Saturday, 16 October 2021

It was said that Brie was the only king to Talleyrand always remained loyal

Talleyrand was a tireless promoter of Brie, which he called the king of cheeses, supposedly at a dinner at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when Europe was slicing up post-Napoleonic Europe. It was said that Brie was the only king to whom he always remained loyal.

M. Kurlansky, Milk: a 10,000 year history (2018), 278-9

Friday, 15 October 2021

If the water is allowed to boil away to the point where part of the can is exposed to air, it will explode

Entirely new dishes were also created. In Argentina, dulce de leche, a thick dark caramel sauce made of sweetened condensed milk, became a national dish. There are numerous ways of cooking down condensed milk, but the popular technique is just to put the can in a pot of boiling water and leave it there for four to five hours. Simple, but there is a catch. If the water is allowed to boil away to the point where part of the can is exposed to air, it will explode. 

M. Kurlansky, Milk: a 10,000 year history (2018), 193

Thursday, 14 October 2021

Between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, the value of a Dutch cow quadrupled

Between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, the value of a Dutch cow quadrupled. The Dutch were starting to understand what best to feed cattle, as well as how best to cultivate pastureland. This led to an enormous increase in milk production in Friesland, Flanders, and Holland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Dutch cows were producing more than twice the yield of cows in neighbouring countries, and milk was more plentiful in the Netherlands than in most of Europe.

M. Kurlansky, Milk: a 10,000 year history (2018), 96 

Wednesday, 13 October 2021

Observed that a state primary is as good as anything provided by the private sector and free into the bargain

Martin Bryan and the Coggans went to the primary school because that was where children went to school. The Palings went there because Clare and Peter, who had opinions about education, and knew a thing or two, had observed that a state primary is as good as anything provided by the private sector and free into the bargain.

P. Lively, Judgement day, (1980), 24

Tuesday, 12 October 2021

The princes stubbornly continued fighting on two fronts: against mythology on the one hand, and democracy on the other

A great deal of dotty folklore had accreted around these curious monarchs and their life-style. According to certain legends these people in their day wore priceless gems for breakfast and conducted their daily business of despotism from the back of elephants, in more-than-Oriental splendour. Another school of though, mainly their own, held that the Indian princes were far-sighted and benevolent rulers and their disappearance mournful. However that may have been (and it was both), one might have thought to have heard the last of the Maharajahs, but not so. Even in the tormented times that so threatened India today the princes stubbornly continued fighting on two fronts: against mythology on the one hand, and democracy on the other.

J. Cameron, An Indian summer (1974), 114

Monday, 11 October 2021

These Methodists preach Salvation through Faith in Christ without Repentance from Sin and I preach Repentance from Sin and then Salvation through Christ

These Methodists preach Salvation through Faith in Christ without Repentance from Sin and I preach Repentance from Sin and then Salvation through Christ. No wonder that the first takes with disorderly people more than the last for if they may be saved without forsaking their Sins tis an easy thing to say they have Faith, but it is not an easy thing to forsake their Sins. 

W. Holland, Paupers and pig killers: the diary of William Holland 1799-1818, ed. J. Ayres (1984), 270 [Sunday March 3, 1816]

Sunday, 10 October 2021

What Forster had against colonialism was its corruption of individual relation, its destruction of personality

What Forster had against colonialism (since he was a novelist and not a pamphleteer) was its corruption of individual relation, its destruction of personality. What irked Forster about the Raj was that it turned a silly Indian like Aziz into a martyr and a silly Englishman like Heaslop into a tyrant, and neither of them were fitted for roles so important.

J. Cameron, An Indian summer (1974), 110

I expect that is what irked Forster about colonialism, but it's not what I'd put top.