Sunday 3 November 1661

Annotations

• N A. De Araujo on Mon 1 Nov 2004, 10:56pm

  “which pleased me much to see my condition come to allow ourselves a dish like that”
  Was chicken a status symbol then?

• N Robert Gertz on Tue 2 Nov 2004, 02:09am

  Perhaps the “hashed” preparation was the important thing…They had the luxury of having the bird deboned and only the best meat kept?

• N Pedro. on Wed 3 Nov 2004, 11:07pm

  Thomas Fuller.
  
  One of the quotations attributed to him.
  “If thou are a master, be sometimes blind; if a servant, sometimes deaf.”
  Sam could have smiled to think the master should have been a little deaf yesterday!

  and one for today?
  “Learning makes a man fit company for himself.”
  http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Thomas_Fuller

  Also for more Fuller quotations see site mentioned in background by Language Hat..
  http://www.giga-usa.com/gigaweb1/quotes2/quautfullerthomasx001.htm

• N David Cooper on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 12:30am

  “in praise of a liberall genius (as I take my own to be)” This is ironic in view of the US election results from 343 years in the future! But it does illustrate one of the delights of this way of reading Pepys. How else would you constantly be relating his thinking to ours in the twenty-first century?

• N Judy B on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 01:03am

  I suspect he means “liberal” in the older sense of “generous.” In other words, in his not-so-humble opinion, he has a lot of genius! As in a “liberal” or full helping of something.

  Anyone with a Middle-English dictionary?

• N Pauline on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 01:30am

  “I suspect he means

• N daniel on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 01:59am

  liberal

  this is still a bit of an irony to read on such a day as today here in the US…….

  chicken,

  indeed, even until the thirties and into the fifties in the US, chicken, unless one lived on a chicken ranch, was a rare treat, reserved for sundays or even holidays.

• N Bradford on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 02:13am

  Pursuant to Daniel’s remark: though it’s unclear which American politican first used the phrase, he would hardly bother to promise a chicken for every pot if it were likely there was one there already.

• N daniel on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 02:18am

  Ha!

  very good!

• N Louis on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 02:20am

  Pepys “did try to make a song … but it not proving to my mind I did reject it and so proceeded not in it.”

  Much as Samuel Johnson, 122 years later, after a stroke left him unablet o speak, “tried his faculties” by mentally composing a prayer in Latin: “The lines were not very good, but I knew them not to be very good.” The exercise of self-judgement is a sign that one still has a fairly full count of marbles.

  Which you can also apply to the abovementioned elections, if you have—-a mind to.

• N Todd Bernhardt on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 02:25am

  re: “liberall genius”

  I don’t know if Sam necessarily means “generous” … I read this more as “well-rounded” — meaning that his genius lies in his ability to take in, digest, and exhibit a wide range of skills and interests. Essentially, he’s a deep, multi-dimensional kind of guy, able to see and interpret the many shades of gray that make up life, rather than a shallow, dogmatic, one-dimensional person like the one recently elec … oops, better not go there.

• N Robert Gertz on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 02:41am

  Nothing like physique and a good book to make for a quiet and pleasant Sunday…

• N dirk on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 02:54am

  “liberall genius”

  I read the word “liberall” to refer to the “liberal arts” - “artes liberales” (cfr. infra). Sam has shown considerable interest in the subjects covered by the 7 liberal arts before…

  Also the word “genius” in this context shouldn’t be taken in its present day meaning, but rather as a synonym of “(trained) mind”.

  “The expression artes liberales … does not mean arts as we understand the word at this present day, but those branches of knowledge which were taught in the schools of that time. They are called liberal (Lat. liber, free), because they serve the purpose of training the free man, in contrast with the artes illiberales, which are pursued for economic purposes; their aim is to prepare the student not for gaining a livelihood, but for the pursuit of science in the strict sense of the term …. They are seven in number and may be arranged in two groups, the first embracing grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic …; the second group comprises arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music …. The first group is considered to be the elementary group, whence these branches are also called artes triviales, or trivium …. Contrasted with them we find the mathematical disciplines as artes quadriviales, or quadrivium ….”
  Abridged from:
  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01760a.htm

  “Aristotle … considered that ‘this education and these studies exist for their own sake’ as part of the pursuit of excellence in intellectual and moral activities. Such activities are ultimately important because they are the most fulfilling pursuits available to human beings.”
  From:
  http://www.mic.ul.ie/courses/ba5.htm
  

• N Larry Bunce on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 02:56am

  I found this on a website named godecookery.com They have a section on 17th century English cookery.

  How to hashe a Capon.

  Roast your Capon almost enough, then cut all the flesh from the bones which will mince, and mince it small; put it into a pipkin with white Wine and a little strong Broth, five or sixe hard yolkes of Eggs, with nine or ten Chesnuts minced very small, an Oxe Palate sliced very thin, a little Bacon (if it be not rusty) minced small, some powder of Saffron, a hand-full of Pistaches; stew all these together with the gristles and bones (which will not mince) till it be tender; then put in a large piece of Butter, a little Vinegar or minced Lemmon (if you have it) with a little of the peel, and a little Salt; shake it well together and let it not boyl; then lay thin white-bread tostes in the dish; pour this meat on it, and lay the bones in order about the dish with Sippits, Barberries, halfe yolks of Egges, or greene and what other coloured garnish you fancy.
  

• N dirk on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 03:01am

  godecookery

  Links for the above:
  http://www.godecookery.com/
  (Home page)
  &
  http://www.godecookery.com/engrec/engrec.html
  (17th century English recipes)
  

• N dirk on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 03:18am

  “did try to make a song in the praise of a liberall genius”

  Applying the techniques of the “liberal art” of music [considered to be a branch of mathematics!] to the subject of the “arts” themselves. - Technically this would be “meta-arts”: the something with itself as a subject…
  

• N Roger Arbor on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 07:22am

  Having been brought up in 50s England with all the rationing and shortages that entailed, the thought of having a chicken was simply impossible. The only time I ever tasted chicken in the years from 1945 to around 1955 or so, was at Christmas; and then at considerable expense. We too thought ourselves ‘rich’, even though we lived in a prefab. (For those who have no idea what that is… a pre-fabricated house… largely made of wood and cardboard). Here’s to you dear Samuel.

• N Mary on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 07:45am

  genius

  Used here in the sense of a natural characteristic disposition, inclination; natural bent or turn of mind and temper.

• N Peter on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 12:37pm

  Strange that Sam tells us about taking physic, but doesn’t tell us why. He hasn’t told us of any ailments for the last few days. Is he just pampering himself? The Restoration equivalent of a day at a health farm, perhaps?

• N Mary on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 01:00pm

  physic.

  This regularly (no pun intended) refers to a dose of laxative. In Pepys’ day ‘purgative’ would probably have been a more appropriate term, as the results nearly always seem to require the patient to spend the following day very close to the jakes.

• N Bob T on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 02:08pm

  ?????????

  What did Sam use for toilet paper? The Romans used a sponge on a stick. The Vikings used wool, and I read recently of an Italian nobleman who used the “waste paper” from government offices. I also read that the French nobility used lace. Now that’s about as decadent as you can get.

  How about Sam? Whatever he used, the population of London must have used a lot of it.

• N Nix on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 03:35pm

  Samuel’s use of “genius” —

  according to OED, the common modern usage (“native intellectual power of an exalted type”) did not develop until the 18th century:

  “This sense, which belongs also to F. g

• N BradW on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 03:53pm

  BobT’s ???????

  I remember from a Connections broadcast that until the 19th Century, paper-making required a good deal of cotton fiber, and that the burgeoning need for paper made cotton rags a scarce commodity, and paper correspondingly expensive. The remedy was a wood pulping process that was perfected in the Napoleanic era, which made newsprint (and I suppose Charmin) cheap and easy to make.

  So in Sam’s time I expect paper would have been too difficult for the average Londoner to reliably find at those odd moments of need. Though perhaps one laid in a supply of old foolscap when a purgative was scheduled….

• N Bob T on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 04:39pm

  ?????? Answered

  I just did what any pre-schooler would have done - I googled it.
  Sam most likely used straw or a scrapper. You had to be tough to live in them thar days.

• N vicente on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 09:00pm

  Pullet was choice, then there was the old boiler [tough as nails and no longer could lay eggs] that was the choice for those short on the dough. For those that were lucky to go to the local butcher, that was good, but for us hay seeds, though we may have been indulged in all the fowls and game, but we payed the price of catching, killing and plucking the said sunday dinner.
  Physique: the first question from the white coated one during my ilgotten youth, was “how’s the Bowels ?, moving well we trust” ye nodded because Castor oil was ****** ******. nuthing like haveing a bowl of Blackberries, saves ye from purgatory.

• N A. De Araujo on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 09:06pm

  “Toilet Paper”
  In Brazil, in the countryside up until some years ago,folks used corn cobs reasoning that it was ideal because it would clean(limpa)scratch(co

• N Nix on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 10:28pm

  Corncobs —

  I recall my grandmother telling us that they used corncobs when she was a girl (circa 1900) in Indiana. My brother and I reacted with disbelief, disgust, and much bawdy laughter.

• N Maurie Beck on Thu 4 Nov 2004, 10:35pm

  Chicken

  When my mother was growing up during the depression, her family had chicken for Sunday dinner. It was a highly anticipated meal. On Monday morning, my grandmother would invariably find chicken bones under my mother’s pillow.

• N Terry Willingham on Fri 5 Nov 2004, 12:49am

  My parents kept 300 chickens on a smallholding during the 50s in rural Essex, England. We rarely ate them. We sold them at market and bought cheaper meat such as beef. How times change!

• N Josh on Fri 5 Nov 2004, 01:48am

  3 hours at least to hash a pullet, and 15 minutes to eat it. Such is human life.

• N vicente on Fri 5 Nov 2004, 03:27am

  “We rarely ate them”; of course, only those that failed to survive going to the local market or could not or would not wait for the wringer before Christmas or stopped a Laying . Poor old Rhode Islands or Leghorns. Oh! how they clucked.

• N dirk on Fri 5 Nov 2004, 03:52am

  “toilet paper”

  Mussel shells and similar (*not* oyster shells) were also commonly used for this purpose (“scrapers”).

• N Pauline on Fri 5 Nov 2004, 04:29am

• N Glyn on Fri 5 Nov 2004, 08:48pm

  34 responses to a very ordinary entry? I guess that if you want a big reaction you just mention chickens, or lavatories, or both.

  We are reading about him a few centuries ago, and he is reading about the Crusades a few centuries further back, which brings it home to me how similar he is to us. He is reading about The Crusades, and that reminded me that he often goes to the Temple Church just off Fleet Street to go to services or buy sheets of music from John Playford, who had a shop there:

  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/332.php
  http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/1343.php

  so he would have seen the (I think) 8 or 9 effigies of Crusader knights that are in in the oldest part of the Temple. I can certainly imagine him reading their names on the tombs, then going back home to look them up in his book

• N Bradford on Sat 6 Nov 2004, 02:20am

  Was human skin so much tougher then that these methods of cleaning the human behind did not leave everyone with a constant case of diaper rash? As a urologist once asked me, “What kept these people from having constant urinary tract infections?”

• N vicente on Sat 6 Nov 2004, 03:06am

  Pursuant to Glyn’s WC[jakes et al]: no other animal has a problem with cleansing de derriere except some do use a strange device called a bidet. The diet has changed. ‘Tis that some societies have very strong protocol reguarding Cleanliness.

• N A. De Araujo on Sat 6 Nov 2004, 12:27pm

  “Holy Warre”
  Glyn,I think we are talking about chickens and lavatories because it is diversionary or escapist if you will;
  Holy War is still very topical

• N Glyn on Mon 22 Nov 2004, 05:13pm

  What I want to know is: in what recent year was the tipping point when we all switched from hard lavatory paper to soft lavatory paper? I am sure hard paper was the norm in the 1960s (and 1970s?) and you would have been considered strange if you had used anything else. Now you can only get the soft stuff and apparently it’s clogging up all the sewers. In what year did it all change?

• N vicente on Mon 22 Nov 2004, 06:57pm

  The rumour went like this : The Ambassador to the court of St James, Introduced The Queen to the product because at one point, he was the CEO to Crown Zellabachs Toilet Products. My relatives got a great kick,by putting soft toilet tissue in the downstairs Loo and it was marked for the ” Yanks only”.