Sherlock Holmes: The Case of Mrs Beeton and the Biscuit Syringe

Yes, this is another post about Victorians and their obsession with cake. But hey, you can't have too much cake (or Victorians), right?!

First things first - macaroons. Here's an extract of a recipe from Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, that most classic of Victorian recipe books:

Macaroons.

Blanch, skin, and dry the almonds, and pound them well with a little orange-flower water or plain water; then add to them the sifted sugar and the whites of the eggs, which should be beaten to a stiff froth, and mix all the ingredients well together. When the paste looks soft, drop it at equal distances from a biscuit-syringe on to sheets of wafer-paper; put a strip of almond on the top of each; strew some sugar over, and bake the macaroons in rather a slow oven, of a light brown colour when hard and set, they are done, and must not be allowed to get very brown, as that would spoil their appearance. If the cakes, when baked, appear heavy, add a little more white of egg, but let this always be well whisked before it is added to the other ingredients. We have given a recipe for making these cakes, but we think it almost or quite as economical to purchase such articles as these at a good confectioner’s.

I like how the end of the recipe is basically saying "no-one has time to make these, seriously, just go and buy some". I mean honestly, who dries their own almonds, let alone owns a 'biscuit-syringe' (to be fair I really want one now *adds to Christmas list*)

But who was Mrs Beeton?

Isabella Mary Beeton (née Mayson) was educated in Germany for two years, and was also an accomplished pianist. She married Samuel Beeton, an influential publisher, and at the age of 20 began to help him to translate and transcribe novels for publication.

Four years earlier, Mr Beeton had launched The English Woman's Domestic Magazine, which Isabella now helped him to edit.

 

Here, accounts of Mrs Beeton diverge into the pro-Beeton and anti-Beeton camps. On the one hand there are those who say she was a culinary pioneer, looking out for cash-strapped families and helping them to improve their culinary skills and dietary range. On the other hand, many argue that she plagiarised the majority of her recipies, lifting them from other publications and passing them off as her own. A little research on the internet has turned up a fair few arguments for both sides of this historical debate - here are two of the more succinct arguments:

Representing the pro-Beetons, we have www.mrsbeeton.com ...

 "In 1852 he [Mr Beeton] had launched The English Woman's Domestic Magazine, the first magazine to be devoted entirely to the interests of women, which was a great success, much of it edited by Isabella. The Beetons invited recipe contributions from readers, and so many poured in that a selection of them was published in 24 monthly parts from 1859 to 1961, when they were put together in bound form as Beeton's Book of Household Management. So began the major work for which Mrs. Beeton is known. It was a serious, and very good, cookery book of mid-Victorian and early 19th century recipes - recipes which would help people, as she put it herself, to "live economically, tastefully and well."

Every recipe that was published was tried out in her own kitchen, by herself, her cook and her kitchenmaid. Only the ones that worked well were included. Her first criterion was that they should be truly economical, so the cost was always included at the end of each recipe, as well as how many mouths each dish would feed."

For Team Anti-Beeton, we have the Guardian newspaper ... 

"If Mrs Beeton had been alive today she would be in trouble for plagiarism on a shocking scale [...] The image of the original domestic goddess and author of the definitive book on cookery and household management has been tainted. The real Mrs Beeton was in fact a strip of a girl who could not cook.
The historian Kathryn Hughes has written the definitive biography of a woman born in 1836 who became a template for hardworking housewives. [...] Isabella Beeton was only 21 when she began cookery writing. Her first recipe for Victoria sponge was so inept that she left out the eggs. Seven years later she was dead. How did she come to write the seminal book? "The answer is she copied everything," Hughes said.
It took Hughes five years to track down the recipes which she discovered had been brazenly copied by Mrs Beeton, almost word for word, from books as far back as the Restoration."

You can read the whole article here.

But whatever you think of Mrs Beeton, you must admit that the pictures in her book were beautiful. I would like to eat all of these - preferably not all at once though!

 

One for the Bake Off fans: this week contestants have been making Charlotte Russe as part of  Victorian week, and there's one in the above image...

A further note: Mrs Beeton's husband Samuel was also responsible for founding Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1860 - excitingly, this was the magazine in which Sherlock Holmes first appeared, in November 1887.

Ignoring the possible plagiarism issue, therefore, I think the Beetons were pretty cool. They were Victorians with an interest in baking and Conan Doyle - what more could you want?!

The Secret Victorian