Tag Archives: Food and Drink

Making Drinking Chocolate the Regency Way

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Making drinking chocolate in the regency era was a time consuming, labor intensive process, beyond the means of many, particularly if started from dried cacao nibs.  Because anything induced by chocolate MUST be a good idea, its time for another chocolate-induced dive down the research rabbit hole! Just to refresh your memory a bit, during the regency era, there were three particular luxury drinks: tea, coffee and chocolate. (I talked about tea recently, you can … Continue reading →

Regency Christmas Traditions: Black Butter

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 Black butter was another traditional Christmastide treat. Jane Austen mentioned black butter in a letter to her sister. One might infer that she liked it on the whole, but was rather unimpressed with this particular batch of it. December 27, 1808:The widgeon (a kind of duck) and the preserved ginger were as delicious as one could wish. But as to our black butter, do not decoy anybody to Southampton by such a lure, for it … Continue reading →

Yorkshire Christmas Pie

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I have often said the more things change the more they stay the same. Perusing period cookbooks brings this to mind all the time. Between just finishing up to Christmas novella, where the Christmas feast features prominently and getting ready for Thanksgiving ourselves, I’ve had my nose in a number of cookbooks, both historical and modern, and came across this gem recently. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the modern Tur-duck-en, a turkey … Continue reading →

Not a typo—I really meant Nuncheon

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On more than one occasion I’ve had a well-meaning reader point out to me a ‘typo’ that wasn’t. I’ll be the first to admit, my typing is less than perfect and typos get by me sometimes. But every once in awhile, I actually typed a weird looking word right.  The word in question is a weird one indeed. It looks like a modern word we use, sort of sounds like that word, seems like it … Continue reading →

Don’t serve your coffee from a chocolate pot!

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What makes a chocolate pot different from a teapot or coffee pot? Because anything induced by chocolate MUST be a good idea, its time for another chocolate-induced dive down the research rabbit hole! Just to refresh your memory a bit, during the regency era, there were three particular luxury drinks: tea, coffee and chocolate. (I talked about tea recently, you can find that HERE. The first chocolate article is HERE.) They were in high demand, but expensive … Continue reading →