Travel and Luggage By Suzi Love History Notes Book 10. How did people travel in Jane Austen’s times. In past centuries? What did they take with them to make their long journeys easier? Travel by road, ship, canal, or railway all took a long time and had dangers so people learned to prepare. And then, in the nineteenth century, road improvements, inventions, and scientific developments made travel more pleasurable. books2read.com/SuziLoveTravel
What salads were served in Jane Austen and the Bridgerton households?
Salads
“Persons in health, who feel a craving for salad, may indulge in the enjoyment of it to a great extent with perfect impunity, if not with positive benefit.
Oil, when mixed in salad, appears to render the raw vegetables and herbs more digestible.
Vinegar likewise promotes the digestion of lettuce, celery, and beet-root.
“Endive is very wholesome, strengthening, and easy of digestion; but when strong seasoning is added to it, it becomes an epicurean sauce. — Mayo.”
Recipe for a Winter Salad, by the late Rev. Sydney Smith.
Two large potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, Unwonted softness to the salad give, Of mordent mustard add a single spoon;
To add a double quantity of salt;
Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And once with vinegar, procured from town.
True flavor needs it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;
And, lastly, on the flavored compound toss
A magic teaspoon of anchovy sauce.
Then, though green turtle fail, though venison’s tough, And ham and turkey are not boiled enough,
Serenely full the Epicure may say,-
Fate cannot harm me—I have dined to-day!
The Spanish proverb says four persons are wanted to make a good salad: a spendthrift for oil, a miser for vinegar, a counsellor for salt, and a madman to stir all up.
1859 Hints for the Table by John Timbs.
1800s Typical Salads: Cucumber, Beetroot and Potato, Macedone Salad, Tomato Salad, Jellied Russian and Italian Salads, Prawn Salad, Egg and Lettuce, Lobster Salad and Salad Dumas. From: Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. via Google Books (PD-150)
1715 ca. Rectangular Envelope Style Bag, French. Polychrome opaque and translucent glass beads strung with linen thread, held together by interlocking looping stitches (sablé). Design on white ground: woman playing table organ, woman seated, boy and girl flanking, urn with flowers right, two insects and curtain above (obv.); sun and phoenix of Louis XIV, ribbon above inscribed IE VIS SANS MOURIR, inscribed at bottom and right SI IE MEURS CE NEST QUE POVR REVIVRE (rev.); vegetative scene (flap). Gilt-galloon binding. Salmon figured silk lining and side panels. Cardboard foundation. via Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, USA. collections.lacma.org
1800 Guitar, Probably Naples, Italy. The sort of guitar people in Jane austen’s era would have played in their homes. Spruce, ebony, ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, and brass. This highly decorated guitar is an early example of a six-string, single-course guitar. The elaborate decoration features classical figures, musical instruments, and floral motifs made from ebony and fit into an ivory ground covering the back, sides, neck, and headstock of the guitar.
A second guitar at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments features the same decoration, only in reverse, indicating that the decoration was made at the same time by cutting through thin layers of stacked ebony and ivory. A portrait in the center of the upper back is believed to be of Giovanni Paisiello based on his 1791 portrait. Paisiello was a composer of opera and many of his works were transcribed for use on other instruments and his pieces were a favorite of guitarists.
The fingerboard is covered with tortoiseshell over read paint with an ivory satyr inlaid where the neck meets the body. A carved wooden rosette may be a replacement and is surrounded by an ivory hexagon with ebony inlaid instruments and flowers matching the back. The decorative style is evocative of so-called Baroque guitars of the seventeenth century. The six-string, single-course guitar became popular in Naples at the end of the eighteenth century and then spread throughout the rest of Europe replacing the earlier five and six double-course guitars. via Metropolitan Museum New York City, U.S.A. books2read.com/suziloveMusicGeneral
What did the lady of the house use to pen notes in Bridgerton and Jane Austen’s years? What sat on the desk of Jane Austen’s male contemporaries when they managed household and estate accounts? books2read.com/SuziLoveWritingTools. Writing Tools, History Notes Book 13.
19th Century Mother Of Pearl Carnet De Bal Or Dance Card, French. via Ruby Lane Antiques.
1804 Fawn Drap Riding Habit in Jane Austen style. High-waisted dress with a full skirt and train, skirt buttoned at the side, long straight sleeves, velvet snug hat, Fichu around her neck, riding crop, two views of hairstyles. Fashion Plate via Journal des Dames et des Modes, or Costume Parisien.
Male tailors made most women’s riding habits during the Regency years and they were constructed similarly to men’s riding outfits. Generally in two pieces, a jacket and a skirt, and with a shirt with a frilled collar or front opening underneath. The trains of a habit could be caught up for walking, usually with a button and loop, and unhooked and let down so that the skirt flowed over the woman’s legs when she rode side saddle. Due to the numerous wars during the early 1800s, it was seen as patriotic for women to add military style touches to outfits in support of military men. The shoulder and cuff trims resemble the epaulettes and coat trims of a military uniform.
1800s Early Amputation Instruments used by Alexander Jack in Jane Austen’s times. Jack was a ship’s surgeon aboard H.M.S. Shannon and used by him in the battle between the Shannon & the American frigate the USS Chesapeake on June 1st, 1813, during the War of 1812. via Old Operating Theatre, London.
Jane Austen’s brother, Francis William Austen, was appointed Admiral of the Fleet in the British Royal Navy on 27 April, 1863. He had been a Royal Navy Captain from 1799 to 1830, age 25 to 56, Rear Admiral in 1838, age 64, Full Admiral in 1848, age 74. This is the type of medical instruments found on all of his ships.
In Jane Austen’s time, amputations were carried out frequently to prevent infections that could kill.
1820-1840 ca. Reticule, Or Purse, France. Bag of plain weave white moiré silk embroidered in colored silks using satin, stem, knot and couching stitches. Shape is five-sided, flat, with a scalloped top. Borders of flower wreaths. Embroidered on one side with a greyhound and with a long-tailed bird on the other. Worked as two separate panels, joined. Lined in pale blue taffeta. Blue and white silk cord. via Cooper Hewitt, New York City, USA. collection.cooperhewitt.org
Definition Reticule: Bag or purse, often with a drawstring to pull closed and usually made of cloth or covered cardboard and often decorated with beading or embroidery. A reticule, or purse, or handbag, was usually carried by a woman during the Regency period to carry all their daily necessities. Earlier, women used pockets that tied at the waistline and were hidden in the folds of their skirts. Empire style, or early 1800s, high-waisted dresses made it impossible to either sewn in a pocket or to tie on a pocket. So women began carrying small, decorated bags called Reticules, or ridicules, which generally pulled close at the top with a drawstring. http://books2read.com/suziloveReticules
1863 Traveler’s Chest, French. Sewing Tools, Ruby Perfume, Aide de Memoire or Notebook, etc. Inside lid with theatre curtains. via Ruby Lane Antiques. rubylane.com
