Florence Nightingale: An Introduction to Her Life and Family: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, Volume 1

Food Orders and Recipes

Domestic Arrangements Food Orders and Recipes N ightingale was a nurse with strong views on nutrition. No ascetic, she served good food to her relatives, friends and co-workers and enjoyed it herself whenever possible. She had difficulties with food when ill, so that there is much concern about getting food that she could eat. The following items show all this: letters about meals, food for invalids and guests, orders for food both for her own household and as gifts, supplies to be sent in from Embley (for which she paid) and recipes, all in her own hand. England at the time was notorious (as it would remain for some time) for its bad food. Getting a good cook was a challenge. Yet Nightingale had lived on the Continent and knew what was possible. She averred that the cooking was ‘‘immeasurably better’’ in the most-povertystricken places in Germany, even at Kaiserswerth, than in England.1 (The spartan fare at Kaiserswerth is described in European Travels.) The material here is only a small selection, ordered chronologically. There are numerous surviving letters with food orders (especially for food hampers to be sent to sick nuns and colleagues). For example there were gifts to R.G. Whitfield, Manor House, St Thomas’ Hospital (3 brace partridges, 1 hare) carriage paid, 15 August 1866; Douglas Galton (1 brace partridges, 1 snipe) 17 August 1866; W. Clode at General Register Office (2 brace partridges, 1 hare); Dr Farr (3 brace partridges ); P. Holland, Burial Acts Office (2 brace partridges) 24 Septem1 Letter to Parthenope and Sir Harry Verney 26 January 1882, Welcome (Claydon copy) Ms 9009/5. 2 Note, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 9002/53. / 731 ber 1866.2 Colleagues and government employees on whom Nightingale relied for information were routinely plied with game. For the Convent of Mercy at Bermondsey, Nightingale asked for ‘‘vegetables, fruit (apples, figs) are always acceptable, flowers, particularly so, ham and bacon also, mutton or pork, rabbits, hares and a little game.’’3 When Mary Jones and her community were nursing in a cholera epidemic Nightingale sent her ‘‘a brace of grouse in their mountain heather.’’4 Nightingale had a cook but no housekeeper, so that she herself did much of the ordering, writing out letters to grocers and butchers. Merchants evidently kept these letters, which now appear in state and university archives. For example there is a letter ordering ‘‘a forequarter of your best small mutton, well hung, and I prefer of course fouryear -old mutton, if it is to be had.’’5 Source: Letter, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 8999/4 30 Old Burlington St. 20 February 1861 Dearest Mother Would you send me up in the weekly box any spring vegetables, if it were only salad? Also, anything which Burton may have made for luncheon for that day, such as a fricassee, or a bit of chicken dressed in salad or something sharp (just as you would send to the poor people , only not rhubarb and not potted meat). Mrs Gamp6 used to fold up a prong of vegetable like an umbrella and cram it into her pocket. Such are the vegetables here. Also, I should be ashamed if (in the worst of times) I had ever given my patients what they give me here. I am ashamed to write of nothing else. ever dearest Mother your loving child 3 Note, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 9002/76. 4 Letter to Mary Jones 17 August 1866, London Metropolitan Archives H1/ST/NC1/66/14. 5 Typed copy of letter to Mr Welsh 15 March 1889, Add Mss 45809 f115. 6 Sairy Gamp, the notorious drunken nurse of Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit. 732 / Florence Nightingale: Her Life and Family Source: Unsigned note, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 8999/59 [1861] My dear [Parthenope Verney] Don’t make Ruth cook for me something distinct at 5:00 o’clock. All cooks object (and justly) to doing this when they have another dinner to do. You know I never eat anything but réchauffés [reheated] so it is no grievance to me. Embley sends a small rabbit pie every Thursday , which lasts me three days. If I have a bit sent from your dinner, it will do for tomorrow. . . . Source: Letter, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 8999/44 32 South St. 12 December 1861 Dear Papa As you ask me about the food, I have set my...