The Napoleonic wars are one of my favourite time periods and sometimes I wish I could be in Wellington’s army fighting in the Peninsular war until you remember the lack of amenities we take for granted. It would be nice to follow Wellington from Portugal through to France victory after victory bringing the Spanish their freedom and helping to bring Boney himself down. Finally to be at Waterloo the closest run battle of the entire War. There was the brief aside in the war of 1812, oh to have a time machine and go back and tell the British commander don’t charge the cotton bales at New Orleans. Here he is Napoleon himself.
Well what has this got to with climate change, it all happened during the little ice age LIA (so called because no one told the truth), famine sparked the French Revolution which led to Napoleon trying to conquer the whole of Europe. It led to the UK becoming an industrial superpower. Napoleon needed cash to fight his wars of conquest so he sold to the USA what became the Louisiana purchase which he had stolen from the Spanish. America doubled in size. The war of 1812 gave the USA it’s national anthem based on appropriately an English beer game drinking song. Income tax was invented because of the LIA, Frankenstein was born in a chateau in Switzerland. Railways became a reality and mass transit was born. All caused indirectly by the LIA. Napoleon was also defeated not by the armies of Europe but by the LIA on his long march back from Moscow.
Knotted prop Blog 
Hi Crown, Amanda, Dr Dave, Meltemian and co.
Here’s wishing you a Happy Christmas, a prosperous and in the spirit of the Chinese proverb; a Boring New Year.
with all the best from the frozen PIIG
http://met.ie/forecasts/atlantic-charts.asp
Well here is one for the guys…
Off topic, darlings, but I offer this cultural colostomy bag (well not really) for the Goodness Can That Be True files.
A website claims to give us ’20 different Christmas traditions from around the world’. First comes England. If you recognize very much of this as an actual practice in your household, then or now, I’d be amazed (Dr Dave is not included because obviously he is American — and now he has the heads-up not to take this at face value). Obviously the veracity of the further 19 must be seriously questioned. I stopped at no. 1. (My favourite bit is ‘Yorkshire pudding for dessert’! One rather suspects that the author is a comedian, but probably not.)
1.England: Christmas in England is filled with many unique traditions and cheerful festivities that you won’t find anywhere else. English families decorate their homes with holly and ivy and hang mistletoe in the doorway. Christmas Even is a busy day for families and filled with gift wrapping, baking and reading children’s Christmas stories together. While a Yule log burns in the fireplace, children write their wish lists to Father Christmas and throw them into the fire so that their wishes will come true. Carolers go from house to house, and they are rewarded with little pies and treats. On Christmas Day, English families enjoy a midday feast of turkey, stuffing, roast goose or roast beef sides, with Yorkshire pudding for dessert. Afterward, families gather to listen to the Queen of England deliver a Christmas message over the radio or television, followed by tea and Christmas cake.
Yes sure we did all that, I just remember drinking being a large part of the equation. Yorkshire pudding as desert sacrilege.
Amanda,
I had to look up what Yorkshire pudding is. It sounds absolutely disgusting…but then, I don’t even like gravy. Of course I anxiously await Obama’s Christmas message via MSNBC.
When I lived in Amarillo there was a restaurant downtown that served “authentic” English food. I ate there once. I’m surprised the whole of England hasn’t starved to death. I’m quite fond of fish & chips (particularly the fish with malt vinegar) but the rest of the fare was excruciatingly bland. And you have such lovely names for these dishes – bubble & squeak, bangers & snot, etc.
I plan on a nice turkey this weekend but we haven’t done much “fancy cookin'” lately. We used to do grilled legs of lamb, grilled beef tenderloin, smoked pork tenderloin, smoked trout, lamb chops, etc. Lately even grilling burgers is a chore because it’s cold outside. Geez…now I have a hankerin’ for a slow roasted standing rib roast with beets and mashed taters. Or another holiday favorite of mine – shrimp fettuccine alfredo (warmed up it’s great for breakfast).
What exactly have you got against Spotted Dick?
Most Southern food here is quite bland and the so called spicy is very mild around here even the Cajun stuff. I think you will find the residents of the UK are more adventurous when it comes to spicy cuisine these days from many different lands, curry is a big favourite usually lamb or chicken. However in this household the missus can cook and I get to eat Vietnamese, Western pueblo Indian fare which resembles Mexican but not quite, traditional American and anything she puts her mind to.
She has gotten the hang of Yorkshire puddings which by dint of her calling them puff puddings are now forever enshrined as homosexual puddings in this household. Everyone who tries yhe ouddings actually loves them especially with brown gravy and mashed potatoes.
The fare I grew up eating was pretty bland relative to my tastes today. I think I was 10 or 11 before I ever tasted pizza and probably 18 before I had a taco. My father was fond of kraut and Polish sausage but I couldn’t stand it until I was an adult. Real Cajun food has quite a kick to it as does Tex-Mex. Authentic northern NM cuisine is flavorful but not particularly hot. Typically red chili is not really “hot” but I bought a package recently that about blew my head off. I cooked up a pot of chili and it was so damn hot even I couldn’t eat it. I actually had to throw it out! It was so hot the dogs wouldn’t eat it (and they LOVE chili).
I have a bottle of Vietnamese red chili and garlic sauce that I use as a booster fuel to a can of Ranch Style beans. It’s great for stir fry as well but the little lady hates garlic. As such we have something of a culinary gulf between us. She’s an excellent cook (and has taught me a lot of kitchen tricks) but we differ on essentials like what constitutes a proper stew or spaghetti sauce.
You know, I’ve eaten many cuts of beef (no tongue, brain, tripe or heart), pork, lamb, chicken, duck, pheasant, turkey, dove, quail, goat, black bear, venison, elk…even rattlesnake…but I have never had rabbit or mutton. Do you eat rabbit or mutton?
The missus cooks up a great burrito smothered with green chili and if I make her mad she uses scotch bonnets. she makes things very hot. She makes an extremely hot Chipotle salsa but it can’t be used for dipping just as a small side or on top of burgers.
I have never tried mutton as lamb was very common Luton Ian has. I have tried rabbit and it is very nice roasted with a few herbs tastes great when it’s poached from some else’s land allegedly.
Hi Dr Dave,
Bunny first, it’s easy, it’s just like a slightly pissy tasting white poultry meat, very inoffensive. Anything you can do with chicken, you can do with bunnies.
They’re so similar that my mother got away with feeding it to an ex of mine (who would have sulked and stamped her little foot, and used that sharp spike females have on their elbows, for weeks after, if she’d known she’d eaten bunny). I spent the whole meal bitching about being fed chicken as cover.
With their skins, guts heads and feet off, the only thing visually different (obviously they smell different) between a cat and a bunny carcase is the position of the kidneys – cats have them side by side, rabbits have them offset allong the spine. I’ve never knowingly eaten cat (or dog), but I’m told that all cats are good eating. The South Africans even make billtong (jerky) out of lion meat.
Hare (our jack rabbit) is very lean, very dark red meat and very strong and gamey. Very much an acquired taste.
Mutton depends on what it came off. The stuff that gets called “lamb” in curries or kebabs is old ewe or old ram – tough, unless it is well cooked but tasty enough, anything with bollocks on it will be strong / gamey.
The good stuff comes off one that’s been running around with his nuts off since he was a baby. Three to five years seems a good age, and he’ll be naturally fat off the grass or heather in the autumn. The meat needs a long slow cook, the fat pouring off then a short blast in a hot oven to crisp it up. Do not even think of eating mutton rare, it’s just greasy that way.
The Victorians wouldn’t eat lamb, they considered it to be too young to have developed flavour and texture. It’s a bit like comparing veal to good beef. The point now is that no one’s willing to pay the price difference for keeping the animal until it is two or more years old.
Sheep meat has sufficient fat content for some of the flavours of what it has been eating to carry over, so fragrant herbs in the diet work well, turnips and other brassicas give a cabbage taste to the meat.
Good beef depends on what it has been fed on and how old it was. Argentine beef was supposed to be good as the critters were fattened on grass as they were walked however many hundred miles it was to the slaughter house, rather than lying around in a feed lot, eating corn.
There is also a lot to be gained in flavour by a long hanging. The branch of the family who were butchers, used to begin killing the beef for their best customers about a month before Christmas. Again, that’s a lot of capital hanging in a cold store for a month.
I’ve knowingly eaten most parts of an animal, and have semi knowingly eaten absolutely all parts in burgers, sausage, mince and Frey Bentos…
The least appealing bits were barbecued rings of goat tripe (guts) which tasted like goat shit smells.
There was a commedy sketch, of a bunch of drunk guptas all piling into an English restaurant in Mumbai, at 11:30pm on a Friday night.
The girl who was with them didn’t want hers too bland.
bender pudding is the same mix as pancakes / crepes, so no problem with it sweet.
There are also the various fruit jellies we eat with meat – jam by another name
Puff puddings! heh heh heh 🙂
Now to be served in the US military.
LOL
Dr Dave,
You’ll be delighted to know (and I like your list of lovely meats, even though I prefer lamb when it’s gambolling in fields) that the cliche about English food is about 20 years out of date. Pubs these days serve the old standbys less and less, and certainly they are intermingled with sophisticated spicy dishes, modern meals you could find in good restaurants in Europe or here.
Also, you have to bear in mind that English people were not usually restaurant-goers in the past; they mainly ate at home, and that’s where authentic, good, English cuisine could be found. I’ve always loved my two grandmothers’ cooking: flavourful, varied, wonderfully textured, abundant.
As for Yorkshire pudding: I LOVE it! But then, I also enjoyed haggis jacket potatoes when in Edinburgh. Personally I can’t understand why Americans are so fond of those daft things they call ‘biscuits’ — but then again, they eat ‘biscuits’ and shoestring fries in restaurants, don’t they — not at home. Real American cooking, in actual homes, is much better than what you get at cheap restaurants. Something to remember when you think that English food is awful!
Amanda I introduced my daughter in law to real “chips” she loves them.
Crown: Indeed, and who wouldn’t?
BTW I love Dr Dave’s quip about anxiously awaiting Obama’s Christmas message. Oh jeez. Gimme the hemlock now and let’s just get it over with!
No doubt it will involve apologizing to the Islamic world somehow.
Amanda,
No doubt you’re right. I went to that “authentic English food” restaurant just about 20 years ago. America has sopped up Italian, Indian, Greek, Mexican cuisine among many others and I find it difficult to believe Britain would not do the same. One of my very favorite restaurants in Amarillo was a Japanese steakhouse (absolute best fried rice ever to pass my lips). Amarillo had restaurants of almost any ethnicity or genre you can imagine. Where I live now, Santa Fe, they have far less diversity and this city is known for arts and fine food. The better places focus on northern NM cuisine which gets old after you’ve lived here for almost 16 years. Nobody goes out to eat Tuna and Noodle Casserole which is standard American fare (and despised by children of many generations).
You got me on biscuits. I’m not a big fan of biscuits although some dinner rolls are very tasty. To me, Yorkshire pudding sounds like wads of dough with fat dripped on it. Crown’s spotted dick (I had to look it up) is nothing more than suet with fruit in it. I buy suet…for the birds in my backyard. You couldn’t get me drunk enough to try haggis. Of course I would never try deep fried bovine testicular tissue either and this is a classic Texas favorite. There are lots of “American classics” I’ll never eat…like chitterlings, hamhocks, turnip greens or calf brains. Hell, I don’t even like oatmeal! But I’m pretty open minded and will try nearly everything that’s not a mammalian organ (e.g. kidney, liver, heart, brain, etc.). Have you ever had black eyed peas?
DrDave then you have not tried suet pudding or suet dumplings have you missed out, I have eaten black eyed peas quite nice cooked with a bit of bacon or ham and turnip greens are nothing special it’s like bland cabbage. I’m sure Amanda can let us know what she has tried.
Dr Dave:
I’m not sure about the black-eyed peas. Is that something that might be slipped into a chilli or something spicy like that?
I enjoyed your comments and I must say that your likes and dislikes chime well with mine. You don’t like oatmeal, eh? This could be the start of a beautiful friendship! Heh heh.
Amanda,
Black eyed peas are a tasty little legume. Their popularity is somewhat defined by geography. Where I grew up (in Michigan) “white people” didn’t eat back eyed peas. They were grown as animal feed. When I moved to Texas I tried them and discovered I loved them. They’re very popular in the south. Conversely, kidney beans are popular in the midwest but not so much in the south. To me, good chili must contain kidney beans.
My mother was a nurse and really didn’t like to cook. I grew up on canned vegetables. When I went away to college I discovered how wonderful fresh vegetables are. My favorites now are things I wouldn’t eat as a kid – asparagus, brussels sprouts, beets, broccoli, cauliflower. As I have moved around the country I have been exposed to different foods. Some I really like, others are too disgusting to try (e.g. menudo).
Hi Amanda,
Sounds like an idealised Christmas, or possibly a ’50’s one.
BUT!! Who has yorkshire pud for dessert?? Figgy-pud with brandy butter or nothing!
Hi Meltemian,
Yes, it sounds like a Ladybird-book collection of Christmas customs, presented as though we all do all these things all the time (but note the absence of any mention of Christmas trees or the stocking at the end of the bed!).
‘Figgy-pud with brandy butter’ — OR mince-meat pies with maple-caramel-butter-sauce as an American substitute for brandy butter, which is what I had tonight. (Walker’s, from a box: well, it’s easy, and I’m baking a lemon meringue pie tomorrow, which my husband assures me is the best he’s ever eaten.)
Have a lovely Christmas. Are you in Greece for it or going back to Blighty?
Amanda
Hi Amanda,
We’re staying in Greece this year and having friends (Swiss, English and German) round for Christmas Dinner.
We went back to England last Christmas to greet our new twin grandsons so maybe we’ll visit them again next year. They did summer here so I suppose it’s only fair.
We’re off to a Carol Concert this evening – shame I have a terrible singing voice, unlike you, but I’ll do my best.
Have a lovely time and eat lots!
Meltemian:
Oh, you’re a sweetheart. Your Christmas sounds like lots of fun!
See you in the new year!
I was always too stuffed by the first and second courses to tackle desert but Christmas pudding and mince pies were on the menu.
Crown: Understood, but I am personally NEVER too stuffed for a mince pie! In fact, having another mini one tonight! Goes down very nicely with good red wine.
Well I’m stuffed right now, mince pies is something I never liked or Christmas pudding I’m not big on desserts or starters just the main meal. We shall be having honey baked spiral cut ham, Yorkshire puddings mashed potatoes and a few other things.
I love red wine trouble is it doesn’t like me but when I’m just relaxing it’s Lambrusco coz it’s fizzy.
Red wine likes me so much that it’s a rare evening when it can’t be found hanging round me! :^)
Not big on desserts! Good god man!
Love the sound of your dinner: ham’s OK but I would hoover up the Yorkshires and spuds. Mmmm.
The one thing that the LIA was responsible for was the infamous Hartlepool monkey hanging. Giving the rest of us thereabouts generations of something to mock the inhabitants by.
It was said a french shipwreck in Napoleonic times yielded only one survivor a monkey dressed in French uniform. The locals assumed he was a frenchman and tried him as a spy and he was summarily hung.
Oddly enough the family of Robert de Bruce had held lands near to Hartlepool coincidence I think not.
Crown,
I don’t think enough emphasis has been placed on the relationship of the LIA with the plague (which wiped out between 30 and 60%) of the population of Europe in the 14th century. The LIA started a cascade of events starting with crop failures and famine. This weakened the population thereby rendering them susceptible to disease. Yerenia pestis (plague) lives in rodents like rats and spread to humans via a flea vector. Rats cozy up to humans when it’s cold outside (as do the freakin’ mice who invade my garage). Now plague is almost gone from the planet. Oddly, the county where I live is still endemic for plague. My local vet sees about a case every other year in dogs.
Hard to say where mankind might be today if nearly half the population of Europe had not been wiped out by disease imported from Asia.
A good point those plagues lasted until 1665 and the reign of Charles II, one side affect of the plague is that most people in Western Europe now have some immunity to it and this same immunity also leads to some protection against HIV with some people immune to it and some people with partial immunity. Obviously it’s not perfect and not everyone has this.
Famine played a large part in all this and untold millions died from this and researching famines I came across this gem…
http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/l/List_of_famines.htm
Did you know that there was a corresponding Scottish potato famine at the same time as the Irish famine, I expect little is said about this as no doubt the lairds wanting sheep and cattle not people paid for their ticket to Canada or the USA. Or the people fled South to work in the factories or mines.
For historical context:
This can not go unanswered….
Crown,
Just be glad we got over that little dustup or y’all would be speaking German today.
The Nepoleonic wars, the American Revolutionary War, the War of 1812 (and it’s successful conclusion in 1814) and the French Revolution all took place during the LIA. Had it been as warm then as it is today things may have turned out differently…certainly for Napoleon.
Well after that both sides went to the conference table to settle boundary disputes and the UK choose to remain neutral even with sufficient cause to go to war with the boarding of a British ship by the Union navy during the civil war. They would have helped the South if had not been for that little thing called slavery.
The war of 1812 ended up as a stalemate Northern Maine remained in British hands until 1842. The big point I’m trying to make is how much the LIA affected the course of history.
On top of the LIA in 1815 Tambora in Indonesia erupted making a bad situation worse in the USA they had the year without a summer in New England this prompted tens of thousands of people to head West and seek better farm land.
It is noticeable that since 1850 the worlds population has exploded thanks to warmer weather and increasing crop yields and more people has meant faster technological growth than ever before and even better crop yields. If we enter into another prolonged cooling period our present population levels will crash with famine and disease more common.
My god, it’s Michael Caine in the front!
LOL
She who must says
“Whoever posted that must be autistic…”
“-no dear, just male”
Also very lazy when it comes to blogging and didn’t Napoleon kick the crud out of the whole of Italy during that time period, I believe Venice lost it’s status as an independent Republic at this time.
She has blog envy.
Thanks to Borepatch fo finding this gem.
That’s great, and I love the workout soundtrack to go along with the advert.
Obviously I’m a complete failure as a woman, being direct and rarely making a suggestion when I mean to give a command. I’d suggest a Dominatri-coder but naturally that wouldn’t be necessary.
What is funny is the monosyllabic translation for men. The dominatri-coder would come with it’s own inbuilt electro shock inducer.
As an aside look Blackmores Night on youtube from Rainbow to Folk Rock.
Electric pixies do Elvis: who would’ve thought?
Yes, a Star Trek Agonizer could come in really handy! Too bad it’s too late for Christmas: we could have made a mint!
I’m sure there is a large market out there.