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PPC 98 (August 2013)
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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
MARY-ANNE BOERMANS was a finalist in the 2011 series of The Great British Bake Off and is now a successful food blogger. She has been cooking and baking for more than 40 years. She is passionate about home cooking and has amassed a library of over 900 cookery books, with an emphasis on traditional British recipes. Her book Great British Bakes: Forgotten Treasures for Modern Bakers will be published in November by Square Peg. Mary-Anne lives in Worcestershire with her husband and daughter. IRINA DUMITRESCU teaches medieval literature at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Her essay ‘Tasting Texas,’ on culinary fusion in the Lone Star State, appeared in the Southwest Review. GERALDENE HOLT is a very senior lady in the galère of English cookery writers. Her books on cakes are legendary, as is her garden in southern France, where she lives when she is not in Oxford. BARAK KUSHNER teaches modern Japanese history in the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (formerly the Faculty of Oriental Studies) at the University of Cambridge and has a PhD in History from Princeton University. He has written lots on Japanese history and of course, Slurp!, see below. STEVEN D.P. RICHARDSON has worked fishing trawlers, tutored medieval history, been employed as a numismatist, and as an Associate Producer in arts and history television. Based in London, he is now a freelance writer and the author of the cookery app, telchef. WILLIAM SAYERS is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Cornell University. He writes on medieval western European languages and literature and works in collection development in the Cornell University Library system.
Preliminaries
MICHAEL POLLAN
In the book reviews you will find Tim Harris’s enthusiastic notice of Michael Pollan’s new book Cooked. We were amused to read in the Guardian round-up of media reviews of Giles Coren’s slightly heterodox opinion of this year’s great guru of food. Michael Pollan is a professor of journalism. His books are part of that great American tradition of non-fiction writing that steers a course between investigation, populism and speculative thought. For many of us, our first encounter with it as teenagers was possibly Vance Packard’s Hidden Persuaders. Another example I remember fondly is Tracy Kidder’s House. What marks most of these books is a certain prolixity, as well as a thoroughness in their wanderings around their chosen subject. When it’s well done, it is astonishingly instructive, and I for one take my hat off to Pollan’s exposé of corn and corn syrup in American processed foods as a great example of a clear objective masterfully executed. However, although Coren is wrong to imply that Pollan is turgid (although I would agree he’s somewhat long-winded), he is absolutely bang on the money that Pollan’s conclusions are banal in the extreme and if anyone found them arresting or novel, then they must never ever have thought about food or eating before in their lives. From the day you were born it was self-evident that most processed food was filth, and that most food processors were only in it for the money. It was also pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that if you wished to eat with sense, you ate in moderation and across the full palette of foods available. It really doesn’t need five hundred pages.
TWELFTH-CENTURY RECIPES FROM POITOU
I expect quite a few of you will have read in the press about the discovery by researchers from Durham University of a very early group of manuscript recipes in a document once in the hands of the monks of Durham, but now in the library of Sydney Sussex College Cambridge. I give below the text of the communication from Dr Giles Gasper of Durham which describes the material in question. I hope that Prospect Books may be connected with the next stage of this exciting development. A sequence of culinary recipes from the late twelfth century has been discovered in a manuscript originally from Durham Cathedral Priory, now part of the collection at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge (Manuscript 51). Professor Faith Wallis (McGill University, Montreal) made the discovery and has been working on the collection subsequently with Dr Giles Gasper (Durham University). The recipes are sauces for various meats, which the author or compiler states are from the Poitou region. Some ten sauces are included, for meats ranging from chicken, ‘hen in winter’, beef, duck, pork, ram (presumably a ‘wether’ or castrated male sheep), lamb, sausage and ‘tiny little fish minuti pisculi’. There is also a recipe for conserved ginger, with detailed instructions for preparation: soaking in water, cutting into slices, cooking down with honey, rubbing honey in by hand, and continuing the process with other flavourings including spikenard. The sauces and conserve emerge (fols. 39r–v) in a section of the manuscript dedicated to medical recipes (fols. 27r–46v) written by a single scribe. The medical recipes preceding the culinary recipes are in broadly head-to-toe order, while those that follow are largely for compound medicines for internal or whole-body disorders. The recipe collection ends half way down fol. 44v, but the same scribe seems to have intended to start a new collection on fol. 45r, with a recipe ‘ad uocem clarificandam’ (for clearing the voice). There is no indication that the sauces are anything other than culinary in intention. The ginger conserve has culinary relations in later medieval cooking, but bears close resemblance also to medicinal recipes for digestifs and aphrodisiacs recorded in contemporary later twelfth-century collections such as Cirac instans and the Antidotarium Nicolai. The manuscript as a whole is a composite of four distinct booklets, all roughly coeval but separately copied. They appear to have been bound together in the twelfth or perhaps the thirteenth century, as there is a table of contents for the entire volume in a hand of this period on the flyleaf. The first two booklets concern the sacraments comprising poems on the Mass and on baptism, and a tract defending the real Presence composed of extracts from patristic and early medieval theologians. In between this part of the volume and the closing section (a gloss on the Psalter and Canticles), is the collection of medical and culinary recipes. This section dates to the third quarter of the twelfth century. The manuscript is recorded in the Durham Cathedral Priory library catalogue of 1391; by the late sixteenth century it was in the possession of John Pilkington, Archdeacon of Durham. Who collected and copied these recipes remain open questions. It may be tentatively proposed that the collection was not created by the scriptorium of Durham Cathedral Priory. Rather, it was assembled for private study and reference, possibly by a physician like Master Herebertus or Master Gervasius, both of whom donated medical books to the Priory in the twelfth century, as earlier catalogues from Durham show. The Priory’s surviving booklists from the twelfth century indicate that it accumulated a sizeable and up-to-date medical collection, but how and when the Sidney Sussex volume came to the community of St Cuthbert is still to be established. What is becoming clear is that these recipes are amongst the earliest, if not the earliest, to survive from the western medieval tradition; they are to this extent unusual. Written in Latin, there are a few parallels with the fourteenth-century Latin cookbooks which are known, the Tractatus de modo praeparandi et condiendi omnia cibaria, Doctrine preparationis ciborum, Liber de coquina et Modus viaticorum preparandorum et salsarum. However, the taste combinations for the twelfth-century recipes appear to be different to the later traditions: the emphasis is on herb-flavourings, garlic and vinegar; the only spices used are pepper, along with some use of coriander, cost and spikenard. There are some interesting parallel descriptions of Poitevin sauces from the 1160s in the chronicler Ralph Diceto, and also in the De nominibus utensilium of Alexander Neckam from c.1180. These descriptions are not presented as recipes in the same way as those in Sidney Sussex 51, but do provide useful confirmation of the early date and palate.The recipes formed the basis of a cookery workshop for History, English and Archaeology MA students from Durham University, which took place on April 25th at Blackfriars Restaurant in Newcastle, led by Caroline Yeldham and Blackfriars’ proprietor, Andy Hook. They were then recreated by Blackfriars chefs for lunch the following Saturday, 27 April, to accompany a lunchtime lecture in the banqueting hall of the restaurant by Professor Chris Woolgar entitled ‘Food in Medieval England.’ This was the third lecture in a collaboration between the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University and Blackfriars Restaurant. The collaboration will continue with further exposition, and an eventual cookbook to include the sauces from Poitou in their original form and as interpreted by Caroline Yeldham, and the Blackfriars staff. Faith Wallis and Giles Gasper will be organizing an international workshop in July 2014, to be held at Durham, to investigate the circumstances of the manuscript, its content, production and context, and will be leading a full-scale scholarly treatment. Giles Gasper and Faith Wallis (with thanks to Caroline Yeldham, Bruno Laurioux and Greti Dinkova-Bruun)
WOOD-FIRED OVENS
For those of you who pursue this activity, I have found a new website full of anguished discussion about how to do it and ‘What I’ve done’. Its address is: <http://ukwoodfiredovenforum.proboards.com/index.cgi>.
†ROSEMARY DAVIDSON
It is with great sadness that I report the death of Rosemary Davidson on 20 November 2012. Rosemary was a founding director of Prospect Books in company with her brother, Alan and sister-in-law, Jane. She had herself a distinguished career in educational publishing with Longman and the Cambridge University Press (of which she was the first woman on its executive board). When living in Cambridge she opened the Broughton House gallery at her home in King Street. Here she showed (and published) many of the woodcuts by the artist and author Gwen Raverat. She also used to buy a parcel of Prospect Books every Christmas for the gallery’s festive show. I found the similarities between brother and sister very marked. The same willingness to see the amusing side of life, the same openness to other people, and their preoccupations, hobby-horses, or quirks.
†HUGO DUNN-MEYNELL
It’s with equal regret that I report the passing of Hugo on 6 February 2013. An excellent obituary was printed in the Guardian, written by his friend Roger Owen. We all knew Hugo as the secretary and chief executive of the International Wine & Food Society which, it might be argued, he awoke from years of quiescence and injected with new vigour and purpose. I had dealings with him over some years as editor of the revived journal of the IWFS. Hugo had a long and pioneering career in PR and advertising, but belied his spare frame with an enthusiasm for good food. In this he was abetted, in the years that I knew him, by his wife Alice Wooledge-Salmon whose career as a distinguished food writer he in turn encouraged and supported.
†JOCASTA INNES
I was very sad to read of the death of Jocasta Innes on 20 April 2013. We exchanged a few letters and hers were always memorable. My own were those of a slavering fan. We have always thought her Country Kitchen a work of astonishing utility as it gives clear and simple instruction on the basic activities that might result from living in the country, having the odd animal, and tending the untidy garden. For us it has never been improved upon. There were some informative obituaries in the national press which can be retrieved on the Internet.
†NICOLE FENOSA
It is with sadness that we record the death of Nicole Fenosa whose fine illustrations adorn the text of A Catalan Cookery Book by Irving Davis which we re-published in 1999.
†CAROLE LAMBERT (1949–2012)
It is our sad task to announce, albeit months after the fact, that one of the most important, and perhaps the most discreet, of the culinary historians active in the Flandrin Group during the 1980s, passed away in July. Carole Lambert began her career as a medievalist in the late 1970s in her native Montréal. She did ground-breaking research into the culinary manuscript traditions of south-central and south-western France at a time when research into French regional culinary cultures was in its infancy. Two manuscripts from the Auvergne, one a cookbook, the other about the grafting of fruit trees, were published in 1987: Le Recueil de Riom et La maniere de henter soutillement…. (Le Moyen français, n°20, Montréal, Editions CERES). The results of further research formed the basis for her dissertation which was completed in 1989 under the title: ‘Trois réceptaires culinaires médiévaux: “Les Enseingnemenz”, les “Doctrine” et le “Modus.”’ The first is a critical edition of what is arguably the oldest collection of culinary recipes in French, which dated from the early fourteenth century; the second a previously unknown Latin translation of that text; and the third a hitherto unknown collection of recipes from the late fourteenth century written in Latin but clearly Occitan in origin, the Modus preparandorum viaticorum et salsarum. To Carole’s credit she provides the reader not only with the original texts but, in the case of the ‘Modus’, a French translation as well, coupled with a careful analysis of the ingredients and linguistic quirks that indicate its southern roots. Her invaluable eighty-page glossary of medieval cooking terms and comprehensive indexes also permit the reader to compare these recipes with the same recipes found in other medieval texts, with an indication of the degree of similarity or divergence between the different versions. In addition to pursuing her own research, Carole took it upon herself to publicize and diffuse the work of others, most notably by organizing a symposium held in May of 1990 in Montreal. All the scholars who were then doing seminal work into medieval and Renaissance European texts presented papers that were collected and published in 1992, under Carole’s supervision, as Du Manuscrit à la Table (Presses de l’Université de Montréal, and Champion-Slatkine, Paris). Several years later, Carole also co-authored, with Jean-Louis Flandrin, a beautifully produced and impressively researched volume devoted to medieval recipes, Fêtes gourmandes au Moyen Age (Imp. Nationale, Paris, 1998). Unfortunately, Carole’s most important work, her critical edition and translation of the Modus, has yet to be published. Nevertheless, we are happy to report that it is currently scheduled to be published – along with the Manuscrit de Riom and the Maniere de henter soutillement – by Honoré Champion in a series of texts devoted to various aspects of medieval life. With this publication, Carole’s unique contribution to medieval culinary studies will at last be given the recognition it deserves and made available to scholars heretofore unaware of her work. Philip & Mary Hyman
DUTCH GASTRONOMIC COLLECTION
Claudia Roden very kindly sent us this information about developments in Holland: ‘The University of Amsterdam has become, since 2012, a centre of gastronomy that will be of value to researchers as well as to chefs, restaurateurs, food producers and artisans. Joke Mammen, who is in charge, came to last year’s Oxford Symposium and will be coming again this year. ‘Their Special Collections library, which has cookbooks dating back to the Middle Ages, now also houses an increasing part of the immense collections of the scholar-gastronome Johannes van Dam and the food historian Joop Witteveen. For more information and a PDF-file of the folder on the ‘history of food collection’ see: http://www.bijzonderecollecties.uva.nl/en/the-special-collections/collection-profile/collection-profile-2/collection-profile-2/content/folder/modern-period.html ‘The University will be awarding two annual prizes: the international Johannes van Dam prize for gastronomy (I was the very thrilled recipient this year) and the Joop Witteveen prize for culinary history of the Low Countries. On 18 January 2013 a gala event and an exhibition of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2012 collection donated by Edouard Cointreau – were held to celebrate the inauguration of the awards and the newest addition to the university cookbook collection. ‘The Special Collections, together with the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Culture and History and the Vrije University of Brussels, will hold an annual Symposium on the history of food in the Low Countries. The first will be held on 17 January 2014. For the theme this year and the call for papers visit: http://www.bijzonderecollecties.uva.nl/en ‘For all information contact Joke Mammen <j.j.mammen@uva.nl>.’
SALEP AND COFFEE-HOUSES
I have been contacted by Chris Elliott on this subject, in the hope that informed readers can assist him. His e-mail is <c.elliott@dsl.pipex.com>. ‘I am hoping that you can suggest sources of information on a fairly specialized area of food history. For a number of years now, I have been researching what can broadly be summarized as the cultural impact of Egypt (particularly Ancient Egypt) on Britain, and English Heritage have recently published my book Egypt in England, which deals with Egyptian-style architecture and interiors. Initially, my research focused on London’s Egyptian connections, and in The Insight Guide to Cairo I came across the following passage: “The clientele of coffee houses or chocolate houses in eighteenth-century London, for example, drank many of the same decoctions – made of cinnamon (qirfa, pronounced “erfa” in Cairo), ginger (ganzabíl), aniseed (yanssun) or licorice-root (erq-sus), that are still commonly ordered in any good coffee house in twentieth-century Cairo. Popular in eighteenth-century Paris, Madrid and London was sahlep, a hot drink made from the farinaceous root of Orchis mascula. The word sahlep, identical in French, Spanish and English, derives by way of Turkish from sahlab, the usual Arabic name for both the drink and the plant, but is in fact a polite euphemism for the plant’s proper Arabic botanic name, which literally means ‘fox testicles’.” ‘Mrs Grieve’s Herbal has information on Salep, as it was also spelled: “Before coffee supplanted it, it used to be sold at stalls in the streets of London, and was held in great repute in herbal medicine, being largely employed as a strengthening and demulcent [soothing] agent. The best English Salep came from Oxfordshire, but the tubers were chiefly imported from the East.” ‘Charles Lamb refers to a “Salopian shop” in Fleet Street, and says that to many tastes it has “a delicacy beyond the China luxury,” and adds that a basin of it at three-halfpence, accompanied by a slice of bread-and-butter at a halfpenny, is an ideal breakfast for a chimney-sweep. Though Salep is no longer a popular London beverage, before the war it was regularly sold by street merchants in Constantinople as a hot drink during the winter. ‘Despite trying books on London’s coffee-houses, however, I haven’t been able to confirm that the other drinks were routinely or commonly available. I’d like to be able to do this, as I suspect that the presence of drinks from Cairo in London goes back further than the eighteenth century, and reflects long-standing links through trading and pilgrimage. I did try contacting Max Rodenbeck, whose father, now deceased, wrote the original version of the guide, but he was unable to trace the source of the passage quoted above.’
BOUILLIE
You may think that you know what this is, a pottage of grain and vegetables or even just a simple porridge. We think of it as the staple of French peasants. Breton bouillie is particularly famous. So there we were, in a Breton supermarket, when we spied some clear plastic packets labelled Yod kerc’h. They were filled with a coffee-coloured set jelly (of sorts). Yod is Breton for bouillie, kerc’h is Breton for oats, so this was oat porridge, but that’s not what it looked like. The way they used to make this porridge was to soak the oats for a day in cold water and skim off the bran and chaff leaving the starch-laden mass at the bottom, which can then be cooked with more water. This is reminiscent of making sowans. Come the Industrial Revolution and the processing of the oats gets mechanized and much, much finer. So rather than the flakes that we see in porridge oats, it is a flour, or meal. Once they have separated out the rubbish, and boiled up the remainder so that it sets, you do indeed have a jelly-like substance. This you can remove from the packet, cut into dainty slices and fry in butter or lard. It then becomes a bit like polenta and it’s rather tasty (though the processors have put in quite a lot of salt). End of lesson.
A SRI LANKAN COOKERY BOOK
Paul van Reyk has told me of his production of a sort of facsimile edition of the recipe book of his grandmother, Ada de la Harpe (b. 1883), a Sri Lankan Dutch burgher (an employee of the Dutch East India Company who remained in Ceylon after the British had taken over). He has designed it so that an image of each page is accompanied by a transcription. There is also a glossary of some less common terms. The book can be viewed online at <http://issuu.com/foodwriter/docs/the_recipe_book_of_ad_de_la_harpe_first_edition_20> and downloaded at <http://www.paulvanreyk.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/The-Recipe-Book-of-Ad-de-la-Harpe_First-edition_2013.pdf>. Email: <pvanreyk@optusnet.com.au>.
GRIMOD DE LA REYNIÈRE
The redoubtable Carolin Young has (as far as we are concerned) resurfaced after a few months off the scene with a blog retracing the steps of the sainted Grimod across modern Paris, as well as printing his Almanach and her translation thereof alongside her account of present-day shops and shopping. <http://www.almanachdesgourmands.com>.
KRISPY KREME
I expect most of you will have picked up the news about the opening of the Edinburgh branch of Krispy Kreme. In the light of the government’s stance on our dietary intake, I find it fascinating. I did a little bit more research in the Guardian archive and on Google and found that Krispy Kremes excite a similar devotion across the world, be it Bangkok, Sydney or Cardiff. I am perplexed. From the Guardian 15 February 2013: ‘Edinburgh police have had to marshal hundreds of cars and pedestrians to prevent a third day of traffic chaos at a newly opened Krispy Kreme doughnut store in the city. Seventy-two hours after the US chain’s first Scottish outlet opened, drivers were still queueing for up to an hour to get their fill on Friday. The day before Lothian and Borders police urged motorists to avoid the western side of Edinburgh altogether due to the chaos. Patrol cars were sent to Hermiston Gait retail park to try to stop Krispy Kreme customers causing gridlock when a mile-long tailback began backing on to the M8. Edinburgh Evening News reported that pedestrians were queueing in wintry conditions for up to an hour, but the delays caused by banked-up cars had been worse, with motorists waiting in line for the drive-through service for up to two hours. Napier University students Melinda Garrott and Elise Setter told the paper they took public transport to reach the store after getting free samples in the city centre. Garrott said: “We got the bus. It’s about 25 to 30 minutes, but we had no idea where the store was so we got lost. It was raining – we had to get a taxi. We then waited about 40 minutes in the queue, but they gave us free doughnuts so it was OK.” Health campaigners said they were appalled at the number of people prepared to wait in their cars to buy the cholesterol-packed snacks. Tam Fry, for the National Obesity Forum, said: “If Edinburgh is overweight today then it will certainly be obese by tomorrow.”’
LIVERPOOL HOPE UNIVERSITY
The expansion of food studies continues apace. This can’t be a bad thing, even if its velocity in England does not yet match that of the United States, Australia or parts of Europe. It is also, I hope, a good thing for publishers of relevant books (see the latest output from Berg as an example), although I note that the sort of food studies espoused by Prospect are not quite the same thing as food studies pursued by sociologists and the like. Anyway, I have been contacted by Dr Bryce Evans of Liverpool Hope with the news that there is a new undergraduate course at Liverpool Hope entitled ‘The Taste of War’. Students explore the role of food in conflict from Alexander the Great to Afghanistan. In the near future students will also be taking part in an innovative ‘learning through cooking, eating, smelling and tasting’ session where they experience multisensory learning through cooking dishes from different eras at a local cookery school. More details are available from <evansb1@hope.ac.uk>.
QUEEN VICTORIA
I have been contacted by Mary Williamson from Toronto with the following enquiry: ‘Over ten years ago I became intrigued by the contents of a paragraph in Roy Shipperbottom’s introduction to the reissue of Elizabeth Raffald’s The Experienced English Housekeeper (Southover Press, 1997). “Such were the quality and popularity of the instructions in this extraordinary book, written by a working confectioner and containing trade secrets of the day, that they were widely copied, and recipes from it are found in many family manuscript recipe books – not least one compiled by Princess (later Queen) Victoria. She entered several Raffald recipes in her own handwriting including King Solomon’s Temple in Flummery, signing it Victoria.” Shipperbottom doesn’t give the source of his information, and because he had died before his reprint was published I inquired with the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. I was told that no such manuscript exists there. ‘Just the other day I picked up my copy of Court Favourites by Elizabeth Craig (Andre Deutsch, 1953) and it seems that her collection was based on recipes in the same elusive manuscript together with another recipe manuscript that belonged to Princess, then Queen, Victoria. In her introduction Craig tells us how she acquired the recipes. It would have been around 1933 that she became acquainted with an Irishwoman who regularly dined with an “English princess.” At some point the Princess showed the Irishwoman “an old scrap-book which had been given to Queen Victoria when she was a young girl.” It had originally belonged to Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV. “Hand-bound in vellum, with a crown stamped on every page, it was one of the most interesting volumes I have ever perused.” She estimated the recipes ranged over fifty to eighty years. Another book was produced. Bound in Russian leather it contained “many recipes cut from old books and papers, alongside recipes evidently copied by Princess Victoria from some ancient, perhaps forgotten, books on domestic subjects. On the first page someone had penned ‘Given to Victoria on her birthday – 1831’. The entries in the book date from 1831 to 1887.” ‘I have written about, and given lectures on Mrs Dalgairns and Mrs Rundell, and like many researchers would be fascinated to know whether Princess Victoria copied the recipes of my culinary heroines. Does anyone know where these two manuscript collections might be, and whether there is any likelihood that they have been digitized and made accessible? If we knew the identity of the “English princess” of 1933 it would help.’ Mary Williamson: <mfw@yorku.ca>
ANOTHER COMIC FOOD SONG: THE IRISH JUBILEE
Following the success of the last poetic contribution from Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire of Dublin, I have pleasure in offering his next instalment, which he introduces thus: ‘When I first heard this song in Hughes Pub on the final session of Sean-Nós Cois Life over ten years ago sung by one of the Góilín singers, I knew straight away I would have to learn it due to its rich food theme. It has been recorded by Barry Gleeson on his album Path across the Ocean, and is found in print in John Wyse Jackson and Hector McDonnell’s book Ireland’s Other Poetry: Anonymous to Zozimus. I have recited this classic food-related song/ballad/poem on a number of occasions at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. It tells of a famous banquet that took place on the election of an Irish-American Senator Doherty in thanks to his constituents. It is a robust nineteenth-century view of Irish political shenanigans in America. The song might relate to the election of John Doherty (1826–1859) to the New York State Senate for the 7th District in 1858. John was the son of Patrick Doherty (1794–1849) who came to New York from Ireland c. 1811 and fought in the 1812 War. John Doherty had been alderman for the 19th ward in New York from 1852 and 1853 and seems to have died on the day that the legislature adjourned on 19 April 1859. A report in the New York Times on the 22 April 1859 on the late Senator Doherty notes that “he left his mark, if not on the legislation of the past two years, certainly on the memory of all his colleagues. He was a bachelor, eminently genial, good natured and disposed to be merry under all circumstances… When entirely sober his address must have been very pleasing. Whatever his condition, he never forgot to be gentlemanly, courteous and merry.” The report continues to outline how he was hijacked by the various lobby groups and nearly killed with hospitality. There are a number of versions of this song available but the one below is my favourite and the version performed in Oxford.
A short time ago an Irishman named Docherty Was elected to the Senate by a very large majority Sure he felt so elected that he went to Denis Cassidy Who owned a bar room of a very large capacity Arra, says Docherty go over to the brewer and order A hundred kegs of lager beer and give it to the poor! Then go over to the butchers shop and order up a ton of meat Be sure the boys and girls have got all they want to drink and e