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"Hence Mrs Rouncewell housekeeper at Chesney Wold foresees, though no instructions have yet come down, that the family may shortly be expected, together with a pretty large accession of cousins and others who can in any way assist the great Constitutional work. And hence the stately old dame, taking Time by the forelock, leads him up and down the staircases, and along the galleries and passages, and through the rooms, to witness before he grows any older that everything is ready; that floors are rubbed bright, carpets spread, curtains shaken out, beds puffed and patted, still-room and kitchen cleared for action, — all things prepared as beseems the Dedlock dignity."
What can the "still room" be?
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could a still room be wrere there was a still? or someother brewing room for brewing up ale, and ciders, and small beer?
(next to, or nearby the kitchens?)
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Dear of troy: I wondered briefly about "still" having something to do with liquor. But this is the home of a very uppercrust baronet, who would, I think, be far above having anything so sordid done in his kitchen area.
Reminds me though. My father had many Italian patients who gave him cases of their home-made wine. I never knew my father to ever take a drink of anything, though there was liquor on top shelf in pantry that was never touched for twenty years. My older brother brought home from MIT the equipment to distill the twenty cases of "guinea red" (you should pardon the racial slur). The took the product back to MIT, and reported his classmates praised it highly.
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The number 5 book in the Jane Austen series is Jane and the Stillroom Maid. Brief look at the amazon entry makes it look like it has something to do with medicinals and herbs.
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Dear Faldage: with your clue, I searched for "Jane Austen Still-room Maid" and found this in a review of the book:
"But even more shocking is the revelation gleaned from the surgeon’s examination: the deceased is in fact a woman – a maidservant clad in the garb of her master, Mr. Charles Danforth of Penfolds Hall. Tess Arnold had been in charge of the stillroom at Penfolds for many years and was known as an adept preserver of produce and compounder of home remedies – until , it seems she was dismissed for a scandalous indiscretion." I wonder what the etymology of "still" is in this case.
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Hey Faldage: using your clue, I searched again for "home remedies still-room" and look what I found:
"Cookery books were among the earliest of printed books to emerge in the latter part of the fifteenth century. Until the advent of the printed cookbook, cooks relied on memory and what they learned from others. Knowledge was passed on orally or in manuscript receipt books, relatively few of which have survived for us to ponder. Spawned by large-scale economic and social change, more printed household books, some of which revealed the secrets of preparing "banquetting stuffe," were written by men or women for ladies, gentlewomen, and, increasingly, for housewives and their servants. 'Banquetting stuffe' served both as medicinal aids to digestion and sweetmeats to satisfy the taste buds. Considered a treasure of the nobility, "banquetting stuffe" carried clear implications of status and wealth, and were thus all the more desirable to the middle classes.
"Banquetting stuffe," eventually associated with the last course in the meal, often emanated from a private place called the still-room, a room either within the house or in a separate building which contained a "still" for distillation. A common practice of concealing both medicinal and sugar recipes lent an air of secrecy to the early still-room. There was also a sense of mystery surrounding the preparation of remedies for good health, beauty, and entertainment. The still-room and its preparations: perfumes, beauty creams, liqueurs, syrups of quince and barbarie, cordials, and other sweet delicacies--as well as remedies for curing the sick--were the provenance of the lady of the house.
Thus, the earliest printed books for use in the still-room describe both the methods of distillation and food preparation and the products to emerge from this cloistered part of the manor. As the secrets of the aristocratic still-room were disclosed in these specialized printed cookery books such as The Delights for Ladies, the books were slowly undergoing transformation. At the same time, the social boundaries of the great estates were being expanded by an economically-rising middle class. Acquiring, among others, the foodstuffs and cooking "secrets" of the rich, middle-class women symbolically helped to reshape the boundaries."
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