Dietetic Excavation

Views of my room (attic of the Stable Block), the hall outside my room, and view over the bannister to the ground floor.   

I uncovered so much today in my research that I'm a bit confuzzled by it all! I feel like I am on a dig to sleuth out an understanding of the thinking behind 18th century diet therapy. And then...I hit 'the motherlode' book I was hoping I'd find. I spent the entire 6 hours in the library deciphering about 14 pages piecing together the theory behind dietary recommendations and what exactly did they know about conditions (or distempers as they called them) such as diabetes, cachexia, anemia, etc. I suspect that everyone in JA's time understood this theory and its application so there was no need to explain what such and such a recipe was for hence the huge collections of recipes within a book without rationale given for who to give it to, when or why. Rather like today that we don't need instructions on how to boil water since we assume that most people just know how to do it from watching it being done since childhood. At least, this is where my thinking got to by the time the library closed this evening.

Based on this new understanding, I want to look at all the foods JA mentioned in her novels, and at the recipes I have previously reviewed to figure out how/where they fit with what I uncovered today. My housemates (the other VFs) were very encouraging and enthusiastic that this information will be of interest at JASNA meetings. And... wonderfully, it fit with the work another VF is doing on childbirth and midwifery so we were both pretty pleased that our work helped inform the other person's work.

At lunch break today, the 'horsemen' were working with the horses. One was trimming the verge (I'm not kidding, that's what they call it here) with the huge horse pulling a huge weight. The other horse was being trained on walking reigns. I realized for the first time just how huge these horses are....and powerful! The trainer, Abby, told me that a few weeks ago, the horse bolted and smashed through the oak fencing. Can you imagine this thing barrelling toward you? Seeing someone work with horses reminded me of my daughter, Jeanine, who likewise loves and trains horses. I imagined it was her doing this training; I know she would love to be here.

After 6 hours in the library, I went for a walk along the footpath that starts across the road and down a bit (footpaths are everywhere!)...I didn't exactly get lost but the path I took did not loop around as I thought it would so my planned 45 minute walk turned out to be 2 hours. Ouchy! I took solace realizing that Jane herself would have walked these paths (as I learned reading the Chawton section of the book that resides on the conservatory table, In The Steps of Jane Austen), Jane went along these paths to buy eggs from neighbouring farms.

Scenes along the way of my walk:
As my friend, Karol says, "All signs are there owing to an incident." I did not want to meet up with said bull along this deserted footpath.

I picked some wild flowers on the walk and added to my flower pounding project (pounding petals and stems into cotton prepared with alum) before heading up to my room to catch up on some work and write this blog post.