Odd this day
Er… so, happy 246th anniversary to this entirely bizarre diary entry from Parson Woodforde
James Woodforde was an unremarkable man by some standards — certainly one of the less eccentric entries in Fergus Butler-Gallie’s A Field Guide to the British Clergy, for example — but became known in the 20th century when an edited selection of his diaries was first published.
He kept his journal for 45 years, and the full version runs to 17 volumes, detailing parish life, servants, the weather, local characters, and vast quantities of food and drink. Butler-Gallie calls him “the original food blogger par excellence”, and notes that he eats vast quantities when Britain is under blockade from France in the revolutionary years, and everyone is supposed to be restraining themselves:
a couple of boiled chickens, a pig’s face, a good pea soup, a fine rump of beef, a prestigious turkey, and some macaroni … batter custard pudding, jelly, apple fritters, tarts, raspberry puffs, baked apples, brandied cherries … strong beer, porter, wine, port, sherry and strong malt liquor
This appears to have been one single dinner, and he complains when his local, the King’s Arms sells him plum puddings which are too small. (Two centuries or so on, they’re not holding a grudge. It’s been renamed the Parson Woodforde.)
The diaries also take in his indulgent Oxford years, where (and this is another bit lifted from Fergus B-G’s book, which I can very much recommend) he was fined:
for having farted too loudly ‘while pissing in the Senior Common Room’. In true Woodforde style, the fine extracted from our hero was a number of bottles of very fine port.
His pigs over-indulged in drink, too...
