A local Lyttelton landmark lives on

Posted on 12 June 2015 by Chelsea Dickson

This week on the blog, we look at what we found beneath a local landmark in the community of Lyttelton: the newly refurbished Albion Square.

Refurbished Albion Square, Lyttelton. Image: Christchurch City Council.

The Albion Square, on the corner of London and Canterbury streets, is home of the Lyttelton War Memorial Cenotaph. It also acts as a community focal point, and is a testament to the recovery of the port town. However, the longer-standing residents of Lyttelton may recall that this was also once the site of the square’s namesake: the historic Albion Hotel.

We can trace the establishment of the first hotel at this site to 1858, when local merchant John Collier was granted a liquor licence, transforming his grocery store into the Albion Hotel. A year later he added a saddle horses for hire business to the rear of the hotel. An 1862 advertisement in the Lyttelton Times, for the lease of the hotel provides the first known description of Collier’s hotel:

The premises consist of a commodious bar, bar parlour, dining and sitting rooms, with 15 bedrooms, making up 24 beds; also skittle ground and outhouses. This establishment has for the last three years, been favoured with the support of the settlers of the Peninsula particularly.

Lyttelton Times 1/11/1862: 6.

A map of Lyttelton drawn in the 1860s shows the Albion Hotel fronting London Street. Two smaller buildings are shown to the rear of the hotel. These probably represent the outhouses and stables mentioned in newspaper sources (Lyttelton Times 8/1/1859: 5, 1/11/1862: 2).

Detail of an 1860s map of Lyttelton showing structures extant along London Street at the time. Albion Hotel section outlined in red. Image: Rice 2004: 28.

Collier was fortunate that his hotel survived the Lyttelton fire of 1870, which destroyed much of the Lyttelton central business district. In 1881, the original building was sold and removed from the site (Press 14/1/1881: 4). The sale advertisement described the old building as:

Covered with slates, and contains a large quantity of timber and bricks while the intended replacement was a stylish brick edifice to be substituted in its place, whenever the ancient hostelry is removed.

Press 21/1/1881: 2.

Later in 1881 the stables behind the hotel caught fire (Press 22/8/1881: 2). Little damage was done, but the resulting newspaper item indicates the stables were constructed from galvanised iron. The new Albion Hotel continued operating into the 20^th century and can be seen in a photograph taken in 1911. In 1943 a new façade was added to the building (Burgess 2009).

A 1911 photograph showing the Albion Hotel on the corner of London Street and Canterbury Street. Image: Burgess 2009.

Over the course of the 19^th century, the Albion Hotel and horse for hire business had at least 17 proprietors between them, and more still after the turn of the century. This high turnover complicated the task of attributing the artefacts recovered from the site to a specific individual. The dateable artefacts that were recovered from the site all post-date 1857, confirming that the assemblage was associated with the Albion Hotel. However, serval discreet archaeological features may have been deposited at different times. The deposition dates of these features range from 1861 to the late 19^th century. It is possible that the piece of salvaged roofing slate may have been part of the original Albion Hotel which was removed from the site in 1881 (Press 21/1/1881: 2).

An aerated water bottle manufactured by T. Raine between 1861 and 1871. Image: C. Dickson.

The archaeological material that was recovered was found in a series of rubbish pits, located mainly toward the rear of the hotel site. From this evidence it is apparent that the back of the section was seen as a convenient location to dispose of the breakages and detritus associated with the day-to-day operation of the Albion Hotel. It is possible that the proprietors of the hotel may have deposited waste into these rubbish pits to avoid rubbish collection costs.

The rubbish pits contained combinations of artefacts that are signatures of 19^th century hotel sites, such as alcohol bottles, matching serving ware sets and food remains. The alcohol bottles consisted mainly of black beers, though wine bottles, case gin bottles, spirit-shaped bottles and matching glass tumblers were also present. The contents of these bottles cannot be confirmed, as specific alcohol bottle shapes were commonly re-used for alternative purposes. However, it is probable that beer, wine, gin and other spirits were being served at the Albion Hotel. These vessels are also likely to only represent a fraction of the alcohol that was served. The presence of disposable clay pipes with use-wear indicates that the hotel patrons were also smoking at this site.

Rubbish pit feature consisting largely of broken 19th century alcohol bottles. Scale is in 200 mm increments. Image: M. Carter.

Stem of a clay smoking pipe manufactured by Charles Crop, London between 1856 to c.1891. Image: C. Dickson.

The matching decorative patterns that were found on ceramic tableware and servingware sets are representative of a standardised material culture, and this fashion can be associated with the Victorian idea of social respectability (Samford 1997). It is possible that this servingware is an indication that food was served at the hotel. However, there was a notable absence of condiment bottles from this site. This is unusual, as condiment bottles are typically abundant in 19^th century hotel sites.

Fragments of platter and dinner plate set decorated with under-graze transfer print technique. Image C. Dickson.

A number of animal bones with butchery marks were also recovered, the most common of which were cuts of lamb and mutton leg. It is probable that these cuts were being served to the patrons of the Albion Hotel. Shellfish, including oyster, rock oyster, cockle and cat’s eye were also recovered. These are all species that were locally available. There is a notable absence of fish and bird remains from the faunal assemblage. This is unusual, as 19^th century hotels have been found to be more likely to serve fish and bird than private houses (Watson 2000).

A newspaper advertisement indicates that the Albion Hotel had rooms at the back that were for the owner’s family (Press 9/5/1882: 3). While both commercial and domestic items were recovered from this site, there appears to be a lack of domestic items that are typically associated with family homes. With the exception of chamber pots, this may be because hotel guests would bring these personal items with them during their visits, and would be unlikely to leave them at the hotel to be discarded.

The Albion Hotel artefact assemblage is comparable to other 19^th hotel assemblages in Christchurch, such as the Oxford-on-Avon Hotel and the Zetland Arms/Parkers Hotel. All three sites yielded large quantities of alcohol bottles, with black beer bottles being the most prominent. Glass servingware and matching decorative ceramic servingware sets were also present at all sites: the Asiatic Pheasants pattern was dominant at the Oxford-on-Avon, and Willow pattern was well represented at the Zetland Arms/Parkers Hotel, while the Albion Hotel appears to have had sets of Willow and unidentified sponged and leaf tableware sets. Unlike Zetland Arms/Parkers Hotel, no evidence that could be associated with the neighbouring stables (such as horseshoes) was recovered from this site, despite the fact that the saddled horse for hire business appears to have been long-running at this address.

Matching sponged teacup and saucer set. Image: C. Dickson.

By combining the historical and archaeological information from the Albion Hotel site, the activities of those who lived there was revealed to show the use and modification of the section over time. This assemblage has shed light on the operation of a 19^th century hotel in Lyttelton, and the provision of food and drink in this context. This site is also comparable to other 19th century hotels within Christchurch, and has the potential to add to our general understanding of similar establishments in the area. This analysis has salvaged a snapshot of one of Lyttelton’s historic watering holes, adding to the charisma of the vibrant entertainment hub of modern Lyttelton.

Chelsea Dickson

References

Burgess, R., 2009. Registration Report for Historic a Area: Lyttelton Township Historic Area (Vol. 2). Unpublished report for New Zealand Historic Places trust Pouhere Toanga.

Lyttelton Times. [online] Available at: www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz [Accessed July 2014].

Press. [online] Available at: www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz [Accessed July 2014].

Rice, G., 2004. Lyttelton: Port and town. An illustrated history. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch.

Samford, Patricia M., 1997. Response to a market: Dating English underglaze transfer‐printed wares. Historical Archaeology 31 (2): 1‐30.

Watson, K., 2000. A land of plenty? Unpublished Masters thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Otago.

Māori occupation at Raekura

Posted on 27 March 2015 by Katharine

People have lived in the Christchurch area for at least 700 years, and one of the earliest large settlements was at Redcliffs – Raekura – where a wide variety of naturally occurring foods could be obtained. There were shellfish on the beach and on the mudflats of the Avon-Heathcote estuary, fish could be caught in the rivers and the sea, and there were birds along the coast and in the nearby forest that covered the peninsula at that time. Sea and rivers provided canoe routeways, and stone materials could be obtained from the rocky cliffs for tool manufacture.

One of the casualties of the Canterbury earthquakes was a sewer main that ran beneath Main Road, Redcliffs, from Barnett Park to McCormacks Bay, and putting in its replacement provided a unique opportunity to learn more about the early Māori settlement that had existed across parts of Redcliffs Flat. Evidence of this settlement had been investigated by Julius von Haast, the first director of the Canterbury Museum, way back in the 1870s, and I had carried out some work there myself in the 1960s, but archaeological methods are improving all the time – and besides, there is always the chance of finding something new and exciting!

The sewer pipe installation was monitored by archaeologists who investigated any archaeological evidence that was exposed. At times the digging up of the road was halted while we hand-excavated occupational deposits containing shells, bones and artefacts in a layer of charcoal-blackened sand.

Jeanette McIsaac shows digger driver Duncan
stratigraphy in the side of the sewer excavation. Image: M. Trotter.

So what did we find?

Most important was the evidence of early Māori occupation in the vicinity of the Redcliffs School, which was radiocarbon dated to the middle of the 14^th century – that is around AD1350 or a little over 650 years ago. The inhabitants had left a range of materials from which we were able to get some idea of what they ate and what they were doing here.

Michael Trotter excavating broken moa bones. Image: J. McIsaac.

Only one small earthen hāngī type oven was uncovered, but the quantity of burnt stones and charcoal was evidence that others occurred close by, outside the narrow confines of the pipeline excavation. Food remains showed that the main food eaten was moa, followed closely by shellfish, principally cockle and tuatua. Other birds included spotted shags, paradise shelducks, penguins, weka, oyster catchers, and swans. Fur seals and Polynesian dogs were also consumed. There were surprisingly few fish bones.

A selection of bird bones from the site. Image: M. Trotter.

Moa toe bone – most of the moa bones found had been broken into small pieces. Image: M. Trotter.

One activity in this part of the site was the manufacture of stone adze-heads (toki) from basalt obtained locally. The manufacturing process was to knock flakes off a piece of basalt with a stone hammer until it was approximately the right size and shape for the intended object, after which it would be ground on sandstone to produce a cutting edge. The number of waste flakes found indicated that this was a large-scale manufactory, probably operated by one or more skilled craftsmen, producing tools for those living here or for trade with groups elsewhere. Other stones materials from different parts of the country, including the North Island, showed a sound knowledge of New Zealand’s geological resources.

Waste flakes of basalt from tool manufacture. Image: M. Trotter.

The pièce de résistance as far as I was concerned was a small broken ball of baked clay – only few of these have been found from sites of similar age in the South Island.

Objects of baked clay, such as this broken ball, are very rare. Image: M. Trotter.

Less than 600 metres away to the southeast was the other settlement around the end of Moncks Spur. This site was occupied about 150 years later than the one at Redcliffs School. There was no evidence of moa-hunting here, the main food being shellfish (suggesting that moas had become locally extinct in the meantime) nor was there any evidence of tool manufacture.

Michael Trotter

In which breakfast is discussed and many pictures of food are shown

Posted on 22 August 2014 by Jessie Garland

Breakfast. In this day and age it can consist of anything from a cup of coffee or a piece of toast to a full fry up. We eat it on the run (guilty!), over the newspaper (or smartphone, increasingly), at the table, in a café, in front of the television or at work. Often, we don’t eat it at all. We are told that it’s the most important meal of the day, yet for those of us who do eat breakfast, it can sometimes feel more like a chore, a meal without much variety (how many of you eat the same thing every morning?) and undeserving of much time or effort (except in the weekends!). Modern living often means that we don’t have the time, money or energy to devote to elaborate meals in the morning. In this, as with so much of what and how we eat, our breakfasts are a product of our social, cultural and economic environment as much as they are an indication of our personal tastes.

The breakfast of archaeologists. A snapshot of the different breakfasts eaten by the office today, some at home, some in the car and some at work.

It was no different in the past. The history of breakfast in the Victorian era is a study in contrasts between the recommended or encouraged bill of fare and the realities of individual or household wealth and time, much like today, really (White 1994: 4-16). Cookbooks like Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861) and The Breakfast Book (1865) suggest a massive range of appropriate breakfast foods, ranging from elaborate dishes like game pies, curries and devilled bones (ew!) to more recognisable fare such as porridge, eggs, bacon, bread and marmalade. One 1884 book, Breakfast Dishes for Every Morning of Three Months, suggests a Sunday breakfast menu of: fried skate and shrimp sauce, curried pigs feet, breakfast cakes, potted anchovy (so much ew!), devilled hot meat, hot buttered toast and jam.

Pie for breakfast anyone? Image: Wikimedia Commons

Other records, however, indicate that most households stuck to simpler meals for their breakfast, often including a combination of bacon, sausages or mutton chops, eggs, bread, porridge, cocoa, coffee and tea. Some families ate rehashed leftovers from the day before, hot or cold (White 1994: 20). One historian writes that Victorian cookery authors objected to this simplicity and were constantly encouraging their readers to “choose more than bacon and eggs” (White 1994: 9). Which, frankly, makes me empathise more with the readers than the authors. Bacon and eggs is a perfectly acceptable choice.

Bacon! And eggs! Good choice Victorians. Images: Wikimedia Commons.

Whatever the contrast between the suggested ingredients for a Victorian breakfast and the realities of the meal, there definitely seems to be a greater emphasis on savoury breakfast foods during the 19^th century, and a greater quantity of food consumed in the morning than is eaten today. Contemporary accounts emphasise the importance of a good breakfast (although then, as now, people skipped it altogether; Timaru Herald 25/11/1876:3, Star 12/07/1871: 3, 23/11/1898: 1). Many of the accounts of 19^th century breakfasts include meat of some kind, from bacon to fish. Cakes are mentioned, as are spreads like marmalade, and fruits, but sweeter foods seem to be far less common than their savoury counterparts (Oxford Observer 19/04/1892:4, White 1994: 9-20).

Perhaps the most glaring difference between then and now is the absence of cereal which, in the form that we know it today, wasn’t invented until the late 19^th and early 20^th century. As a strange, yet interesting aside, Cornflakes, created by the Kellogg brothers in the 1890s, were used as an anti-libido food by John Harvey Kellogg, who believed firmly in sexual abstinence and spent a substantial part of his life trying to get people to stop wanting sex (Kellogg 1888). Something to think about next time you eat cornflakes, huh?

Cornflakes and John Harvey Kellogg, a man with, ahem, interesting ideas about breakfast food. Image: Wikimedia Commons

Archaeologically, evidence for the nature of breakfast foods and rituals is scarce. Many of the objects involved in the meal, such as teacups, saucers, plates and serving dishes, are not specifically breakfast related, but representative of food service and consumption in general. As we’ve discussed before, our evidence for food types in the past is limited by what survives in the archaeological record, specifically items like bones, shells and embossed or labelled food containers. Even then, if the historical accounts are anything to go by, much of what we do recover may not be attributable to a certain meal: mutton chops are a prime example. It’s interesting to think about this from a modern perspective, as well: how much of what we eat for breakfast is exclusively breakfast food? Would a future archaeologist be able to determine your breakfast ritual from the foods and objects you use?

That’s not to say that breakfast is invisible in the archaeological record. Occasionally, we do come across items that, if not exclusively breakfast related, do have a much, much higher probability of being used or eaten during the morning meal. Eggs, for example, seem to have been one of the absolute staples of the Victorian breakfast menu, whether poached, fried, boiled or scrambled (Star 12/07/1871:3). We’ve found several egg cups during excavations in Christchurch, some of them better made than others, which would have been used at the breakfast table to eat boiled eggs (sadly, evidence of fried, poached and scrambled eggs is slightly harder to come by…). According to contemporary sources, how a person took their boiled eggs ‘betrayed’ their nationality (Star 17/04/1897: 3): a quick survey of the office tells me that we’ve got people of French habits, English habits and the not mentioned method of “peeling the egg and just eating it.”

Egg cups found on an archaeological site in Christchurch. Image: J. Garland.

Another breakfast food that we’ve found evidence for is marmalade, which seems to have been both a slightly higher class of breakfast food in some places as well as a particularly Scottish one (Star 13/05/1899: 7, White 1994: 20). In a survey of breakfast fare amongst different classes of Victorian families in Britain, it was the servant-owning families (household incomes over 26 shillings a week) who included marmalade as part of their morning meal, although it’s unclear how this applied to New Zealand. Marmalade was also a Scottish product, (likely) originating in Dundee in the late 18^th century, and eventually becoming a characteristic of the Scottish breakfast (Star 13/05/1899: 7). It was also, apparently, the cause of religious fights and a title of nobility in 1850s Haiti, along with other “dignities of the jam-pot.” Who knew.

Keiller & Sons marmalade jar. Image: J. Garland.

Keiller & Sons marmalade jar. The first commercially produced brand of marmalade was made by Keiller & Sons in the late 18th century. The story goes that James Keiller’s wife, Janet, experimented with an over-ripe cargo of Seville oranges that had arrived in Dundee Harbour, eventually turning them into marmalade. Image: J. Garland.

It’s a curious thing, food. So basic and yet, so complicated. One of the most interesting things to think about, I find, in regard to breakfast and how it has changed over the last century and a half is how those changes reflect transformations in our cultures and societies. Why do we eat what we do and how we do? What does it say about our lives, about the world around us? Food is never just sustenance, not really. The ritual (or non-ritual, as the case may be) of eating, the foods we eat, even the packaging of that food, is all tied into a much wider representation of who we are and how we behave, collectively and individually.

Jessie Garland

References

Kellogg, J. H., 1888. “Treatment for Self-Abuse and Its Effects.” In Plain Facts for Old and Young. Ayer Publishing. [online] Available at Project Gutenberg

Oxford Observer. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Star. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Timaru Herald. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

White, E., 1994. First things first: the great British breakfast. In C. A. Wilson, ed. Luncheon, Nuncheon and Other Meals: Eating with the Victorians. Sutton Publishing Ltd.

Gender matters

Posted on 15 August 2014 by Katharine

Gender matters. And it’s complicated, which is why writing this blog post has been particularly difficult. Why is it so complicated, from an archaeological standpoint? Well, let me try and explain.

Historical archaeology developed as a discipline in the mid-20^th century and, at that time, its practitioners made all sorts of sweeping generalisations about the position of women – and other minorities – in the past (as many archaeologists at the time did, regardless of their period of expertise, and as I’m doing now). For the so-called historic period, these assumptions revolved around women as mother and domestic helpmeet, with no roles outside this, little value placed on this role, little recognition that maybe women wanted more than this and little room for any agency on the part of women.

Times have changed, and society now sees gender – and gender roles – quite differently. Historical archaeologists are no exception to this change. We now see considerable value in the role of women in the 19^th century and are able to make far more nuanced interpretations about their lives and experiences.

For all this, women are still frustratingly elusive in the archaeological record. There are some artefacts that definitely indicate the presence of a woman at a site, such as a woman’s shoes, clothing or jewellery. It might be possible to use a perfume bottle to definitely link a woman to a site, or perhaps some specific medicines. The presence of girls might be able to be identified through dolls, but boys could just as easily have played with dolls. And anyway, these artefacts do little more than reinforce those gender stereotypes we’ve moved away from. They tell us that there was a woman at the site, and maybe she wore perfume. Or maybe someone gave her some perfume that she didn’t like. Who knows?

But if you’ve got a site that you know was almost exclusively occupied by women for over 40 years, that’s a whole different matter. Especially when that site was occupied by the same family for that period, which is pretty unusual in central Christchurch, regardless of the genders involved.

The site in question was that of Violet Cottage. Even the name sounds feminine, right? Well, that’s how it was known when Dr Thomas Moore – and his family – were living there. The Moore family had bought land in Canterbury in 1850, and emigrated the following year (Greenaway 2007, Lundy 2014). They settled at Charteris Bay initially, before moving to Violet Cottage. Unfortunately for Dr Moore, he only lived at the cottage for two or three years before his untimely death in 1860 (Lyttelton Times 15/2/1860: 4). Following his death, members of his family remained at the cottage until the 20^th century (H Wise and Co 1911). This included Mrs Elizabeth Moore, and the children: Elizabeth, Alice, Thomas, Jane, Ellen, Annie and Emma (H Wise & Co 1878-1979, Lundy 2014). Elizabeth lived at Violet Cottage until her death in 1887 and two of her daughters – Annie and Emma – continued to live at the cottage until the 20^th century. We’ve not been able to identify how the women supported themselves after Thomas senior’s death, but there is some evidence to suggest that they had income from property near Violet Cottage (Hughes et al. 2014: 4).

Violet Cottage, 1881. Image: Andersen 1949: 430.

What we found at the site was perhaps surprising: there was nothing about the assemblage we recovered that suggested the artefacts were deposited by a predominantly female household. Or even that there were women living at the site: no women’s clothing, perfume bottles or shoes. Nothing specifically female at all. This is perhaps not surprising, given that we probably only recovered a fraction of the material culture discarded by the site’s occupants over the more than 40 years they lived there.

We found a fairly generic Victorian Christchurch domestic assemblage, with one exception. We only found three rubbish pits at the site, and one of these features contained almost nothing but alcohol bottles: 134 of the 146 artefacts we recovered from the feature probably contained alcohol (long-time followers of the blog will know that bottles were frequently re-used in 19^th century New Zealand and may not have contained the contents suggested by their form). There was nothing about the rubbish pit that suggested the bottles had been deposited over a number of years, and the pit was probably filled over a relatively short period of time. So someone at the site may have been doing a lot of drinking – or it’s possible that the good doctor was using the alcohol for medical purposes.

Just two of the many alcohol bottles recovered from a rubbish pit at Violet Cottage. Image: C. Dickson.

Most of the remainder of the artefacts recovered from the site were either ceramics or animal bones (i.e. food waste from the Moores’ meals). The ceramics included a range of serving wares that suggested a well-to-do middle class establishment. There was a tureen, a platter, a milk jug and dinner plates, as well as more utilitarian items, such as chamber pots, a colander and a rather fabulous wash basin. There was only one tea cup, one saucer and no teapots – while that may not seem that interesting, archaeologists have often identified the presence and role of women on 19^th century archaeological sites through the ritual of afternoon tea, and the material remains of that ritual. There was some evidence, however, to suggest a matching set of sprigged ware – and this may have been a tea set, as the items from this set were a milk jug, a saucer and a side plate.

Ceramics from Violet Cottage. Clockwise from top left: a tureen, a Fibre-decorated side plate, the base of a serving dish and a colander. Image: C. Dickson.

Fragments of sprigged porcelain recovered from Violet Cottage. Image: C. Dickson.

The animal bones tell us that the Moores were eating mutton and beef, with a preference for mutton, and a range of both cheap and expensive cuts present – beef cheek anyone? The cuts of mutton were from both the forequarter (or shoulder) and the leg, with the latter suggesting the consumption of roast mutton. In amongst all this evidence for food and its consumption, it is perhaps surprising that no condiment containers were recovered from the site – no vinegars, salad oils or pickles.

A wash basin decorated with the Magnolia pattern, found at Violet Cottage. Image: C. Dickson.

The artefact from the site that I found most evocative was a porcelain platter, made by Spode, and decorated with a blue floral pattern. The interesting thing about this platter was that the maker’s mark indicated that it was made between c.1805 and 1830 (The Potteries 2008). That means that it was made before the Moores arrived in New Zealand, and that the Moores are very likely to have brought it with them from England, and kept it carefully and safely throughout their travels. For the family, this piece of china may have provided a direct and tangible link between the life they left behind in England and their new life here on the other side of the globe.

A Spode platter, made between c.1805 and 1830 (The Potteries 2008). Image: C. Dickson.

We can’t relate this artefact to gender (at least, not without making a whole lot of assumptions that don’t sit comfortably), but it does tell us about the sort of items that new colonists – of a certain class – brought with them for their new lives, and their expectations of those lives: I don’t imagine that the holds of migrant ships were packed with Spode platters or ashets… This platter suggests that the Moore family expected to dine well, and possibly even to entertain, and to maintain certain standards in their new home.

Our experience at this site confirms that gender – and gender roles – can be difficult to explore archaeologically. But the question is an important one and needs to be considered carefully at any archaeological site, rather than simply making assumptions about the role of women in 19th century Christchurch.

Katharine Watson, Chelsea Dickson & Julia Hughes

References

Andersen, J. C., 1949. Old Christchurch in Picture and Story. Simpson and Williams Ltd, Christchurch.

Greenaway, R. L. N., 2007. Barbadoes Street Cemetery Tour. [online] Available at: http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/heritage/cemeteries/barbadoes/barbadoesstreetcemetery.pdf [Accessed June 2014].

H. Wise & Co., 1878-1979. Wises New Zealand Post Office Directories. Dunedin: H. Wise & Co.

Hughes, J., Dickson, C. and Geary Nichol, R., 2014. 89 Chester Street East, Christchurch: report on archaeological monitoring. Unpublished report for Hawkins Ltd.

Jacobson, H. C., 1914. Tales of Banks Peninsula. Akaroa: Akaroa Mail Office.

Lundy, D., 2014. Dr. Thomas Richard Moore. [online] Available at: <http://www.thepeerage.com/p44788.htm> [Accessed June 2014].

Lyttelton Times. [online] Available at: <www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz>. Accessed April 2014.

The Potteries, 2008. A-Z of Stoke-on-Trent Potters. [online] Available at: www.thepotteries.org.

Food, glorious food!

Posted on 17 January 2014 by Jessie Garland

Food, in all its myriad forms, can be one of the most intrinsic and expressive aspects of culture and society – throughout time and across the world. From the customs surrounding the preparation and consumption of food to the ingredients themselves, we are, as they say, what (and how) we eat. Looking at the nature of food in past societies and cultures can be a rewarding exercise in finding both the strange and the familiar in the lives of those who’ve gone before us. After all, what is more universal yet more varied than food?

From a purely archaeological perspective, our impressions of past meals and culinary traditions are limited by what survives in the archaeological record. In the case of 19^th European century sites, this usually consists of animal remains and glass, metal or ceramic food containers: the only physical remnants of a much broader, much more varied array of food and drink. Ceramic or glass serving dishes and table wares can also provide information, usually on the how, rather than the what, of food consumption, but often prove difficult to interpret. Animal remains – the butchered bones of cattle, sheep, pig and poultry – are the most common evidence of food itself that we find, but I’m going to leave them for another post and focus here on what we can learn from the food containers we’ve found in Christchurch.

Unfortunately, because we’re limited to food containers, as the durable remnants of 19^th century culinary habits, our understanding of food types is skewed towards long-life items (i.e. preserves), condiments, and packaged foods rather than fresh ingredients. As a result, we see a lot of foods that are additives to meals (like condiments) rather than meals or major ingredients themselves. Even more than that, we’re restricted by what we can identify: distinctive containers used for specific food types or those labelled with the identity of their contents.

Examples of commonly found food containers from 19th century Christchurch sites. Left: A salad oil bottle. Middle: Embossed base from jar of W & W’s table salt. Right: Still labelled bottle of Mellor & Co’s Worcestershire sauce, a competing product to Lea & Perrins. Images: J. Garland.

19th century Lea & Perrins bottle found in Christchurch. Image: J. Garland.

Many of these are products that wouldn’t be unusual to find in the modern pantry and, in fact, some of them are still made today. Commonly found items like salad oil, table salt, pickles, sauces or flavoured essences are all familiar additions to modern cuisine, albeit in slightly different packaging than their Victorian counterparts. Other products, like Lea and Perrin’s Worcestershire sauce have persisted in popularity under the same brand for over a century: in the case of Lea and Perrins, it’s been over 170 years since its introduction. Similarly, foodstuffs like anchovy paste continue to appeal to the same subset of people who like really salty fish puree as they did in the 1800s. As a side note, my favourite 19^th century use for anchovy paste involves spreading it on fried bread and topping with a generous helping of whipped cream (Otago Witness 17/08/1904: 67). Takers, anyone?

An anchovy paste jar found in Christchurch and accompanying recipe from 1904. Image: J. Garland, Otago Witness 17/08/1904: 67.

As well as the more ordinary foods, however, we do come across a few weird and wonderful items during our investigations. Some of these only seem unusual at first glance, but wow, is it a strange first glance. Crosse & Blackwell’s calves’ foot jelly, for example, sounds less than appetising until you remember that gelatine (even modern gelatine) is derived from the bones, tendons and skin of various animals. Unlike modern gelatine products, though, calves’ foot jelly has no compunctions about promoting its ingredients: recipes for the jelly involved boiling calves feet in a stewing pan, removing the fat and straining before flavouring the mixture, usually with citrus (Auckland Star 26/10/1929: 4). In this sense, the jelly is an interesting reminder of how our attitudes towards the consumption of animal products have changed since the 19th century. We now produce and consume animal products on a colossal scale, yet are, thanks to the packaged nature of the food industry, more removed from the origins and preparation of those products than we’ve ever been. As the calves foot jelly reminds us, this was far less true of the 19^th century.

Left: Labelled bottle of Crosse & Blackwell’s calves foot jelly found in Christchurch. Right Advertisement from 1898. Calves’ foot jelly was frequently listed as a flavour of jelly in its own right by retailers in 19th century newspaper advertisements, right alongside raspberry, blackcurrant and orange. Images: J. Garland and Feilding Star 9/04/1898: 2.

In contrast to the honest marketing of the calves’ foot jelly, products like Virol bone marrow paste elicit our revulsion (well, for me they do) thanks to the use of ingredients that have long since been replaced with more palatable alternatives. Virol contained a mixture of bone marrow, malt extract, eggs, lemon syrup, lime salts and iron salts. Bone marrow is still eaten today (it’s something of a delicacy in some places), but it’s the combination of the fatty, spongy marrow with the lemon syrup and malt extract that makes my taste buds shrivel in horror. It was advertised as a health food for infants and invalids, in order to “build sturdy limbs, good teeth and a strong constitution”, so maybe it wasn’t really about the taste (Auckland Star 25/06/1925: 9). Nowadays, of course, such results would more often be obtained from calcium rich, often dairy-based, foods rather than bone marrow.

Stoneware bottle of Virol bone marrow paste found in Christchurch and a modern bone marrow dish. Yum? Images: J. Garland and Flavour Boulevard

Stoneware bottle of Virol bone marrow paste found in Christchurch (left) and a modern dish of roasted bone marrow (right). Erm, yum? Images: J. Garland and Flavour Boulevard.

Other unusual foodstuffs stand out as much for their innovation and unexpectedly early existence as for their probable bad taste. We tend to think of processed foods as being something of a recent invention, yet the 19^thcentury had its fair-share of such products (Wood 1974: 20). One such example found in Christchurch was Maclaren’s Imperial Cheese, a Canadian-manufactured ‘spreadable cheese’ from the early 1900s (next week’s post is going to look at this product in more detail; Badgely 1998). Maclaren’s, which is still produced by the Kraft Foods Group, was initially made from ground cheddar, and enjoyed immense popularity. It’s described in turn of the century advertisements as the “cheese of the hour” (Hawera & Normanby Star 16/12/1904: 3) and “one of the most appetising luxuries [that] the world produces” (Press 5/01/1907: 10). That last one may have been a slight exaggeration…

Maclaren’s Imperial Cheese: then and now. Images: J. Garland & Clockwork Lemon blog.

Although they provide an incomplete picture of Victorian tastes, the types of food-related artefacts I’ve mentioned here can still offer us fascinating insights into the lives of 19^th century people and the relevance of those lives – and eating habits – to the modern world. Despite their ability to make us (well, me) recoil in disgust, these products can still challenge our preconceptions of food in society and culture, our own included. Most of all, though, these artefacts offer us an almost tangible taste connection between our own experiences and those of our forebears in this city, and the rest of the world. It may be a foul tasting connection, but it’s a connection nonetheless.

Jessie Garland

References

Auckand Star. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Badgely, K. 1998. Maclaren, Alexander Ferguson. Dictionary of Canadian Biography. [online] Available at www.biographi.ca

Feilding Star. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Hawera and Normanby Star. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Otago Witness. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Press. [online] Available at www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

Wood, J. A. 1974. Victorian New Zealanders. A. H. & A. W. Reed Ltd, Wellington.

Christchurch uncovered

Exploring Christchurch's past through archaeology

Category Archives: Dining

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