When we think of the food we eat, we think of it in terms of fuel – this is especially the case with starchy food, those made from flour because they are broken down into sugars and then converted slowly into energy in a form the body can use (unless we eat too much of it, then it is turned into fat). However, workers in factories around the world are very aware of the amount of energy trapped in flour: working with large amounts of it can be a dangerous business. Factory explosions have occurred causing damage, injury and death.
The aftermath of the Tradeston Flour Mill explosion, Glasgow 1872
The worst accident in the British Isles caused by flour happened on 9 July 1872 at the Tradeston Flour Mill in Glasgow, a century and a half ago. An explosion ripped through the mill seriously injuring 16 and killing 18, among them a mother of three with her three-month-old baby. What caused it? A report published in the journal Nature reported that the ‘origin [was] conclusively traced to the striking of fire by a pair of millstones caused by the stopping of the “feed” or supply of grain to them, and the consequent friction against each other, the result being the ignition of the mixture of air and fine flour dust surrounding the millstones.’[1] It might have been self-contained were it not for the cloud of flour, the explosion itself created. The mill was set up so that several mills were working together in a row, run by steam power, each explosion setting up another sending a cascade of flour bombs ripping through the building.[2] The most recent flour explosion in the UK occurred on 18 November 1981 in the Bird’s Custard factory in Banbury, Oxfordshire where a cloud of cornflour[3] exploded injuring nine.
Beware the explosive power of Bird’s Custard Powder
It has been theorised that it was a flour explosion that exacerbated the Great Fire of London in 1666 when an oven exploded next to several sacks of flour. The (alleged) bakery on Pudding Lane was owned by King Charles II’s own baker, Thomas Farriner. The blaze would continue for five days, destroying 13,500 houses and many important buildings including St Paul’s Cathedral. It killed just six people.
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[2] Dalgetty, L. (2022) ‘Remembering the Glasgow Flour Mill explosion that killed 18 people’, Glasgow Live, 10 July.
[3] Bird’s Custard isn’t thickened with egg, but with cornflour/starch and it is by far the main component, the others being colouring and a very fake vanilla flavouring. For more on custard click here.
Merry Christmas everyone! It’s time for my annual boozy Christmas drink, and this year’s is so good, you can even give it to the kids; if you take Mrs Beeton’s advice (I advise against it, but what do I know). It is called negus; the ingredients are simple, and you are almost guaranteed to have them this time of year: wine, sugar, citrus fruit, spices. Easy.
Its origin lies with the English officer class of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, who got into the very sensible habit of watering down their wine to avoid getting too drunk of an evening. They still wanted something to drink though. It is named after Colonel Francis Negus (1660-1732), ‘a well-connected gentleman’, who, aside from being a noted member of the officer class, was also an MP, and a talented horse rider and hunter, so-much-so he was given the position of Master of the Horse and Warden of Windsor Forest. Quite the chap it would seem. The earliest description known comes in the form of a handwritten note in a 1725 edition of Tacitus’s works. It said: ‘After a morning’s walk, half a pint of white wine, made and hot and sweetened a little, is recond very good. – Col. Negus, a gentn. of tast, advises it, I have heard say.’[3] Initially it was a heated mixture of white wine and water, sugar and then some citrus juice, sometimes lemons, or sweet or Seville oranges, and it hasn’t really changed that much.
Its low alcohol made it especially good for the infirm or chronically ill. One Dr William Buchan in his 1797 book, prescribes claret negus for those with ‘Slow or Nervous Fever’, what we would call depression today.[4] In the book Oxford Nightcaps (1827), the author tells us that a doctor friend of his, a certain Doctor Willich, thinks ‘Negus is one of the innocent and wholesome species of drink especially if Seville oranges be added’. He also recommends lemons, cinnamon, cloves and all-spice. And calves’ foot jelly, which was thought very nourishing to those who couldn’t digest anything too rich or challenging.
Mr Fezziwig’s Ball as depicted by John Leech
Into the mid-19th century, negus settled down as a drink to be enjoyed by everyone, the wine most often used now being port (a drink which had been made popular since the Napoleonic Wars). It is mentioned in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). When the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge to show him the wonderful parties put on by his old boss, the kind and caring, Mr Fezziwig: ‘There were dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.’[5] What a sight they would have been!
Isabella Beeton’s considered negus a children’s drink
So inoffensive was negus that it became a popular drink with kids, with Mrs Beeton informing us in 1861 that ‘[a]s this beverage is more usually drunk at children’s parties than at any other, the wine need not be very old or expensive for the purpose.’ Her proportions are 1 pint of port to every quart of water, plus a quarter of a pound of sugar, zest and juice of one lemon and some grated nutmeg. She adds: ‘Allow 1 pint of wine, with the ingredients in proportion, for a party of 9 or 10 children.’[6]
It’s essentially a weak version of my favourite hot-booze drink,smoking bishop, but child-friendly. Hm. I suppose it’s one way to get them to sleep on Christmas Eve night!
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The recipe
Use whatever wine you prefer and your favourite citrus fruit. I went with port and a clementine and added some nutmeg and cinnamon. I must say it was very drinkable.
I’ve metricated the volumes, but the rule of thumb here is 1 part wine to 2 parts water, and you can sweeten the mixture to your taste.
Makes 1.3 litres:
400 ml wine (port, claret or white wine)
Zest and juice of 1 citrus fruit (lemon, sweet orange, Seville orange, clementine, etc)
Spices: ¼ freshly grated nutmeg, a snapped cinnamon stick, a teaspoon of cracked allspice berries or bruised cloves; choose your favourites.
800 ml boiling water
100 to 120 g caster sugar.
Heat the wine slowly with the zest and juice of your chosen fruit, and the spices until scalding hot (but not boiling). Add the hot water, then add sugar to taste. Pass through a sieve into a punch bowl or jug. To serve, ladle into beakers or cups.
One final note before I go: in Jerry Thomas and Christian Shultz’s How to Mix Drinks (1862), there is a very interesting-sounding soda negus recipe. The wine is warmed up with sugar and spices, then left to cool, then soda is added before serving.[7] Worth a try I think!
Notes
[1] Purl was an ale that had been infused with wormwood. Sounds full-on. Potential future Christmas booze post.
[2] Anon. (1776) The Free-Mason’s Calendar: or, an Almanac for the Year of Christ 1776.
[3] Wondrich, D. (2021) The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails. Edited by D. Wondrich and N. Rothbaum. Oxford University Press.
[4] Buchan, W. (1797) Domestic Medicine, Or, A Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases, by Regimen and Simple Medicines. Edited by I. Cathrall. Richard Folwell.
[5] Dickens, C. (2010) A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings. Penguin Classics.
[6] Beeton, I. (1861) The Book of Household Management. Lightning Source.
[7] Thomas, J. and Schultz, C. (1862) How to Mix Drinks, Or, The Bon-vivant’s Companion. Dick & Fitzgerald.
Hello everyone. Just a very quick post to let you know that I am giving a talk as part of the Museum of Royal Worcester’s Winter Online Talk series. The title of my talk is ‘Navigating Nineteenth-century English Meals – changing manners and fashions explored through Worcester porcelain’.
The talk is free and can be viewed online via Zoom. It’s on 15 November 2023 at 6pm (UK time). Click here to book your place.
It’s been really fun writing it and looking through the museum’s collection to find some interesting specimens to show and tell.
I do hope you can make it.
I’ll be talking about this item, amongst many others, but what is it? Find out on 15 November! (pic: Museum of Royal Worcester)
The good thing about being a lover of British puddings is that there is an almost infinite number to cook and try. All of the pudding recipes I have posted on the blog thus far have all been of the sweet variety, and they have all been fairly well known, but this year I am going to try and write some posts and recipes for savoury or obscure ones. First up is dock pudding which happens to tick both of those boxes. This pudding is one I have been meaning to cook for years, but I’ve only gotten around to it until now.
Dock pudding used to be very popular in Yorkshire, especially in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. The dock in question isn’t the common dock (the one you rub on nettle stings) but a particular species that goes under several names including bistort, passion dock and sweet dock, its Latin name is Polygonum bistorta.[1] It can be distinguished from the common dock by its yellowish spear-shaped leaves. The leaves are collected when young, alongside tender nettle tops, there is a recipe for it in Alexis Soyer’s classic 19th century work A Shilling Cookery For the People, where it is made with a mix of two-thirds passion dock, and one-third nettles.[2] These were supplemented or replaced with whatever greens were around: sorrel, raspberry leaves, chives, spinach, etc, the choice changing with the season. These are washed, sliced and cooked with onion or leek and oatmeal to make a very dark green porridge, which is fried in dollops in bacon fat, lard or beef dripping.[3] It has been likened to Welsh laverbread in colour and flavour, in that you will either love it or hate it.[4] It sometimes goes by the name herb pudding, which makes sense seeing as docks are only eaten in the springtime when they are tender. It is mixed with more oatmeal and water, tied in a cloth and boiled, cooled and fried in slices.
My patch of Passion dock
Technically, then, I could have used any green leaves, but I really wanted to make it with Passion dock; so called because it is found growing during Passion Week, the last week of Lent.[5] It was an extremely important food, the first fresh green vegetable after a winter of eating only pickled vegetables and salted meats. Many people were showing signs of scurvy by early spring, so few fresh vegetables were eaten. Dock is also said to be an excellent blood cleanser and good for the skin too, being a preventative of spots and pimples.[6]
Dock pudding was especially popular in the Victorian era, but was considered a famine food in the 20th century.[7] Very few people eat it now, but there is an outlier because the West Yorkshire town of Mytholmroyd has held the World Dock Pudding Championships every May since 1971.[8] I’m going to try my best to go next year.
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I found a patch of Passion dock growing in the Cheshire town of Lymm last year, but they were far too old and tough to pick, but I remembered this year. Oddly, I couldn’t find any nettles, but I did spot some sorrel and some wild garlic. I was in a bit of a rush, and didn’t have enough to make the very green sort of pudding, but I didn’t want to boil one (to save on fuel), so tried a common trick of cooking it in a saucepan, pouring and setting it in a tub so I could slice and fry it. This method is sometimes used for other savoury puddings such as black pudding or mealy pudding.
Makes 8 to 10 slices of pudding:
100 g trimmed, young leaves of any amount of the following: passion dock, nettles, spinach, sorrel or any other edible greens you like
1 leek or onion, sliced thinly
80 g oatmeal (not rolled oats)
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
400 ml water
A smidge of flavourless oil such as sunflower or groundnut
8 rashers of streaky bacon
30 g lard or dripping, or 2 tbs of your favourite frying fat or oil
Your pudding needs to be cooked, cooled and set the day before you want to eat it (or several days before if you like). To do this, shred the leaves and add them to a pan with the leek or onion, oatmeal, salt, pepper and water. Bring to a simmer, stirring so that it doesn’t form lumps.
Cook for around 20 minutes and all of the vegetables are soft, then take off the heat. Now take a tub of around 1 litre capacity and brush with the oil. Pour the pudding into the tub, cover, cool and then refrigerate.
When you want to cook your pudding, first fry the bacon in your chosen frying fat or oil over a medium heat until very crisp. As they cook, prepare the pudding: turn out onto a board and cut even slices between 1 and 1.5 cm thick. It’s best to use a serrated knife for this task.
Remove the bacon rashers and keep warm as you fry the pudding slices: turn up the heat to medium-high and pop in the slices. It’s a bit like making bubble and squeak in that you need to wait and allow them to build up a good, crisp fried layer before you disturb them: a good 5 minutes. Turn over with a spatula and fry the other side for a further 4 or 5 minutes.
When ready, serve up with the bacon and whatever other breakfast things you like. I went with fried eggs.
Notes:
[1] Brears, P. (2014) Traditional Food in Yorkshire. Prospect Books.
[2] Soyer, A. A Shilling Cookery for the People: Embracing an Entirely New System of Plain Cookery and Domestic Economy. (Geo. Routledge & Co., 1855).
[3] Davidson, A. (1999) The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press.
[4] Mason, L. and Brown, C. (1999) The Taste of Britain. Devon: Harper Press.
[5] If you want to know more about the food of Passion Week, listen to this episode of the podcast:
The Corn Laws were in place between 1815 and 1842. During this time several petitions of repeal were made to Parliament; in all 1,414,303 signatures were presented within 467 petitions. There were, of course, signatures scribbled upon petitions against repeal of the Laws, but they were far fewer: just 145,855 signatures, a whole order of magnitude fewer!1 This goes to show just how powerful the country landowners were; no matter how bad things got, and no matter the number of signatures, Parliament would not budge. But there were folk chipping away at this issue, whether it be in the streets, in the townhouses, or in the corridors of power. Repeal would come, and there were several key players in the story, and in the second of my two posts on the Corn Laws, we shall meet them.
Thomas Tooke
Thomas Tooke (1774-1858)
An experienced merchant and economist, Thomas Tooke could see that the Corn Laws were having a deleterious upon the majority of the population. He argued that stopping the free grain in foreign grain was harmful to trade in broader terms, saying
There appears to be at the moment, a quantity of corn on one side of an impenetrable barrier, and a quantity of manufacturers on the other, which would naturally be interchanged, if it were not for the artificial hindrance occasioned by the present system.
The Laws were there to protect the landed gentry in the countryside at the expense of the income and quality of life of the working classes. It didn’t even help the farmers in the countryside because landowners charged them higher rents. As far as Tooke was concerned, making staple foodstuffs scarcer raised prices and adversely affected the working classes.2
Lord Liverpool, the Tory Prime Minister blocked his petition, but Tooke still presented his case to a House of Commons Select Committee in 1821. So impressive was his thinking and well laid-out his argument, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society later in the same year. So, whilst his petition wasn’t debated, he still got to say his piece, which reinforced the idea to lower tariffs and emboldened those for whom repeal of the Corn Laws was the only fair and sensible option.2
Richard Cobden and John Bright
As soon as the idea of implementing the first Corn Law was debated in Parliament, anti-Corn Law groups sprang up all around the country, but they were not a united, cohesive front. This changed however with two industrialists Richard Cobden and John Bright, who together formed what would become known as the Manchester School. Tooke had taken the argument for repeal to the Commons, but Cobden and Bright would be so effective in communicating their argument that would both become MPs.
Richard Cobden owned a calico[*] printing mill and was the son of a poor farmer from Sussex, so could appreciate the harm the Corn Laws were inflicting on industry, and both the urban and rural workforce. He created the Manchester Anti-Corn League in 1839. His writing and speeches were based on the notions that free trade benefited the majority, and that manufacturing and trade should be allowed to continue with minimal interference from Parliament. In short, the Corn Laws ‘were both economically disastrous and morally wrong.’3
In 1941, he invited John Bright to join him and help him develop the political, economic and moral argument against the Corn Laws.4 John, also an industrialist, was Lancashire born and bred, a devout Quaker and a skilled orator, who managed to make protest and debate entertaining, ‘produc[ing] an entire theatre of opposition activity.’5
John Bright (1811-1889) & Richard Cobden (1804-1865)
They made quite the team: John was the man of the people, the salt of the earth, able to communicate their ideas to the common man In the North of England. The country had – and still has – a strong north-south divide, and Cobden’s southern accent made his speeches in Parliament more palatable, allowing him to give insight into the economics of the industrial north. Together they began to turn the tide of opinion both within and without the House of Commons.
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Robert Peel
Robert Peel (1778-1850)
Sir Robert Peel became Prime minister for the second time in 1841. He had won his position – partially – on his view that the Corn Laws should stay in place. However, Cobden and Bright’s arguments persuaded him to rethink his position. Peel could see that the Laws were only benefiting landowners and that the working classes – and some of the middle classes too – were beginning to starve. It was not sustainable, and revolution was on the cards: the early 1840s had seen a series of wet summers, lowering production and raising prices greatly. Then, the Irish Potato Famine hit Britain received much of its corn from Ireland, but with a dying population, the workforce didn’t exist that could farm the grain; add to that, a great number of Irish emigrating to Britain to escape the crisis only exacerbated the problem.6 Something had to be done: the Corn Laws had to be repealed. The opposition party, the Whigs – the more liberal party of the day – were generally up for repeal, but two-thirds of the Tory party were vehemently against it. Peel had tried to pass an act to real the Corn Laws twice already, but as the Potato Famine reached its peak in 1942, he attempted to pass it one more time. This was a rare case of a Prime Minister going against their party majority, and he knew it would be career suicide should the act get through, and it did, with a majority of 98.
Peel resigned shortly afterwards, and the legislation surrounding the Laws was dismantled over the space of three years, leaving behind a country where the working and lower-middle classes were empowered and very much pro-free trade.6 The Manchester School had achieved its goal. The School is considered by many to be the first political pressure group, and a most successful one at that.
Britain in 1815 was a country exhausted. Under the Duke of Wellington’s command, Napoleon had been defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. The country was victorious. But it had come at a huge cost.
The Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo
The country had been haemorrhaging money to pay for the war, and the series of naval blockades had prevented the import of certain key food imports. It had meant very lean times; Britain was far from being self-sufficient when it came to key cereal crops, and a poor domestic harvest in 1812 forced up prices, hitting the working poor hard. Indeed, the poverty had started to creep up to the middle classes. The next year saw a bumper crop, and prices dropped, but they were not decreased exactly in line, so the starving poor didn’t feel as great a benefit as they should in the good growing years.
The war may have brought the country to its knees, but it did bring the country landowners a monopoly; that significant drop in cheap imports, meant that the British, in the main, had to buy British. This came in contrast to the Britain before the wars: the idea and implementation of free (or nearly free) trade was driving down the prices of staples and luxuries alike, and the working classes were finding that they had a little surplus money to buy more of life’s luxuries. It also kept wages low, meaning that the new industrialists, who employed citizens in the factories could make a tidy profit. Low food prices, in short, were powering the people of the industrial revolution, and the tax from the profits were paying for the country’s empire building. There was, then, a tension between the landed gentry and landlords in the countryside and the industrialists in their towns and cities.
A Cruikshank cartoon from 1815 showing the English turning away cheap foreign corn whilst the poor starve
When the Napoleonic Wars came to an end, the landowners did not want a return to a world where competitive foreign imports drove down prices, forcing them to sell their grain for less than they were prepared to sell it, and so a plan was hatched to protect them and their grain prices. This plan was not done in secret, but in plain sight in the House of Commons. The landowners were powerful, indeed many of the country’s MPs were landowners. At this point in history, one could only vote if one owned a certain amount of land. Industrialists, though vocal, did not – in the main – own large amounts of land, and therefore there was a political bias toward the rich men of the countryside, and away from the rich men of the towns and cities.
At first glance their arguments seemed not just solid, but patriotic too: after all this war, and the lack of domestically-grown foods that came with it, Britain should never find itself in this situation again. We need to favour our own farmers and develop our agriculture so that we can be self-sufficient. Not only that, Britain had led the world in the agricultural revolution the century before, and without that, the industrial revolution would never have got off the ground. As 20th century historian C.R. Fay put it: ‘Producers’ strength pulled one way and consumers’ necessity the other. For wheat was a necessity of the poor, and agriculture was the symbol of productive strength at home.’ Britain’s agriculture had to keep going.1 Lord Liverpool leader of the Tory Party and Prime Minister argued that millions of British citizens ‘could not depend upon foreign nations for the necessities of life’.2
Tory Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool
This all sounds fine in theory doesn’t it? But the reality would be very different when Liverpool passed the Corn Law Act on 23 March 1815. You see, the Act allowed the free trade of grains imported into the country, but only after domestic prices reached a threshold amount. And it was high: 80 shillings per quarter3[*] in the case of wheat, these prices were ‘were near famine inducing levels’.4 The only way prices would go above the threshold would be when there were extreme droughts or crop failures from cold or wet weather. So despite there being cheap and plentiful cereals available from outside the country, because of their monopoly, British landowners could sell their grain at any price up to that threshold.
When the Act was announced there were riots in the streets, but despite the vocal lobbying from industrialists, they arguments fell largely upon deaf ears. Before the Act was announced Anti Corn Law Leagues were set up too, but their efforts came to nought.
The passing of the Act in 1815 incited rioting in the streets
As the poor became more destitute, the Acts were reissued with lower thresholds, but they were still too high. The Duke of Wellington during his tenure as Prime Minister introduced a sliding scale, allowing some foreign grain into the country, but not it was not freely-traded. Over the following decades (they wouldn’t be repealed until 1842), the working classes were ground down by degrees: never before or since was the country so close to revolution. In the 1840s, wages reached their lowest levels in a century, and staple foods were expensive and hard to come by.5 It didn’t just affect the urban poor either. A Shetland fisherman, who before the laws were passed happily traded his fish for grain from Spain and Germany. This cashless exchange of goods suited all parties, but after the pass he had to sell his fish within Britain for cash, and being able to buy British grain only, found he could afford to buy just have the amount he used to before the acts were passed.4
The country was stuck under the thumb of greedy landowners and the House of Commons, but they would be repealed, and in part two, we’ll look at the key players on both sides of the battle.
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References
Fay, C. R. The Corn Laws and Social England. (Cambridge University Press, 1932).
Thompson, T. P. Catechism on the Corn Laws: With a List of Fallacies and the Answers. (Westminster Review, 1834).
An Act to amend the Laws now in force for regulating the Importation of Corn. (1815).
Drummond, J. C. & Wilbraham, A. The Englishman’s Food: Five Centuries of English Diet. (Pimlico, 1939).
[*] A quarter was a unit of measure used typically for dry goods rather than liquids and it was equal to 8 bushels, a bushel being 8 gallons. In metric units, a quarter is the equivalent of 291 litres.
Just like the workers of the 19th century, my work days are punctuated by tea & biscuits
I have been promising recently a blog post for subscribers containing my recipe for digestive biscuits, it’s taken me a little longer to write it up than I expected, but here it is.
This blog post complements the podcast episode ‘A Dark History of Sugar Part 2’ on the British Food History Podcast.
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This post complements the episode ‘Christmas Special 2021: Christmas Pudding’ on The British Food History Podcast.
On Stir Up Sunday I made my Christmas Pudding, using Sam Bilton’s Great Aunt Eliza’s plum pudding recipe, and now it is time to cook it and get it ready to serve for the big day. If you missed the first postclick here to catchup.
I fed the pudding a couple of tablespoons of rum (but brandy is also good) twice, and I found the best way to do this was the untie the pudding, open the top and sprinkle in the rum, before retying with fresh string.
On Christmas Day, get your big pot of boiling water just like you did for the first boiling. Simmer the pudding for 2 hours, making sure the pudding doesn’t touch the base of the pot and scorch.
When ready, remove from the pan and gingerly cut away the string and carefully unwrap the pudding; don’t worry too much about it breaking because it develops a skin made from the flour that had been dredged on the cloth before its first boiling, keeping it all together. Pop it on a serving dish with a sprig of holly.
When you want to serve it, flame with rum or brandy, turn the lights down and carry it into the dining room. There will be applause.
I served the pudding with rum butter, but you can also serve it with brandy butter (which I must admit, I don’t like as much as the rum butter), or good old custard. I’ll be publishing a post tomorrow with my recipe for brandy or rum butter.
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The pudding was delicious, I must say, and it will forever be my standard, so thanks again to Sam Bilton for her letting me use the recipe.
Listen to the podcast episode for more information, including the history and folklore surrounding Christmas pudding, plus a cooking spot, and a handy guide to flaming your pudding safely and effectively!
This post complements the episode ‘Savouries’ on The British Food History Podcast.
When I asked Twitter what the best savoury is, I was surprised and very delighted that Scotch Woodcock was by far the most popular choice. Most of the other votes seemed to be for dishes containing lashings of anchovies too; I obviously need to write more about the popular, salty fish. I talk about Scotch Woodcock in the podcast, so I won’t repeat myself here, except I forgot to mention was that it was a Victorian invention and then, as now, one of the most popular savouries of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The earliest mention of the dish can be found amongst the pages of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, and is pretty similar to mine except Gentleman’s Relish is swapped for simple drained anchovies which are mashed and spread on the toast and no spices are used.
If, by the way, you know not of Scotch Woodcock or the concept of the savoury, have a listen to the podcast episode. I also wrote a post about savouries a few years ago.
This makes enough for two for lunch and is very good with a green salad dressed only with salt, pepper and cider or wine vinegar.
Put a small saucepan on a medium-low heat. Pour in the cream and beat in the egg yolks (or whole egg) then the spices with a wooden spoon. Keep stirring until the mixture becomes scalding hot, but do not allow it to boil. You can tell when it’s ready if when you scrape your wooden spoon through the savoury custard you can see the base of the pan.
Spread the Gentleman’s Relish thinly over the toast (if you’re using my recipe, you can be a little more generous) then spoon over the savoury custard. Don’t worry if there are a few small lumps of cooked egg: it’s very forgiving. Use the back of a spoon to spread the custard right to the very edges of the toast, and grill until the top turns a delicious dark golden brown (or do as I did, and use a chef’s torch).
Serve immediately.
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It is as hard to achieve the right shape and texture, crust and crumb, of an authentic cottage loaf as it is to reproduce true French baguette bread.
Elizabeth David, English Bread and Yeast Cookery, 1977
The cottage loaf is a vintage classic, and as far as I can see, a bread unique to England. I would say that most people have heard of one but have never clapped eyes on one in real life. I don’t think I have, my only interaction being with the salt dough loaf one that was part of the play shop my infant school teacher Mrs Bareham put together in the early 1980s. If you are not familiar with one, a cottage loaf is made up of two cobs – i.e. ball-shaped loaves – stacked one on top of the other, the upper loaf around half the size of the bottom one. The shape is curious, making even slicing difficult, which I suppose wouldn’t matter if you are just tearing off rustic chunks to dunk in your stew.
I’ve been meaning to have a go making one for years, but Elizabeth David writing in her classic tome English Bread and Yeast Cookery talked of how fiendishly difficult it is to make and impossible to reproduce at home. That is, unless you are Virginia Woolf, who made an excellent one. These days we have rather more time at home than usual, so I thought it wouldn’t be too much of a waste of time if it turned out to be a disaster. Then, I saw a tweet alluding to its trickiness from Foods of England, so I considered the gauntlet to have officially been thrown down.
The interior of a brick oven (photo: TripAdvisor.com)
I had a look into the history of it with a little trepidation, half expecting it to be a food with no vintage at all like the Ploughman’s Lunch. I needn’t have worried – it turns out to be an invention of the early nineteenth century at least, and a picture of one a little later in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861). They were originally baked directly on the bottom of low, flat brick bread ovens like many cobs, muffins and breadcakes are still baked today. There were no shelves in these ovens, unlike modern combi-ovens, meaning one was rather restricted in the area one could bake crusty cobs. That’s where the upper loaf comes in for it made a larger loaf – two really – without taking up extra precious space on the oven bottom. It all makes perfect sense now.
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The trick to making a cottage loaf is to keep that top piece from falling off during proving and baking, though it does need to lean slightly to one side, says Ms David, like a jaunty hat. But, you can’t just sit one on top of the other, you have to fix it in place by taking floured fingers and plunging them through the top and bottom cobs two or three times. That’s what Paul Hollywood says anyway, Elizabeth David does the same, but proves the two loaves separately then attaches them in a similar way but includes extra cuts, crosses and a lot of manhandling. No wonder she found it difficult. Seeing as her baking recipes are hit-and-miss at the best of times, went for the Hollywood method.
I used my basic cobb recipe, but used 500 g of flour instead of 400 g.
For one loaf:
500 g strong white bread flour
10 g salt
10 g easy bake “instant” yeast
25 g oil or softened butter
320 ml warm water.
Place the flour in a bowl, add the salt and the yeast, then make a well in the centre of the flour. Pour the warm water into the well along with the butter or oil.
Mix together with a wooden spoon and then bring the dough together with your hands. Alternatively, you can use the dough hook on a mixer to bring it together. Knead well until the dough becomes tight and springy, around 5 minutes in a mixer, or 10 or so minutes if kneading by hand. It will be sticky, but persevere; sprinkle a little flour or a smear a little olive oil on your work surface if you like. Bundle the dough into a tight ball and place in an oiled bowl and cover to allow it to double in volume in a warm place.
When ready, press out the air and cut away a third of the dough. On a lightly-floured work surface, make the cob shape by forming a ball with the dough by tucking your hands under it, tightening the dough. If you twist the ball of dough slightly as you do this, it will be extra tight. Repeat with the other piece of dough.
Dust a baking sheet with flour and set aside.
Sit the small loaf directly on top of the large one, flour the first three fingers of one hand and plunge them right down through the dough right to worktop surface. Repeat one more time and your two pieces should be well-fused together.
At this point you can make some cuts with a sharp serrated knife, but to do so you have to pick it up, so avoid this step if you think it might be too risky. Sit in on the floured baking tray and cover with a large bag and leave to prove again, until twice the size and springy to the touch.
To achieve a really good crust, set your oven to 220°C as you wait for the loaf to prove and sit a roasting tin on the bottom of the oven. When the loaf is ready to go in, boil the kettle and place the loaf on the middle shelf, pull out the roasting tin a little and pour in the water – careful of the steam! – and quickly shut the door.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, and cool on a wire rack.
As it turns out it’s not that tricky in the end, and it even leaned to one side without falling off just like Beeton’s!
References:
English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977), Elizabeth David
British Food: A History 