To wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.

Self-Portrait by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, 1771.

“I'd love to participate but I don't have a character.”

I've heard this a lot since beginning First Person Interpretations Day at the C. Black Coffeehouse back in 2010 and feel the need to address what I think is a common misconception. There is this idea that you have to have a “character” in order to do first person reenacting. This is simply not true.

There is nothing in first person reenacting that requires us to take on anything fake, from the accents to the personal backgrounds and everything in between. The simplest and most honest persona is the one that you already have: yourself. There is no reason that whomever you are in your modern life, can't also be who you are when doing first person, only with a little historical twist.

So, in order to help others prepare for the upcoming reenacting season and the ongoing first person interactions offered at the coffeehouse, here is a simple guide to turning your modern self, into your historic self.

The Basics

Name: Use your real name. That way you don't have to remember to respond to a new name while at events! It is also easier for your fellow reenacting friends, especially if they are also doing first person and having a hard enough time remembering to call everyone “Sir” or “Mr.”!

Age: Subtract your actual age from the year you are portraying to get the year you were born. Stick with your real birth date, it's easy to remember & face it, no one is going to ask you when your birthday is while in character anyway. However, knowing the year that you were born historically, does help with the types of experiences you might have had. More importantly, it helps you to remember just how much of the era you've lived through! I am sometimes surprised to discover just how much of the late 18th century my Regency self would have experienced, or maybe I'm just older than I realize.

Occupation: What skill or trade do you already have? Do you typically demonstrate, sell items or do certain tasks around camp? What do you do in the modern world & how does that translate historically? When in doubt, be someone generic. A street seller, a sailor or a solider, a servant, anyone that is one of a large group is easier to portray. This is doubled if that generic person is also of the lower classes. Remember, there might only be one General Washington, but there are hundreds of Private So-N-Sos.

City or Country: This is probably one of the things that scares people away from first person reenacting the most, having to decided where to be from. I will let you in on a little secret, unless you are in a very organized event, with a focused time & location, no one really cares where you choose to be from!

Want to hear another secret? Only the super hard-core folks will notice any little flaws in the match between your personas location, clothes, accent etc. If anyone comes up to you while you are doing first person and starts nagging that (some picky little detail) wouldn't have been used by a (whom ever you are portraying) in (where ever you are from) in (what ever year it is), you have my permission to tell them to get stuffed, especially if they are not making the effort to do first person!

When ever I am asked where I am from, or more often where the coffeehouse is located, I always tell them we are “3 miles from town”. What town? Well “the” town of course, don't they know what town is just 3 miles away? Being vague, yet specific, is a great way to be flexible as event locations are always changing while our personas do not.

Self-Portrait by Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee le Brun, 1800.

Class Level: Most of us are lower class, even those of us portraying business owners or tradesmen. Just like in life, start at the bottom and worry about working your way up over time. This goes along with your choice of occupation as well. It's easier to portray one of the masses. Don't be afraid to be a generic, lower class nobody! Want yet another secret? Portraying the lower class is also cheaper; less accessories, simpler clothes and no fancy duds to try and keep clean while in camp. This means more time to really enjoy not only the events, but the first person interaction as well.

Spouse & Children: If you have them, great. I'd suggest using them, especially if they are doing first person with you. If they don't reenact, or you don't have one, there are lots of reasons a spouse could simply be “someplace else”. The war, sailing, at work, in “the” town etc. The same goes for children. Indentures are another great way to get rid of your children, whether you actually have them or not. I frequently mention my own daughters “indenture” to various (and constantly changing) individuals, when in reality she is just at home.

As morbid as it sounds, death is another good way to explain someone not being there. One point of caution however, especially for widows, be prepared to explain how your husband died, the public always seems interested in that detail when you least expect it. As with everything, stick with simple, understandable modes of death, a fever, injury or that ever so helpful “war”. They are easy to remember should anyone ask, easy for the public to understand yet vague enough that no one will be unintentionally hurt by hearing the story.

Other important things to know about yourself: Can you read or do you just look at the pretty pictures? Do you play an instrument or sing out of key? Have a gambling habit? Like coffee but think tea is for wimps? Go to church regularly? Do you love gardening but the names of every single general in the war bores you to death? Think about your modern day personality and interests and how that translates into your historic persona.

Many people new to first person reenacting think that they have to know “everything about everything” when creating a persona, every battle, every politician, every tool etc. The truth is, if it's not something that you'd care to know about in the modern world, why would your historic self want to know it in their time? I can relate the recipe for a double chocolate mocha brownies by heart, but heck if I know the name of my senator; my historic self is no different!

I hope these simple tips will help many of you develop first person personas and encourage more participation in the first person interactions being offered at the C. Black coffeehouse. Remember, be yourself. The easiest way to create a historic persona, is to use as much of your real life as possible. Don't fall into the trap of assuming your first person persona has to be entirely different from who you are naturally. This just makes doing first person more difficult and creates unneeded stress, keeping you away from the fun of actually doing first person.

After all, who do you know better than yourself?

Self-Portrait by Benjamin West, 1758 or 1759.

Soup for the Historian's Soul

Soup for the Historian’s Soul or how to make an economical dish for those who spend much time thinking of the past whilst living in the future.

Vegetables for the Soup, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin , 1732.

The cold winter weather has finally settled around us, and so too do we settle, around the fire with a hot dish of soup to keep away the chill.

Soup, or a “decoction of flesh for the table” as defined by Samuel Johnson in 1798, has long been a stable food for all classes. In the 18th century it was commonly served as an early course to a formal dinner or along with three other dishes in a more meager family meal. Part III of A Treatise of all Sorts of Foods begins with liquids, soup included, reasoning that “that we ought always to begin our Meals with liquid Foods as being thofe which are eafier of Digeftion and ftay leaft in the Stomach.”

The ease of soup on digestion is further supported in its use for fever patients & others with weak stomachs or suffering from illnesses. In fact, soups and other liquid nourishment are so common that a full 15 of the recipes Hannah Glasse gives in her chapter on “Directions for the Sick” are for broth, soup & meat “tea”. Women suffering from the puerperal fever, more commonly called child-bed fever, were encouraged to eat small, frequent quantities of “Chicken-water, or mutton-broth made weak and cleared of all its fat, beef-tea” along with other nourishing liquids, proper medication & rest. Soup could also cure that most common and dreaded aliment among sailors, scurvy. Although the idea of “a Soup of boiled Cabbage and Onions” as advised in Richard Brookes' 1765 General Practice of Physic is not the most appetizing, his promise that it would “cure an adventitious Scurvy in its firft Stage either at Land or Sea in any Part of the World befides” makes it worth adding to any sailors recipe book.

However, in the 18th century that comforting bowl of soup was not as simple as cracking open a can of Campbell’s. Not only did the home cook have to consider the types of meat or fish, vegetables and herbs to be used, but the order in which the ingredients were added to the pot and even the cooking vessel itself played an important role in the quality of the resulting dish. According to E. Taylor in The Lady’s, Housewives & Cook-maids Assistant the cook must “be careful to use pots and sauce-pans with the lids well tinned, and very clean, free from grease and sand, for fear of giving the soups a bad taste”. Clean, well maintained tools are very sage advice, even for today's modern cooks.

White Soup Bowl, Anne Vallayer-Coster, 1771.

While the process of making a soup is not particularly complicated, small changes could easily effect the final product. Elizabeth Raffald advises cooks “to lay your meat in the bottom of your pan with a good lump of butter” in order to “give the foup a very different flavour from putting water in at the firft”. She also advises that “when you make any white foup, don't put in cream till you take it off the fire,” presumable to prevent any possibility of the milk scalding while over the heat. Such subtle variations in the method could not only dramatically change the final flavor, but even change the dish from a proper soup, to a broth, gravy or “meat tea”.

Despite all the variations soups were still an economical meal, requiring few ingredients and tools. While meat, fish or foul was preferable for a good, hearty soup, they weren't the only option for those of meager means. Even the poorest of the poor could feed on bread soup, given nothing more than water, a few spices & a crust of bread, hopefully with the mold spots scraped off. They could indulge in a barley soup flavored with mace & perhaps a piece of lemon-peel. The suggested white wine in Hannah Glasse's recipe needn't be of particularly high quality, as anyone who has cooked with alcohol knows and in a pinch could easily be substituted with plain water. Such economical recipes were the saving grace for those struggling to put food on the table, or those, such as the Killuloe School in Dublin, feeding many mouths. Reports from 1800 by the Society in Dublin for Promoting the Comforts of the Poor show that 48 children could be fed a pint of soup each with the entire cost only amounting to 12d. Certainly the children were being fed the most basic, and inexpensive soup possible, but it was better than “dog's soup”.

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A Modern Historic Soup
adapted from Sarah Harrison's, The House-keeper's Pocket-book: and Compleat Family Cook, 1739.

“A Soup.
TAKE three Pints of strong Broth, fifty Balls of Forc'd-meat, a Handful of Spinage and Sorrel chop'd, and a little Salt; let it stew a little, then put in a
Loaf Loaf of French Bread cut like Dice, and toasted, and fix Ounces of Butter. Tofs it up, and serve it.”

48 oz. (1 large can) chicken broth
1 bouillon cube
12 meatballs, homemade or frozen
1 bunch of fresh spinach, coarsely chopped
1 handful of sorrel or arugula, coarsely chopped
1 loaf of French bread, cubed & toasted or 3 cups fresh croutons
salt & fresh pepper to taste

Heat the broth and bouillon together. Add the meatballs and allow to cook until done. Frozen pre-cooked meatballs only need to heat through. Add the spinach and arugula. Cover the pot just long enough for the greens to wilt. Remove from the heat. Add in the bread or croutons. Season with salt & fresh pepper Stir briefly and serve immediately.

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works cited

Brookes, Richard. General Practice of Physic. 1765
Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. 1784.
Grose, Francis. Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. 1796.
Harrison, Sarah. The House-keeper's Pocket-book: and Compleat Family Cook. 1739.
Johnson, Samuel. Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. 1798.
Lemery, Louis. A Treatise On All Sorts of Food. 1749.
Raffald, Elizabeth. The Experienced English Housekeeper. 1786.
Society in Dublin. The first number of the Reports of the Society. 1800.
Taylor, E. The Lady’s, Housewives & Cook-maids Assistant. 1769.