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.

Create your own Regency Hairdo!

Ladies, you're going to have fun with this one! 

torrinpaige posted a great video introducing how to get that classic Regency look!

I love this style!

Here's a great picture from Joanna, blogger of To a Pretty Life blog (http://toaprettylife.blogspot.com) rocking those curly tendrils around her face.

Regency Hairstyles

As I mentioned in my very first post, Regency men and women's clothing was inspired by the Greek and Roman classical style. This also applied to hair.

Women's Hair:

Women’s hair was kept simple and natural during the Regency. During the day was worn up with ringlets framing the face and some women even had their hair cropped short (Sullivan, 2007).

Regency woman. Note the ringlets framing her face and the knot at the back of her head.

At night, hair was decorated with silk ribbons, diadems (a tiara-like crown), ornamental combs and beads (Sherrow, 2006). Bandeaux (similar to a cloth headband) were also popular and some women even wore turbans in the evening if they had short hair, making sure to curl the hair that was left out (Brown, 2008).

Regency woman with turban

Because curling irons weren’t invented yet, women used paper strips or pieces of cloth to curl their hair. They would wrap the cloth around sections of wet hair and leave it to set over night (MacDonald, 1971).

Men

Men’s hair, unlike the previous period, was kept short, layered, natural and free from hair power used in the previous period (Byrde, 2008). Still, older men continued to wear hair powder and would be ridiculed for their old-fashioned tastes.

One of the most popular styles was achieved by combing the hair forward to create a wild, windblown look (complete with sideburns!) popularised by romantic fiction, but some conservative men would comb their hair backwards and have it neat and tidy (Reeves-Brown & Reeves-Brown, 1997-2003). 

Classic Regency style

Men even curled their hair as curls were so much in fashion! This style of hair combed forward was meant to resemble the Roman Emperor Titus and was actually known as the Titus (Between a Gentleman and His Tailor, 2006).

Notice the how the hair is combed forward

Sources

(2006). Adornment, Ornamental. In V. Sherrow, Encyclopedia of Hair (p. 3). Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Between a Gentleman and His Tailor. (2006). Retrieved May 4, 2012, from The Georgian Index: http://www.georgianindex.net/tailors/tailor.html

Brown, L. (2008). Lisa's Guide to Helping 21st Century Women Dress for a Regency Ball. Retrieved May 4, 2012, from Country Dances of Rochester: http://www.rochestercontra.com/WomensBallClothing.pdf

Byrde, P. (2008). Jane Austen Fashion. Ludlow: Moonrise Press.

MacDonald, S. S. (1971, November). Curling Hair the Old-Fashioned Way: Paper Curls. Retrieved May 4, 2012, from Mother Earth News: http://www.motherearthnews.com/do-it-yourself/curling-hair-zmaz71ndzgoe.aspx#ixzz1X7aKOK3U

Reeves-Brown, J., & Reeves-Brown, D. (1997-2003). A panalopy of HAIRSTYLES sported by gentlemen. Retrieved May 4, 2012, from Jessamyn's Regency Costume Companion: http://www.songsmyth.com/menhair.html

Sullivan, M. C. (2007). The Jane Austen Handbook. Philadelphia: Quirk Books.