Episode 6 - Show notes and books
Where we explore comfort reading in its different forms, the lessons we can learn about surviving hard times, and what it was like to eat 'upstairs and downstairs' in a 1930s English country estate.
Welcome to episode six, our last for the year and a big, broad, hopeful conversation about comfort reading, hope, navigating change and loss, and the solace that’s always waiting for us in a book or recipe.
We hope you enjoy listening to this one, and that it feels like what it is; a warm, friendly chat between friends who love books and food as much as you do.
Thanks for listening, reading and see you early next year with our next episode, Sophie and Germaine x
This episode’s book
We are going back in time today, to England during the late 1930s where we will meet the three generations of the Cazalet family in The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard. It’s the first book in her Cazalet Chronicles series.
Synopsis
The novel is set over the course of two summers the extended family spend with The Duchy and The Brig at their country house called Home Place. There are three sons and a daughter. Oldest is Hugh and his wife Sybil; their children Polly and Simon and new baby Wills.
Edward is the second son and is married to Villy with Louise, Teddy and Lydia
Rupert is the third son, married to the quite young Zoe. Isabel, his first wife died in childbirth having their second child Neville. There is an older daughter, Clary.
Rachel is the unmarried daughter, living with her parents.
Helpfully, the book starts with a family tree and a list of characters, including the maids, kitchen staff, nannies and governess. You need this as you get to know EVERY character so well.
And after deep-diving into the author Elizabeth Jane Howard’s life a little, we see it’s actually very autobiographical. Today, she is recognised as one of the many undervalued female writers of the 20th century as explained in this article by Hilary Mantel. We believe the best way to rectify this is to keep reading and talking about these wonderful writers, and talk we do in this episode!
Comfort reads and re-reading
The Light Years is a comfort read for us both. In this episode we investigate why this is, after rereading and noticing the many dark threads it also contains. Let’s break it down:
On Tea
Tea is perhaps the biggest comfort! It is a character in itself, used from the very first pages as a way to show status:
“Two pots of tea were to be made: the dark brown one with stripes for the maids and the white Minton now set out on a tray with its matching cups and saucers, milk jug and sugar bowl for upstairs… first however was their own scalding cup of strong Indian. It was China for upstairs which Emily said she couldn’t even abide the smell of, let alone drink”.
On boarding school
Germaine listened to an old Desert Islands Discs interview with Elizabeth Jane Howard who said she went to boarding school for only two terms and described it as;
“..a deadly failure; one of those rather awful schools smelling of cottage pie and gym shoes!”
Perhaps this is why the two boy cousins get “treat dinners” on their first night returning from boarding school for the summer. We both loved the detail about the food:
“What’s Simon’s treat dinner?” “roast chicken and meringues. What’s Teddy’s?” “Cold Salmon and mayonnaise and hot chocolate souffle. I loathe mayonnaise. I have my salmon dry.”
Here we start to see the differences between the way boys and girls are treated in the family from childhood.
Boarding school becomes a theme throughout this book, both boys struggling with it but looking fine on the outside. The mothers are struggling as well but are also powerless thanks to class and family tradition.
Rachel, the only female character (we know of) who is sent off to school, has bad memories of boarding school too (similar to Elizabeth Jane Howard!) and this is shown through walnut cake - her mum taking her for tea and always feeling homesick and unable to eat it.
We wonder together about foods we can’t enjoy because of the emotions bound up in memories of it. Also, as Sophie has first hand experience of dinners before returning to boarding school or coming home, there are also foods that conjure the comfort of home cooking and happy memories. What about you?
On meal planning
“The Duchy spent a businesslike half hour with Mrs Cripps… the Duchy inspected the remains of a boiling fowl that Mrs Cripps did not think could be stretched into rissoles for lunch, but Madam said that with an extra egg and more breadcrumbs it could be made to do. They fought a regular battle over a cheese souffle… the Duchy disapproved of cooked cheese at night”
So much of this novel is about the logistics of feeding such a large family without refrigeration and how involved the Duchy is in organising this.
On food poisoning!
This book is set in summertime, in a house full of people and without a lovely big cool room to store all their provisions.
“The Duchy had her morning interview with Mrs Cripps. The wreck of the salmon was inspected; it would not stretch to being served cold again with salad - was to be turned into croquettes for dinner”
At one point, young Clary wishes her stepmother Zoe dies from “eating potted meat in a heatwave - known to kill you according to the Duchy”. And if the idea of potted meat, the nice kind (not Spam!) appeals, so too might this recipe.
“The larder was cool and rather dark with a window covered with fine zinc mesh, in front of which ung two heavily infested fly papers. Food in every stage of its life lay on the long marble slap; the remains of a joint under a cage made of muslin, pieces of rice puddings and blancmange on kitchen plates, junket setting in a cut-glass bowl, old, crazed discoloured jugs filled with gravy and stock, stewed prunes in a pudding basin and in the coldest place beneath the window the huge silvery salmon, its eye torpid from recent poaching, lay like a grounded zeppelin. The fruit basket was on the slate floor, the paper that lined it red and magenta with juice.”
On the prospect of war
World War I has left such a mark on the whole family and now with World War II looming, this idyllic summer setting is certainly clouded by both. The fear of it is so vividly expressed by all characters.
This reminded Germaine of the novella Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift which focuses on the bereavement and emptiness felt back at home after World War I in the early 1920s. The Duchy, explores this experience poignantly when realising the impact of another war.
While she was “of a generation and sex whose opinions had never been sought for anything more serious than children’s ailments or other housewifely preoccupations, but this was not to say she didn’t have them… Would any woman in her right mind choose to have her sons go to France as Edward and Hugh had done, last time? She had never expected either of them to come back. She had lived in an agony of secret tension those four and a half years when it seemed everybody else’s sons were killed or shattered… rage at the horrible lunacy of it all…. This time surely Edward was too old to go, but they would take Rupert, and if it went on long enough, Teddy the eldest grandson.”
As if to show the seriousness of this scene it ends with “her tea was cold”. Even tea could not bring her comfort with these thoughts.
On coping with life outside our control
We were both struck with the kindness of Hugh and his relationship with his daughter Polly. Particularly in how he helps her deal with the reality of life at that time. While he can’t promise her there won’t be a war, he manages to bring comfort to the unknown.
“That’s what ordinary life is, isn’t it? Carrying on as usual.” “Does that sound boring to you?” “It sounds it, but when you’re in it, it isn’t.”
“Dad! Do you know what I love about you best? Your doubtfulness. All the things you don’t know. As he reached the door she called, “It really makes me admire you.”
Why is this story about love, loss, war and unhappiness a comfort read?!
From Sophie
Re-reading The Light Years for this episode really made me think not only about comfort reads but re-reading itself. How some books bring us comfort no matter how many times we read them or in what stage of life we are, and how others (most) change for us on every read, because we ourselves are constantly changing.
For me, there’s really only one book whose ‘shape’ is a constant for me;MFK Fisher’s.
Probably because I first read it at a time when I really needed comfort. I’d just moved to Italy (almost 20 years ago now) and was feeling very lonely and separate from my family, community and the world I’d moved to. My first, and only friend at the time lent me her copy, and It brought me so much comfort and company in those first few months of my new life overseas and alone. I have since bought my own copy that is returned too often and always when needing a little solace and reminder that there is always company in a good book.
Author of The Paper Palce, Miranda Cowley Heller spoke beautifully about this idea of re-reading and comfort reads recently on the podcast You’re Booked with Daisy Buchanan. For her, it’s Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice that brings the same comfort and delight every re-read since the first at age 11.
From Germaine
Re-reading is such an interesting exercise, as our own shapes are different every time we read! When I first read The Light Years, probably six years ago, it brought comfort as it was a faraway time that allowed me to escape my own world. Reading it now, at a time of global uncertainty and fear, brought into sharp focus the reality of life as we know it changing, no matter how affected by the pandemic you have been. The emotions of fear, loss and powerlessness were much stronger for me this time. Did it bring comfort still? Yes, but in a different way – the reminder that the world keeps turning, we still need to sustain ourselves with food, laughter, hope and connection brought particular comfort. So much so, I plan to finally read the second book, Marking Time, this summer.
“They all had dinner - fourteen of them round the immense three-pedestal table extended to its uttermost and even then they were crammed round it. They ate four roast chickens, bread sauce, mashed potato and runner beans followed by plum tart and what the Duchy called Shape - blancmange.”
If the idea of that plum tart has snagged something in you, you’re not alone! Food writer Kate Young felt the same and so created this beautiful recipe inspired by that meal and this book. You can find it in The Guardian as part of their fantastic Food in Books series.
This episode’s letter
Hi Sophie and Germaine,
I am loving your podcast, thank you! I am hoping you can suggest something to eat and something to read leading up to Christmas for me?
I am in Melbourne, and in the past 18 months we have been locked down for a total of 260 days, over a year!
In my life I have had to adapt and change many times as things did not go as I had planned a dreamed. I am a sole parent, and my 18 and 15 year old son’s dad lives overseas. That’s OK, one good parent is enough and this is better for us.
My daughter died almost 8 years ago on her 16th birthday, which is literally 7 days before Christmas. My eldest is 25 and he has moved out of home.
I actually feel very blessed despite this loss, and I am just happy to be here! I had breast cancer 8 years ago but now I’m fine. I have “lost’ both of my younger sons academically in this last 18months, and every day has been a challenge to support their mental health.
I find my solace in healthy food, good books, my beautiful dog, my healthy children, exercise, my vegetable garden and I am so grateful to be alive and (sometimes) fabulous! My simple life is enough.
My struggle is Christmas! As Germaine said in Episode 5 Christmas changes as your children get older. I have reserved Jeanette Winterson’s book ‘Christmas Days’ at my library and can’t wait to read it…. But with children this age they don’t care about a tree, decorations or anything at all. For the past few years I have done all the work myself and hoping they would notice something! But after this time I don’t feel like doing anything at all. I have no family in Melbourne, it will just be me and my 3 sons but it will be a lot of work and I can’t get the energy to do anything at all. I know I would regret that too. You did give some suggestions in Episode 5, but is there anything else you can suggest to get me going?
Thank you for reading my letter if you’ve got this far!
From a languishing listener who lives in hope and gratitude every day for a happier world full of love, good food and good books!
Germaine’s book prescription
I was so moved by this letter and wanted to prescribe a book that would give our writer some respite while getting through this season. I have chosen a graphic novel and while this genre can be quite underestimated by adults, it can really be the best medicine. I was also thrilled to read that our letter writer has a dog! I have always thought that dogs are wonderful for teenagers, they adore them, bringing lots of comfort. I can’t count the number of times I have heard mothers tell me how they have walked in on their teens holding their dogs tightly, confiding in them or crying into their fur. I think we also underestimate how helpful dogs can be for those mums of teens feeling unneeded or taken for granted or just exhausted worrying about everyone else! So, I wanted to focus on dogs today and get lost in their world.
Plumdog by Emma Chichester Clark
This is the diary, supposedly written by Emma Chichester Clark’s dog Plum. She found him so full of expression, she wanted to draw him and imagine what he was thinking. She says of dogs:
“There is something about a dog that is very easy to identify with, perhaps more than any other animal. Maybe it’s because they are entirely honest, refreshingly transparent - they can’t help it. They express all their feelings – through their eyes, their ears (drooping, alert, flying in the breeze), their tails, of course, and their body language that is instantly readable. They do the things that we would do if we didn’t have such impeccable manners. They howl, they wag, forgive and adore and they enjoy everything as much as they can.”
This book is delightful escapism and a reminder of the moments of joy that can be found in everyday as our letter writer has already discovered, however, I thought given the time of year, the not-everydayness of anniversaries or loss, coupled with the expectations of Christmas, that it may be more helpful to read something that is completely outside this ‘non-ordinary time’.
The pictures are filled with expression with so much detail and I hope our letter writer gets lost in the magic of entering Plum's consciousness!
Sophie’s recipes and thoughts on this will be sent in a separate email to come tomorrow (Saturday, December 18) because we are about to run out of allocated room in this one! Stay tuned and thank you so much for reading and listening.
I would love to know which M. F. K. Fisher book Sophie is referring to in this newsletter, please? Thank you!