Cooking with the Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group is familiar to us today as a small, loosely affiliated collection of writers, artists and intellectuals who were dissatisfi ed with the false values and petty conventions of Victorian male-dominated society. To Bloomsbury members, religion, strict rules of conduct and social duties were not moral imperatives to live by. ‘Good’ states of mind and the individual’s ‘truth’ and ‘happiness’ were more appealing and valid ends, which should be pursued and might be achieved. This shared code of ethics unified the group and consolidated its lifelong friendships.
‘Lingering breakfasts’ and ‘painting lunches’ were indicative of the civilized way in which the Bloomsbury Group socialized. Conversation was fundamental to their way of life. What better forum, then, for exchanging and developing ideas than the dining table, in a group that included innovative thinkers such as E. M. Forster, Roger Fry, John Maynard Keynes and Virginia Woolf? They wrote; they painted; they organized exhibitions; they lectured and went about their daily business; but they also made a point of convening regularly to discuss art, literature and philosophy, as well as simply to gossip. They spent long hours at the dining table, over fresh, wellprepared dishes. As Virginia Woolf explained to the artist Gwen Raverat in 1925:
‘Where they [Bloomsbury] seem to me to triumph is in having worked out a view of life which was not by any means corrupt or sinister or merely intellectual; rather ascetic & austere indeed; which still holds, & keeps them dining together, & staying together, after 20 years; & no amount of quarrelling or success, or failure has altered this. Now I do think this rather creditable.’
Left: The Kitchen by Vanessa Bell (1943) Right: Eggs On A Table, Tidmarsh Mill by Dora Carrington (c. 1924)
Despite a profound ignorance of all aspects of food preparation, the members of the Bloomsbury Group were the ‘foodies’ of their day: enthusiastic about tasty, ‘unfussy’ dishes and passionate about Côtes de Provence wines and the heady flavours of southern French cuisine. Their servants were sent on cooking courses and provided with the latest ‘French-style’ cookery books. Later, after the First World War, Bloomsbury members tried cooking for themselves, and discovered cookery to be to their liking.
In my new book, The Bloomsbury Cookbook, the group’s story is told alongside recipes sourced from the archives of Bloomsbury’s cooks. As for the recipes taken from contemporaneous published sources, it is important to note that recipe books published in the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century were typically written by the mistress of the house and not by the house cook. These recipes are consequently less precise than would be expected of modern published recipes and should therefore be treated only as guidelines. Although I have tried out most of the recipes in my own kitchen, and made suggestions for the modern cook accordingly, this testing was not systematic and the results cannot be guaranteed. For the reader planning to make any of these dishes for a dinner party or the like, I strongly recommend a dry run beforehand.
Between 1904 and 1939, the principal Bloomsbury years, from which most of the recipes are taken, there 1928, all women in Britain were granted the same political rights as men.
There were changes inside the home as well. The Victorian kitchens of the Bloomsbury members’ childhoods – in the Stephen family home at 22 Hyde Park Gate, for example – had been dirty, crowded basement rooms, rarely, if ever, visited by the ‘upstairs’ inhabitants. ‘Who bought the bacon, the butter, the fish? I suspect it was our faithful Mabel. I certainly have no recollection of doing it myself’, recalled Frances Partridge in her memoirs.
Left: Sophia Farrell, the Stephen family cook (1890) Right: Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Stephen (1893-94)
But on the outbreak of war in 1914, this began to change. With less food about, menus became shorter and less fussy, especially as servants left domestic service to help with the war effort. Widespread use of electricity and plumbing brought the modern kitchen up to speed. Furthermore, by the late 1920s and 30s, electric refrigerators, can-openers and pop-up toasters were beginning to emerge.
For Bloomsbury members, especially the women, cooking began to become a relaxing recreation. They baked scones and bread, made jams and rustled up simple meals. But a servant or two was still usually on hand to do the shopping, the washing up and any or all of the cooking that was considered uninteresting.
In researching The Bloomsbury Cookbook, I perused countless diaries, letters and memoirs searching for references to food – and I was not disappointed. Bloomsbury loved its food, and its members frequently shared their culinary experiences with each other.
Still Life With Chocolate Cake by Roger Fry (c. 1912)
Over the past four years, I have occupied a world that was not my own, and made friends with artists, writers and intellectuals who died, in most cases, before I was born. In my desire to become more intimate with the Bloomsbury Group, I went to their houses, occupied their rooms, sat at their tables, prepared and tasted their food and read between the pages of their reminiscences to try to feel for myself what it would have been like to have been there at the time. Although this was not possible by any stretch of the imagination, I believe I did achieve an empathy of sorts. I came to understand that Bloomsbury is not merely a district of London once occupied by a group of talented, unconventional and progressively minded friends. It is a living ideology: a belief in the freedom of the individual; a belief in love, truth, hard work and dedication. That is why all the royalties from the sale of this book will go to the Charleston Trust, a non-profit charity ‘dedicated to the preservation of the house of the Bloomsbury artists, for the benefit of the public’. For me, Charleston is where the Bloomsbury pulse is strongest, where talent and energy still abound, and where one is reminded at every turn that many of the freedoms we enjoy today exist because of the exceptional vision, self-confidence and determination of the Bloomsbury Group.
Text © 2014 Jans Ondaatje Rolls
Extracted from The Bloomsbury Cookbook: Recipes For Life, Love And Art, by Jans Ondaatje Rolls, published by Thames & Hudson, priced £24.95.
For more information on Charleston: 01323-811626, www.charleston.org.uk/
Banana Fruit Loaf Cake
Serves 8
Cream margarine and sugar. Stir in syrup, bananas and eggs. Mix in cherries, peel and nuts. Fold in sifted flour, salt and spice and stir well. Put in a greased 2lb loaf tin and bake at 180C for about 1¼ hours. Very nice spread with butter.
Walnut and Coffee Slices
Serves 6
Chop the walnuts. Cream the margarine and sugar, and syrup together. Work in the flour, coffee and walnuts and knead together. Add 2-3 drops of milk if necessary. Roll out thinly and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 180C.
Hurry Cake
Serves 6
Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs gradually and then add almonds, flour and essence. Put into a small round butter cake tin and bake in the oven (180C) for 15-20 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.
© ESTATE OF VANESSA BELL, COURTESY HENRIETTA GARNETT/PHOTO COURTESY THE
CHARLESTON TRUST; © VIRGINIA WOOLF MONK’S HOUSE PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM/HARVARD
THEATRE COLLECTION; © PRIVATE COLLECTION/PHOTO THE BLOOMSBURY WORKSHOP
‘Lingering breakfasts’ and ‘painting lunches’ were indicative of the civilized way in which the Bloomsbury Group socialized. Conversation was fundamental to their way of life. What better forum, then, for exchanging and developing ideas than the dining table, in a group that included innovative thinkers such as E. M. Forster, Roger Fry, John Maynard Keynes and Virginia Woolf? They wrote; they painted; they organized exhibitions; they lectured and went about their daily business; but they also made a point of convening regularly to discuss art, literature and philosophy, as well as simply to gossip. They spent long hours at the dining table, over fresh, wellprepared dishes. As Virginia Woolf explained to the artist Gwen Raverat in 1925:
‘Where they [Bloomsbury] seem to me to triumph is in having worked out a view of life which was not by any means corrupt or sinister or merely intellectual; rather ascetic & austere indeed; which still holds, & keeps them dining together, & staying together, after 20 years; & no amount of quarrelling or success, or failure has altered this. Now I do think this rather creditable.’
Left: The Kitchen by Vanessa Bell (1943) Right: Eggs On A Table, Tidmarsh Mill by Dora Carrington (c. 1924)Despite a profound ignorance of all aspects of food preparation, the members of the Bloomsbury Group were the ‘foodies’ of their day: enthusiastic about tasty, ‘unfussy’ dishes and passionate about Côtes de Provence wines and the heady flavours of southern French cuisine. Their servants were sent on cooking courses and provided with the latest ‘French-style’ cookery books. Later, after the First World War, Bloomsbury members tried cooking for themselves, and discovered cookery to be to their liking.
In my new book, The Bloomsbury Cookbook, the group’s story is told alongside recipes sourced from the archives of Bloomsbury’s cooks. As for the recipes taken from contemporaneous published sources, it is important to note that recipe books published in the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century were typically written by the mistress of the house and not by the house cook. These recipes are consequently less precise than would be expected of modern published recipes and should therefore be treated only as guidelines. Although I have tried out most of the recipes in my own kitchen, and made suggestions for the modern cook accordingly, this testing was not systematic and the results cannot be guaranteed. For the reader planning to make any of these dishes for a dinner party or the like, I strongly recommend a dry run beforehand.
Between 1904 and 1939, the principal Bloomsbury years, from which most of the recipes are taken, there 1928, all women in Britain were granted the same political rights as men.
There were changes inside the home as well. The Victorian kitchens of the Bloomsbury members’ childhoods – in the Stephen family home at 22 Hyde Park Gate, for example – had been dirty, crowded basement rooms, rarely, if ever, visited by the ‘upstairs’ inhabitants. ‘Who bought the bacon, the butter, the fish? I suspect it was our faithful Mabel. I certainly have no recollection of doing it myself’, recalled Frances Partridge in her memoirs.
Left: Sophia Farrell, the Stephen family cook (1890) Right: Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Stephen (1893-94)But on the outbreak of war in 1914, this began to change. With less food about, menus became shorter and less fussy, especially as servants left domestic service to help with the war effort. Widespread use of electricity and plumbing brought the modern kitchen up to speed. Furthermore, by the late 1920s and 30s, electric refrigerators, can-openers and pop-up toasters were beginning to emerge.
For Bloomsbury members, especially the women, cooking began to become a relaxing recreation. They baked scones and bread, made jams and rustled up simple meals. But a servant or two was still usually on hand to do the shopping, the washing up and any or all of the cooking that was considered uninteresting.
In researching The Bloomsbury Cookbook, I perused countless diaries, letters and memoirs searching for references to food – and I was not disappointed. Bloomsbury loved its food, and its members frequently shared their culinary experiences with each other.
Still Life With Chocolate Cake by Roger Fry (c. 1912)Over the past four years, I have occupied a world that was not my own, and made friends with artists, writers and intellectuals who died, in most cases, before I was born. In my desire to become more intimate with the Bloomsbury Group, I went to their houses, occupied their rooms, sat at their tables, prepared and tasted their food and read between the pages of their reminiscences to try to feel for myself what it would have been like to have been there at the time. Although this was not possible by any stretch of the imagination, I believe I did achieve an empathy of sorts. I came to understand that Bloomsbury is not merely a district of London once occupied by a group of talented, unconventional and progressively minded friends. It is a living ideology: a belief in the freedom of the individual; a belief in love, truth, hard work and dedication. That is why all the royalties from the sale of this book will go to the Charleston Trust, a non-profit charity ‘dedicated to the preservation of the house of the Bloomsbury artists, for the benefit of the public’. For me, Charleston is where the Bloomsbury pulse is strongest, where talent and energy still abound, and where one is reminded at every turn that many of the freedoms we enjoy today exist because of the exceptional vision, self-confidence and determination of the Bloomsbury Group.
Text © 2014 Jans Ondaatje Rolls
Extracted from The Bloomsbury Cookbook: Recipes For Life, Love And Art, by Jans Ondaatje Rolls, published by Thames & Hudson, priced £24.95.
For more information on Charleston: 01323-811626, www.charleston.org.uk/
A TASTE OF BLOOMSBURY
The Bloomsbury recipes were known for their simplicity. The three recipes here are by Grace HiggensBanana Fruit Loaf Cake
Serves 8
- 4oz margarine
- 4oz caster sugar
- 1 heaped tbsp golden syrup
- 1lb ripe bananas, mashed
- 2 eggs
- 2oz glacé cherries (quartered)
- 2oz chopped peel
- 2oz chopped walnuts
- 8oz self-raising flour
- ½ tsp salt
- pinch mixed spice
Cream margarine and sugar. Stir in syrup, bananas and eggs. Mix in cherries, peel and nuts. Fold in sifted flour, salt and spice and stir well. Put in a greased 2lb loaf tin and bake at 180C for about 1¼ hours. Very nice spread with butter.
Walnut and Coffee Slices
Serves 6
- 2oz walnuts
- 4oz margarine
- 3oz sugar
- 2 level tsp maple syrup, or golden syrup with 2oz brown sugar
- 7oz plain flour
- 1 tsp instant coffee, dissolved in 10ml hot water
Chop the walnuts. Cream the margarine and sugar, and syrup together. Work in the flour, coffee and walnuts and knead together. Add 2-3 drops of milk if necessary. Roll out thinly and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 180C.
Hurry Cake
Serves 6
- 4oz butter
- 2oz sugar
- 2 eggs
- 4oz ground almonds
- 2oz self-raising flour
- 2-3 drops almond essence
Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs gradually and then add almonds, flour and essence. Put into a small round butter cake tin and bake in the oven (180C) for 15-20 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.
© ESTATE OF VANESSA BELL, COURTESY HENRIETTA GARNETT/PHOTO COURTESY THE
CHARLESTON TRUST; © VIRGINIA WOOLF MONK’S HOUSE PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM/HARVARD
THEATRE COLLECTION; © PRIVATE COLLECTION/PHOTO THE BLOOMSBURY WORKSHOP