DOMESTIC SECRETS OF CROMWELL'S HOME

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 55, 27 November 1937, Page 14

DOMESTIC SECRETS OF CROMWELL'S HOME

s ■ 3 HIS WIFE'S 1 1 0 RECIPES

Her "Almost Constant" Dish

QN September 3, 1658, Oliver Cromwell died, on the anniversary of two of his most glorious battles, Dunbar in 1650 and Worcester tho follo'wing year, after which he entered London in triuinph on September 12, to be established there with the powers, if not the name, of a king. Let us leave aside the greater issue of his character and his place in history, and explore one of the attractive by-ways of history, says a writer in the London Observer." What short of a figure did- the blunt country gentleman cut in the histojric Court of St. James'S? In the British Museum are two copies of a little duodecimo book called, "The Court and Kitchin of Elizabeth, Commonly called Joan Cromwel, the wife of the late Lfsurper." " Commonly called Joan" is to indicate that the Protectress was nicknamed with the cant name of that period for a drudge. Tho book is described as very rare. One of the copies contains as frontispiece an engraved portrait of the Lady Protectress, a charming picture of a scber, seiiBible, plain woman with a small monkey above her left shoulder. Beneath the picture is the rhyme:~ From feigued glory ahd Usurped Throne, And all the Greatnesse to me falsly shown, And from the Arts of Government set free, See how Protectresse and a Drudge agree. From the other copy the engraving is torn out. The date is 1664, four years after the Eestoration, when Ihe late Prptector's lady was living in obscurity with hfer daughter-in-law, Mrs. Richard Cromwell. We should not, therefore, expect anythlng laudatory to ihe Puritau regime, and Ihe book is intended as an attaek unon the frugality,

parsimony, and simplicity of the Cromwell liousehold. It is evidently writteu, if not by a Cormer servant, by someone who had received inside knowledge of the household, for it contains 110 of Mrs. Cromwell 's recipes, including one brought from Huntingdon, and one for Scotch collops, described as "almost Her Constant Dish." Although the main Complaint against the Cromwells is their frugality, the writer cannot, for all his rhetorical vilification, give anything but an attractive picture of a well-run household, where it is obvious that Mrs. Cromwell 's attempts to economise were sneered at by uppish servants Who would have preferred the wastefulness of fashionable ladies. Even Oliver 's well-kudwn temperance is explained away as "cheaplyer referred to the sordid frugality and thrifty basenesse of his Wife." In onumerating the inequS the complaint io made that the usual meat and diet at her table was most of it "ordinary and vulgar, except some few Earities." We are told that for supper they had notliing but eggs and slops, and there is a rich recipe for scrambled eggs with twelve eggs and a pound of sweet butter. A patlietic detail is that the Protectress put up partitions in her own apartments and in the doniestic quartcrs, "not being yet accustomed to that roomy and August Dwelling, aud perhaps afraid of the vastnesse and silentnesse thereof which presented to

her thoughts the Desolution her Husband. had caused, and the dreadful apparition of those Princes, whose incensed Ghosts wandred up and down, and did attend some avenging opportunity; and this was the more believable because . . . she could never endure any Whispering or to be alone by herself in any of the Chamberg." Since she did not like London beer, she was intending, with her mother 's advice, to establish a small brewery — oue remembers the legend of the Huntingdon brewery — for her own aud Oliver 's drink. She abandoned .the idea because just at that time a new drink became known "being a very small Ale of 7s 6d a Barrel, well boyled and well tasted and conditioned, called and known by the name of Morning De\v (from the Brewers name as I have heard)," ahd this bfecame "the Diet Drink of this teniperate Couple, and the eool refreshing entertainment of those bouncing ladies that came weltring and wallowing in their Coaches. ' ' Wlien the couple first ttioved to London, we are told, the raiddle sort of the Religious Phanatique, sent her in Westphalia Hams, Neats Tongues, Puncheons, and Teirces of French Wine, Runlets and Bottles of Saclc; all manner of Preserves and Comfits to save her the trouble of the Town; the most of which gifts, they being inultiplied upon her, she retailed by private hands at as good a rate as the Market would alford.

L - l ■ A similar story of thrift is that of the goodwife who picked the -first peas of the season, and . was advised by neighboura to take them to Whitehall and get an exorbitanf price. On the way the cook at the Savoy offered her an angel for them, but she refused, expecting more at Whitehall. ' Arrived there, however, the maid, gave her a crown, which she indignantly refused, and took back her peas for the-original ofi/er. Although the recipes are described as plain, most of them are good, and many would stagger a modern cook by their elaborateness. They are described with the very poetry of cookery language. "How to bake a Pig" beggars even Charles Lamb's famous description:—

This is an experiment practised by her at Huntingtou Brewhouse, and is a singular and the only way of dressing a Pig. Take a good -quantity of clay, such as they stop barrels bungs with; and having inoulded it stick your Pig, and blood him well, and when he is warm, arm him Like a Cuirassier, or one of Cromwels IrOnsides, hair, skin, and all (his intrals drawn and bely sowed up agaih) with this prepared clay, thick every where, then throw below the stonk-hole under the Furnace, and thCre let him soak, turn him now* and then, -when the clay is hardhed for twelve hours. He is then suMeiently baked; then take him and break off the clay which easily parts, and you will have a fine crispy coat, and all the juice of the Pig in your dish; remembcr but to put a few leaves of sage, and a little salt in the belly oi' it, and you need no other sauce. Despite the writer 's intention to disparage, an agreeable picture of English life emerges all the more plainly for the contrast with Frenchified Whitehall. The gossip may be apocryphal, but it adda to our knowledge of seven-teenth-ceuturv manners