Thursday, July 5, 2018

Food in Queen Anne's Reign 1702- 1714 by Rosemary Morris


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About Rosemary Morris

I live in Hertfordshire, near inspirational countryside and within easy access of London, which is useful when I want to visit places of historical interest in the capital city.
My historical romances, rich in facts, are written in my office, aka the former spare bedroom, furnished with a large waxed oak desk and an 8ft by 6 ft bookcase which contains my historical non-fiction for research, some of the classics, favourite novels and books of poetry.

To enhance my novels, I enjoy researching food and costume, politics and economics, social history, religion and other topics. 

Although, as the saying goes, they did things differently in the past, emotions have not changed, but the characters in my novels are of their time, not 21st century people dressed in costume. Before I begin a new book, I name my main characters and fill in detailed character profiles. By the time I write the first sentence, I can visualise them and know the hero and heroine almost as well as I know my friends.  

My novels have themes which modern day readers can relate to. For example, in Tangled Love after her father’s death, the heroine’s greedy, unscrupulous half-brother makes two shocking announcements which she is determined to do her best to disprove.

Food in Queen Anne’s Reign 1702 – 1714

At the beginning of the century people ate thick pottages familiar to their medieval ancestors and it was believed that ‘the roast beef of old England made plain, stalwart Englishmen’, a concept which as vegetarians my family and I cannot relate to.
Fresh meat cooked over the fire in the hearth was the favourite method of cooking. The second was boiling it in cauldrons suspended from chains over the fire. Stews and sauces, which required gentle heat, were cooked in charcoal chafing dishes on the bottom of the hearth.
Most people liked plain food - roast and boiled meat, savoury puddings and pies. As a rule, only two courses were served at dinner. For example, for the first, they ate savoury pudding and roast beef or boiled beef either option served with dishes of carrots, cabbage and turnips or other root vegetables well peppered and swimming in butter. For the second, fowls, pigeons, rabbits and what were regarded as other dainties were served. If anyone desired it, they partook of broth made with some oatmeal, flavoured with herbs and accompanied by bread to crumble into it and turn it into a type of pottage.
Wealthy noblemen ate after the French fashion and some had both English and French cooks. If they were on the menu soup was served first followed by fish. The first course of roasted, boiled, stewed and fried meat and sauces was served next. When it was removed, it was replaced by the second course of less substantial dishes of meat, fish, sweet pies and puddings. Throughout each course, bread, and side dishes of biscuits, pickles and sauces remained on the table. Finally, if they had not accompanied the previous course, after the tablecloth was removed, jellies sweetmeats, fruit, nuts and cheese were served.
At the beginning of Queen Anne’s reign sugar improved the taste of food, but many spices as well as food colouring such as ambergris and saffron were no longer fashionable, neither were potherbs such as daisies and violets. Sauces were simplified; the favourite was a lavish helping of butter sauce. Vinegar and pickles replaced the raw green sauces and mashed herbs of the previous century.
 By the end of the 17th century, when more people could read, cookery books nearly all middle-class families could afford at least one. Most people scoffed at French recipes intended for royalty and the aristocracy. In those recipes, or receipts as they were then called, ingredients such as truffles and morel, were expensive. Women wrote popular cookery books with receipts for plain food. In them were plenty of variety and even elegant receipts to choose from. For example, ‘How to dish up a Dish of Fruits with preserved flowers’ Some receipts are no longer in vogue, for instance Spinage Tarts made with a handful of spinach, marrow and hard eggs, cloves, mace, nutmeg, finely shredded lemon peel, currants, stoned raisins, and shredded candied orange and citron peel. The mixture was sweetened to the cook’s taste after which it was sealed into little squares of puff paste and baked or fried.
The English national dish, the pudding was extolled by an author called Misson. There were several sorts. The most common ingredients were flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, suet, marrow, and raisins. The puddings were either baked or boiled with the meat. He wrote: blessed be he that invented pudding, for it is a Manna that hits the Palates of all Sorts of People who are never Weary of it.
The Thames provided a habitat for good fish, and, inland, people were dependent on fresh water fish, carp, perch etc. In London fish was sold at Billingsgate. Salmon taken out of season was destroyed. A little before Lent boats arrived loaded with salt cod. Native oysters were cheap but only considered fit to be eaten in the months with an R in them when they were sold by barrow men. Except for imported cheese, it was inexpensive and eaten by every class. 
Poultry was cheap and widely available, but, like venison, game birds were the preserve of the upper classes. For relishes there were anchovies, neat’s tongues and Yorkshire ham. Bread was subject to legislation, the weight and price of white, wheaten and household bread was fixed.
Cows were kept in London, some were either milked outside a customer’s house, or milk was delivered by milkmaids. Asses milk was in great demand and milk asses made their daily rounds. Butter was supplied from the surrounding villages and imported from Ireland. On the 14th August 1705, thirty-eight casks of Irish butter were sold at the Marine Coffee House.
Vegetables and fruit were mainly supplied to Londoners from Lambeth Market gardens. As well as more humble ones, asparagus, celery and apricots were produced, and melons, the Spectator noted, were consigned by Mr Cuffe of Nine Elms to Sarah Sewell and Company, at their stall in Covent Garden.
Fruit and nuts only appeared on a few rich people’s tables but there was a wide variety, for example Bon Crestien, a modern variety of which I grow in my organic garden, Magedelaine Peach and a variety of apples, plums and cherries etc. Home grown oranges, which cost 2d each were a favourite, but Lisbon, China, sour oranges and lemons were imported.
At the foreign fruit market olives, raisins, currants, choice kinds of French dried fruit, pears of Rousselet, of Champagne, Prunes of Tours, a city I lived near with my children for four years, Muscadine grapes, Candied Maderas Citrons and Sweet Barbary Almonds were available.

Barley Gruel
2 pints – 1.1 litre water.
2 ounces – 50 grams pearl barley
1 ounce –  25 grams raisins
1 ounce –  25 grams currants
½ teaspoon ground mace
2 tablespoons – 30 milligrams sugar
2 fluid ounces – 50 milligrams of white wine

Simmer all the ingredients other than the sugar and wine until the barley is tender and only half the water remains. Add the sugar and wine then serve or put aside to reheat later.

Hannah Glasse: The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Simple

Extract from Tangled Love
Chesney strode to his estate office where he penned an invitation to Lady Isobel to bring her niece to dine at Field House before she returned to London.
After Finch dispatched a groom with the invitation, Chesney chose the elaborate courses to be served in the grandeur of the great hall. He also consulted his newly employed cook about desserts. Arranged in his dining room on a table decorated with flowers and greenery, they would test the Frenchman’s ingenuity. Smiling with happy anticipation, Chesney imagined the ladies’ gasps of appreciation when they saw a splendid centerpiece surrounded by a selection of puddings, tarts, jellies, and syllabubs, fresh and dried fruits, and bowls of nuts and comfits, which his cook had suggested.

Novels by Rosemary Morris

Early 18th Century novels
Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess
Regency Novels
False Pretences, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child, Thursday’s Child – to be published in July 2018
Mediaeval Novel
Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Hedy Lamarr, A Beauty & A Great Mind by Katherine Pym



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Hedy Lamarr-a beautiful brainiac.

I noticed Netflix has a series or documentary on Hedy Lamarr (Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler), so I thought to share my post of her.

Hedy as born 1914 (some say 1913) in Vienna Austria to Jewish parents, both considered practicing Christians. Doors opened for her when she performed in a risqué Czech movie. In 1933, she married Fritz Mandl, a wealthy armaments merchant and munitions manufacturer who was in cahoots with the Nazis and sold armaments to Mussolini.

Fritz was not happy with Hedy’s acting career. To keep her occupied and away from the studio, he hosted lavish parties where Hitler and Mussolini were in attendance. He’d take Hedy to business meetings where she listened to wealthy manufacturers and their discussions on how to jam an enemy’s radio frequencies, to locate and destroy their weapons.

Not stupid, Hedy may have looked like a flower to be admired but not acknowledged. At those meetings, Hedy learned applied sciences.

Fritz was a controlling man, very jealous. In her autobiography, Hedy stated he kept her prisoner in their palatial mansion most of the time.

By 1937 as Hitler’s strength extended throughout Germany and Austria, as he prepared to spread his rancor throughout Europe, Hedy disappeared to Paris disguised as a maid. She took most of Mandl’s jewels with her. While in Paris, she met Louis B. Mayer, and the rest as they say is history.

Or maybe not...

Even as she was beautiful, Hedy possessed a brilliant mind. She was an inventor and a scientist. She created several items and obtained patents for them. She remembered those meetings Fritz had dragged her to and she loathed the Nazis. She did everything in her power to try and stop them.

By 1940, Hedy had moved to Hollywood. During a dinner party, she met George Antheil, a man of like mind. He was an avant-garde composer. They enjoyed each other’s company and talked of Hedy’s ideas. When the evening ended, Hedy wrote her phone number with lipstick on George’s windshield: Call me.

By this time, WW2 was in full swing. The loss of men at sea each day counted to the several thousands. Allied ships were being sunk by torpedoes from German U-boats. 

Hedy and George realized most of the weaponry during WW2 was radio controlled. They got together and invented a “Secret Communications System” (US Patent No. 2,292,387) what today is known as a “Spread Spectrum Transmission”. If their signals jammed German frequencies, the weaponry would be sent off course, their munitions rendered useless.

Hedy and George worked out a radio frequency called “frequency-hopping” that could not be deciphered or jammed. They set up a sequencer “that would rapidly jump both the control signal and its receiver through 88 random frequencies” similar to the 88 keys on a piano.

For explanation purposes on the patent material, they compared frequency-hopping to a player-piano where the dots on paper are interspersed at irregular intervals. If someone is trying to listen to you, the message will be jumbled, undecipherable as if you hop around indiscriminately rather than walk in a straight line. The sender and receiver know what these hopping intervals are and can communicate. Someone who does not know this system would not be able to understand.

Their idea bloomed into an actual process, then ‘Hedy Kiesler Markey and George Antheil’ sent their designs to the patent office. Their patent was accepted but the Navy never embraced it. One obtuse fellow considered it impractical to stick a player-piano into a torpedo. Their idea was shelved.

But not forgotten...

In his 1945 autobiography, George Antheil gave Hedy Lamarr full credit for the idea. In the 1950’s private companies dug the patent out of the archives and began to use its science. A wireless technology called CDMA was developed (today’s WIFI & Bluetooth). In the 1960’s the Navy used frequency-hopping during the Cuba Missile Crisis.  In the late 1990’s the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Hedy an award for her contribution to wireless communications.

Without Hedy Lamarr’s experiences with her first husband, her unbending dislike of the Nazi’s and her embracement of the Allied war effort, we would not have wireless communications. Oh, I know what you are thinking. Someone somewhere would have figured it out, but I say Hedy’s the girl, the one who spearheaded what we have, today.

Many thanks to:








Monday, July 2, 2018

Choosing a title by J.S. Marlo


Many years ago, I wrote a three-book series. Though I didn't have any intention of adding a fourth book, I grew attached to a minor character in the third book. I figured if I ever write a fourth book, he would be my main character. Well, over the winter, a story line worthy of him popped into my head, so I wrote a fourth and last book to that series. The first three books are being re-edited and the series will be given a new life, but--I didn't expect a but--I was asked to come up with a new title for the first book. The old one wasn't catchy enough.



To be honest, I really liked that title. I thought it fitted the story to a T. For days I brainstormed a new title, something that would match with the other three titles. When I hit a brick wall, I began searching for four new titles instead of just one. That didn't yield any results either. Actually I came up with four new titles, but my publisher thought they sounded even worse than the title of my first book. In the end, I borrowed a title I had reserved for my next series, Unraveled. I have to admit I really like it, which is the reason I had chosen it for my next series, so now I have to come up with a new series title. At least I have a few months to think about this one...


Choosing the right title is hard. It has to reflect the story, but it also needs to be exciting, suspenseful, easy to remember, and capture the reader's interest. Is there a magical formula that gets you the best title? No, there isn't. I list every word I think is related to my story, then I try combining them even though I favor titles with only one word, and sounding them aloud. I also ask my friends for their opinion or suggestions even if they didn't read the draft of my story to see which one appeals to them. Out of nine books, it was the only title that got rejected. I guess my record isn't that bad after all.

Happy reading!
JS


Sunday, July 1, 2018

BWL Pubilshing New Releases



         
              

                                  

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 Available at Select Retailers
Grace MacKinnon’s widowhood promises little but a life of drudgery under her father-in-law’s oppressive rule. When quiet rebellion turns to opportunity, she books passage on an Atlantic steamer only to face near disaster in Halifax harbour.

Her future looks doomed from the start until with the help of a sympathetic stranger, and a chance meeting with Lucy Maud Montgomery, she changes destination and arrives on Prince Edward Island.

Her new found independence drives her to undertake a brave new adventure in a male dominated world, and a chance encounter with Lucy Maud Montgomery brings her a surprising ally.

Despite the challenges, Grace keeps her head and prevails, until an encounter with bootleggers during Canadian Prohibition threatens to topple her hard won success. Can Grace trust those she goes to for help, or as a woman alone in turn of the century Charlottetown are the odds stacked against her?
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Thursday's Child
Book 5, Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week
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http://books2read.com/Thursdays-Child

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On their way to a ball, eighteen-year-old Lady Margaret is reminded by her affectionate brother, the Earl of Saunton, to consider her choice of words before she speaks. Despite his warning, she voices her controversial opinion to Lady Sefton, one of Almack’s lady patronesses, who can advance or ruin a debutante’s reputation. Horrified by her thoughtless indiscretion, Margaret runs from the ballroom into the reception hall where she nearly slips onto the marble floor.
Baron Rochedale, a notorious rake catches her in his arms to prevent her fall. Margaret, whose family expect her to make a splendid marriage, and enigmatic Rochedale, who never reveals his secrets, are immediately attracted to each other, but Rochedale never makes advances to unmarried females.
When Margaret runs out into the street, out of chivalry it seems he must follow the runaway instead of joining his mistress in the ballroom, where anxious mothers would warn their daughters to avoid him.
Rochedale’s quixotic impulse leads to complications which force him to question his selfish way of life.
Entangled by him in more ways than one, stifled by polite society’s unwritten rules and regulations Margaret is forced to question what is most important to her.
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Darkness Descends (The Twisted Climb, Book 2) 

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Climbing to sleep is such a nightmare. Jayden, Connor and Max thought they had climbed their way out of ‘falling’ to sleep. Little did they know that they would be pulled back into Richard Hatemore's dreaded dream world, triggering a new wave of adventures and paranormal terrors.
SHADOW OF A KILLER
DAVID ANDERSON
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Cal's past comes back to haunt him.  Then it comes back to kill him.


Calvin Knox didn’t do anything criminal.  He just committed a heinous offence against human nature a desperate act of cannibalism high up the Andes Mountains.  Even worse: the whole world knows the gory, shameful details.  After a year of therapy Cal begins to get some normality back into his life.  Then one day vengeance comes knocking on his door.  Someone wants Cal to pay the ultimate price for his sins. 

Cal is torn between running, fighting, or accepting the summary judgment his unseen enemy will stop at nothing to meet out.

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