Fireworks and Food for Jane Austen

It is a national holiday here in the U.S.A., and there will ben many cookouts and fireworks. Most states have laws about buying or using fireworks, but in the three states I have now lived in: Texas, California, and West Virginia, these laws are all merrily ignored.

Do you live in a law-abiding state? I’m curious! My children and I used to walk up on the Hansen Dam north of Los Angeles to see the fireworks. People would set off huge rockets in the streets or in their yards, and we would also track the flashing police lights as they would crisscross the San Fernando Valley trying to put a lid on the most dangerous displays.

In honor of fireworks and feasting, here are a few excerpts from Jane Austen’s letters on her own experiences. She is so invariably funny!

“There is to be a grand gala on Tuesday evening in Sydney Gardens, a concert, with illuminations and fireworks. To the latter Elizabeth and I look forward with pleasure, and even the concert will have more than its usual charm for me, as the gardens are large enough for me to get pretty well beyond the reach of its sound.” (italics added)

Then there is food!

On ribs:

“My father furnishes him with a pig from Cheesedown; it is already killed and cut up, but it is not to weigh more than nine stone; the season is too far advanced to get him a larger one. My mother means to pay herself for the salt and the trouble of ordering it to be cured by the spareribs, the souse, and the lard. We have had one dead lamb.”

When I looked up souse, I found out from Purnell’s ‘Old Folks’ Country Sausage, that:

“Souse is one of the great old-fashioned meats that you get at the butcher shop or packaged cold cuts. Lightly pickled pork trimmings seasoned with vinegar and spices. Whether you remember it called Head Cheese or Souse, we still make it in Hot or Mild.”

I would’ve been okay without the phrase “head cheese” ever coming my way!

Pigs:

“My father is glad to hear so good an account of Edward’s pigs, and desires he may be told, as encouragement to his taste for them, that Lord Bolton is particularly curious in his pigs, has had pigstyes of a most elegant construction built for them, and visits them every morning as soon as he rises.”

Butter:

“But as to our black butter, do not decoy anybody to Southampton by such a lure, for it is all gone. The first pot was opened when Frank and Mary were here, and proved not at all what it ought to be; it was neither solid nor entirely sweet, and on seeing it, Eliza remembered that Miss Austen had said she did not think it had been boiled enough. It was made, you know, when we were absent. Such being the event of the first pot, I would not save the second, and we therefore ate it in unpretending privacy; and though not what it ought to be, part of it was very good.”

Cream:

“Miss Fletcher and I were very thick, but I am the thinnest of the two. She wore her purple muslin, which is pretty enough, though it does not become her complexion. There are two traits in her character which are pleasing,—namely, she admires Camilla, and drinks no cream in her tea.”

Wine:

“Your letter took me quite by surprise this morning; you are very welcome, however, and I am very much obliged to you. I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to-day. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error.”

Even Jane Austen made this mistake then…

Strawberries and gooseberries:

“Yesterday I had the agreeable surprise of finding several scarlet strawberries quite ripe; had you been at home, this would have been a pleasure lost. There are more gooseberries and fewer currants than I thought at first. We must buy currants for our wine.”

Goose & tomatoes?

“Mr. Rob. Mascall breakfasted here; he eats a great deal of butter. I dined upon goose yesterday, which, I hope, will secure a good sale of my second edition. Have you any tomatas? Fanny and I regale on them every day.”

I have no idea why eating goose should help her sell her second edition, but maybe I should eat goose when I release my next novel?!

Anyway, happy 4th of July to you all! I hope you have a safe celebration, and many tasty foods!

Corrie