Vanessa Riley's Research Blog - Research History Story and Resources

16
Mar
2025

Purification or Poison?

“Mince-pie..is as essential to Christmas, as..tansy to Easter.”

(Quoted from The Connoisseur’” Magazine in 1767, by http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/tansy,ortansypudding.htm)*

Besides the deep spiritual significance of Easter lies the cultural traditions that arise from every holiday and holyday possible in every culture. Most of these traditions center around specific foods. Yet why these foods?

Ham One common Easter tradition is to serve ham. Yes, it makes a great deal of sense in that it’s easy to prepare for a large crowd; however, the reason why ham became a traditional Easter meal is that, after a long winter past harvest and slaughter, ham was one of the few meats still edible in the larder.

Likewise we have the lamb. The lamb being slaughtered and consumed holds numerous spiritual aspects with Jesus being the Lamb of God, who was slain for our sins. It is also a Passover food. And spring lambs would have been abundant in a country like England awash in sheep.

I won’t get into the coloring and consuming of eggs at Easter. Eggs do symbolize life, which is the entire meaning of Easter—eternal life through the Resurrection; however, the coloring of eggs in spring holds its roots firmly in pagan culture.

tansies One Easter tradition that seems to have died out—and with rather good reason—is the consumption of tansy.

Tansy is an herb with yellow flowers and lobed leaves that closely resemble ferns. Tansy holds some disputed medical benefits. And tansy is also a poison.

At first, tansy was eaten during lent to symbolize the bitter herbs. Later, it was baked into a pudding. I have found numerous recipes for tansy pudding from ancient housekeeping books, and included a couple in Friday’s upcoming post. These look rather like baked omelets.

Why tansy? For one thing, it was usually in leaf by Easter. More importantly, though, tansy is a purgative, a purifying agent. In small doses, it cleanses the system of parasites and other unwanted guests like bacteria. After a winter of eating salt-preserved and smoked meats, dried apples and root vegetables, people probably had collected a worm or two in their systems. (I know—ee-ew.) A slab of tansy pudding, and a body would feel far better. Two slices of tansy pudding, and a body would quite possibly be dead.

Be sure to come back Friday and see what it actually took to make the Tansy puddings.

Photos from Wikimedia Commons

Originally posted 2013-04-03 10:00:00.

16
Mar
2025

The Joke’s on Them ~ Caricatures in Regency England

categories: entertainment, History

Cruickshank's View of the Regent's Backside — A view of the Regent’s backside by George Cruikshank.

Kristi here. Today is April Fool’s Day in the US. An annoying day where you can’t trust anything you read, hear, say, see, or smell. Basically, your five normal senses are useless and you have to keep a tight grip on your sense of humor to survive. Particularly if you have a jokester in your house.

A sense of humor is a beautiful thing. Often we forget that humor isn’t a modern invention. Because of the long time spent posing for portraits, people always look somber and serious in their paintings. But people in the Regency liked to laugh as much as anyone else.

A Kick from Yarmouth to Wales — A cartoon from 1811 telling the tale of the Prince Regent receiving a sound thrashing for insulting Lord Yarmouth’s wife.

Caricatures, the precursor to today’s editorial cartoons, not only provided social commentary and news, but provided humor as well. Many of them featured prominent figures of the day with certain features exaggerated to provide entertainment as well as make a point.

Much like tabloids and entertainment magazines of today, these drawings were popular because they kept people informed of what was happening in the world in a fun way. Regency England had it’s own celebrities and the caricature artists were the era’s paparazzi.

Caricatures were such a key part of England during the era that the Royal Pavilion and Museums Foundation of Brighton spent nearly £60,000 to obtain 235 original prints. Studying caricatures can tell us a lot about the way culture worked, how various people were thought of, and the general feeling of the time.

IndiaCartoon — A Rowlandson cartoon about the control and status of India, a British holding at the time.

Some of the most famous caricature artists, such as Thomas Rowlandson, worked mostly for Robert Ackermann. Known today for his prints of changing fashions and furniture, the Repository actually featured many social caricatures. Ackermann also printed other periodicals that covered travel, literature, and London in general. Rowlandson was not only a caricaturist but a skilled artist as well. Hand colored prints of his etchings could be purchased as well.

If you decide to go looking for more caricatures online, do be careful. Like today, sex, scandal, and politics were popular topics and some of the caricature artists weren’t shy about using nudity or lewdness to make their points. Many caricaturists were quite vulgar.

Originally posted 2013-04-01 10:00:00.

15
Mar
2025

The Year Without a Summer

categories: Uncategorized

I can’t wait for spring! It is still pretty chilly in the Midwest, but I know the sunny, warm days will be here very soon.

Can you imagine what it would be like if spring never came? That is what happened one year during the Regency period. In fact, 1816 is often referred to as the “Year Without a Summer,” and during this time extreme weather dramatically effected England’s cultural and economic landscape. Let’s take a quick look:

In April 1815, the volcano Mount Tambora erupted on the island of Sumbara in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The force of the blast launched ash, dust and debris into the atmosphere. The impact was so significant that temperatures lowered globally and the sun’s rays were blocked, making the days appear darker. The altered atmosphereic conditions affected weather and agriculture worldwide, especially in Canada, northeastern United States, and northern Europe.

As a result, 1816 ranks as one of England’s coldest winters on record. The snow fell as late as May in London, and in the Lake District, snow was still on the highest peaks at the end of July. The excessive precipitation and unseasonably cold temperatures devastated crops. Consequently, food shortages were rampant. To make matters worse, farm laborers were not working, and with thousands of soldiers returning from foreign wars, unemployment was a major problem. Rioting looting broke out all over the country. Malnutrition and cold, wet conditions led to a rise in disease.

But even during this time of darkness, the artists and poets of the day found beauty in the midst of the shadows. The gloomy, bitter weather inspired Byron’s haunting poem Darkness. Byron said he “wrote it… at Geneva, when there was a celebrated dark day, on which the fowls went to roost at noon, and the candles were lighted as at midnight.” And in the world of art, J. M. W. Turner is said to have been inspired by the spectacular sunsets that resulted from the high levels of debris and ash in the atmosphere.

Curious about what else was going on in England at this time? To give you a frame of reference, here is a quick snapshot of England’s literary scene during the cold, raw months of 1816:

— Jane Austen’s Emma published. (actually published in December 1815, but the title page says 1816)
–Lord Byron’s poem Darkness, The Siege of Corinth, and Prometheyus are published.
–Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn is published.
–Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Alastor: Or, The Spirit of Solitude is published.
–John Keat’s O Solitude and On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer are published .
—Charlotte Bronte is born on April 21^st.

Thanks for stopping by Regency Reflections. Enjoy the spring and summer months ahead!

Originally posted 2013-03-29 10:00:00.