Victorian Mardi Gras! (And Gender Ideology)

1. Victorian Mardi Gras! (And Gender Ideology)

3. John Ruskin, “Of Queens’ Gardens” (1865) • “The man’s power is active, progressive, defensive He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest, whenever war is just, wherever conquest necessary” (37) • “But the woman’s power is for rule, not for battle– and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering arrangement, and decision. … This is the true nature of home – it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division.” (37) • “And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her” (38)

6. From Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861) AS WITH THE COMMANDER OF AN ARMY, or the leader of any enterprise, so is it with the mistress of a house. Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment; and just in proportion as she performs her duties intelligently and thoroughly, so will her domestics follow in her path. Of all those acquirements, which more particularly belong to the feminine character, there are none which take a higher rank, in our estimation, than such as enter into a knowledge of household duties; for on these are perpetually dependent the happiness, comfort, and well-being of a family. In this opinion we are borne out by the author of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” who says: “The modest virgin, the prudent wife, and the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romances, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver, or their eyes.”

11. Mock Turtle Soup • INGREDIENTS - 1/2 a calf’s head, 1/4 lb. of butter, 1/4 lb. of lean ham, 2 tablespoonfuls of minced parsley, a little minced lemon thyme, sweet marjoram, basil, 2 onions, a few chopped mushrooms (when obtainable), 2 shallots, 2 tablespoonfuls of flour, 1/4 bottle of Madeira or sherry, force-meat balls, cayenne, salt and mace to taste, the juice of 1 lemon and 1 Seville orange, 1 dessert-spoonful of pounded sugar, 3 quarts of best stock, No. 104. • Mode.—Scald the head with the skin on, remove the brain, tie the head up in a cloth, and let it boil for 1 hour. Then take the meat from the bones, cut it into small square pieces, and throw them into cold water. Now take the meat, put it into a stewpan, and cover with stock; let it boil gently for an hour, or rather more, if not quite tender, and set it on one side. Melt the butter in another stewpan, and add the ham, cut small, with the herbs, parsley, onions, shallots, mushrooms, and nearly a pint of stock; let these simmer slowly for 2 hours, and then dredge in as much flour as will dry up the butter. Fill up with the remainder of the stock, add the wine, let it stew gently for 10 minutes, rub it through a tammy, and put it to the calf’s head; season with cayenne, and, if required, a little salt; add the juice of the orange and lemon; and when liked, 1/4 teaspoonful of pounded mace, and the sugar. Put in the force-meat balls, simmer 5 minutes, and serve very hot. • Time. 4–1/2 hours. Average cost, 3s. 6d. per quart, or 2s. 6d. without wine or force-meat balls. • Seasonable in winter. • Sufficient for 10 persons. • Note.—The bones of the head should be well stewed in the liquor it was first boiled in, and will make good white stock, flavoured with vegetables, etc.

12. First women to be admitted to lectures at Cambridge, 1869

16. “Endless Progression”?