The Suffrage Cookbook

15 August 2021

Liz: Hello and welcome to Bread and Thread, a podcast about food and domestic history. I’m Liz

Hazel: And I’m Hazel. We are two friends who studied archaeology together and love history and making stuff, and trying to make historical stuff, so what have you been making recently?

L: So I cooked something that is from the book that we’re talking about today

H: Ok

L: So I’ll talk more about that later, and maybe put up a video, but I’ve also been working on my punch-needle snail rug, and found a free knitting pattern for the jumper from Knives Out

H: (uncertain) Knives Out is a film…

L: It is a film, it has a very nice, very complicated cable-knit jumper in it, that Chris Evans wears

H: Excellent. Is this *that* jumper

L: It has three different cabling tables

H: Oh boy

L: But Nick wants one, so Nick’s gonna get one

H: Amazing! I can’t wait to see them in it. So great

L: It’s gonna be very slow going ‘cause, again, three different cabling tables

H: Yeah, that’s gonna be so squishy though

L: Yeah, be good to hug

H: (gasps) Hugging jumper!

L: Hugging jumper

H: Yes. Prepare for Nick to have people just launching themselves at them

L: What have you been up to?

H: So I made a seed cake this morning with caraway seeds, because I just bought 500g of caraway seeds from a website that you very helpfully gave me the name of, and now I have to find a use for 500g of caraway seeds, ‘cause turns out that’s a lot. But the cake was delicious, we had some family friends, a really lovely elderly couple, come over for tea in the garden and we did capital-T Tea, with actual tea cups and granny’s teapots

L: Very nice

H: And I made a seed cake, and it was lovely

L: Well, if you remember the local larder that I did way way back, it talked about different things from Lancashire that are called cakes but aren’t cakes. There’s one that’s basically shortbread with caraway seeds in, the Goosnargh cake, which, you should make that, it’s delicious

H: I do remember that, and I remember them being tasty, and I think I’m gonna have to do that soon. If anyone has any great caraway seed recipes out there, let me know, I know it’s not just cakes, it’s also, you can put it in stews and things right, or make tea?

L: I’ve heard of putting them in curry

H: Ok, that’s a stew

L: Yeah

H: Right?

L: Yeah, it’s just a spicy stew

H: Prove me wrong

L: I cannot, it’s a stew

H: So we have a very exciting cookbook today

L: We do. It is The Suffrage Cook Book, from 1915, which is available on Project Gutenberg, and I will put a link in the episode description

H: That’s neat. So where was this published? Is this an American cookbook or…

L: Yes. It was published by The Equal Franchise Federation of Western Pennsylvania

H: Ooh

L: And sold to raise funds for the campaign for women’s suffrage in the US. The first thing I want to say about it is that it has testimonials from eight current and former governors of US states that had some level of women’s suffrage by 1915

H: Oh!

L: Talking about how…well, seven of them talk about how it’s great because the women are voting for things that will help families and all that stuff, and one of them’s saying that if women get all of the benefits of living in a society, then they should have to vote too

H: (laughter)

L: Which, I love that as an argument

H: Yeah

L: Whatever gets you there

H: Not what I was thinking of but, you know, it’s…yeah. Awesome

L: I did make a note, it’s on page 136 of the…I’ve forgotten the term, but the modern reprinting

H: Ok

L: From GW Cable “As to the sentiment of equal suffrage, let me say that if I had no more generous reason for approving it, I should do so on the grounds of opposition to seeing any element of our people enjoying large liberty and influence without the restraints of the corresponding responsibility in the suffrage.”

H: I like that this guy’s just like “voting sucks, you should have to do it too”

L: I mean, like I say, whatever gets you there, right?

H: Yeah. So, I’ve had a look through the sections of this book, and most of the recipes seem pretty normal, some quite old fashioned, but there are some that I have questions about

L: Is it the albuminous beverages?

H: No, but I would also like to know about that

(crosstalk)

L: The albuminous beverages are basically what would also have been called “invalid drinks”

H: Ok, so like beef tea and stuff

L: Yeah, drinks for poorly people

H: Ah, right

L: They’re called albuminous because they have albumin, or egg whites, in

H: I see

L: But you can tell that there’s an element of diet culture creeping in, which I find quite interesting. Just, because it’s 1915, I find it interesting that it’s that obvious, because it’s talking about, oh, it’s got all of the nutrients that you need if you can’t keep food down, but also here are some ways to reduce the calorie content

H: Yeah, it’s listing how many calories are in an egg here

L: Yeah, initially I thought that the calorie count was so you can make sure that the sick people who can’t eat are getting enough energy from their food, but then it’s like “and here are the ways you can make there be less calories” because I guess just because you’re bed-bound that’s no reason to gain weight. Fun times. You can’t see my grimace

H: Well, I’m sorry guys, but I’m not doing the 1915 egg drink diet. No. No.

L: Some of them are very alcoholic as well

H: Well that might persuade me a bit

L: There’s five different eggnog recipes in here

H: Wow. Egg lemonade?

L: Yeah. There’s also beef eggnog

H: Oh no!

L: That’s an invalid drink. It’s basically Bovril with egg white in it

H: That’ll make you get better fast enough to not have to drink that any more

L: Yeah, I…so again, a lot of these are invalid drinks, but it also says “The combination of egg, milk, and sugar, which constitutes eggnog, is apt to produce nausea and vomiting in a feeble stomach.” Which is why you should only use the egg whites, because apparently it’s the yolk, and not the fact that there’s raw egg in there, that’s the problem

H: Yeah, maybe it’s the fact that these drinks are horrible

L: Do you have a favourite from that section?

H: I think it might be either the beef eggnog or…I was going to say the mulled wine, but that one actually doesn’t…oh it does. It’s the mulled wine. It’s the egg mulled wine. You took something nice…

L: If you took the egg out it sounds like quite a nice mulled wine

H: Exactly! You made a nice drink recipe, and then you just chucked an egg in it

L: I think my favourite is the albumenised water, for infants. You give it to your small child if they’re complaining that their stomach hurts. I bet they’ll stop complaining

H: Wow

L: I bet they will

H: Yeah, not a fan, I have to say. We’re not starting this off great

L: Yeah, I mean, what else would you give a sick two-year-old, if not raw egg and lemon juice in a glass of water?

H: Right. Can we move on from albumated drinks?

L: That’s fair

H: Before I start to feel queasy

L: (giggles)

H: So, this seems to be laid out in a sort of order of a meal kind of way

L: Definitely, yeah

H: Oh wow it’s pretty comprehensive

L: It is, although another thing that dates it, I think, is that there’s a recipe for boiled rice, just plain boiled rice, in the vegetable section

H: How to boil rice. Which, I mean, to be fair…

L: It’s less having instruction to cook rice, which I’m sure lots of people in 1915 Pennsylvania didn’t really know how to do, it’s the fact that it’s listed under vegetables

H: Confirmed, rice is a vegetable

L: But I mean some of the recipes are ridiculous, like there’s a recipe for a coffee cake, which does not contain coffee

H: Ok

L: There’s a recipe for carrot soup that is just carrots and water. There’s a whole section of sandwich recipes

H: Yes, I saw that

L: There’s a recipe for grape juice, which is just “juice some grapes”

H: Ok. So, the one that I first have questions about is in the “bread, rolls, etc.” section. It is hymen bread

L: Hymen bread, yeah. I did make a note of that one in the contents page

H: Which I’ve just looked at, and the recipe for hymen bread is one pound genuine old love, ⅞ of a pound common sense, ¾ of a pound generosity, ½ pound toleration, ½ pound charity, and a pinch of good humour. Always to be taken with a grain of salt, good for 365 days in the year. Now, that doesn’t sound like something you can slice with a bread knife

L: Yeah, there’s a few recipes like that, which I find interesting. The first one the comes up is my favourite though I think

H: OK

L: Which is for “anti” - spelled with an i at the end - “Anti’s Favourite Hash”. “1 pound truth, thoroughly mangled

H: (laughs)

L: One generous handful of injustice, sprinkle over everything in the pan, one tumbler acetic acid, well shaken, a little vitriol will add a little tang, and a string of nonsense should be dropped in, as if by accident. Stir all together with a sharp knife, because some of the tidbits will be tough propositions.”

H: Presumably that’s anti-suffrage?

L: I mean I feel like that’s more likely than shipping anti’s, which is the first thing that it made me think of, I’ll be honest

H: I thought it was a name or something, but now I see

L: Yeah, they also have Suffrage Pie and Childhood Fondant, which are similar veins

H: Right, so some of these are just humorous recipes

L: Yeah. The way the the recipes are written is kind of weird as well, because obviously a while ago we had the Fanny Farmer recipe talking about…by this point people knew the sensible way to write recipes. But then you have stuff like, there’s a crab gumbo recipe that does list ingredients, but not all of them, so you

H: Oh

L: Can get your ingredients together and then suddenly be like “wait, you want me to add a can of tomatoes? You didn’t say a can of tomatoes.” It also tells you that you need okra, but doesn’t tell you what to do with it.

H: Huh

L: This is not a great recipe

H: There are a lot of recipes in this book, so do you think it’s just that they weren’t proof-read that well?

L: I think probably, because they were sent in from suffragists, I should say, not suffragettes, because some of them were male

H: Ah

L: From the UK and the US

H: Ok

L: Including people like the author of The Yellow Wallpaper, and, like I say, various politicians, the first woman to head a US federal department, the second woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and various suffragettes and their husbands

H: Ok, wow

L: Which is kind of wild, but I feel like Mrs L O Kleber, the compiler, should maybe have, maybe have applied some level of a critical eye to what was being sent in

H: Or maybe tried some of them out, yeah. I mean, presumably they did make some of them

L: She claims that she tried almost all of them before putting them in

H: Ok. I’m reading the one for cucumber sandwiches and it just says “slice the cucumbers, put them in between slices of bread.” Wow

L: Yeah, the whole sandwich section feels kind of unnecessary

H: I have just had a culinary epiphany, I’m gonna go and make a sandwich

L: But I mean it does also follow a section which talks about picking the colours of your salads to match your decor, so I’m not convinced how much cooking these women actually did themselves

H: I dunno, I kind of like the concept of (laughing) food that matches your house

L: It’s…when I got this I kind of thought it’d be like, you know, it’d be a fun little tidbit, there’d be some interesting recipes to try, and then I looked through it and you get stuff like that

H: Yeah, it doesn’t sound like this is particularly aimed at people who are doing all of the cooking themselves

L: No. Or by people who are doing all of the cooking. There’s the carrot soup that I mentioned, there’s a roast duck that apparently you want rare

H: Right

L: Which, I’m not convinced that’s the best idea. I do want to tell you about the thing from this that I did make

H: Yes!

L: Which is Scripture Cake

H: Scripture Cake?

L: So it lists all the ingredients, each of which has a bible verse after it

H: (inaudible)

L: Which mentions said ingredient

H: (laughs) Oh!

L: ‘Cause, sure. Absolutely no instructions, and then it says “follow Solomon’s advice on making good boys, and you will have a good cake”, and then lists a verse from proverbs which is basically about how you should beat children

H: What?!

L: It’s the combination of including that specific verse, and also the only advice you’re giving me to make this cake is to beat the ingredients

H: Huh. So this is a code recipe

L: Like I say, I did make this cake just using, you know, I know to make a cake, I figured out what I was supposed to do with the ingredients, and it was pretty tasty, but also that’s not how you write a recipe

H: No. What did the cake look like?

L: It’s just a fruit cake. It’s got figs and raisins and almonds in it, and some honey and some

H: Ok yeah, that sounds alright

L: It doesn’t say how much spice to put in, it’s just spices to taste

H: Oh yeah

L: So it doesn’t say how much, or what kind of spice. I just put in some pudding spice, ‘cause it’s a fruit cake

H: Makes sense

L: It worked, it’s probably what they had in mind, but, again, this is not how you write a recipe

H: It’s a bit of a gimmick, isn’t it?

L: Yeah. But I mean, if you like fruit cake, make some scripture cake, it’s quite nice

H: (laughs) Oh wow. This book is a lot more that I thought it was going to be

L: It is a lot. It even has a section talking about making soap

H: I guess you can have a cake of soap

L: It has a soap recipe, which has more instructions than half the recipes in here, using a specific brand of lye. It claims that lamb drippings make the best soap. I have looked, I have not been able to find somewhere where I can get lamb dripping. I want to try it. ‘Cause I’ve made lard soap, I’ve made tallow soap, I’ve made Sunlight soap, I wanna make suffrage soap

H: My Dad sometimes talks about how his uncle would get home from work every day and immediately be brought a slice of bread and dripping by his aunt, and just…that doesn’t sound like the most delicious snack

L: It’d keep you going though, wouldn’t it

H: Yes it would, but he wasn’t exactly down the mine

L: I’m just intrigued by the claim that specifically lamb dripping makes the best soap

H: Yeah that’s an interesting one

L: I can’t imagine that it’s that different to other fat, but also there was a difference between the tallow soap and the lard soap, so maybe? I need to find a way to get hold of some lamb fat, I think

H: I’m reading this excerpt, this little quote from The Honourable Ben Lindsey, in the cake section, and I’m just…”In all moral issues, the women voters make a loyal legion that cannot be betrayed to the forces evil”

L: Yeah, a lot of the letters are like “women are the ultimate force for good, so we should let them vote” which is…ok…

H: “I believe that when the women see the beast they will be the first to attack it”

(both laugh)

H: Again, I love it, but probably not for the reason that you originally meant

L: Yeah, i feel like it is another case like that first one of just whatever gets you there

H: Alright, come on ladies, let’s kill the devil

L: We’ll force-feed him albuminous beverages

H: (laughs) This is great, I’m enjoying this book

L: But like, some of the stuff I’m genuinely interested in trying to make, there’s a stuffed tomatoes recipe that sounds quite nice

H: Oh

L: I think it being from 1915 US rather than 1915 UK really helps with the variety of stuff in it, because a recipe book from the UK of this era would be like “the middle class ladies make the middle class food and everything is very proper and European”, but there’s a lot more spices than I would expect from something from most parts of northern Europe from the same period

H: Yeah it does seem to

L: Even just the regular recipes have actual seasoning

H: It does seem to have a few…it’s got a few recipes from various places around the world, like there’s a…ah, ok…there’s a goulash recipe that doesn’t have any paprika in it

L: Yeah, I’m not saying they’re all definitely good, but there’s at least more variety

H: There’s also a delicious Mexican dish that doesn’t have any spices except for gravy

L: I think I missed that one. What’s that one?

H: “Soak and scald a pair of sweetbreads, cut into small bits, take liquor from three dozen oysters, add to sweetbreads with three tablespoons of gravy from the roast beef and a quarter pound of butter, cook until sweetbreads are tender, add oysters, add a cup of cream, serve with or without toast”

L: I mean it sounds interesting

H: Yeah. If we have any Mexican listeners, please tell us if this is a real thing

L: Yeah, ‘cause I have to assume not all Mexican food is spicy

H: Yeah, a lot of what I probably think of as “Mexican food” is probably Tex-Mex so

L: Yeah

H: You never know, it might be a real delicious Mexican dish

L: They also have a peanut butter soup, which I’m intrigued by because

H: Oh!

L: It appears to be peanut butter and ketchup and water and sweet milk. I don’t know if fresh sweet milk is just a description of the milk or if “sweet milk” is a thing

H: That sounds like just a milkshake

L: It’s like a hot peanut butter milkshake

H: What?

L: With ketchup

H: (genuinely distressed) No! I don’t like that

L: But it’s another one that says, yeah, “salt, pepper, or other season to taste”, so it’s just like “put some seasoning in it I guess, if you want”

H: There’s a section here titled “Nuts as a Substitute for Meat”

L: Oh yeah, there’s a whole vegetarian section

H: “Although many are trying to eliminate meat as an option from menus on account of its soaring cost.” Hmm. “Scientific analysis…”

L: Yeah, it reminds me a lot of the very old stereotypes about vegetarians like “ah you just eat nut roasts all the time”

H: It says in here the scientific analysis has proven that nuts contain more food value to the pound than almost any other food product known. I wonder if that’s true. I mean nuts do have a protein in, don’t they?

L: They have a lot of protein, but I feel the claim “more food value to the pound”, first of all, is very vague

H: Yeah

L: But second I think also it ignores a lot of the other stuff that is in meat that you would have to replace somehow, just eating a lot of nuts all the time you’re not going to get a lot of iron or B12

H: Yeah, you need different proteins, right?

L: Yeah I don’t think…’cause obviously there’s supplements you can take now, I don’t think they had B12 supplements at that point, and they certainly didn’t have marmite. I don’t think this would have been a long-term solution

H: No. Also I love that it says “the discomfort from eating them is often due to insufficient mastication”

L: “Just keep chewing it, you’ll feel the benefit eventually!”

H: “Didn’t chew it enough did you?” Also just love the phrase “insufficient mastication” (laughs)

L: It’s certainly a choice. I guess it’s more scientific-sounding that “not chewing it enough”

H: Next time I get a stomach ache I’m gonna be like “oh no! I insufficiently masticated my food!” “Excuse me, waiter, this food is insufficiently masticated” (loses it)

L: Wait, why is the waiter doing that to your food? What restaurant are you going to?

H: Don’t you know in the fanciest restaurants they chew your food for you?

L: Like a baby bird

H: Yeah. That’s how you know that it’s really fancy. All these peasants sitting in these Michelin star restaurants, cutting food for themselves

L: (giggles) Is this what happens if you get six Michelin stars?

H: Yeah

L: That’s how you do it. You get five, and then you get the waiters to come and chew the food and you get a special sixth one

H: They’ve had to go underground due to covid

L: Disgusting, thank you

H: You’re welcome. Oh, Irvin S Cobb: “women cannot make a worse mess of voting than men have.” I mean, fair

L: Yeah

H: You’re not wrong

L: I really like the Bride’s Cake as well, because you’ve got all these different cake recipes, including doughnuts and fruit cakes, and then you have bride’s cake you think “ah, it’ll be the traditional wedding of a big, rich fruitcake”

H: Mm-hmm

L: Just a slightly dry sounding sponge

H: Also I would like to rescind my support of Irvin S Cobb, because he then goes on to say that they should take the vote away from worthless and unfit men who don’t know how to use it, and give it to intelligent women

L: Oh, that’s a little bit eugenics-y

H: Yeah, I don’t trust you to determine who the unfit people are, Mr Cobb, I don’t trust anyone to do that

L: So, there’s bios of some of the contributors in the back, and I’ve just found out that Irvin Cobb wrote books, two of which were adapted into films by John Ford, and hosted the 7th Academy Awards

H: That’s not what I was expecting to hear

L: And one of the other contributors had slaves

H: Ok

L: There’s a mixed bag of contributors

H: Ok. I mean, presumably not in 1915, are we talking about historical..

L: This guy was born in 1844

H: Yeah, ok, wow, hmm. (pointedly) Hmmm

L: There’s a wild mix of people in here

H: This is a ride

L: I feel like it’s a good demonstration of how people can be progressive in one area and not in another

H: Absolutely

L: But I love…there’s a short tips and tricks section called “The Cook Says”

H: Ok, so is this at the end?

L: Yeah, there’s one that’s a way to make really fluffy sponge cakes

H: Uh-huh

L: But there’s also a list of short tips, some of which are ones that I do do

H: Ok

L: Like putting hard-boiled eggs in cold water when they’re done so they don’t cook too long and the yolk doesn’t go all weird

H: That makes sense

L: Or mixing cocoa powder with a bit of sugar and some water before using it. Then there’s things like when you’re cooking peas put a lettuce leaf in there to help them stay green

H: That one sounds cute

L: And prick brown bread with a needle before you bake it and then there won’t be holes in the crust

H: Huh

L: Which, I’m not sure I see the logic of that one

H: Letting steam escape?

L: I don’t know. But some of these are genuinely good tips, like “pie crust is best kept cold in the making, to this end an excellent substitute for a rolling pin is a bottle filled with ice-water”. Yeah, that makes sense, I’ll give you that one

H: Yeah, I was just reading that one, that sounds actually useful

L: This book is such a mix. There’s good advice and good recipes, and then some less good stuff

H: Presumably that’s a product of getting a lot of different people to send in stuff, because some of them will know what they’re talking about, and then some of them…

L: Yeah, there is one contributor who says “this is according to my wife” and one is “this is according to my cook”

H: Ah

L: Obviously these people don’t get named. Are you really the contributor if you’re sending in something that your cook told you

H: (suspicious hmm)

L: The class stuff is real, there’s a small, near the start, I think it’s meant to be an ode to the cook?

H: Oh yeah

L: About how she gets up and she does her work, and that’s great. I’m not sure what relevance it has to it being a suffrage cook book, it’s just a little poem about the cook

H: That’s random

L: Yeah, it’s kind of weird. But I do like…there’s an introduction, which has this great sentence. “The cookbook of the past was filled mainly with recipes for dainties rather than sane and wholesome dishes, the aim being to please the taste for the moment rather than to feed the body and the brain.” Which I really like as the introduction to a cookbook which has a whole section of invalid drinks. They’re just like “this is a workhorse cookbook. None of your fripperies, you’re self-indulgent nonsense. This is food for real people”

H: But also includes totally bogus recipes that are just humorous

L: Oh yeah, this is food for real people who have cooks. ‘Cause, again, most of the recipes don’t have cooking instructions and some of them miss out ingredients. You need someone who can actually cook to go through each one and figure out what you’re actually supposed to be doing

H: There’s a totally bizarre line at the end of this introduction, that says “in the broader view of the social world that is dawning upon us, the cookbook that tells us how to live right and well will largely supplant Shakespeare, Browning, and the lurid literature of the day”

L: It is a pretty hot take

H: Does that mean that people will read cookbooks in the good new world instead of Shakespeare?

L: Yeah, it’s very wellness guru

H: Is literature bad for your digestion?

L: I feel like they see it as more “improving” than all of this nonsense fiction

H: Ah, morally improving, yes

L: Yeah, you know, the sorts of books you would let your wives and servants read

H: Well everyone knows that novels are terribly bad for you, morally speaking

L: They are, they cause hysteria. Need to just sit down with your beef eggnog and read your cookbook

H: (laughs) Not sure I can think of a worse evening

L: (laughs) I think the worse evening is being the child being given the albumenised water. I know I keep coming back to it, but it’s daft! There’s no other word for it, at least not that I can say on this podcast

H: That is very silly. I just…somebody get me a copy of The Mysteries of Udolpho and a bar of chocolate, stat

L: (laughs) Just wait ‘til Lady Chatterley’s Lover comes out. They will be dropping like flies because they’re not reading their cookbooks instead. I don’t understand. I don’t understand this way of thinking that’s just like “well if you eat right and avoid excitement”. But do you want to live a really really long time, or do you want to have fun?

H: Also what if I like excitement? What if I want to be excited?

L: Well it’s bad for you morally and physically and you should stop it at once

H: Oh no

L: Go and make some soap

H: Let me just put all my endorphins back where they came from

L: Just jam them back into your brain

H: Nope, can’t come out today lads

L: No neurotransmitters for you

H: Puts down chilli sadly

L: Oh no, you can have spice to taste, remember, so spice is ok

H: Ok, a little bit

L: ‘Cause if it just says spice to taste you can put whatever you want in there as long as it’s spicy

H: Yay, you found a leap…a loophole. A leap-hole?

L: I found a loophole

H: Although, I suppose at the time that this was published there’s a massive temperance movement and all sorts of “clean” living stuff going around, right?

L: Yeah, I feel like it’s the first wave of wellness, really. ‘Cause that’s what it is. It’s just…it’s just wellness

H: And quote-unquote “respectable society” was kind of obsessed with this kind of stuff at the time, so, given that this seems to be aimed very much at respectable ladies, it makes sense, but from a viewpoint of now, it is kind of hilarious

L: Yeah, there is a mention with the albuminous beverages of just, I promise this is relevant, of some people shun alcohol, and in that case you can just not put alcohol in your drinks, which, sure

H: But then it’s just egg juice

L: Seems like an odd thing to specifically say, but you’re not wrong

H: Also, are the beverages intended for ill people the only ones that have alcohol in?

L: Let me check

H: Oh yeah, it doesn’t have a cocktail section, alas

L: Albuminous cocktails were a thing, is the thing about that

H: I guess. I mean, that is still a thing, right, cocktails with egg in. I don’t know why, but…

L: Yeah, there’s one that says “brandy or some other stimulant, if required” as one of the ingredients which, first time I’ve ever seen brandy called a stimulant

H: Any stimulant, huh?

L: Yeah. Eggnog with cocaine, anyone?

H: Don’t give people ideas!

L: Interestingly, it does also mention diabetes, and mentions a sweetener that you can use instead of sugar, which will also reduce the calories, which is great because we don’t want to get fat while bed bound, as I said

H: Well this…I can’t get over how much of a mixed bag this book is

L: Yeah. But I have been skipping over a whole beverage section. There’s also the starchy beverages

H: Oooh (audibly scrolls towards them)

L: Which…it mentions the digestion of starchy beverages, and I don’t know whether it’s stating this as a positive or negative. It says “The action of ptyalin is very rapid, and if these drinks are sipped slowly, so as to be thoroughly mixed with saliva, a considerable portion of starch may be changed to sugar before reaching the intestines.” I don’t know if this is good or bad? Whether you’re supposed to drink slowly or quickly as a result of this

H: Are you meant to just down these starchy drinks? Oh my god there’s one called Bread Panda. Oh no it’s bread panada

L: Not bread panda, sadly

H: Oh, that’s disappointing. I wanna try bread panda

L: But the fact that, ‘cause it talks about, in the introduction to the starchy beverages chapter, how whole grains contain a lot of valuable minerals, but that these drinks don’t have a lot of that. But you should heat it, so that more of the good stuff comes out and can be digested, but I still don’t know whether the sugar content is meant to be good or bad in this case. But it does also mention the calories, and there is more than one recipe for rice water. There’s also an ersatz coffee you can make out of stale brown bread

H: Oh, I love all the things that you can make fake coffee out of. Bread water doesn’t sound like it would make a good fake coffee though?

L: The thing is, there’s that, and then there’s separately toast water

H: Oh yeah

L: It’s basically the same thing, except one of them is presented as coffee and one of them is presented as a nourishing drink, to which you could add milk or cream or sugar, like you do with coffee, but it’s not the ersatz coffee one, that’s separate

H: Wow. Not sure how I feel about toast water

L: Yeah, it’s…

H: It’s bread drink

L: It is bread drink. A joke that no-one listening will get

H: Literally

L: I do love that one of the rice waters says about, tells you, gives you some tips to use rice water to make you less…make you have diarrhoea less, or “to reduce a laxative condition”, and then a separate rice water recipe which uses raisins and then says “do not use raisins in bowel trouble”

H: Oh no!

L: But which way? I feel like we need to know which way the raisins will influence your bowel trouble ‘cause, you know, if they make one worse they’ll make the other better

H: Yeah, you know, maybe if you’re in certain kinds of bowel trouble you might want to use the raisins

L: But we don’t know which bowel trouble it is. So this is useless advice madam

H: Yeah, I’m not going to use any of this until I know

L: Actually, this is another section that has a separate one for infant feeding, barley water. I’m not sure how helpful barley water would be as a general food, but it says that it’s good if they’ve got diarrhoea, which…

H: I guess it’s one of those things which are sort of meant to be nourishing, in an old fashioned way

L: It makes a kind of sense? I know that for rehy…’cause you get oral rehydration solution, and things made with water and grain are meant to be good for it, so there might be some logic there?

H: Ok

L: But it’s described as more just a drink for them, which can also be useful for that, and I feel like they wouldn’t want that most of the time. It’s…there’s some very confusing notes in this book

H: There’s a recipe for synthetic quince. “I put too much water with my rhubarb and had a whole dishful of beautiful pink juice left over. In this I cooked some apples, quartered, and stewed till soft, and just as an experiment added a saucerful of strawberries. The result, being served, looked and tasted exactly like quince” Which is interesting

L: I like that one because it almost starts out like a recipe blog

H: Yeah, like it’s an accidental discovery. Is quince particularly expensive at this point?

L: It can be hard to get, and is also seasonal

H: Ok. Yeah that makes sense

L: Depending where you are it can be difficult to get

H: Not sure that I’ve ever eaten a quince

L: People also just liked ersatz foods for funsies sometimes at this point

H: We do have the modern parallel of things made out of cake that don’t look like cake

L: Those things are not made out of cake they are made of fondant and lies, and I will die on this hill

H: Some of them are made out of cake

L: There’s cake in there, but it’s made of fondant and lies

H: But you know, I think that’s in the same vein as people liking ersatz food just for funsies

L: It is, but also, fondant and lies

H: I know you have feelings about the fake cakes. About the cake fakes? Cake fakes

L: The fakey cakeys. I think I just don’t like fondant

H: I like it, but not too thick

L: So yeah, that is The Suffrage Cookbook. I will put a Project Gutenberg link in the episode description, if you want to check it out for yourself. If you do end up making any of the recipes, do let us know, email us at breadandthreadpodcast @ gmail. com, so send us a picture @BreadandThread on twitter or tumblr

H: I would love to see what some of these things look like in the flesh. And taste like

L: Yeah. Like I said, it takes a bit of fiddling and figuring stuff out, but the scripture cake is quite nice for a fruit cake. But yeah, those are the ways to contact us. I realise I’ve said the bit that Hazel normally says. Do you want to plug the patreon?

H: Sure, we have a patreon, it is Bread and Thread, you can find recipes and discord servers and good things. We have a twitter, did you say the twitter?

L: I said the twitter, and the tumblr, and the email

H: Excellent, ok, I don’t think that we have any other

L: Just look for bread and thread somewhere and we’ll probably pop up

H: Whisper “bread and thread” after running three times around a yew tree in a churchyard at midnight, and we will arrive and give you historical recipes.

L: That’s true, it’s how me and Nick met. So yeah, thank you for listening, and we’ll be back soon