Let there be light

I have a theory that humans are meant to hibernate in winter, like bears. Come late autumn, I’m ready to disappear into my cave and doze away the winter in the company of a pile of good books and DVDs. I’d like to emerge in spring, somewhat skinnier, better-read and well-rested, raring to go. Unlike the bears, though, I have a mortgage to pay……

I do think we’re out of touch with the natural order of things. We’ve extended our day at both ends with artificial lighting, and we try to hold to pretty much the same routine, summer and winter. Back before artificial lighting, winter meant going to bed not long after sunset, and staying there till sunrise – human hibernation! No wonder I get grumpy in winter – out of bed long before dawn, while the sensible sparrows still have their heads tucked under their wings. It’s barely light when I get to work, and it’s dark when I leave again.

I couldn’t function in winter without electric lighting. Click on the switch, and there’s light – easy, except for the increasing price of it. I do wonder how William and Sarah managed. When I think about them, I can’t help but imagine them in the same quality indoor lighting that I’m used to. I have to remind myself that lighting for them was a completely different thing, and that by comparison with what we have today, the quality of their indoor light was very poor.

William and Sarah had to make far better use of daylight than I do, and get as much done between sun-up and sun-down as possible. Even working indoors, Sarah would have needed to be close to a window to see what she was doing, whether sewing or peeling potatoes. Cloudy overcast winter’s day? Too bad. She couldn’t switch on a light as we do.

Eventually it would get so dark, Sarah would have no choice but to light the lights, and what a choice she had – slush lights, candles and oil lamps. It’s a good thing those Victorians ate so much meat – they needed the fat not just for making soap, but also for making candles and slush lights. Victorian lighting leads me into a whole lot of new terminology to go with the old technology.

The slush lights were basically fat melted into any suitable container, left to harden with a wick in the middle. They must have smelled disgusting, but the candles weren’t much better, being more likely to be tallow than beeswax. Even the lamp fuel was most likely to be smelly whale oil. Lamp and candle wicks were different – they didn’t burn up and disappear like modern ones, they just hung around. The charred bit of wick was called the “snuff” and candle-snuffers weren’t for putting out candles, they were scissor-type arrangements to cut and catch the snuff. You put out your candle by smothering it with a candle “duffer”; blowing or pinching it out left you with a room full of stinky smoke.

Most women made their own candles; home-made being more economical than the store-bought kind. Apparently the candles available in Wellington in the 1840s were imported from Australia and were of very poor quality. William and Sarah might have had to buy a few until Sarah accumulated enough tallow to make her own. A candle-mould was probably one of the household items the Norgroves brought from England, along with at least one metal candle box – metal to keep out the rats and mice, who would have been only too happy to eat the candles. Some women made all their winter candles during the summer; others left it until autumn because the candles would harden quicker in the cooler temperatures.

When it came to lighting the candles, they might have used a paper taper or even wood splinter lit from the fire. Tinder boxes were still in use, but Lucifer matches had been around since the 1830s. Whether William and Sarah would have had money to spend on such things is another matter, but even if they did, they would have used them sparingly, just like the candles.

Along with all the different terminology and equipment – the candle-sticks and chamber-sticks, snuffers and duffers, lucifers, lamps, chimneys, candle-lanterns and moulds – Victorian lighting was labour-intensive. Women had to make the candles and the slush-lights, and store them where the rats couldn’t get at them but people could. They had to clean lamp chimneys and trim candle wicks, and scrape wax out of candle-sticks, and roll paper spills to use as tapers. Flicking a light switch and changing the occasional light bulb is much easier, not to mention cleaner. And it’s lighting that doesn’t smell like dead animals.

While these days candle-light might be fun for a romantic dinner, and it might be manageable for a few hours during a power cut, our candles are clean-burning wax ones, often scented, and we’re not trying to read or sew by their light. William and Sarah’s candles would have flickered and sputtered, and cast deep shadows in corners. They wouldn’t have had a lavish array of candles and lamps lighting up the house – they would have used as few as possible. In winter they would have sat close to the fire, to make the best use of its light; and they wouldn’t have sat up late after sunset anyway.

William and Sarah would have hibernated in winter, getting up with the sun and going to bed when it did. Their days were short and their nights were long – although interestingly, this didn’t result in a whole bunch of little Norgroves. Out of ten children, only Kate, Zoë and Sidney appear to have been conceived from winter night snuggling. William and Sarah were probably too tired to do anything but sleep.

First, catch your pukeko

I’ve been reading Tony Simpson’s A Distant Feast : The Origins of New Zealand’s Cuisine, looking at the sort of food our immigrant ancestors might have been eating. For someone who sticks to basic beef, pork and chicken, the vast number of recipes for offal and game has just about given me nightmares. Those Victorians ate anything and everything.

Despite the complaints about food on the immigrant ships, for many of the steerage passengers, the food in the embarkation depots and on ships was better than what most of them had seen in a long time. Many immigrants grew quite stout on board ship; children often became ill at the quantities of food their loving parents stuffed into them.

On arrival in New Zealand, the immigrants discovered that beef and pork were generally plentiful and cheap. Maori had enthusiastically adopted the practice of raising pigs and cattle, and growing fruit and vegetables, for sale or trade to the Europeans. The New Zealand climate made growing vegetables pretty straightforward, and veggie gardens flourished at most early Wellington homes. Raw vegetables were still regarded with a certain amount of suspicion, and most people preferred them to be thoroughly cooked to remove any lingering trace of the poisons they were thought to contain. Even my grandmother’s cookbook from the early 1900s recommends boiling cabbage for 20 minutes – and adding a piece of washing soda to ensure it retained its green colour. Mmmmmm…..

In Britain, fish had been regarded as food for the poor – it was free for the catching, after all. It seems most settlers also avoided sea-fish – whether because the taint was of poverty or the raw sewage in the harbour is not clear. Chicken wasn’t eaten much either – chickens were kept for eggs rather than for food, and only the old ones that had given up laying found their way into the pot.

Then there was game and wild food – pheasants, rabbit, hare, wild pork, eels, koura – if Dad could catch it, Mum would cook it. Even, if you were short of cash and the larder was bare, the ubiquitous swamp hen :

Pukeko Cream Soup

Prepare the bird and set in a large saucepan and cover with water. Add three kumaras and one onion and salt to taste. Now simmer until the bird is tender [this may take some hours] then remove from stock and vegetables. Sieve kumaras and onion and add to stock with half a pint of milk. Heat again and thicken with one tablespoon of cornflour. Before serving, add a small quantity of cream and garnish each serving with chopped parsley and freshly-ground pepper. [And presumably, throw away the pukeko?]