Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Fairies occupy a strange
Speaker 2: place in our culture. Few people can really say where
Speaker 2: they come from or why we like them. We just
Speaker 2: all accept the idea of cute little people with wings.
Speaker 2: They're very popular in paintings and garden sculptures. One painter
Speaker 2: in particular, made a career out of depicting fairies, although
Speaker 2: his work gives us little insights into the human fascination
Speaker 2: with them. In fact, his career only deepens the mystery
Speaker 2: surrounding fairies, as he was inspired to paint them while
Speaker 2: he was locked up in an asylum. Born in Chatham,
Speaker 2: England in eighteen seventeen, Richard Dad was always seen as
Speaker 2: a little bit frail and sensitive, but his parents thought
Speaker 2: that was just the price he paid for being an
Speaker 2: artistic prodigy. He started painting at the age of thirteen
Speaker 2: and enroyaled in the Royal Academy of Arts at the
Speaker 2: age of twenty. Many of his contemporaries were content to
Speaker 2: paint the mundane, rolling green hills of England, but Richard
Speaker 2: yearned to experience more of the world. He wanted greater
Speaker 2: inspiration for his work. He eventually became acquainted with Sir
Speaker 2: Thomas Phillips, a local politician famous for being wounded while
Speaker 2: putting down an uprising of the working class. Now that
Speaker 2: might not sound like such a good thing to us today,
Speaker 2: but to a member of the upper class like Richard,
Speaker 2: that was quite impressive. And Richard learned that Sir Thomas
Speaker 2: was about to embark on a year's long tour of
Speaker 2: the Mediterranean and beyond. Thomas wanted a painter to accompany
Speaker 2: him and depict his travels, so Richard quickly volunteered himself
Speaker 2: and it was an epic adventure, taking them all over
Speaker 2: the Middle East and northern Africa. Richard became obsessed with
Speaker 2: painting scenes from their travels, whether that was a caravan
Speaker 2: of camels, Sir Thomas smoking a hookah, or a busy bazaar.
Speaker 2: By the time they reached Egypt, Richard would sit out
Speaker 2: for hours in the boiling sun, chronicling every detail with
Speaker 2: his brushstrokes. But this obsession soon became concerning for Sir Thomas.
Speaker 2: He noticed that Richard was getting severely sun burnt from
Speaker 2: his long painting sessions, and he was risking heatstroke. When
Speaker 2: Sir Thomas tried to pull him away for his own
Speaker 2: good Richard would lash out, violently, threatening to kill his patron.
Speaker 2: This was so alarming that Sir Thomas had to send
Speaker 2: a letter all the way back to England letting Richard's
Speaker 2: father know that he had lost his mind. His father
Speaker 2: requested that Richard be sent home, and somehow Sir Thomas
Speaker 2: managed to get Richard onto a boat back to England,
Speaker 2: and Richard, of course was furious. He believed that he
Speaker 2: had a special connection with Egypt and that his father
Speaker 2: was an evil man for taking him away from it.
Speaker 2: It was, to say the least, not a rational belief.
Speaker 2: As Richard fumed over what was happening to him, the
Speaker 2: idea entered his head that he was actually a servant
Speaker 2: of the Egyptian god Osiris, and he belonged in Egypt
Speaker 2: where he could paint for his supernatural master. By the
Speaker 2: time he was home in England, Richard was plotting his return.
Speaker 2: His father brought him to the countryside, hoping that it
Speaker 2: would be good for his mental health. But Richard couldn't
Speaker 2: overcome this strange mental illness that had so changed him.
Speaker 2: One day, while painting in the park with his father,
Speaker 2: he lashed out, stabbing his father to death. He quickly
Speaker 2: boarded a boat to France, trying to make his way
Speaker 2: back to Egypt at all costs, but he was so
Speaker 2: out of his mind that he was easily found and
Speaker 2: arrested by the English authorities.
Speaker 1: The courts took some pity on him, seeing that he
Speaker 1: was obviously unwell, so they sentenced him to be confined
Speaker 1: to a mental institution for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: And while the could obviously be terrible places in Victorian England,
Speaker 1: Richard's status as a member of the upper class seemed
Speaker 1: to win him superior treatment. He was given his own
Speaker 1: artist's studio inside the asylum and began to produce incredibly
Speaker 1: detailed paintings, many of them featuring fairies. Now, truth be told,
Speaker 1: it was hard to get Richard to explain exactly why
Speaker 1: he liked fairies so much, but his word different than
Speaker 1: the usual depictions people had seen. They were pretty naked
Speaker 1: creatures dancing in nature, but he used odd, dark colors
Speaker 1: and often framed them with disturbing touches, like the wings
Speaker 1: of a bat or the web of a spider. Today,
Speaker 1: some of Richard's fairy paintings are seen as masterpieces. When
Speaker 1: visitors to museums in England see his work on the wall,
Speaker 1: they can scarcely imagine how a curious life led him
Speaker 1: to produce such beautiful work. Learning to cook something new
Speaker 1: is a daunting task when the difference between a tea
Speaker 1: spoon and a tablespoon can mean a delicious meal or
Speaker 1: an inedible mess. Juvenile cooks owe everything to recipes, but
Speaker 1: for a long time, standard English recipes didn't include exact measurements.
Speaker 1: Many cookbooks assumed that you already knew what you were
Speaker 1: doing in the kitchen, and had instructions like add some
Speaker 1: flour or cook until done. Now. If you were an
Speaker 1: old hand, perhaps this was fine, but if this was
Speaker 1: your first time in the kitchen, it was a recipe
Speaker 1: for disaster. All of that changed, though, in eighteen forty five,
Speaker 1: when a former poet and schoolmistress tried her hand at
Speaker 1: writing cookbooks. Born in Sussex in seventeen ninety nine. Eliza
Speaker 1: Acton didn't get her start in the culinary world, but
Speaker 1: she grew up adjacent to it. Her father ran a brewery,
Speaker 1: and it's likely that young Eliza saw the beer making
Speaker 1: first hand, combining exact amounts of water, hops and malt
Speaker 1: to get the right flavor. She didn't know it then,
Speaker 1: but it seems this early experience with precision and preparation
Speaker 1: set her on her path. As Eliza grew older, she
Speaker 1: tried her hand at a few different industries. She opened boarding
Speaker 1: schools for girls in eighteen seventeen and eighteen nineteen, lived
Speaker 1: in France for a while, and published a poorly received
Speaker 1: book of poetry. When she attempted to publish a second volume,
Speaker 1: her publisher gave her another suggestion, why not try writing
Speaker 1: a cookbook instead. It was, needless to say, an unusual
Speaker 1: career pivot, but Eliza embraced the challenge. She spent the
Speaker 1: next few years carefully testing recipes, refining techniques, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: writing a book that would make cooking accessible. The result
Speaker 1: was called Modern Cookery for Private Families, published in eighteen
Speaker 1: forty five, and the book was an instant success. Geared
Speaker 1: toward the middle class. It highlighted classic English recipes and
Speaker 1: popular adaptations of Indian dishes that also introduced some new
Speaker 1: exotic meals. They marked the first recipe for cooking Brussels sprouts,
Speaker 1: the first time a plum pudding had been called a
Speaker 1: Christmas pudding in print, and the first English recipe for spaghetti.
Speaker 1: As the pasta was unfamiliar to her, Eliza wrote it
Speaker 1: as sparghetti. Her most popular contribution, though, wasn't one dish,
Speaker 1: but the way she wrote the recipes. Each page featured
Speaker 1: a play by play of how to cook the dish,
Speaker 1: followed by the total cooking time and a list of
Speaker 1: exact ingredients. Instead of being instructed to simply add salt,
Speaker 1: readers knew that they should include one teaspoon, Rather than
Speaker 1: being told to cook until golden. Readers knew that they
Speaker 1: should cook their dish for twenty five minutes. And I
Speaker 1: get it. That might not sound dramatic to you, but
Speaker 1: at the time it was groundbreaking, and it set the
Speaker 1: format for nearly every recipe and cookbook ever since. Eliza
Speaker 1: continued to publish cookbooks, thirteen revised editions of modern cookery
Speaker 1: between eighteen forty five and eighteen fifty three. She also
Speaker 1: wrote a scholarly study on the history of English breadmaking
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty seven, but despite the book's success, Eliza
Speaker 1: never received long lasting fame. Other cookbook writers took her clear,
Speaker 1: direct style of recipes without giving her credit. Many even
Speaker 1: published entire recipes stolen write from her books and published
Speaker 1: them under their own names. And around the same time
Speaker 1: that Eliza was teaching the middle class how to bake,
Speaker 1: broil and brine, another name was rising in the cooking world.
Speaker 1: Isabella Beaton first published Missus Beaton's Book of Household Management
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty one, and it was an instant success.
Speaker 1: She became the Martha Stewart of her age. Her recipes
Speaker 1: and hosting tips became synonymous with Victorian English culture. Her
Speaker 1: book went through several editions even after Isabella died in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, and in fact is still in print today.
Speaker 1: But Missus Beeton was one of the many who took
Speaker 1: her recipes word for word from Eliza Acton's book. Eliza
Speaker 1: was ill for much of her adult life and passed
Speaker 1: away in eighteen fifty nine at the age of sixty.
Speaker 1: After her death, her work sank into relative obscurity, but
Speaker 1: some chefs and cookbook scholars still consider her one of
Speaker 1: the most influential cookery writers in the English language. Today,
Speaker 1: every professionally published cookbook follows the standard that Eliza set
Speaker 1: nearly two centuries ago, with precise measurements, ingredient lists, and
Speaker 1: detailed instructions. Eliza Acton's legacy lives on in every carefully
Speaker 1: measured teaspoon and every meticulously written recipe. So the next
Speaker 1: time you follow a recipe with confidence knowing exactly how
Speaker 1: much flour or sugar to use, take a moment to
Speaker 1: appreciate the woman who made it all possible. Without Eliza Acton,
Speaker 1: cooking at home might still be a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manke in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at Theworldoflore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious,