Love and Friendship: Take Two

Love and Friendship:  Take Two

I recently wrote a review of the Wilt Stillman adaptation of Jane Austen's Lady Susan. Herein I attempt a review of the novelization of the film.

Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated by Whit Stillman

Ostensibly written by Lady Susan Vernon's nephew by marriage in 1858, this is an attempt to vindicate Lady Susan, who, in the original novella, is the most awful mother and an accomplished flirt. The nephew claims that anonymous spinster maligned his aunt by making up certain situations and dialogues. He attempts to remedy that with his own memories - and fails. The dialogue is terrible. It's stilted and unnatural but in the movie, it's funny! The actors can pull it off and make it seem funny. The narrator is a dreadful, pompous, bore who inserts his very Victorian ideas into the story. While I do feel bad for Lady Susan, being around the same age, it would have been hard for her as a poor widow, to find another husband or some other way to live. In the original novella, she's scheming and callous but according to her nephew, Lady Susan and Alicia had their own language and often shared inside jokes any listener would misunderstand. Riiigghttt...

The story is a bit funny in parts but mostly because I saw the movie so I can picture the actors' facial expressions. I don't think Jane Austen would have written a character so stupid as Sir James Martin. She poked fun at people but not people who are truly intellectually challenged, as Sir James seems to be. Lady Susan still isn't very likable despite her nephews assertions to the contrary and Frederica comes across as kind of Fanny Price-ish.

This is a so-so attempt at fan-fiction and I applaud his attempt to go with a lesser known work. I didn't have high hopes coming into the movie but expected better of the novelization.

Historical Food Fortnightly 2016 13

Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #13

Pies

The Challenge: Pies

Make a pie! Meat, fruit, sweet or savory; traditional pies, hand pies, standing pies, or galottes - get creative, but make sure it’s documented!

This challenge fell at exactly the right time. I had some rare days off work AND it's Father's Day. I didn't even have to ask my dad what kind of pie he wanted- I already knew- his mother's famous blueberry pie with crumb topping.  My grandmother always used fresh blueberries, stocking up during a sale. She would make the topping and freeze it and used prepared pie crusts. In in the interest of making this a true challenge, I made my own pie crust. This type of pie, a crumble or a crisp, goes back to early America but I think this particular recipe comes from the 1960s. I found a similar recipe clipping at this vintage recipe blog.

I also added a bonus challenge to use my extra pie crust.

The Recipe: 

Nonnie's Best Blueberry Pie

Pie crust recipe from my Nonnie (paternal grandmother) with help from The Lily Wallace New American Cookbook c. 1947:
3 heaping cups full of flour
1 handful equal to one stick shortening
1 pinch salt
3/4 c. ice water

Mix flour, salt and shortening by hand. Slowly add ice water and combine by hand. Press into a ball and divide into two parts.

 Chill and roll out until 1/8" thick. Flour rolling pin and roll dough back onto rolling pin and into pie tin.

 Gently press dough into pie tin and prick all around with a fork. 

Topping:
2 c. flour
1 stick butter, softened
1 pinch salt 
3/4 c. sugar (mix white and brown or use dark brown)
dash cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
Mix with fingers and knead until crumbly


Filling:
1 1/2 qt. blueberries
3/4 sugar
1 T. butter 
1 drop lemon juice
flour (opt.)

Wash and dry blueberries and place in a large bowl. If very dry you can add 6 T. flour. Add sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix. Double tinfoil in pan so pie doesn't leak. Squeeze a drop of lemon juice on the blueberries. Put a pat of butter on top and add crumb topping. Bake at 350 degrees. Check after 15 minutes. Give it another 15 if not done. Bake until crumbs are golden brown. (You will smell it when it's done!) 

Bonus:
Pennsylvania Dutch Funny Cake
I had extra pie crust AND I have Pennsylvania Dutch mini pie pans. This recipe came from  a Swans Down recipe and advertisement from September 21, 1953. I found it on Pinterest from the blog Dying for Chocolate. See the full ad on the blog.

The Date/Year and Region: 1960s New England
Crumbles, crisps, slumps and grunts that date back to pioneer times, according to foodtimeline.org. This particular recipe, which is very similar, dates to the 1960s

Funny Cake recipe is from 1953 but it supposedly dates back a lot farther.

How Did You Make It: 
Nonnie was one of those old world grandmas who never measured. She had all her recipes in her head. Several years ago I watched my Nonnie make the pie and copied down actual measurements. She used a handful of shortening, a pinch of cinnamon, etc. I followed my own written directions.  I added more fat and more water to the crust and more fat and brown sugar to the crumbs. I let the pie crust dough chill for an hour in the fridge before rolling and then blind baked it for 15 minutes. 

(I poked holes in the crust, filled it with rice and baked). 

Put foil over the crust and filled with rice.

After blind baking my crust is lightly browned.

Smaller crush blind baked

For the Funny Cake, I made a chocolate sauce melting dark chocolate chips instead of unsweetened chocolate, which I didn't have. I made the cake flour by removing 2 T of flour and adding 2 T of cornstarch per cup of flour. I sifted that together. I creamed the shortening in an electric mixer and then sifted the dry ingredients together and then poured slowly into the shortening and mixed again. I followed the rest of the directions to make cake batter. Then I poured it into my two small PA Dutch pie tins.

I topped the pie with chocolate sauce and crushed unsalted peanuts.

 I poured more chocolate sauce on the cake before baking. My pie tins were close to overflowing!

and then more when I cut it and ate it. Oops we ate it too fast for a picture! Here's one of the cut pie/cake.

Time to Complete:  About 2 hours for the pie crust and an hour for the pie including baking time. 


The Funny Cake took about an hour.

Total Cost: Blueberries were on sale and I had to buy brown sugar but I had everything else on hand.

How Successful Was It?: 

Very. I normally don't like pie crust. It's too thick and tasteless but my homemade crust was really good. It's light and flaky. Everyone, including my uncle who stopped by, said it tasted like Nonnie's and it was delicious. I think I added too much sugar and too much nutmeg but it's still so good.

The Funny Cake was a pleasant surprise. My chocolate sauce was runny and not very chocolately. I ended up with more sauce than I needed so I poured some over the hot cake. The cake is very light and buttery. My dad thinks it could be eaten for breakfast. 

How Accurate Is It?: 100% for both.

Historical Food Fortnightly 2016 13

Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #13

Pies

The Challenge: Pies

Make a pie! Meat, fruit, sweet or savory; traditional pies, hand pies, standing pies, or galottes - get creative, but make sure it’s documented!

This challenge fell at exactly the right time. I had some rare days off work AND it's Father's Day. I didn't even have to ask my dad what kind of pie he wanted- I already knew- his mother's famous blueberry pie with crumb topping.  My grandmother always used fresh blueberries, stocking up during a sale. She would make the topping and freeze it and used prepared pie crusts. In in the interest of making this a true challenge, I made my own pie crust. This type of pie, a crumble or a crisp, goes back to early America but I think this particular recipe comes from the 1960s. I found a similar recipe clipping at this vintage recipe blog.

I also added a bonus challenge to use my extra pie crust.

The Recipe: 

Nonnie's Best Blueberry Pie

Pie crust recipe from my Nonnie (paternal grandmother) with help from The Lily Wallace New American Cookbook c. 1947:
3 heaping cups full of flour
1 handful equal to one stick shortening
1 pinch salt
3/4 c. ice water

Mix flour, salt and shortening by hand. Slowly add ice water and combine by hand. Press into a ball and divide into two parts.

 Chill and roll out until 1/8" thick. Flour rolling pin and roll dough back onto rolling pin and into pie tin.

 Gently press dough into pie tin and prick all around with a fork. 

Topping:
2 c. flour
1 stick butter, softened
1 pinch salt 
3/4 c. sugar (mix white and brown or use dark brown)
dash cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
Mix with fingers and knead until crumbly


Filling:
1 1/2 qt. blueberries
3/4 sugar
1 T. butter 
1 drop lemon juice
flour (opt.)

Wash and dry blueberries and place in a large bowl. If very dry you can add 6 T. flour. Add sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix. Double tinfoil in pan so pie doesn't leak. Squeeze a drop of lemon juice on the blueberries. Put a pat of butter on top and add crumb topping. Bake at 350 degrees. Check after 15 minutes. Give it another 15 if not done. Bake until crumbs are golden brown. (You will smell it when it's done!) 

Bonus:
Pennsylvania Dutch Funny Cake
I had extra pie crust AND I have Pennsylvania Dutch mini pie pans. This recipe came from  a Swans Down recipe and advertisement from September 21, 1953. I found it on Pinterest from the blog Dying for Chocolate. See the full ad on the blog.

The Date/Year and Region: 1960s New England
Crumbles, crisps, slumps and grunts that date back to pioneer times, according to foodtimeline.org. This particular recipe, which is very similar, dates to the 1960s

Funny Cake recipe is from 1953 but it supposedly dates back a lot farther.

How Did You Make It: 
Nonnie was one of those old world grandmas who never measured. She had all her recipes in her head. Several years ago I watched my Nonnie make the pie and copied down actual measurements. She used a handful of shortening, a pinch of cinnamon, etc. I followed my own written directions.  I added more fat and more water to the crust and more fat and brown sugar to the crumbs. I let the pie crust dough chill for an hour in the fridge before rolling and then blind baked it for 15 minutes. 

(I poked holes in the crust, filled it with rice and baked). 

Put foil over the crust and filled with rice.

After blind baking my crust is lightly browned.

Smaller crush blind baked

For the Funny Cake, I made a chocolate sauce melting dark chocolate chips instead of unsweetened chocolate, which I didn't have. I made the cake flour by removing 2 T of flour and adding 2 T of cornstarch per cup of flour. I sifted that together. I creamed the shortening in an electric mixer and then sifted the dry ingredients together and then poured slowly into the shortening and mixed again. I followed the rest of the directions to make cake batter. Then I poured it into my two small PA Dutch pie tins.

I topped the pie with chocolate sauce and crushed unsalted peanuts.

 I poured more chocolate sauce on the cake before baking. My pie tins were close to overflowing!

and then more when I cut it and ate it. Oops we ate it too fast for a picture! Here's one of the cut pie/cake.

Time to Complete:  About 2 hours for the pie crust and an hour for the pie including baking time. 


The Funny Cake took about an hour.

Total Cost: Blueberries were on sale and I had to buy brown sugar but I had everything else on hand.

How Successful Was It?: 

Very. I normally don't like pie crust. It's too thick and tasteless but my homemade crust was really good. It's light and flaky. Everyone, including my uncle who stopped by, said it tasted like Nonnie's and it was delicious. I think I added too much sugar and too much nutmeg but it's still so good.

The Funny Cake was a pleasant surprise. My chocolate sauce was runny and not very chocolately. I ended up with more sauce than I needed so I poured some over the hot cake. The cake is very light and buttery. My dad thinks it could be eaten for breakfast. 

How Accurate Is It?: 100% for both.

Movie Review: Love & Friendship

Movie Review

Love & Friendship

All photos copyrighted and taken from imdb.com. No copyright infringement intended. For illustration purposes only.

Love and Friendship is a take on Jane Austen's epistolary novella Lady Susan. The film, by Whit Stillman, stars Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan Vernon, a recent widow mooching off the kindness of her relatives and friends and gobbling up any eligible man she can find. All this while trying to figure out what to do with her teenage daughter who simply refuses to behave.

I enjoyed this movie once I got into it. I didn't quite remember the beginning but I did remember most of the rest. They added a new ending after Austen's story ends. I didn't think the ending sounded true for the character. Lady Susan is anything but stupid so I don't think she would have revealed what she did when she did. The other big change was to Sir James Martin who is turned into a complete simpleton, much more the fool than Jane Austen intended him to be. The rest of the plot is largely what I can remember from the novella.

The acting was mostly good. Kate Beckinsale, an Austen veteran, plays Lady Susan with just enough humor to make her seem sort of likable... sort of... Lady Susan is an anti-heroine, one people will not want to root for. I feel some degree of sympathy for her because she is a widow with no money and the only way to get money if you were a Georgian woman was to marry it. Her conduct toward Frederica, on the other hand, will not win her any "Mother of the Year" awards. 

Morfydd Clark plays Frederica to perfection. She's a bit more plain than I pictured Frederica. I don't think Lady Susan would have a plain daughter. Her acting was great. She played Frederica as sweet, shy and a bit timid but when surrounded by people who love her, she comes out of her shell. 

Tom Bennett was a hoot as Sir James Martin, the dim witted suitor of Frederica Vernon. 

On the bad side of acting was Xavier Samuel as Reginald DeCourcy. He was dull to the extreme. His delivery was flat and dispassionate. 

On the female side, Chloë Sevigny, as Alicia Johnson, Lady Susan's American friend, is pretty bland. Honorable mention goes to Sophie Radermacher was way over the top as Maria Manwaring. She portrayed Maria as a woman a bit unhinged and on the verge of madness. I don't remember that from the book.

The real stand out are the costumes! They are so gorgeous! The styles look pretty accurate for the Georgian period. The costumes tell a story about the characters. I noticed Frederica stayed in mourning the longest. Lady Susan's colors go from deep mourning, to half mourning, to WOW! I especially liked Frederica's pale yellow chemise dress. 

Also amazing are the historic homes in Ireland that serve as the sets. I tried to spot anachronisms and the only one I think I saw was a framed Ackerman's fashion print but it was hard to tell. 

I'd like to think Jane Austen would be pleased with this adaptation of her novella. 

Historical Food Fortnightly 2016 11

Historical Food Fortnightly 2016  Challenge 11:

Picnic Foods

The Challenge: Picnic Foods

 Some foods are just meant to be eaten in the outdoors! Concoct a dish that is documented for al fresco dining, or foods that might particularly lend themselves to eating at a picnic. Bonus points for putting it to the test!

Work/real life is keeping me busy.  I didn't have the time to bake anything AND it suddenly got very hot here so I didn't even feel like turning the oven on. Naturally, I turned to sandwiches! What is more iconic for a picnic than a sandwich? I made several different types from the early 1900s and though I did put them to the test, I kept forgetting to snap pictures. 

The Recipes: 

Sweet Sandwiches
Any conserve or marmalade may be used with minced nuts and spread between slices of buttered bread. Both white and entire wheat or graham bread may be used. Jellies may be mixed with cream or cottage cheese and spread between buttered crackers. Raisins and nuts moistened with grape juice white bread. Shaved maple sugar and cream entire wheat bread. The butter for spreading should always be creamed. Wrap in wax paper.

from 
Linda Hull Larned, One Hundred Picnic Suggestions, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915 . 116

Peanut Paste for Sandwiches

from 

The Settlement Cook Book: The Way to a Man's Heart, The Settlement, Milwaukee, 1903

Strawberry Sandwiches

 Marion Harris Neil, Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing Dish Recipes, D. McKay, 1916 p.127

Date and Region: 1903-1916 United States

How did you make it: 

It was too hot and time consuming to make bread so I used commercially baked country white bread and spread it with the toppings. I also used round saltine crackers. I was too lazy to really cream the butter much but I let it sit until softened and beat it with an electric mixer until spreading consistency. 

I crushed unsalted peanuts in a ziplock bag with a rolling pin. 

Creamed butter with a pinch of salt in an electric handmixer until soft and spreadable.

 I combined the butter and peanuts into a paste, spread it on white bread, trimmed the crusts and cut into triangles. 

Peanut paste sandwich

Wrapped in wax paper for traveling.

I mixed Philadelphia light cream cheese with maple sugar and spread on white bread.

Cream cheese and maple sugar sandwich

I mixed Philadelphia light cream cheese with Bon Mamamn blackberry preserves and spread on round saltine crackers spread with butter.

Cream Cheese and Jam sandwich on saltines

I mooshed strawberries with a potato masher and mixed with butter then chilled in the fridge. I spread on white bread and cut with a butterfly cutter.

mashed strawberries

Strawberries and butter mixture

strawberries and butter butterfly shaped sandwich

I mixed Jif peanut butter with unprocessed honey from Corsica and spread on white bread. I sprinkled on a bit of maple sugar for extra sweetness.

How Successful Was It?: The jam sandwiches are very messy and soggy. The strawberry/butter mixture was odd. It didn't spread very well and the chunks of strawberries made the sandwich thick and messy to eat.

Adding salt to the peanut paste was not a good idea. It made my sandwich a bit too salty for my preference.

The most successful was the PB and honey. I make PB and honey all the time but I never thought to mix the honey in the peanut butter. This made the sandwich extra delicious and cut down on the stuck in your mouth feeling from too much PB.

Time to Complete:  Each one takes about 15 minutes or less, not counting the time to soften butter. I made these over the course of a week and a half for lunches at work. 

Total Cost:  I had all the ingredients on hand.

How Accurate Is It?: Mostly accurate. I didn't use fresh baked bread or any homemade ingredients. I put together commercial Philadelphia cream cheese or grocery store butter with store-bought jams, jellys and peanut butter. I substituted cream cheese for cream in the maple sugar sandwich and left out the confectioner's sugar in the strawberry sandwich. I did however, use special wild honey my parents purchased in Europe to mix with the commercial peanut butter.