If the third spice container in a cruet-set was for mustard it would usually be a standard lid-and-spoon mustard pot. This oneâs from the 1840s, though Iâve seen a photo of a Georgian one from the late 1780s which looked just like it.
Mostly they were too big to be included in the set, because mustard was used in larger quantities than anything else. âSpices, Salt & Aromatics in the English Kitchenâ by Elizabeth David Š 1970, mentions the medieval Goodman of Paris recommending that a wedding party of forty persons needed two quarts of mustard. This dropped off a bit as time went on, but even modern mustard-pots (check Google Image) are much larger than the salt-n-pepper. Not that mustard gets eaten in quantity, just taken from the pot. J.J. Coleman, founder of the U.K.âs best known mustard company, once said: âI make my money from the mustard people leave on the side of their plate.â
So that third container may have been for sugar. Hereâs a vintage cruet-set with, going clockwise, a bottle almost certainly for vinegar, a single-hole pourer for salt, a multi-hole shaker for pepper, and a taller multi-hole with larger holes that Iâm convinced is a sugar-caster (from which we get caster sugarâŚ). But sugar as a table condiment?
C. Anne Wilsonâs Š 1973 âFood and Drink in Britain from the Stone Age to the 19th Centuryâ quotes numerous recipes using sugar as a garnish on savoury dishes (trout in wine, roast mutton with herb stuffing, various others), and even uses the term âflavour enhancerâ. It sounds like sugar was the MSG of Renaissance and Early Modern England, and the US palateâs fondness for adding sweetness to savoury - such as pouring syrup onto a breakfast of waffles, bacon and sausage - is an absolute match to the historical flavour combination.
Actual historical information can be overwhelmed by the business of ânot writing down what everyone knowsâ, since it bounces off âwhat is written down leads to what everyone thinks they know.âÂ
Take âmedievalâ and âbathingâ - two words that âeveryone thinksâ are mutually incompatible, reinforced by desaturated movies, dingy costumes, âThereâs some lovely filth over here!â and of course âHow do you know heâs a kingâŚ?â
The usual proof that medieval people were dirty was the infrequency of baths noted in household journals, since stuff like âThis being All Hallowsâ Eve, my Lady did take her bathâ, with similar entries few and far between, indicated that so was washing.
You could apply the same rule to the present day, and be wrong. Moderns, @dduane and I among them, take daily showers but might not have an actual full-tub bath from one monthâs end to the next. Just waiting for the thing to fill takes as long as a hasty freshen-up shower (though Iâm sure other taps work faster than ours) and uses far more of the household hot-water supply, so just hopping in, scrubbing and hopping out again after all that seems a bit wasteful. Why not make a meal of it? LiterallyâŚ
âMore bread, more wine, more hot water?â
Iâve even heard baths described as unhygienic because youâre lying in your own dirty water. Thatâs only if youâre actually using the bath for washing in. We (I donât think weâre the only ones) shower first because we donât actually wash in the tub, we soak, we laze, we luxuriate, and a book and a glass of wine feature more prominently than soap or shampoo.
This time-wasting Deadly Sin of Luxury was one of the things that got bathing a bad name; also that bathing reminded the bather of Certain Parts of The Body and the sinful but fun things that might be done with them.
âYour place or mine?â
The first article linked at the bottom notes that (a) the monks of Westminster Abbey were required to have a bath four times a year, but (b) that the Abbey retained a full-time bath attendant who had a yearly stipend and a daily bread allowance. Why âfull-timeâ and âdailyâ if he was only needed four times a year? I have a feeling those four baths were a formal religious observance (two were at Christmas and Easter) but the monks had far less elaborate washes far more frequently.
There were numerous medieval public bathhouses (frowned upon by the Church since Nakedness led to Nookie), but âtaking a (private) bathâ in the days before piped water and drainage plugs was a serious, disruptive performance in any household, well worth noting down. The bath had to be hauled out, or maybe even constructed from separate parts like a barrel, then enough hot water to fill it had to be heated and carried to the bower or private chamber. Likewise with the cold water, which at least didnât need heating.
âKnock, knock, are you decent? Oops, sorreeeâŚâ
In those circumstances husband and wife sharing a âsave-waterâ bath was common, and thereâs reason to think the rest of the family took their turn, with top-ups of hot water as required. Since this was a bathe-for-luxury rather than wash-for-clean (that bit happened before the hot soak, Japanese style) the water didnât get grubby, but there are some theories that one-tub-for-all may be the origin of âdonât throw the baby out with the bathwaterâ. IMO itâs a little too neat, but YMMV.
Old-style wooden tubs are still available, and I can imagine with great pleasure how long this one would keep the water hot (that angled thing is a backrest, padded when in use.)
After the bath was done, all the water had to be carried back downstairs again (if not flung out of a window, bucket by bucket) the bath put away, spills mopped up, and of course the staff had also to make time for all their regular chores as well. Small wonder such an event got noted and logged with a subtext of relief that it wouldnât happen again for a couple of months.
âIs that the loofah?â âNo, but donât stop scrubbingâŚâ
I have a feeling that ordinary keep-clean washing was much simpler, and happened far more often. It needs just two buckets, a washcloth, a basin and a towel. Stand in the basin, wet the washcloth, wash with water from one bucket, rinse with water from the other bucket, dry off with the towel. Done. If necessary you could get away with just one bucket, so long as you didnât let the water in it get too soiled. This process was far less disruptive and wasnât entered into the household accounts, any more than noting every visit to the well or firewood stack.
We actually proved this could be managed a few years ago, when our shower mixer tap broke and the local hardware store couldnât source a replacement for a week. So we used our garden bucket, our kitchen bucket, a washcloth, a sponge, and stood in the bathtub instead of a basin. It wasnât as refreshing as a shower, but used far less water than even a partially-full tub and kept us throughly clean until the mixer tap was fixed. (Weâve since bought one of those hand-shower things that go on the bath taps, and of course now weâve got it weâve never needed it.)
More about the subject here. And here. And here. And here.
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
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