This fascinating and very readable book focuses on food and drink in Pepys’s diary.
The author begins with a section on the “Culinary Encyclopaedia” taken from the online Diary and detailing, as Pepys does, the dishes he often ate, the drinks he consumed, where and with whom. As Dr Kaptur points out, there are several well-known cookery writers from Pepys’s time such as Hannah Woolley and Robert May, but their books and recipes are often “detached from reality and do not reflect real life.” The point of this book is that it is a “study of a meticulously recorded diary which includes information about the dishes and beverages consumed on a daily basis for nine consecutive years”. (p.26)
It is significant that Pepys started his Diary in 1660 just before the Restoration of the Monarchy. The effects of the end of the Puritan era were felt across the whole of society but especially in the middling sort to which Pepys belonged. (The poor continued to lead a harsh existence; the rich had always done as they pleased.) It must have felt like a sudden thaw after a great frost as multiple freedoms emerged: theatres reopened, music and dancing were no longer forbidden, the strict religious rules around fasting and the eating of fish relaxed, people were free to dress according to their own taste and pocket, to read what they chose.
The coming of new foods and beverages from the emerging colonies livened the social scene and inspired a new curiosity in exotic delicacies; coffee houses opened for the first time, tea and chocolate began to be drunk, new and affordable spices appeared, exotic sweets, oranges. As Pepys’s prosperity increased, so his palate became more sophisticated. He frequented inns, taverns and coffee houses, enjoying good food and wine while hearing the latest news and exchanging juicy court gossip.
Pepys tends to describe the meat he eats but rarely mentions vegetables or salads, though these would have been routinely served. (In 1699, his friend John Evelyn published “Acetaria”, a book specifically about the importance of herbs and salads in the diet, how to grow and prepare them.) I agree that “meat predominates in all Pepys’ descriptions of meals, partly because its presence on the table was a marker of affluence.” (p41)
Pepys continually strives to demonstrate status through his food choices, hence the frequent mention of “venison pasties” which he enjoyed. Hunting deer was the preserve of the wealthy, and a fresh joint of venison implied a gift from a landed patron. When visiting his cousin Thomas Pepys, Sam is quick to point out that the “venison” pasty they are served is “palpable beef, which was not handsome.” (6 January 1660).
The book also lists the many times Pepys ate fish, as well as his rare mentions of vegetables and sweets. Like many people the Pepys strove to eat less meat in Lent (although this was no longer strictly required) and there is sad description in the Diary of his going home to dinner on a Sunday “to a poor Lenten dinner of coleworts and bacon.” (10 March 1661)
There was no clean drinking water in London; everyone, whatever their age, drank low alcohol “small” beer. But London was full of places to drink socially and that usually meant wine or “strong waters”. Pepys often records that he shared “a pint or two of wine” with a friend or colleague, and as a young man sometimes succumbs to the effects of excess. At university he was once punished for being “scandalously overserved with drink” (Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys the Unequalled Self, p39). In the early years of the Diary, he records his hangovers with a confessional sense of shame. Dr Kaptur records that Pepys eventually became something of a wine connoisseur: “In the last year of the diary, Pepys comes into view as a real epicure of wine.” (p71)
Part 2, entitled “Food and Drink as a Social Cachet”, charts Pepys’s rise from a poor government clerk to a man of wealth and status and demonstrates how his dinner parties reflect that growing status, beginning with the gathering he and Elizabeth, currently living in a tiny apartment in Axe Yard, organise at his patron’s lodgings while the Montagues are away.
Edward Montague, his father’s cousin, helped Pepys to acquire the prestigious post of Clerk of the Acts at the Navy Office. The job came with a house and Pepys wasted no time in claiming the property he wanted and to go on to redecorate, extend and refurbish it as befitted his growing status. Pepys’s social status as reflected in the décor of his home, the company he keeps and the clothes he wears, rises in parallel with his professional influence and personal wealth. He is careful to project the right image. Sometimes his wife and servants let him down, such as the time they serve dinner in the original cookshop dishes instead of decanting them into Sam’s own tableware, (6 October 1663).
By 1666, he is entertaining great men and buying in dishes cooked by a male chef. (28 November 1663) “… eating in silver plates, and all things mighty rich and handsome about me.” Among the guests is Lord Montague, whose protégé was clearly here flaunting the success and wealth he had helped him to acquire. This is not merely display for its own sake, but as Dr Kaptur says, “What surfaces from the numerous descriptions of Pepys’s noble dinners is a picture of a man of success, who is content and proud of his prosperous career and a lively social life.” (p130)
In Part 3, “Merry at Table and the Joys of Existence”, the book examines Pepys’s personal philosophy and how this is reflected in his lifestyle choices. “What surfaces from the Diary is a picture of the author himself having a merry personality… the word ‘merry’ appears 630 times…” Pepys certainly seems to have vigorously pursued those things that gave him pleasure such as music, theatre, books, amusing conversation, as well as good food and wine. Yet he does not lapse into hedonism. Rather, as the book points out, he values good company above all, and the way “a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody” (p142)
Pepys’s carpe diem attitude is not without foundation. He lived through horrific times. His own surgery for bladder stone in 1658 was painful and extremely dangerous; he was lucky to survive, and he knew it. He witnessed the execution of Charles I, survived The Plague and the Great Fire. In 1664, his brother Thomas dies suddenly aged just 30. After the funeral he reflects sadly that “the world makes nothing of the memory of a man”. Dr Kaptur points out that being “merry” in company are a way of escaping “the distressing thoughts of the inevitability of death.” (p149) This is summed up by Pepys himself (p164): “… and so I do really enjoy myself and understand that if I do not do it now I shall not hereafter, it may be, be able to pay for it, or have health to take pleasure in it…” (6 January 1668)
In To Dinner and There Merry (2022) Dr Kaptur, of Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, Poland, paints a detailed picture of Pepys’s enjoyment of good food and wine and how this accords with his broader philosophy of life. It is a well-researched, thoughtful and enjoyable book and I heartily recommend it to all Pepys’ Diary readers.
- Pawel Kaptur provided the copy of the book for review free of charge.
- Available in print at Wydawnictwa UJK or as an e-book from ksiegarnia.pwn.pl. (ISBN 978-83-7133-968-4)
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