"Exceedingly Pretty Chickens" with David Veart

HeritageTalk at Central Library .

"Exceedingly pretty chickens: Winifred Campbell learns to cook" with David Veart.
Wananga L2 Central City Library (if we are at Level 1) or live-streamed via Zoom (whatever the level).

Join archaeologist and historian David Veart to hear his talk "Exceedingly pretty chickens: Winifred Campbell learns to cook", and hear about Winifred Campbell's interesting life.

In 1885 Winifred Campbell, daughter of John Logan Campbell, ‘the Father of Auckland’ and one of the colony’s richest men was in London to be presented at court, the upper class girls’ passage to adulthood. She was also awaiting the arrival from New Zealand of her father’s approval to marry. In preparation for this possibility she attended the National Training School for Cookery in Kensington.

Among her voluminous correspondence are letters describing the course, the recipes and her reaction to physical work something she had rarely if ever experienced. Part of this course involved learning how to present food in the high Victorian manner with lashings of gelatine and garnishes to create chickens that were ‘Exceedingly pretty.’ Thirty years later during the First World War she put her culinary skills to use in a grand and much less pretty manner managing a large military canteen in France.

David Veart
Trained as an anthropologist, David Veart worked as a Department of Conservation historian and archaeologist for over twenty-five years. Veart is author of First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cooking (Auckland University Press, 2008), Digging up the Past: Archaeology for the Young and Curious (Auckland University Press, 2011) and Hello Girls and Boys! A New Zealand Toy Story (Auckland University Press, 2014).

Book now.
Email arc@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz to book (booking essential).

Or register to join the event online via Zoom. https://www.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/pages/event.aspx?EventId=10038

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the event via Zoom.

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