Product Description

Challenged to prove her claim that an 18th-century diet was better than today's, for a full year Fiona J Houston recreated the lifestyle of her 1790s rural Scottish ancestors in a basic one-roomed cottage, cooking from her garden and the wild, often entertaining family and friends, and surviving on her own resources. She learned lost crafts and skills, making nettle string, quill pens and ink as well as cheese and ale, lighting her fire from flints, and dressing in hand-sewn period clothing, with nothing but an old range stove and candles for warmth and light. This beautiful, quirky, illustrated title tells her extraordinary story and is packed with historical anecdotes, folklore, practical gardening info, seasonal menus, recipes, wildlife notes and more. Includes linocuts, photos and historic engravings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52653 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-26
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
It's hard now to imagine living without heat and power at the flick of a switch, and food and clothing obtainable off the self in return merely for driving to the shop to collect them. Not so long ago everything we ate and owned had to be grown and made from scratch, or we starved and froze. With peak oil in our sights, these days could be on the way back. Those of us who followed The History WOman's monthly columns have some idea what this experience might entail. Now, thanks to her book, we can gain clearer understanding of all the physical and mental effort involved. Vegetables grown without help of modern tools or products, water drawn from an outside tap, wood for fuel gathered or chopped. ... Despite the hardship, there are so many positive lessions to be learnt and so much that can be reintroduced into our 21st-century life. Saraband, the publisher, has done the author proud: this book is an object of delight. As well as the text, there are handwritten diary entries, woodcuts, photographs, nature notes and recipes. It's a fascinating and colourful scrapbook. If ever you needed an argument for the survival of the printed book, this is it. Sally Macpherson --Reforesting Scotland issue 39, Spg/Summer 2009

I've just read [The Garden Cottage Diaries] - non stop as it is such a pleasure. What a treat. It is so beautifully produced; a real joy to hold as well as read. .. [The writing] is so beautiful: clear, fluent, evocative, poetic and a vivid recreation of place, emotions and style of life. I'm very interested in the relationship a writer builds with his/her reader and felt [this book] made the reader feel respected and included. --Kay Dunbar, Festival Director, Ways With Words

Fiona Houston writes with a light and wry humour... As an entirely intriguing experiment in experiencing the raw past of life in the Borders. I hope this essay will sell widely and for many years to come. --Southern Reporter, 26/2/09

Fiona Houston, a Scottish museum researcher... contacted me in 2004, having read my book on the ills of the industrial food system, Not On the Label, to tell me it had inspired her to live the life of her pre-industrial ancestors. The Garden Cottage Diaries: My Year in the Eighteenth Century is the result. It's a sumptuously produced book about self-imposed deprivation. Its still-life photos of her cottage and vegetable garden evoke a simplicity that is more like something from an interiors magazine than a vision of grim subsistence. But it's all done with great wit and intelligent determination. Houston, having swaddled herself for the 12 months in layers of heavy, home-made wool clothes, describes life without electricity, running water or the motor car. Growing enough to eat turns out to be hard work, but not impossible. Walking everywhere is liberating. Being permanently cold and damp, however, is more of a challenge. ... This is not so much the romantic delusion Freidberg fears food campaigners now suffer from, but a calculated protest, in an ancient and honourable tradition going right back to Virgil's Georgics The answer to our current crisis - global warming, growing fears about food security, the social injustice embedded in the food system - lies not in an anti-modern backlash, as shown by Freidberg's reminders of how food production has changed. But there is still a place for Houston's type of exercise in self-denial. Questioning the nature of progress and how far material sustenance is necessary to happiness is a sane response in a relentlessly consuming and resource-depleted world. --Felicity Lawrence, The Guardian, 2 May 2009

Fiona Houston writes with a light and wry humour... As an entirely intriguing experiment in experiencing the raw past of life in the Borders. I hope this essay will sell widely and for many years to come. --Southern Reporter, 26/2/09

About the Author
Fiona J Houston is a journalist, museum researcher, grandmother and campaigner for a greener world. A former schoolteacher, avid historian,and an experienced veggie gardener and cook, her year in the past brought together these skills and passions in a remarkable living-history project. Fiona is known to readers of the Glasgow Herald as The History Woman.

Customer Reviews

A Year Less Ordinary
My attention was caught by the cover of this book in the window of a local shop, and I had to buy it! Fiona J. Houston, aka 'The History Woman' took a year out of her writing/working life to step back into the 1790's and live as the wife of a schoolmaster would have lived, growing her own food, making her bannocks and porridge, living with none of the 'essentials' we take for granted in todays 'grab it and run' world. No water on tap, no electricity or central heating and definitely no junk food; rush candles and moonlight, a mattress stuffed with straw, and ink made from oak galls with which to write her diary provided her with her meagre but satisfying lot. And she accomplished the whole in period costume, made by herself!
This is an excellent read for anyone genuinely intrigued by the lives of ordinary folk from the past, containing recipes and receipts for many of the meals she lived on, for authentic writing materials ( quill pen nibs and that lovely ink! ) for wicks for lamps and even a pattern for making a 'sark' ( an undershift ).
There were a couple of times during the year when she 'cheated', but going to a musical recital on a bus in full 18th century dress without batting an eyelid seems almost irrelevant if such an anachronism made the other passengers give a thought to their own 'easy' lives. Nipping home to wash a bedsheet in her washing machine is, perhaps, less forgiveable, but given the circumstances ( it had blown off the washing line onto a molehill ) , I think we'd all take exactly the same action!
Illustrated with delicious woodcuts and sumptuous photographs, this would make a fantastic ( dare I say it? ) Christmas present for any friend into self-sufficiency, domestic history or country crafts. Or just buy it for yourself!

This book is a delight!
I saw this in my local bookshop, but only had time to glance at it. Nevetheless, I was sufficiently inrtigued to order it, and I am glad I did.Beautifully photographed, Fiona's account of living an authentic 18th century life (she didn't even use matches to light her fire!)is a thought provoking, unputdownable read.It certainly made me think.In comparison with the 18th century ,we now live in a materially obsessed society,and reading her account of just how little we need to live made me reasses my own attitudes. While there is no doubt that, for example, running water, electricity, radio, and even the humble match have added greatly to the comfort and safety of modern man, there are still lessons to be learned from the thrifty way life as lived then. In this present time of the "credit crunch" this is a very worthwhile and relevant read. Do buy it!

"If ever there was an argument for the survival of the printed book, this is it" (Reforesting Scotland journal summer 2009)
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1OJDVRFLK78QM "An object of delight... If ever there was an argument for the survival of the printed book, this is it" (Reforesting Scotland journal summer 2009).
"Clear, fluent, evocative" (Kay Dunbar, Ways With Words.)
"Book of the Year" (Peter Clarke, Southern Reporter)