Tuesday 12 June 1660

Annotations

• N Alan Bedford on Fri 13 Jun 2003, 01:44am

  “The two Dukes dined with the Speaker….”

  I know that currently, the Speaker (of the House of Commons) is not a member of Parliament. Was this also true at the time of the Restoration. Inquiring minds in the Western Hemisphere want to know.

• N Paul Brewster on Fri 13 Jun 2003, 01:57am

  More missing text per L&M: Wheatley wording. [] Missing from Wheatley. {}
  So to my Lord and with him to the Duke of Gloucester. {So to Mr. Crews and look over my papers and business to set them in order a little; very hot weather.} The two Dukes dined at [with] the Speakers [Speaker] {this day} and I saw there a fine entertainment and dined with the pages.

• N Jim Baker on Fri 13 Jun 2003, 03:56am

  Alan, The Speaker is an elected Member of Parliament - see the background info annotation for a good link.

• N Alan Bedford on Fri 13 Jun 2003, 04:11am

  I stand corrected. (Memory can play terrible tricks!)

• N vincent on Fri 13 Jun 2003, 08:17pm

  “and did give them a ham of bacon”
  interesting how bacon started to have a dedicated different meaning from ham
  see bacon : Bacon history
  Until well into the sixteenth century, bacon or bacoun was a Middle English term used to refer to all pork in general. The term bacon comes from various Germanic and French dialects:

• N wembley on Fri 13 Jun 2003, 09:36pm

  So how is this “ham of bacon” actually served? Just sliced on its own, like Spanish tapas? And are Pepys hours getting later as summer advances and the days get longer?

• N vincent on Sun 15 Jun 2003, 04:56am

  from painting I perused in an art book store, the ham appears to be very similar to those one enjoys in Iberia. You get these delicate but tasty slithers(a name presuntos) with ones vino de jour: The one Still Life Market Scene was
  signed by Juan Esteban at Ubeda in 1606 and the Kitchen Scene (c. 1604) by a unknown… decoration
  of the Prelate’s Gallery of the Palacio Arzobispal in Seville
  also came up was back gammon (cribbage) . How did the 2 words back gammon and backgammon have such different meanings:
  

• N Jenny Doughty on Sun 15 Jun 2003, 04:59am

  I wonder if a ‘ham of bacon’ is what we would call a ‘gammon’ these days. That is, it would need to be cooked before it was served.

• N Grahamt on Sun 15 Jun 2003, 02:45pm

  A Ham is a cut of pork:
  a leg joint, I think. Bacon is a type of pork that has been salt or smoke cured but should be cooked before eating. Though bacon was originally from the side or back of the pig, a “ham of bacon” would be a leg of cured pork for cooking. In modern (British) parlance, ham is cured meat that can be eaten uncooked. A “ham of bacon” would now be called gammon usually. American bacon, we would call crispy streaky-bacon and cooked ham is similar to our bacon.
  An informal (i.e. not checked against dictionary) etymology of ham:
  jamb = leg (French)
  jambon = a ham joint (French)
  jamon = ham/bacon (Spanish, pronounced hammon with a hard “h”. This might be heard as gammon to an English speaker)
  I have never heard bacon used in French except as an English borrowing. Bacon is “lard” in French. Don’t know about German (Schweinfleisch, nein?)
  Hams or gams are old British slang for (womens) legs.

• N Wim van der Meij on Tue 17 Jun 2003, 06:38pm

  Bacon in German is Speck; in Dutch spek. Schweinenfleisch is simply ‘pig’s meat’