SQUAB means pigeon—there isn’t any pigeon in this pie.’ I am being taught to make Devonshire squab pie by Avis Crocombe, the cook at Audley End House near Saffron Walden in Essex in late-Victorian times. I’ve not quite managed the art of time travel—she’s talking to me from my iPad, which I’ve balanced on my fruit bowl as I fry off mutton cutlets. We’ve also been through Victorian ice cream, unseasonal mince pies and chocolate pudding. Next week, I’m planning a traditional Victorian kedgeree for brunch.
Mrs Crocombe is actually historical interpreter Kathy Hipperson, who has for the past 13 years been portraying the cook—currently via a YouTube series. With almost 40 videos, it has been a magnificent success: a guide on how to make butter has had more than 10 million views.
Her journey to internet stardom began in 2007 when English Heritage (EH), which runs Audley End, once owned by Charles II due to its proximity to Newmarket racecourse, decided to re-present the service wing. With Past Pleasures, a historical interpretation company then led by food historian Annie Gray, they focused on the kitchen in the 1880s.
Who was Avis?
Denne historien er fra July 21, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra July 21, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
