This just released: "Mrs. Charles Darwin's Recipe Book" by Dusha Bateson and Weslie Janeway, a delightful and high-quality update of Mrs. Darwin's handwritten personal cookbook. I just got my copy yesterday and am scouring it for snacks I can serve at our Darwin birthday party. Looks like some very tasty stuff -- with the added attraction that it's exactly what our man probably ate at the Down House family dinner table. Nice.An aside on Emma Darwin. She married Charles in 1839 at the age of 30, and went on to bear ten babies, the last one in 1856 at the age of 47. That's a kid roughly every year and a half for 17 years, and not exactly in the springtime of life. How she did not die from sheer exasperation is beyond me. How she managed in addition to make Turnips Cressilly (p.110) or Gooseberry Cream (p. 136) now and then is nothing short of miraculous. Here's to Emma and her vast reproductive capacity.
What a creative way to celebrate the scientist's birthday! I love it. My kids vacuumed Emma Darwin's cheese straws (pg. 48) and they helped me make her baked apple pudding (pg. 116).
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