Historicfood

LATEST ARTICLES ( 72 )

• Pride and Prejudice Having a Ball

  

  Some Background on the Ball Supper in the BBC2 Documentary Although the silver and other tableware here is accurate for the period, this is more of an... Read more

  Posted on 12 May 2013 FOOD & DRINK

• Ivan Day - Some Forthcoming Lectures

  

  I thought that some of you who follow this blog might be interested in some lectures I am giving over the next few months. I am in Hartford, CT later this... Read more

  Posted on 08 April 2013 FOOD & DRINK

• Eating Egypt

  

  Pharaonical Feasts and a Regency Ghost William (Gugliamo) Jarrin (1784-1848). Stipple engraving (1820). I have not posted an article on this blog for ages. Read more

  Posted on 06 April 2013 FOOD & DRINK

• Henry VIII's Jely Ypocras

  

  Some spices commonly used in the preparation of hippocras - starting in the left hand bottom corner and rotating clockwise - grains of paradise (referred to in... Read more

  Posted on 07 January 2013 FOOD & DRINK

• From Jardiniere to Satyr Pie

  

  A copper jardiniere with a hidden history New insights into Britain's extraordinary culinary history sometimes turn up in quite unexpected ways. Read more

  Posted on 23 December 2012 FOOD & DRINK

• Eat the Entire Creation If You Will ....

  

  ...but Beware of the Fatal Effects of Gluttony I have often thought that if the great biblical deluge had taken place in the eighteenth century and Noah and... Read more

  Posted on 20 December 2012 FOOD & DRINK

• An Enigmatical Bill of Fare

  

  In a May 2011 posting on her marvellous blog Homo Gastronomicus, India Mandelkern transcribed some very unusual royal Christmas menus from the time of George... Read more

  Posted on 20 December 2012 FOOD & DRINK

• Supper with Shakespeare

  

  A banquet of sweetmeats. This sugary assemblage is dominated by a 'standard' in the form of an edible banquetting house sited in an edible knot garden. Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• Feast Your Eyes

  

  A sugar paste church based on one originally made for Queen Victoria;s ball supper in Hatfield House in 1845I spent a great deal of time this summer working on... Read more

  Posted on 05 December 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• My 2013 Food History Courses

  

  An authentic Victorian Wedding Cake ornamented with gum paste motifs printed from original nineteenth century moulds . Make and decorate a cake like this on my... Read more

  Posted on 04 December 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• Tavern Feasting in Bristol, Christmas 1788

  

  As well as turtle imported into Bristol from the West Indies, 'British Turtle' is listed on this fascinating 1788 Christmas bill of fare from a Bristol tavern. Read more

  Posted on 29 November 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• Stephen Hales's Syllabub Machine

  

  Dr Stephen Hales FRS (1677-1761)Many years ago while working on a paper on the subject of syllabub, I came across a reference to an ingenious invention by a... Read more

  Posted on 08 September 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• A Forked Stick for the Cookold

  

  'A bean for the kinge, a pease for the queen, a cloave for the knave, a forked stick for the cookold and a ragg for the slutt. Read more

  Posted on 04 September 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• One Family and Empire Christmas Pudding

  

  The King's Christmas Pudding made from the 1927 recipe published by the Empire Marketing BoardTowards the end of our previous post The Pudding King we touched o... Read more

  Posted on 30 August 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• Dining with Edward VII at Polesden Lacey

  

  Menu for a dinner served at Polesden Lacey on 6th June 1909. The guest of honour was King Edward VII. An interpretation of this menu can be found towards the en... Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• Dining with Empresses, Cardinals (and Vermeer)

  

  One of two sugar paste pavilions I made for an 'evocation' of Empress Maria Theresa's Feast of the Oath of Allegiance for the exhibition Imperial Privilege:... Read more

  Posted on 21 August 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• A Jubilee Ox Roast

  

  The first slices of rump cut from the ox after thirty hours roasting - served on an 1887 ox plateIn a previous posting about food for royal jubilees, I describe... Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• More Viagra In Your Marmalade Sir?

  

  Or would you prefer it in your pie or cake?Orchis italica - a possible candiate for the satyrion of antiquity?In my last two posts I described some historical... Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• Spanish Paps and Steeple Creams

  

  Or The Wobbliest Jelly In The UniverseA 1655 piramidis cream garnished with pine nuts ('Pine Apple blown')During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries one... Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY

• Culinary Slapstick

  

  Bacon and eggs made entirely with jelly from a 1769 recipeI recently had a conversation with a television producer about some of the joke recipes included at th... Read more

  Posted on 10 June 2012 CULTURE, FOOD & DRINK, HISTORY