This blog post was written based on research during the ‘Interpreting Kiplin for 400’ project, a National Lottery Heritage Fund project with thanks to National Lottery players. This post is part of a collection of posts on various themes being published during December 2024.

Almond milk had been known since the Crusaders brought back the method in Medieval times and was still popular in the 18th century, not as a substitute for dairy but used in desserts such as blancmange or moulded ‘marchpane’ (marzipan) shapes. Hannah Glasse gives a novel recipe for a thickened almond cream formed into the shape of a hedgehog with slivered almonds for the bristles. White soup made of white meat thickened with almonds was a favourite party food served at balls such as the one given by Mr Bingley in Jane Austen’s novel ‘Pride & Prejudice’. Almonds were also served whole along with fresh and dried fruits in the dessert course and used for cakes and puddings such as Bakewell pudding, Bride cakes and Twelfth Night cakes. 

With the establishment of the East India Company in the 17th century, retiring nabobs brought back not only their wealth but also their tastes in food to 18th century England. Some brought cooks and servants who could find the spices they needed in chemists’ shops and provision merchants. This led to the English version of curry – the ‘devil’, a mixture of mustard, cayenne and curry powder, thought more suitable to masculine tastes. Hannah Glasse’s 1747 recipe for ‘Curry the India Way’ is thought to be the first curry recipe in English. 

Jellies were not subject to a strict distinction between sweet and savoury. Originally dishes of meat or fish might be set in jelly, flavoured with wine and spices. The jellies were served with the first or second, courses which were mainly savoury. They gradually became more associated with the sweeter side of the meal, shaped and decorated. The fashion for separate ‘banqueting’ rooms gave them greater importance – guests would retire to a separate room or building to listen to music or other entertainment and enjoy fresh and preserved fruits, gingerbread, moulded sugar and marchpane (marzipan), sweetmeats and glistening jellies. The jelly might be prepared by boiling up calves’ feet, clarified with egg white and strained with flavourings added – nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ambergris, musk wine and lemon juice. Soft fruits were added, or almonds, cream and rosewater. Even without the banqueting house, the jellies added glamour to more modest dishes. Sometimes spiced and coloured jellies were eaten with meats, just as we might eat redcurrant or cranberry sauce with turkey today. Elaborate jelly moulds in stoneware, creamware, copper or tin raised the jellies to great works of art in fashionable designs including towers and temples, chequerboards or baskets to contain fruit. 

Potatoes were not particularly popular among the gentry. Indeed in 1748 the French government banned their cultivation as it was believed they caused leprosy!  Monsieur Parmentier was responsible for the growth of popularity of the humble ‘spud’ and today ‘Parmentier’ in the name of a dish signifies a basis of potatoes.  Pasta however had been on tables for much longer – the first English recipe for it dates to 1390. However as ‘macaroni’ became a term of abuse for foppish young men returning from the Grand Tour, the chef William Verral used a French term – macaroon – (baked with cream and parmesan) but describes it as like vermicelli rather than a sweet biscuit. Hannah Glasse recommended home-made ‘vermicelli’ and suggested baking it with eggs or bone marrow and flavouring with lemon, nutmeg or rosewater. Other cooks saw it as a savoury ingredient in ox-cheek soup, or ‘vermicelli’ soup of veal, mutton, ham and vegetables. 

Sugar had become more regularly imported during the previous century and could be used to preserve fruits by turning them into jams, pastes, marmalades, or to candy roots, flowers or fruit to make them available throughout the year. Tarts and pies made from fresh or preserved fruit were decorated with pastry leaves and flowers and often formed part of the second course with lighter meat and fish dishes while the fruits on their own would be served at the end of the meal. Cooks might make verjuice from crab apples, while quinces (which had to be cooked) might be made into jelly. The ubiquitous apple could be used for pasties, dumplings, fritters, pies, tarts and puddings – once cooked, the apples were softer and easier to eat for those suffering from poor teeth.  Fresh fruit was very popular among society people as it showed they had the means of growing hard-to-produce fruit such as peaches, apricots, grapes or figs.  

Bread and butter was once an essential part of afternoon tea. When Thomas Twining opened ‘Tom’s Coffee House’ in 1706, bread and butter was the only food he offered.  In the early days of Ranalagh Gardens and Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, tea, coffee and bread and butter were included in the admission price. These pleasure gardens later lost their innocence and became less fashionable, closing in the early 19th century. Tea with bread and butter moved indoors and was included in the afternoon tea  – hostesses were advised to have ‘plenty of it’. The term ‘bread and butter’ referring to one’s finances was first recorded in 1732 in a letter from Jonathan Swift. Its cousin, the Wigg, had disappeared entirely. Wiggs were a type of enriched tea bread or bread bun usually with the addition of caraway seeds and possibly other spices too.  18th-century Yorkshire was praised for its diet, in particular its wheat and rye ‘maslin’, a medieval word for bread made of mixed grains, and for oats which could cope with the cold and wet fields of the north. Barley fell out of favour as a bread because of its association with poverty. 

Home brewing – Hannah Glasse gives recipes for both birch and elder wine.  Jane Austen’s friend Martha Lloyd was known for her Spruce Beer – made from the new tips of the fir branches. The Austen ladies made fruit wines and mead.  A drink known as ‘Saloop’ was made from the tubers of orchids – the root was ground and dried and mixed with hot milk or water and sugar. It was cheaper than tea or coffee despite its exotic origin and thus found favour among the working classes. French and southern European wines were becoming more readily available – Georgians particularly enjoyed sweetened or fortified wines such as sack, port, sherry, madeira or malmsey. Mead and metheglin (mead spiced with herbs and spices) were popular but becoming old fashioned and as they could not be mass produced were available to those who had estates which could provide the necessary honey and botanicals.  

1718 saw the earliest published recipe (in this country) for ice cream – but with no churning involved, it would have been a rather solid frozen block.  Hannah Glasse offered a recipe which did involve churning producing a smoother texture. The Italians and French improved the process, and around 1765 the first shop opened selling Italian ice creams – but only to wealthier patrons! Confectioners developed more flavours – bergamot, jasmine, green and black tea, coffee, liqueurs, elderflower, fruit and nuts. Pewter moulds were used to make ice cream in the shape of fruit, vegetables and flowers which could be painted with vegetable dyes. Homes with their own ice houses soon exploited this new fashion. 

(1187 words) 

(Published Dec 2024) 

Find out more about the ‘Interpreting Kiplin 400’ Project during our Open Days on 13th, 14th and 15th December 2024. BOOK HERE

Source Material: 

Volger, P. 2021. Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain. Atlantic Books, UK. 

Glasse, H. 1747. The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy by A Lady.published by Hannah Glasse, England 

Woodforde, J. 1978. The Diary of a Country Parson 1758 – 1802. Ed. J. Beresford.Oxford University Press,  Oxford, England. 

Raffald, E. 1769. The Experienced English Housekeeper. Published by Elizabeth Raffald, England 

Wikipedia – Service a la Francais: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_%C3%A0_la_fran%C3%A7aise