Food History

I need to do you an index to take you through the Regency year. I keep meaning to do it and life keeps catching up. I rather suspect I ought to do you that index in the next few days. I now have a pressing reason.

What’s my pressing reason? And why do I suddenly sound like a character from Cold Comfort Farm? I really don’t know the answer to the latter. Books overtake the mind with no apparent reason.

Today we had our first meeting for Conflux 5. The committee has asked for another banquet or feast for October 2008 and apparently the attendees have asked for another banquet or feast and so I have been deputed to design another menu for said banquet or feast. This time you get to see the process from day #1, since today is day #1.

I rather guessed the request would happen, because I read many webbed reports of Conflux (you can find quite a few of them listed here) and the banquet was significantly enjoyed. I ought to have felt smug, instead I sat down and made a list of possible regions and dates for the next banquet, just in case.

In an ideal world, we ought to have made our decisions aided by fine wines and then we should have tossed coins to decide between my topics. Instead, we ate camembert and crackers and contemplated such issues as costuming and sexiness of period/place. A couple of additional topics were added to my list, but almost as quickly jettisoned. In fact, after a very short time, everyone agreed on three possible cuisines. We sorted them in order of preference and I was sent off to work out how easy it would be to work out a menu for our sexiest and most costumable (since naturally it was the one that fell least within my food history knowledge).

I got home and cheated totally. I emailed Janet, who knows menus. She solved my problems almost instantly. I’m saved three days work. Right now, I’m waiting to see if the Chair approves my solutions and if I can start to talk about the theme.

I may hear tomorrow, or I may hear next week. I may be restricted from naming the subject of this delectable menu until the first progress report goes out. That’s the trouble with instant results: they still need processing. I’m sorry about you having to wait. To help you get through this difficult period, let me give you those scrummy recipes we didn’t use for the Regency banquet.

Negus

Make a syrup by boiling for 5 minutes:
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups water
4 dozen whole cloves
6 sticks cinnamon
3 crushed nutmegs
Peel of 3 lemons, 2 oranges

Strain syrup. Add 4 cups hot lemon or lime juice. Heat well and add 4 bottles Madeira or port.

Serve very hot with slices of lemon.

Windsor Syllabub

1 bottle of sweet sherry (750 ml)
6 dessertspoons raw sugar
1 ½ teaspoons nutmeg
1 teaspoon of cloves
Whisk
Add 1200 ml milk and 300 ml cream. Mix well and serve.