Holiday catch-up.

Thanksgiving Day--The Dinner
_Harper's Weekly_, November 1858

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful day, whether you spent it with family, or had a "Friendsgiving" with good friends instead of relatives!  I'm still adjusting to the new living situation and job, and unfortunately, one of the things that comes with working with children, is getting sick!  Everything my kids get, I get.  I'm currently in the middle of the second bug that I've caught since the beginning of the school year; the earlier sickness started out as a cold and turned into a tonsil infection which kept me away from work for over a week!  This one seems more like a bad cold, and I'm hoping it won't turn into anything worse (fingers crossed!) but it's hung around all week and really put a damper on my holiday baking!  Time for lots of tea and hot/sour soup ...

Gardening operations for October, ca. 1858.

Nikolay Dimitrov, www.e-Cobo.com

1040. OCTOBER.—Flowers of the month.—China-aster, holly, and ivy.
1041. Gardening Operations.—Sow rose-tree seeds and fruit stones, also larkspurs and the hardier annuals to stand the winter, also hyacinths and smooth bulbs, in pots and glasses.  Plant young trees, cuttings of jasmine, honeysuckle, and evergreens.  Sow mignionette in pots for winter.  Plant cabbages, &c., for spring.  Cut down asparagus, separate roots of daisies, irises, &c.  Trench, drain, and manure.

-- from Inquire Within for Anything You Want To Know, by Dr. Chase. 

Gardening operations for September 1858

Grandma's Graphics.

This is from one of the many long-winded instruction books available on Google Books: Inquire Within For Anything You Want To Know, from 1858.

1038. SEPTEMBER.—Flowers of the month.—Clematis, or traveller’s joy, arbutus, and meadow saffron.
1039. Gardening Operations.—Plant crocuses, scaly bulbs, and evergreen shrubs.  Propagate by layers and cuttings of all herbaceous plants, currant, gooseberry, and other fruit trees.  Plant out seedling pinks.  Sow onions for spring plantation, carrots, spinach, and Spanish radishes in warm spots.  Earth up celery.  House potatoes and edible bulbs.  Gather pickling cucumbers.  Make tulip and mushroom beds.

Victorian cold and flu remedies.

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Unfortunately, there's a virus going around and I seem to have caught it!  I definitely have a sore throat and sinus congestion, and my modern cold medicine doesn't seem to be helping much.  Victorian household manuals are full of tips for "Invalid Cookery" and remedies, and while some sound horrible and even downright dangerous, this one sounds like it might actually work. Plus, it doesn't use any poisonous ingredients!

355. SORE THROAT.—I have been subject to sore throat, and have invariably found the following preparation (simple and cheap) highly efficacious when used in the early stage; Pour a pint of boiling water upon twenty-five or thirty leaves of common sage; let the infusion stand for half an hour.  Add vinegar sufficient to make it moderately acid, and honey according to the taste.  This combination of the astringent and the emolient principle seldom fails to produce the desired effect.  The infusion must be used as a gargle several times a-day.  It has this advantage over many gargles—it is pleasant to the taste, and may be swallowed occasionally, not only without danger, but with advantage.
-- from Inquire Within for Anything You Want To Know, 1858.

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and The Young Lady's Toilette, from 1858.

Image: Simon Howden.

Tomorrow marks the day when England's Queen Elizabeth II equals her predecessor Queen Victoria in one thing -- a reign of 60 years!  Queen Victoria is the only other English monarch to live to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, and hers was in 1897.  The U.K. and the Commonwealth nations will celebrate this anniversary with speeches, a flotilla on the Thames, statue dedications, garden parties, and of course, lots of tea.  The Queen is scheduled to host a tea party for thousands of people at one point!  The festivities will continue through the summer, picking up frequency around the first week of June, which is the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty's coronation.  Whether you are a citizen of Great Britain or just a fan, why not take some time in the coming months to raise a cup of tea to Queen Elizabeth and the tact and intelligence that have kept her sanity intact doing government work for so long!

Victorian cosmetics: uses for rose water.

homemade rose water.
I was able to make about a cup of rose water earlier this week, and I plan to make some more once I get more suitable rose petals! Rose water has been touted for many cosmetic uses, from the Renaissance era to today. It is useful as a perfume, but also as a skin toner or mild astringent, and a hair rinse. Here are some Victorian recipes that use rose water in combination with other ingredients, for cosmetic preparations:

From Inquire Within for Anything You Want To Know, 1858:

TO REMOVE FRECKLES.—Dissolve, in half an ounce of lemon-juice, one ounce of Venice soap, and add a quarter of an ounce each of oil of bitter almonds, and deliquated [sic] oil of tartar. Place this mixture in the sun till it acquires the consistency of ointment. When in this state add three drops of the oil of rhodium, and keep it for use. Apply it to the face and hands in the manner following: wash the parts at night with elder-flower water, then anoint with the ointment. In the morning cleanse the skin from its oily adhesion by washing it copiously in rose-water.

From Godey's Lady's Book, 1860:

An excellent soap may be made by scraping and melting down some white curd soap, and adding to it some almond paste. The almonds should first be bleached, and then beaten into a smooth paste, with a small portion of white of egg, and as much rose-water and half its quantity of spirits of wine as will give the paste a proper consistency. Mix this with the melted soap in a proportion of one-fourth.

More Victorian soft drinks

Soft drinks, as we know them (i.e. soda, soda pop, cola, etc.) seem to have been invented in the early 19th century as a health drink; mineral waters had been touted as a healthy liquid for bathing in (the origin of spas), and were recommended health-giving beverages, as well. Some mineral water was naturally fizzy or carbonated, and the custom of making fruit-flavored or herb-flavored fizzy beverages began in imitation of these fizzy mineral waters. Recipes for these drinks, which could be compounded at home, rather than at the apothecary or druggist's shop, involved the combination of cream of tartar, baking soda, and water with sugar and flavorings. The prepared powders were often called "sherbet" or "kali", and were meant to be assembled in advance, and then mixed with cold water immediately before serving. The following recipes are from a book called Inquire Within for Anything You Want to Know, published in 1858.

Lemon and Kali, or Sherbet.—Large quantities of this wholesome and refreshing preparation are manufactured and consumed every summer; it is sold in bottles, and also as a beverage, made by dissolving a large tea-spoonful in a tumbler two-thirds filled with water. Ground white sugar, half a pound; tartaric acid, carbonate of soda, of each a quarter of a pound; essence of lemon, forty drops. All the powders should be well dried; add the essence to the sugar, then the other powders; stir all together, and mix by passing twice through a hair sieve. Must be kept in tightly-corked bottles, into which a damp spoon must not be inserted. All the materials may be obtained at a wholesale druggist’s. The sugar must be ground, as, if merely powdered, the coarser parts remain undissolved.

Ginger-Beer Powders. Blue paper: Carbonate of soda, thirty grains; powdered ginger, five grains; ground white sugar, one drachm to one drachm and a-half; essence of lemon, one drop. Add the essence to the sugar, then the other ingredients. A quantity should be mixed and divided, as recommended for Seidlitz powders.—White paper: Tartaric acid, thirty grains.
Directions.—Dissolve the contents of the blue paper in water, stir in the contents of the white paper, and drink during effervescence. Ginger-beer powders do not meet with such general approbation as lemon and kali, the powdered ginger rendering the liquid slightly turbid.