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Here I offer, for your consideration, a variety of facts, recipes, admonitions and illustrations
all having to do with the Regency table.
But first a view of genuine Regency food and dining.
All the coloured photographs below are courtesy of Historic Food, the website of food historian Ivan Day at http://www.historicfood.com/portal.htm
Mr. Day does historic reproduction of food items, using original recipes, receipts and where necessary original moulds.
The items recreated here were prepared for an exhibition in
2000 titled Eat, Drink and Be Merry.
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Mr. Day's display A Regency Dessert
was an important part of the exhibition,
and included, in the table setting, original silver gilt flower vase/baskets.
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A triumph of the confectioner's art -- tiny sugar
baskets made from original early 19th Century molds. |
A Regency creamware pineapple mold, and
a pineapple cream made with a similar mold. |
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Biscuits bearing the Prince of Wales' feathers design
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A selection of Regency biscuits |
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| A tipsy cake was a favourite way of using up a stale Savoy cake. A mixture of wine and brandy was poured over the cake until it could drink no more. It was then studded with almonds and a custard was poured around the base, which was garnished with ratafias or macaroons |
| Mr. Day "made this Savoy Biscuit for Channel 4's Regency Feast, a biography of the great chef de cuisine Antonin Carême, presented by Ian Kelly and produced for Flashback Television by Jonathan Lubert. It is surmounted by the Prince of Wales feathers pressed in gum paste from a contemporary mould and has a garniture of pistachio Genoise cakes. It is placed on a low circle of pate d'office coated with green sugar grains and edged with a gum paste border cast from an early nineteenth century boxwood mould. |
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And, from the recipe files of Historic Food:
Escubac
Usquebaugh is one of the earliest English cordial waters and dates from the Tudor period. It retained its popularity well into the nineteenth century.
The word whisky is derived from the Irish usquebaugh, which is literally the Gaelic translation of Latin aqua vitae, the water of life. But usquebaugh consumed in seventeenth and eighteenth century England and France bore no resemblance to the spirit we now call whisky. It was a spicy, bright yellow cordial, usually flavoured with aniseed, liquorice and saffron and sweetened with fruit sugar extracted from figs and raisins by maceration. |
Yellow Escubac
One ounce of saffron, one ounce of Damascus raisins, one ounce of cinnamon, three pounds of sugar, one ounce of liquorice, one ounce of corianders, three pints of brandy, two pints of water. Pound these ingredients, and dissolve the sugar in two pints of water; put the whole in ajar to infuse for a month, taking care to stir it up every second day, or third at farthest.
From: G.A. Jarrin, The Italian Confectioner (London: 1820) |
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A late 1700's guide for servants suggests a COOK's schedule:
"She should bake Wednesdays and Saturdays, clean her Larder and Pantries Mondays and Fridays, and rise Tuesday to wash her own things. Thursday morning wipe her pewter or do any other early job, or as a favor, she may get her kitchen business forward and iron her things instead of doing it in the evening..."
All this, no doubt, in addition to providing meals each and every day for the dining room and the servants' hall. |
Three simple domestic rules:
1. Do everything in its proper time.
2. Keep everything to its proper use.
3. Put everything in its proper place.
from Enquire Within Upon Everything (see below) |
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"It is a matter of regret that table napkins are not considered indispensable in England. With all our boasted refinements, they are far from being general."
Etiquette and the Usages of Polite Society 1836 |
"Smelling the meat whilst on the fork before you put it in your mouth...is unacceptable."
Principles of Politeness by Dr. J. Trusler |
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ROUT DROP CAKES
Mix two pounds of flour, one ditto butter, one ditto sugar, one ditto currants, clean and dry; then wet into a stiff paste with two eggs, a large spoonful of orange-flower water, ditto rose-water, ditto sweet wine, ditto brandy; drop on a tin-plate floured, a very short time bakes them.
Maria Rundell Domestic Cookery for Private Families 1806 |
TO ROAST BEEF
The general rules are, to have a brisk hot fire, to hang down rather than to spit, to baste with salt and water, and one quarter of an hour to every pound of beef, though tender beef will require less, while old tough beef will require more roasting; pricking with a fork will determine you whether done or not; rare done is the healthiest and the taste of this age.
Harriet Whiting Domestic Cookery 1819 |
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To boil Turbot
The turbot-kettle must be of a proper size, and in the nicest order. Set the fish in cold water sufficient to cover it completely, throw a handful of salt and a glass of vinegar into it, and let it gradually boil; be very careful that there fall no blacks; but skim it well, and preserve the beauty of the colour.
Serve it garnished with a complete fringe of curled parsley, lemon and horse-radish.
The sauce must be the finest lobster, and anchovy butter, and plain butter, served plentifully in separate tureens. |
Common Sillabub
Put a pint of cider and a bottle of strong beer into a large bowl; grate in a small nutmeg, and sweeten it to your taste. Then milk from the cow as much milk as will make a strong froth. Let it stand an hour, and then strew over it a few currants, well washed, picked, and plumped, before the fire, and it will be fit for use. |
on raspberries
"Both the scent and flavour of this fruit are very refreshing, and the berry itself is exceedingly wholesome and invaluable to people of a nervous or bilious temperament. Its juice is rich and abundant and to many extremely agreeable."
Mrs. Beeton |
PLUM CAKE
Mix one pound currants, one drachm nutmeg, mace and cinnamon each, a little salt, one pound of citron, orange peel candied, and almonds bleached, 6 pounds of flour well dried, beat 21 eggs, and add with one quart new ale yeast, half pint of wine, 3 half pints of cream, and raisins q.s.
Harriet Whiting Domestic Cookery 1819 |
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MAKING WINES FROM RHUBARB, GRAPES (UNRIPE), CURRANTS, GOOSEBERRIES, ETC.
The whole art of wine-making consists in the proper management of the fermentation process; the same quantity of fruit, whether it be rhubarb, currants, gooseberries, grapes (unripe), leaves, tops and tendrils, water, and sugar, will produce two different kinds of wine, by varying the process of fermentation only--that is a dry wine like sherry, or a brisk one like champagne.
- Enquire Within upon Everything |
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