Regency England Research - post 6 - Meal times and food - Dining the Regency Way

I touched on mornings being a bit ‘funny’ when I discussed morning calls which happened around 2pm. Meal times therefore also had a different pattern.

Of all the practices, their breakfast may be amongst my favourite. Cake and hot chocolate were popular amongst the rich. Yum! I move to bring this back!!

But it wasn’t eaten immediately upon rising. Folk would often get up, busy themselves with correspondence or some such activity and then have breakfast around 10 o’clock. 

Please note it wasn’t really until the Edwardians when the sumptuous breakfast in bed was served.

Because of this, lunch wasn’t really a thing. Nuncheon was slowly being introduced to keep the ladies going as dinner was later, around 6 to 8pm depending on what their plans were for the evening.

Dinner was the biggest meal of the day and contained many dishes.

And then a supper may be served around 10pm at the end of a ball.

Of course, one had to wear suitable attire for each of these meals.

 But what food did they eat?

Well, even the wealthy didn’t have access to supermarkets. Their food was still very seasonal, and often came from their own estates, particularly when in the country (as opposed to the city).

There’s an excellent list of seasonal food selection here. The men’s sport of hunting could bring home some supplies, but this wasn’t really their aim. They had gamekeepers and farmers for supplying food.

Herbs and vegetables, even fruit was grown in the kitchen garden. If you’ve ever visited an old manor house, you will probably have walked through one of these. They were functional as well as ornamental.

There’s a very detailed list of all things food and kitchen here. And some recipes. There’s a Pinterest page if you want to see what some of this looked like.

They had some very odd ideas of yumminess. Cockscomb and I’m sure I read somewhere that sucking out a chicken’s brains through its eye sockets was considered a delicacy; I couldn’t bring myself to write that into my book thought – bleurgh! Gelatin and aspic featured quite a bit – jelly type things, but as savoury as well as dessert courses.

Don’t worry; a lot of their meals were based around meat and fish, much as we know it. And ices were being introduced too (more sorbet type than the wonder that is ice cream).

All of this was washed down with drinks. Water, of course was there, but it wasn’t exactly Evian (other brands of bottled water are available).

Wines were common, but the ladies tended to stick to sweeter varieties, such as Madeira. There’s a good drinks blog post here, which also has links at the bottom for recipes.

I think I’ve already touched on the topic of dinner parties and hosting. Seating arrangements weren’t necessarily what you’d imagine. Superiority took precedence, but it wasn’t strictly boy girl order.

Following dinner, the ladies would retire to the drawing room whilst men had brandy and… well, there’s even an article on smoking as cigars weren’t strictly the thing. Perhaps a cheroot.

Bit of short but sweet post on dining, but there’s several good links which go into more detail included.

Always in love and light,

TL 

~ who wrote a Regency romance