Sunday 23 December 1660

Annotations

• N Kenneth Blackwell on Tue 23 Dec 2003, 11:01pm

  This little unglamorous entry could be summarized as
  church—turkey—church—reading—sleep. Latham and Matthews found it
  needed only 3 footnotes. Yet the life Pepys gives it supports Bertrand Russell’s recommendation: “Pepys’s Diary makes the time of Charles II more real and intelligible than any history ever written” (Papers, 1922-24 vol., forthcoming).

• N A. De Araujo on Tue 23 Dec 2003, 11:15pm

  “little unglamorous entry” Indeed,I thought that with the gilted paper he would be ecstatic,but then at this latitude and close to the winter solstice one feels very down and beside he had a hangover.

• N john lauer on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 02:57am

  “…rosemary and baize” — a shrub or spice and a (green?) woolen fabric, without further explanation? What, ‘seasonal’ decoration?

• N Mary on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 07:43am

  rosemary and baize.

  We’re talking about the evergreen shrubs here, rosemary and bay; together with holly and ivy they formed the basis of leafy decoration for Christmas, being both colourful and sweetly scented.

• N Harvey Cohen on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 12:33pm

  Elizabeth struggles to cook a large turkey. How common was turkey in 1660? Definitely in England in 1524. The Pilgrim fathers took British domesticated turkeys with them on the Mayflower in 1620.

• N PHE on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 01:09pm

  On the contrary
  I recently heard that our turkeys came from North America.

• N Andrew Hamilton on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 03:19pm

  From a University of Illinois site:

  Which came first

• N Jenny Doughty on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 03:39pm

  Note the opening of the traditional ‘Boar’s Head Carol’, first published in 1521:

  The boar’s head in hand bear I
  Bedecked with bay and rosemary
  I pray you, my masters, be merry
  Quot estis in convivio.
  Chorus:
  Caput apri defero,
  Reddens laudes domino.

  2. The boar’s head, as I understand,
  Is the rarest dish in all this land,
  Which thus bedecked with a gay garland
  Let us servire cantico.
  Chorus
  
  3. Our steward hath provided this
  In honor of the King of bliss
  Which, on this day to be served is
  In Reginensi atrio
  Chorus

  4. The boar’s head in hand bear I
  Bedecked with bay and rosemary
  I pray you, my masters, be merry
  Quot estis in convivio.
  Chorus
  
  

• N Ruben on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 03:45pm

  Definitively the bird called turkey to day in English is an American bird. In Thanksgiving day Americans eat this “turkey” because it is an American native bird. One of the many good things the invaders found in that continent. Bon appetit!
  Reading SP you can make the mistake of applying the modern word “turkey” to a bird that may have been a different one.
  Find more about this in:
  http://www.trends.ca/~yuku/tran/xmz2.htm
  The American turkey that you find in the supermarket is an engineered variant with a lot of meat but tasteless that ate artificial food everyday of his life.
  Real turkeys are in decline. A few years ago someone found the original turkeys in a farm in Tenesee, I think, and now the original variant is making a come back.
  

• N JWB on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 04:33pm

  “Invaders”,”artificial food”,”Tenesee”(sic)..
  Mercy! Wild Turkey are doing very well in the good old U.S.of A., thank you.

• N George on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 05:00pm

  I don’t think “real” turkeys are in decline any longer. The Wild Turkey is “locally common from Wyoming, Illinois and New York to Mexico and the Gulf Coast”. It previously had an even larger range and was once much more abundant, but was heavily hunted - over hunted before the introduction of closed seasons - in the 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries. Wild turkeys are being re-introduced throughout their former range and beyond: they can now be found as far north and east as New Brunswick in Canada.

• N language hat on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 05:42pm

  “Wild Turkey are doing very well”
  When I awoke this morning (in my in-laws’ house in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts) I opened the window and saw a half-dozen wild turkeys strutting around in the rain, seeking out whatever goodies might be underneath the snow. I followed them around to the front of the house and saw them make their way across the pond, five flying but one preferring to tiptoe cautiously over the ice. I felt an atavistic impulse to look for a shotgun, but Xmas dinner is already decided (roast beef and Yorkshire pudding) so I let them be. (Just kidding — I’ve never fired a gun in my life.) We’re hoping the rain doesn’t wash away all the snow before tomorrow. And may I take this opportunity to wish all those Pepysians who celebrate it a merry Christmas!

• N Ruben on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 06:14pm

  The supermarket turkey is a modern development of the domesticated turkey.
  The domesticated turkeys of 1930 had a different taste and they almost dissapeared.
  Wild turkeys have a different story.
  
  

• N Ruben on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 06:44pm

  From the Wikipedia:
  “The domesticated turkey is descended from one of the North American wild turkey species, probably the Mexican Ocellated Turkey, Agriocharis ocellata.”
  See also the site of the “Pilgrim Hall Museum” (the invaders museum) at:http://www.pilgrimhall.org/turkey6.htm

  Merry Christmas and Peace to all!
  

• N PHE on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 07:21pm

  Wow - I’m turkeyed out!
  And its not even Christmas yet.
  (sorry Phil for the off-subject comment)

• N David Quidnunc on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 08:21pm

  Talking turkey

  Turkey comments would really be more valuable on the turkey page, and non-diary comments on the pages for the Pepys discussion group at smartgroups.com, where I’m posting my two-cents worth on the turkey thread:

  http://www.smartgroups.com/group/whatsnew.cfm?gid=1855698

• N Nix on Wed 24 Dec 2003, 09:22pm

  Wild turkeys —

  You can find them — and hunt them — in southeastern Arizona as well.

• N Harvey Cohen on Thu 25 Dec 2003, 02:52pm

  Turkey questions not answered. How common was turkey in England in 1660? How big was “great” then? Maybe Elizabeth was following the recipe for cooking wild duck in “The Newe Booke of Cookery,” by John Murrell (1615): “Trusse and parboyle it, and then halfe roast it, then carve it …”

• N language hat on Fri 26 Dec 2003, 02:16am

  Harvey:
  There has been a great deal of discussion of turkey; see the background page here:
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/378.php
  And do a search if you want to see other entries where it has been discussed.

• N David Quidnunc on Fri 26 Dec 2003, 06:49am

  The Rev. Carter’s gift giving

  This is all speculation, but there may be a sectarian/political edge to Carter’s gift giving. It may have been a Christmas gift, and that may have been fraught with controversy. The puritans disliked the idea of Christmas and Parliament even outlawed it during the Interregnum. In 1660, the King’s new government reversed that and, very likely, promoted Christmas, as would those (un-puritan) church ministers who supported the new regime. Celebrating Christmas would have been a somewhat controversial religious and political statement (but probably an overwhelmingly popular one) — something with a bit of a bite, like the Earth Day celebrations when they began in the 1970s.

  Anglican and Catholic religious leaders supported Christmas and Halloween in the United States in the 19th century and were very successful in getting both holidays established (Halloween, in a way, honored All Saints Day). Maybe something similar was going on here — promoting a holiday for sectarian reasons. Or maybe he was just giving a friend a turkey.

• N Pauline on Tue 30 Dec 2003, 02:39pm

  “…just giving a friend a turkey.”

  Perhaps Sandwich shook this turkey loose. He’s just back from Huntingdonshire. His presence there may have given Carter the idea or the easy shipment opportunity. Or they may have had a conversation about Sam, and Carter felt the tug of the old friendship and wanted to send a turkey.

• N upper_left_hand_corner on Tue 30 Dec 2003, 04:57pm

  Very true, Pauline!

  As Freud might have said, sometimes a turkey is just a turkey.

• N Glyn on Tue 30 Dec 2003, 11:01pm

  I’m going to disagree with David Quidnunc about there being any political reasons for any of this, and I’m sure David Gurliacci would back me up: i.e. maybe Sam was just extremely fond of turkey. See David Gurliacci’s entry for 7 January earlier this year entitled “Gobble Gobble Gobble”:

  http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1660/01/07/index.php#annotations

  This was before the Restoration, so there would be no political subtext concerned with it.

  But like everyone else, I’m surprised the English were eating turkeys so early.

• N vincent on Wed 31 Dec 2003, 02:52am

  Peacock could be the plausible choice of bird for special occasions before the turkey[peru][didon][pavo][truthan]found its way onto the continental table[Romans loved them]

• N Mary on Wed 31 Dec 2003, 07:54am

  The implausible peacock

  According to a food historian (can’t remember the name) who was speaking on BBC R4 last week, although peacocks were often elaborately dressed for grand dinners from mediaeval times onwards, they were presented for ‘show’ rather than for eating, as they taste pretty dreadful. Not having tried one, can’t say.

• N Mickey on Sat 3 Jan 2004, 07:22pm

  I’m more interested in the rosemary and bay decorations in the church. I’m about 1/3 of the way through Tomalin’s bio and it seems notable to me that the church would be decorated. I got the impression that even at this time Puritanism would have discouraged the use of such decoration, particularly in a church. Did his churches lean (or start to lean) away from such a conservative view by now? Or have we gererally gotten so far into the swing away, what with the King returning and all, that folks felt free to do the things that had been proscribed under Cromwell?

• N Pauline on Sat 3 Jan 2004, 07:49pm

  “…our pew all covered with rosemary and baize.”
  The gentlemen who have erected this pew, Sam among them, all live and work at the Navy Board, so they are supporters of the King and in powerful enough positions to have things the way they would like them in their pew. Next year the altar?

• N Laura K on Sat 3 Jan 2004, 08:16pm

  wild turkeys are even in nyc

  Wild turkeys are often seen in New York City’s denser parks. The birds thrive all over New York State, and apparently are not afraid of the big city.

  This annotation is very late, but I couldn’t access the site for two weeks! I’ve been suffering from Pepys withdrawal. Today, finally, some relief.