Dining with the Darwins:

Senses and the Trace in (Neo-)Victorian Home Cooking

Abstract

An infinite number of projects, books, films, performances and merchandise was launched across the globe in conjunction with Charles Darwin’s twofold anniversary in 2009. Published immediately before the Darwin commemorative year, in which the entire world seemed to participate, to a greater or lesser extent, in the celebration of the man and his work, Mrs. Charles Darwin’s Recipe Book: Revived and Illustrated (2008) appeared, at first sight, to be little more than a mere side dish to go with the abundant, commemoration feast. However, this collection of Emma Darwin’s recipes and notes on home cooking has more to it than meets the eye. In this essay I explore how it, in fact, invites us to sense the Victorian past through the elaboration (and ingestion) of the dishes therein. Drawing on recent notions of the trace, I analyse the cookbook’s potential in terms of neo-Victorianism, proposing a reading of Mrs. Charles Darwin’s Recipe Book as a successful attempt, out of the many recent endeavours, to render the Victorian past more material.