Journal of Victorian Culture Online
The blog and online platform of the Journal of Victorian Culture
Indian curry is an extraordinarily popular genre of food, visible not only in the shape of curry houses across the world but also as take-aways, frozen curry meals and curry powders sold in grocers’ stores. But what is the history of the Indian curry? Was it Indian to begin with or a colonial imposition evolving from a simplified and over-generalized understanding of local food cultures? This essay traces the history of Indian curry as we know it today and the
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It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least by the Internet, that one way to cope with Covid is to bake banana bread. From social media to Stanley Tucci’s recent diary of quarantine cooking in The Atlantic to the New York Times’ “At Home” section, Americans are hearing at least one persistent and unified message about Covid-19: we should all be cooking. Or baking. Preferably bread. At first glance, the reasons behind the uptick in home cooking seem obvious. Shopping
Read moreLara Rutherford-Morrison has a PhD in Victorian literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently an Affiliated Scholar at Concordia University in Montreal and blogs daily for Bustle. Her research considers the ways that contemporary culture reimagines and plays with Victorian literature and history, in contexts ranging from adaptations of Victorian novels in film and fiction to heritage tourism in the U.K. She can be found at her website and on Twitter @LaraRMorrison. Mrs. Beeton’s Book of
Read moreHelen Rogers (Liverpool John Moores University) This post has been written in conjunction with the JVC Bake Off . If you would like to know more then click here. If you feel inspiured to get involved after reading this post then email Lucie at l.m.matthew-jones@ljmu.ac.uk. I was ten or eleven when I was given Jane Eyre, my first ‘grown up’ novel. In those days I never gave up on a book but it took me three attempts to struggle through the gloomy
Read moreLucinda Matthews-Jones (Liverpool John Moores University) Last Thursday was the end of a very long term for me and my students. I’m not saying that I was bribing my students with treats, but my co-lecturer on ‘Victorian Popular Culture’ and I were both aware that we needed to sweeten the blow of week 14. For Mike, this meant stopping off at a local shop to purchase ‘A Victorian Christmas: Milk Chocolate Santas’. The box showed a ‘traditional’ image of Christmas
Read moreLucinda Matthews-Jones (Liverpool John Moores University) Last Thursday was the end of a very long term for me and my students. I’m not saying that I was bribing my students with treats, but my co-lecturer on ‘Victorian Popular Culture’ and I were both aware that we needed to sweeten the blow of week 14. For Mike, this meant stopping off at a local shop to purchase ‘A Victorian Christmas: Milk Chocolate Santas’. The box showed a ‘traditional’ image of Christmas
Read moreBy Lucinda Matthews-Jones (LJMU) This weekend I was giddy with excitement. I was going to spend Sunday baking, something I haven’t done yet this semester. Sunday coincided with the last day of National Baking Week in the UK (15 – 21 October 2012) and last Tuesday also saw the final of the Great British Bake-Off (GBBO) TV show. Surely the baking gods would be on my side! Surely Mrs Beeton would not fail me! Surely I would have a delicious
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