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Copyright
Helen Forder
2006
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Mrs.
Delany's Menus, Medicines and Manners
by Katherine Cahill. Published 2005 by New
Island. ISBN I 904301 77 0
Reviewed by Helen Forder,
January 2006
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Mrs. Delany (nee Mary Granville) - 1700 -1788
Based on Mrs. Delany's correspondence, of which there was an abundance,
this very readable book gives us an insight into 18th century fashion and food,
decor and domestics, illness and instruction, on all of which Mrs. Delany
had an opinion.
Katherine Cahill acknowledges a debt to Lady
Llanover (Mrs. Delany's great-great
niece) for editing and publishing, in 1861 and 1862, the 6 volumes of The
Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville: With interesting
reminiscences of King George the Third and Queen Charlotte. Her own
volume, Katherine explains, '... explores [Mrs. Delany's] food and drink,
her servants, her medicines, manners, wardrobe and décor ...', based on the
letters of a lifetime.
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First, the reader is
introduced to the principal characters, including Mrs. Delany's sister Ann Granville
(later Dewes); Ann's daughter Mary Dewes (later Port); and Mary's daughter
Georgina Mary Ann Port, (later Waddington, Lady Llanover's mother).
Then we read about Mrs. Delany herself, the
ups and downs of her life, her expectations and disappointments.
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![Mary Dewes Port (1746-1814] , courtesy of Michele Sudar](Images/mary-dewes.jpg)
Mary Dewes Port
(1746 - 1814]
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We are invited to step 'this way to the
eating parlour', where a breakfast of bread and butter, tea, coffee and
chocolate is served between 9 and ten o'clock, and dinner, the most
important meal of the day, between 2 and 3 o'clock; we see the menus, and
learn the etiquette.
On then to the servants' quarters to meet
the domestic staff - [Mrs.] Badge the housekeeper, Fatty John and others.
The sickroom is of course a place to avoid,
the cure sometimes being worse than the illness! We hear of fevers,
blood-letting, and the scourge of smallpox.
Decorating her home, choosing material for
clothes, advising on cures for ailments, Mrs. Delany's thoughts on a
variety of topics are brought to us through her correspondence.
Of interest to us, as admirers of Lady
Llanover, is possibly Mrs. Delany's influence on Lady Llanover's mother
(Georgina Mary Ann). Is her 'authoritative voice from the past - from a
previous century - reiterating the well-taught principles'* heard again during
the 19th Century, as Georgina Mary Ann educates and instructs her
daughters?
This book is a must for anyone interested in
the character of the remarkable Augusta, Baroness Llanover.
*Bobby Freeman in her
introduction to the 1991 edition of The First Principles of Good
Cookery.
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