Novelty food

Somehow this blog keeps coming back to food.

But I came across this reference to a Tahitian feast in 18th century England. Captain Cook brought back a Tahitian called Omai, and he was a big hit. One of Cook's patrons was the Earl of Sandwich, of other food novelty fame. Hence....

"Omai arrived at Portsmouth on 14 July 1774 as a crew-member on board HMS Adventure, captained by Tobias Furneaux. He was taken immediately to meet Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty. Captain Cook described Omai as "dark, ugly and a downright blackguard" but this did not prevent Omai from becoming the fashionable exotic person to be seen with. Sandwich hosted him at Hinchingbrooke [his country seat in Huntingdonshire], where Omai's native barbecue cooked over hot stones proved a popular novelty."

You can read more about Omai here.
http://www.hinchhouse.org.uk/fourth/omai.html

There are even movie clips, but I couldn't get them to play. But apparently there was a BBC programme about him, and that's where they come from.

Why did I find this? Because the hero in my MIP is an earl from Huntingdon, and this is Georgian, set in 1764. Too early for Omai, alas.

And while I'm blogging, my new book is out and doing splendidly. Thanks to everyone who's bought it early to help it make the lists. In the first week it hit #66 on the USA Today list.
http://asp.usatoday.com/life/books/booksdatabase/default.aspx

#15 on the Publishers Weekly mass market paperbac list, and that's a big deal because they only print the top 15.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/bestsellerslist/6.html?channel=bestsellers

And #3 on the Borders/Waldenbooks romance list. (It's showing at 4 here, but it'll move up when they update.)
https://www.rwanational.org/eweb/dynamicpage.aspx?webcode=BGI0607

So thank you again!

I'm sorry I'm slow to respond to comments here, but since Google took over Blogger I find it hard to sign in, and can only do it with IE on my laptop, which is the browser I keep most bells and whistles on but for that reason, hardly ever use. That's on top of all the snarl ups with the logins and password. I generally like Google, but they've messed up this one.

Grouch over.

I do have a spot at My Space now, but I'm going to be copying most posts there as I reckon it's a different readership. Also at Facebook. (This is an experiment, plus my university Alumni group is on Facebook. I seem to be the youngest there by decades, but I thought I'd show willing.)

http://www.myspace.com/jobeverley

With Facebook I'm not quite sure what the URL is for my page. Very new there. But if you're on there you'll find me by searching.

Cheers,

Jo