Regency Food

Everyone loves food so it’s no surprise the Regency was brimming with lots of tasty and unique dishes. In this post, we look at a typical day’s menu in the Regency period and discuss all the delicious food Regency folk ate! Get ready to get hungry!

A typical day’s menu in the Regency

• Breakfast, served at about 9 am in the morning would include toast, rolls, cheese with hot chocolate, coffee or tea (Evans).
• Lunch didn’t really exist back then though refreshments were served in the middle of the day and included cold meats, sandwiches and fruits (Black & Le Faye, 1995).



Regency family at dinner

• Dinner was usually served at about 5 pm in the evening and in the upper classes was usually made up of at least two courses, not including dessert. A list of possible food you would find, adapted from The Jane Austen Cookbook (Black & Le Faye, 1995):

1.      First Course: Turtle Soup, Vegetables, Salmon, Fowls, Spinage, Bacon, Mutton, Beef, Lobster

2.      Second Course: Ragout (stew), Goose, Venison, Pastry, Celery, Macaroni, Peas

3.      Dessert: Nuts, Cakes, Sweetmeats, Fruits, Custard, Pudding, Syllabub (whipped cream lightly mixed with wine), Ice Cream

• Tea: Served one hour after dinner: includes pastries, cakes

• Supper: At 11pm at night and usually came with cold meats and wine

Regency Desserts

Different types of wine was normally served with every course no one drank water as it was considered unsafe and fresh milk was usually contaminated (Pool, 1993).

Real life regency menu!

How did people get their ingredients?

There was no such thing as refrigeration in the Regency which meant food spoiled fast. So housewives or kitchen maids would a lot of time in the summer salting and pickling food so it would last longer (Black & Le Faye, 1995).

Ingredients was either grown in one’s own garden, hunted as a sport by gaming gentlemen, imported (thought this was expensive) or more commonly bought at a food market (Olsen, 2005).

The British Butcher

Just For Fun:

Try making your own Regency ragout and syllabub dessert with these two simple recipes! Click on the pictures to get links!

Regency ragout

Lemon Syllabub

Sources:

(1995). Social and Domestic Life in Jane Austen's time. In M. Black, & D. Le Faye, The Jane Austen Cookbook (pp. 8-18). Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

(2005). ACQUISITION. In K. Olsen, Cooking with Jane Austen (pp. 1-6). Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Evans, D. L. (n.d.). Celtnet Georgian/Regency Period Recipes and Cookery, Home Page. Retrieved May 17, 2012, from Celtnet Recipes: http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/georgian-recipes.php

Pool, D. (1993). Sir, Can I Have Some More. In What Jane Austen Knew and Charles Dickens Ate. New York: Touchstone.