Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lucy Worsley, who has hosted numerous amazing tv specials, hosted one on Victoria and Albert’s wedding and went into great detail about the good and how it was prepared. Highly recommend watching!

+1 I adore all of her documentaries!

I also love the Supersizers series with Giles Coren and Sue Perkins. It's all about the different foods people enjoyed from the various periods of history. They are so fun to watch!

+1 I was going to recommend these too. Lucy Worsley also had a great one about Tudor feasts and we watched the Victorian Farm series with our kids.

Anyone has a good easy and amazing old old old recipe that we could try and compare notes?

RE: the above.. oh that language...

Recipe from Delights for Ladies by Sir Hugh Platt, published in 1594:

Dip a rose that is neither in the bud, nor over-blowne, in a sirup, consisting of sugar, double refined, and Rose-water boiled to his full height, then open the leaves one by one with a fine smooth bodkin either of bone or wood; and presently if it be a hot sunny day, and whilest the sunne is in some good height, lay them on papers in the sunne, or else dry them with some gentle heat in a close roome, heating the room before you set them in, or in an oven upon papers, in pewter dishes, and then put them up in glasses; and keepe them in dry cupboards neere the fire. You may prove this preserving with sugar-candy instead of sugar if you please.

This is so fascinating.. also something from back then..




Candied petals

1 pasteurized egg white beaten with a little water (if you’re concerned about using raw eggs, you can use simple syrup or prepared meringue powder)
Granulated sugar
Fragrant rose petals, well rinsed and patted dry
A small watercolor brush


Petals in sugar
Rose Sugar Ingredients and Supplies
Fragrant organic rose petals, well rinsed and patted dry
Sugar
A clean, pretty jar, such as a Ball Kilner rubber-sealed jar


INSTRUCTIONS


https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/the-old-fashioned-way-sugared-roses/

I give you.. Victorian times sugar safe!.. Yes, sugar was kept under lock at homes back then. SO precious. So expensive.

Victorian sugar box:

Anonymous wrote:I binged Call the Midwife, and there was like, one season where they ALWAYS talked about the tea being well-sugared (to comfort the person getting it). Like, too much. It annoyed me.

Even though the food they ate at Nonnatus House looked pretty bad I always wanted some.

Well PP you need a bit of context here. Back in those days Tea was VERY expensive, it had to be imported, you know that, but sugar was consider also a gold. It used to be LOCKED in a box so the servants would not still it. It was consider a treat of the highest class and if you gave or offered someone, it was a sign of great respect. And yes, it was the more the better.. and also as a cure for many problems and clearly
it worked.

Think of it as placebo. That is why sugar worked because now it is considered that the sugar in placebo actually helps with many processes and actually cures some stuff. So it is not exactly placebo.

I binged Call the Midwife, and there was like, one season where they ALWAYS talked about the tea being well-sugared (to comfort the person getting it). Like, too much. It annoyed me.

Even though the food they ate at Nonnatus House looked pretty bad I always wanted some.

Anonymous wrote:I have a Monticello cookbook. Haven't tried anything yet, but it's also got a lot of history in it.

Sounds charming.

Anonymous wrote:I read this wrong. I was thinking this was good you like to eat on your period. Oh well, maybe another time someone will start that - I would discuss

\

Go ahead PP... we can relate...

I read this wrong. I was thinking this was good you like to eat on your period. Oh well, maybe another time someone will start that - I would discuss

There was a great tv program about this a few years ago in the UK (where I'm from, I watched it there so don't know how easy it would be to find here) - Heston's Feasts. It was a couple of series with an amazing chef, Heston Blumenthal, showing him creating amazing historic meals from different times - medieval, victorian, etc. Really enjoyable, and if you get to go to London after the pandemic, you should eat at one of his restaurants called Dinner, which serves some of the foods from the show and is all based on historic dishes (famously, the Meat Fruit)

The Great British Baking Show has some episodes where the challenge is to make some old-timey kind of cake or meat pie.

Putting in a plug here for Korean dramas. The food is amazing in almost every one I've watched.

I have a Monticello cookbook. Haven't tried anything yet, but it's also got a lot of history in it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lucy Worsley, who has hosted numerous amazing tv specials, hosted one on Victoria and Albert’s wedding and went into great detail about the good and how it was prepared. Highly recommend watching!

+1 I adore all of her documentaries!

I also love the Supersizers series with Giles Coren and Sue Perkins. It's all about the different foods people enjoyed from the various periods of history. They are so fun to watch!

Lucy Worsley poster from above. Agreed. Adore all her documentaries!!! I think the Tudor Christmas one also went into food, but I may be mixing that up with the Royal Palaces.

I can’t WAIT to watch Supersizers! Thanks for the recommendation. In addition to enjoying Sue Perkins on the Great British Bake Show I really liked her travel documentaries.

If you like Sue Perkins (and Giles), they have another series called the Good Life. It's the two of them trying to live the life of urban farmers following a popular sitcom in the UK in the 70s (?)

Take a look at these series from BBC, it's about historic farm periods but there are a lot of food related content sprinkled throughout (usually presented by Ruth, who is the historian of British social and domestic life in the show.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_historic_farm_series

Anonymous wrote:That picture gives me hope.. they lived through the Spanish Flu and yet here they are..
Life came back to normal quite soon and lasted another 100 years...

That’s just their household though?