trifle all day.

0:56:430:56:45

SHE LAUGHS You like it, or your wife doing it?

0:56:450:56:48

I like the idea of doing that all day

0:56:480:56:51

rather than going to a bank and sitting on a train.

0:56:510:56:53

I think it's an awful lot more rewarding.

0:56:530:56:56

-It just depends on what you want to do.

-Yeah.

0:56:560:56:58

'We and our relationship to the kitchen may have changed,

0:56:580:57:01

'but one message of Isabella's persists.

0:57:010:57:03

'Regardless of class or budget,

0:57:030:57:06

'Mrs Beeton recognised that the true heartbeat of a home

0:57:060:57:09

'was the happiness of the family that lived in it.

0:57:090:57:11

'This was her best recipe by far -

0:57:110:57:14

'that thoroughly modern, marvellous Mrs Beeton.

0:57:140:57:17

THEY LAUGH AND CHATTER

0:57:170:57:19

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0:57:390:57:43

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0:57:430:57:47

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