SC - Food History Exhibition in UK

[Christina Nevin]

Hi everyone!

While I was watching TV the other night (busily stamping out marzipan roses
for garnishes you will be pleased to hear) I was delighted to find out there
is another food history exhibition entitled "Eat Drink and Be Merry " doing
the rounds of Old Blighty. 
It has been done as 4 different table settings;
an Elizabethan Love feast,
an C.18th Georgian Duke's table,
a Regency dessert table and 
a Victorian breakfast table.

They showed a 5 minute segment on it and showed the table settings, which
looked marvelous. All set the way they would have been, with all the rooms,
pictures, furniture, tablecloths (!), glasses, china, silverware, gold and
porcelain ALL original and authentic. The food (which is however plaster) is
done in genuine recipes from the time (most of which they cooked and took a
mold off), and the sugar paste castle, garden and figures for the
Elizabethan table are amazing.

The Eat Drink and Be Merry exhibition is open at Fairfax House, York until 4
June 2000. Tel: 01904 655543. It will then be at Kenwood House in London
from 27 June - 24 September and on to Norwich at the Assembly Hall from 14
October - 7 January 2001. So anyone going to be here in June? 

Clarissa Dickson Wright (from "Two Fat Ladies" - my heroes) opened the
exhibition in York, and it had a very amusing little soundbite with her
talking about the Victorian section, and Mrs Beeton, which I had to write
down for you all:

"Voiceover explains how Mrs Beeton died very young and her husband published
the books posthumously.
Clarissa Dickson Wright: <imagine plummy English accent> John Beeton
actually collected his recipes by advertising for cooks to send in recipes.
So all these recipes were untested and, and some them are very good, um, but
some of them were disastrous.
WetBehindTheEars Male Reporter: <slightly shocked> Are you not a fan of Mrs
Beeton?
Clarissa Dickson Wright: No! I think it was a _deplorable_ influence.
<laughs> I mean, the Italian Ambassador, the Venetian Ambassador, in 1764
wrote "the food of the innings of England is the stuff of which heaven is
made". You look at the Georgian books. _Chapters_ on how not to overcook
your vegetables. 
WetBehindTheEars Male Reporter: Really?
Clarissa Dickson Wright: Chapter after chapter. Mrs Beeton did more to
singlehandedly ruin British food than anything else, you know. And we're
only just pulling back from it now."

Howzzat for a round condemnation! <Laff>

BTW, I have had the photos of the C.16th section of the "London Eats Out"
exhibition scanned, and shall be posting them up, with commentary, in a
couple of weeks (when I've recovered from Crown tourney burnout!).

Al Servizio Vostro, e del Sogno
Lucretzia

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Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia   |  mka Tina Nevin
Thamesreach Shire, The Isles, Drachenwald | London, UK
thorngrove at geocities.com | http://www.geocities.com/~thorngrove 
"There is no doubt that great leaders prefer hard drinkers to good
versifiers" - Aretino, 1536 
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