A don't miss documentary, on Dorothy Hartley,on YouTube

Here's the link to why I'm all excited about this doc:

http://www.lucyworsley.com/new-bbc-film-food-in-england-the-lost-world-of-dorothy-hartley/

Then go to YouTube and find the documentary itself.  It's riveting, and funny, and so worth watching, if you love history, or food, or cooking, or eccentric brilliant ladies, or all three!  I just found it on YouTube and had to pass on the good word.  

It's about Hartley's life and her magnum opus on Food of England.  And the illustrations are her own, done as she observed and wrote, a true researcher and social historian.  She lived when many old ways of living in England and Wales were falling into disuse and preserved the knowledge for folks like us and serious researchers, too, to value, as well as studying the history of things and people and customs.  She thought nothing of bicycling all over, sleeping under hedges, wherever she could, on her quest for information.

And if you're from the north of England, or have relatives in Wales, you'll recognize a lot of the expressions.  Long time since I heard anyone say "come day, go day" meaning someone who doesn't worry about when things get done.  The rest of the saying is "God send Sunday!" The man saying it said that Dorothy was not at all like that!

The documentary has some wonderful characters in it, including an artist named Mary (couldn't catch last name, sorry) who is a law unto herself.  I loved the way that despite Lucy Worsley, (the doc person)'s pronouncing medieval as medeeval, Mary quietly pronounced it correctly when she used the word, yay. 

And when Worsley asked her, as an artist in her own right, what she thought of Hartley as an artist.  She replied that Hartley wasn't an artist, she was an illustrator, at which I shouted YES!!! world of difference between the two.  She did appreciate Hartley as an illustrator, though, admiring her detail and accuracy.  

And she used Hartley's food in England book to guide her own adventure in learning to live in an ancient house in the country, with two children, after her husband deserted them, and with no experience of cooking over fire and other early country skills.  She's worth a documentary of her own.

I'm currently reading Hartley's Lost Country Life (library didn't have the Food in England book) and it's so packed with interesting fact and description of early life -- I'm in the medieval period -- that I have to keep putting it down to rest my mind for a minute!  but I had to stop and tell you about this.  Amazing that she created at least two such huge and excellent books, as well as all the illustrations in them, and some lovely old photographs, too.

Just check into YouTube, for Amazing Documentaries, with Lucy Worsley, for Food in England, the Lost World of Dorothy Hartley.  you won't regret it!  about an hour long documentary.