INVITATION TO A FUNERAL
a tale of Restoration intrigue by
Molly Brown
Food and drink
Saffron, imported pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and cinammon were all
used to flavour dishes. They each had medicinal uses and were
burned as fumigants. Later sugar became an established item, the
odour of coffee replaced that of cinammon, and tobacco smoke
(especially after the Plague) was establishing itself as a
universal disinfectant. By 1674, spices were declining, and were
rarely used with meat.
Potatoes were disliked so much that in a book called Systema
Agriculurae (published in 1669) there were recipes for using the
potato in bread, paste, puddings and custard, in order to
disguise its taste as much as possible.
Some Restoration recipes
Ale
To make Ale to drink within a week. Turn it into a Vessel which will
hold Eight Gallons, and when it hath done working, ready to bottle, put
in some Ginger sliced, and an Orange stuck with cloves, and cut here
and there with a Knife, and a pound and a half of Sugar, and with a
stick stir it well together, and it will work afresh; when it hath done
working, stop it close, and let it stand till it be clear, then bottle
it up, and put a Lump of Sugar into every Bottle, and then stop it
close, and knock down the Corks, and turn the Boles the Bottom upwards,
and it will be fit to drink in a Weeks time.
Hashed Meat
From The Queene-Like Closet or Rich Cabinet by Hannah Wolley:
To make hashed meat. Take a leg or shoulder of mutton, lay it
down to the fire, and as it doth roast, cut it off in little bits, and
let it lie in the Pan, baste it with Claret wine and butter, and a
little Salt, and put two or three Shelots in your Pan, when you have
cut off so much as you can, lay the bones into a Dish over a
Chafingdish of Coals, and put your Meat to it with the Liquor, and two
Anchovies, cover it, and let it stew a while, when it is enough, put in
some Capers, serve it in with Sippets. Garnish your dish with Olives
and Capers, and Samphire; thus you may do with any cold meat between
two dishes.
The Duke of York's Favourite Sauce
Pepys's Diary, 10 February 1669:
Here he dined [The Duke of York] and did
mightily magnify his sauce which he did then eat with everything,
and said it was the best universal sauce in the world - it being
taught him by the Spanish ambassador - made of some parsley and a
dry toast, beat in a mortar together with vinegar, salt, and a
little pepper. He eats with flesh or fowl or fish. And then he
did now mightily commend some new sort of wine lately found out,
called Navarr wine; which I taste, and is I think good wine; but
I did like better the notion of the sauce and by and by did taste
it, and liked it mightily.
Fricasse of Oysters
From The Queene-Like Closet or Rich Cabinet by Hannah Wolley:
To make a fricasse of Oysters. Take a quart of Oysters and put them
into a frying pan with some white Wine & their own liquor, a little
Salt, and some whole spice, and two or three Bay Leaves, when you think
they be enough, lay them is a dish well warmed, then add to their
Liquor two Anchovies, some Butter, and the yolks of four Eggs; Garnish
your Dish with Barberries.
Misers
To make Misers for children to eat in Afternoons in Summer. Take
half a pint of good small beer, two spoonfuls of Sack, the Crum
of half a penny Manchet two handfuls of Currans washed clean and
dried, and a little of grated-Nutmeg, and a little Sugar, so give
it to them cold.
Candied Flowers
To Candy Flowers. Boil some Rosewater and Sugar together, then
put in your Flowers, being very dry, and boil them a little, then
strew in some fine Sugar over them, and turn them, and boil them
a little more, then take them from the fire, and strew some more
Sugar over them, then take them out and lay them to dry, and open
them, and strew Sugar over them; they will dry in a few hours in
a hot day.
To keep Flowers all the year. Take any sort of pretty Flowers you
can get, and have in readiness some Rosewater made very slippery
by laying Gum-Arabick therein. Dip your Flowers very well, and
swing it out again, and stick them in a sieve to dry in the Sun,
some other of them you may dust over with Flower, and some with
searced Sugar, after you have wetted them, and so dry them.
Either of them will be very fine, but those with Sugar will not
keep so well as the other; they are good to set forth Banquets
and garnish dishes, and will look very fresh, and have their
right smell.
Plague Water
Plague Water. Take Rosemary, Red Balm, Burrage, Angelica,
Carduus, Celandine, Dragon, Featherfew, Wormwood, Pennyroyal,
Elecampane roots, Mugwort, Bural, Tormential, Egrimony, Sage,
Sorrel, of each of these one handful, weighed weight for weight,
put al these in an earthen Pot, with four quarts of white wine,
cover them close, and let them stand eight or nine days in a cool
Cellar, then distil it in a Glass still.
Chocolate
From John Chamberlayne, The Manner of Making Coffee, Tea, and
Chocolate... with their Vertues, 1685:
So great is the number of those persons, who at present do drink
of Chocolate, that not only in the West Indies, whence this Drink
has its Original and beginning, but also in Spain, Italy,
Flanders, etc... and lately much used in England, as Diet and
Phisick with the Gentry... We in England usually boyl the
Chocolate with the water, and some to make it more dainty, though
less wholesome, use therein Eggs and Milk.
A new innovation
Pepys' Diary, 9 March 1669:
...Here, which I never did before, I drank a glass,
of a pint I believe, at one draught, of the juice of oranges or
whose peel they make comfits, and there they drink the juice as
wine, with sugar, and it is very fine drink; but it being new, I
was doubtful whether it might not do me hurt.
A bill of fare for gentlemen's houses of lesser quality
How to make a cup of coffee
The diet at St. Bartholomew's Hospital
Other lifestyle pages
Restoration fashion
The many loves of Charles II
(c) 1996, 1997 Molly Brown