Tag Archives: georgian recipes

Flower Ice Creams

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In Jane Austen’s day, vanilla wasn’t a common flavor, flower ice cream  flavors were. When we think of common ice cream flavors today, our minds usually go to vanilla. Back in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, vanilla (which is the fruit of the vanilla orchid—but you probably already knew that…) was pretty uncommon. Far more common flavors were floral ones, including jasmine, orange flower, violet, elder flowers and rose. (Quinzio, 2002) The flavors do sound … Continue reading →

Vegetable Ice Creams

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When it comes to ice cream, innovation is tradition, even to the point where vegetable ice cream sounds like a good idea   Ice cream lovers fall into two camps: those who love experimenting with innovative, exotic flavors and the purists, who remain loyal to vanilla.  Wild experimentation is nothing new, it can be traced back to the earliest ice cream cooks. While I’m not averse to experimenting and trying new things, at no time, … Continue reading →

The Chelsea Bun: Regency Era Cinnabon?

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I always love getting to ‘dress the set’ as it were of my books with bits and bobs from the era. Food is often one of those bits; the sights and smells and tastes of a place are so evocative, aren’t they? So I often find myself in a deep dive looking for what my characters would have been eating and what it would smell and taste like.  In my last book, one of my … Continue reading →

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 →