Since we had a short video about 18th and early 19th C dining last week, now seemed like good time to bring back this post on what foods were available in July during the Regency era.
 |
| The Greengrocer |
From The Epicure’s Almanack July Alimentary Calendar:
~~~
The
heats of the season now impose the necessity of occasionally
substituting a light vegetable diet for the more solid gratification of
animal food ... Cauliflowers, artichokes, green-peas, French-beans,
Windsor* and other garden beans, frequently form a conspicuous part of
the family dinner, to which butcher’s meat, in moderate quantities, may
be said to serve merely as an auxiliary stimulant. Ham, bacon, and
tongues, as well as ducks and geese, are the most seasonable viands for
this purpose ... On festive occasions venison and turtle retain their
pre-eminent station at the tables of the opulent, where also the fawn
... forms an elegant dish, when roasted whole and served up with rich
gravy. Veal, having now been fed on milk, in its richest state, is
peculiarly fine and well flavoured; but care should be taken that it be
delivered fresh to the cook, as it is more liable to suffer from the
heat of the weather and from flies than any other kind of meat. Ragouts
of sweetbreads, oxpalates, lambs’ bits, fat livers, and cocks’-combs,
are among the light dishes introduced at superior tables; where also
various preparations of curry afford a delectable repast to those who
have acquired a taste for this Indian diet....
... a plenteous and varied dessert presents itself at this season; consisting of pines, melons, peaches, cherries, grapes, currants, gooseberries and raspberries, as well as early apples and pears. Fruit is certainly most salubrious in hot weather; but, if the opinion be well founded that it does most good when taken before dinner, the dessert ought to take place of that spurious meal called lunch, which, being usually made of animal food, too often banishes the appetite irrecoverably for the day.
~~~
*broad beansExcerpted from The Epicure's Almanack: Eating and Drinking in Regency London (The Original 1815 Guidebook).
Image: James Pollard, The Greengrocer (ca 1819) courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Clicking on the image will enlarge it. Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.
One of us -- 
1 comments:
I particularly like the description, "that spurious meal called lunch."
Not having done much research into the early 19th century, I wouldn't like to comment on the diet here listed, but at least in the 18th century, poorer (rural) people had relatively little access to meat, and would, besides grains, have eaten many more of the vegetables that the rich reserved for "summer fare." Sometimes, it's healthier not to have too much money! :-)
Post a Comment