Pride and Prejudice - Having a Ball

Some Background on the Ball Supper in the BBC2 Documentary

Although the silver and other tableware here is accurate for the period, this is more of an 'evocation', than a recreation of the Netherfield ball supper. But hopefully it does offer some insight into the sophistication of dining in the Regency period. Photo by Andrew Hayes Watkins. ©Optomen Television

Those of you who regularly read this blog will know that I am frequently rather harsh about the lack of accuracy in food and table settings in period movies and television dramas. Rarely have I seen any recreations of this kind that have really impressed me. Though of course I constantly have to remind myself that these productions are not pretending to be anything more than dramatised settings of fiction, so the food and table setup are props for the cast to perform around. Therefore I suppose it is a bit sad of me to look for detailed historical accuracy in a fictional context where it is unlikely to be found. However, when the format of the production is a documentary, a medium which attempts a true reflection of reality, it is a different matter. On British television in recent years, there have been a number of documentaries which have attempted to examine the history of our food. In most cases these recreations have been worse than those of the period dramas. I am not going to give any examples, but some of these productions have really been wasted opportunities and I have frequently been embarrassed by my own involvement in them when I see the final edit. I believe that a more intelligent approach to food in history has the potential for really exciting - and yes, even more entertaining television than risk-averse commissioning editors realise. 

So how you might ask, can this sort of thing be done in a more revelatory and accurate way? Well the first essential factor is to work with a production team who really listen and understand these issues. When I was first invited to create the food and table for BBC2's documentary Pride and Prejudice Having a Ball, I had an exploratory meeting with the producer/director Ian Denyer. For the first time in my long career, I found myself talking to a television professional who was singing from the same hymn sheet as myself. Ian and his colleague Sarah Durdin Robertson were really keen to portray the same level of historical accuracy in their production that I aim for in my museum exhibitions. They too wanted to avoid the tabloid 'Carry on Banqueting' approach that has too often been the standard fare when it comes to the treatment of food history on British television.

Silver specialist Christopher Hartop and his wife Juliet with a practice layout of the Regency silver at three o clock in the afternoon on the filming day. Ten hours later, they were still up, washing all this incredible stuff in the kitchen sink until 4.00am in the morning! Christopher and Juliet organise decorative arts special events, including one called The Art of Dining. Find out more at Christopher's website.

The second essential factor is to set the table with authentic equipage rather than the generic art department 'props' that appear in just about every production, even the big budget Hollywood ones. To make this possible I called upon the good offices of my friend and colleague Christopher Hartop, one of the world's leading scholars of historic silverware. Christopher miraculously sourced a large assemblage of authentic Regency tableware, making this production the very first to recreate a period table on British television with a high degree of veracity. The only disappointment was that the food could not be prepared in a period kitchen, though I made up for this in using a range of original equipment, especially in the preparation of some of the sweet dishes.

Confections from the Netherfield dessert you will have missed if you blinked when watching the programme! All designed for consuming with sweet wines. The Prince of Wales biscuits in the foreground, emblazoned with the iconic feathers emblem of the Regent, were made from Joseph Bell's 1817 recipe. The pink sweets are Pistachio Prawlongs from Frederick Nutt's 1789 The Complete Confectioner, a key work of this period. The plate in the background contains spice biscuits, wafers, sweetmeat biscuits, toad in a hole biscuits, millefruit biscuits and filbert biscuits, all also made from Nutt's recipes. Nowadays, we dunk biscuits into tea, but at this period they were used for dipping into the unctuously sweet wines of the dessert course.

Ian told me the aim of the programme was to accurately recreate the Netherfield ball from Jane Austen's 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, including the production and serving of the ball supper, which would be my job. In her beautifully measured, but succinct prose, the author offers just a few clues about the nature of this meal, leaving much to the reader's imagination. But if our twenty-first century imaginations have been nourished by cliché-ridden, stereotypical concepts of what food and dining was like in the late Georgian period, how can a modern reader visualise such an occasion?  Austen tells us it was a sit-down affair, at which the ubiquitous 'white soup' was served. But she says little else about the nature of the rest of the food. So if we were to accurately recreate her ball supper, where should we look for research material? There are certainly many contemporary reports of grand balls in the newspapers of this period, in which suppers are described, though hardly ever in any significant detail. One thing we do learn from these sources is that the supper was usually served in the early hours of the morning, making the old cliché 'carriages at midnight' completely false. For instance at the Duchess of Bedford’s Ball at Bedford House in London on Friday 31st May 1811, at which the great Neil Gow provided the music, the supper furnished by James Gunter was served in the wee hours,

'At half-past three o’clock the company sat down to a sumptuous banquet, the viands and wines being of the first description, with a desert of ices, strawberries, cherries, and grapes by Mr Gunter. Music was provided by Mr Gow’s Band'.

The Morning Post of 14th April 1813, the year of our recreated ball, reported a very grand supper served at a magnificent ball in the home of a Mrs Beaumont,

'At 2 am the company then adjourned to the supper-tables. Here a most sumptuous display indeed was made, there were no less than six supper-rooms, all fitted-up in the most beautiful and appropriate manner. Each table was brilliantly ornamented with trophies of war and peace; emblems emblematic of the arts and sciences: the costume of all civilized nations of the earth, exemplified in waxen images, modelled for this fete expressly…the plate, and the china, displayed and the brilliancy of the lighting-up of the tables, the effect was grand in the extreme. To render the coup l’oeil complete, about two hundred beautiful women (for the major part of the females were really beautiful) sat in such prominent situations as to be seen in every part without the least difficulty. The supper, we need not add, was most excellent; the wines abundant, and all of the rarest kinds. The dessert fruits, and confectionary, were equally deserving of panegyric: the Duke of Clarence spoke in raptures of them'.

This brief page on ball suppers from John Conrade Cooke's Cookery and Confectionery, (London: 1824) tells us that by this time it had become fashionable to eat the food provided at balls standing up. Austen tells us that the Netherfield supper was a sit down affair. Of course, the style of dining she had in mind was that of the  late 1790s when she wrote the book, not the Regency period when it was published. I would have preferred to have produced a 1798 supper, but the BBC wanted to set it in 1813. Note that Cooke mentions 'White Soups'. He also tells us that the hams were ornamented or served in slices.

Stand-up ball suppers became the norm in the Victorian period. This is a museum display I undertook last year of a stand-up ball supper based on an actual event at Hatfield House in 1845. It was part of the 2012 Bowes Museum exhibition Feast your Eyes.

Amazingly, when my team did finally recreate the supper for filming at Chawton House in January, because the schedule was running very late, the food was not delivered to the table until 2 am. And we finished the washing up at 4.00 am. That day we started work in the kitchen at 7.00 am, making it a massive twenty-three hour shift! This sort of schedule was probably exactly the long kind of day that the servants who prepared and served at these affairs would have experienced in the Regency period. Creating a meal on this scale would have been the job of a large team of professionals over a number of days. Confectionery keeps well, so it was made well in advance. A lot of the cold dishes and pies were usually made the day before. This was the pattern we followed. My team was truly remarkable, working under extremely difficult conditions and for very long hours. Lesley Sendall, food stylist extraordinaire, was my second in command. In the kitchen, the meat and fish cookery was carried out faultlessly by the highly talented chefs Sylvain Jamois and Chris Gates, assisted by the always calm Emily Hallett and Roy May. I wish that I could have worked with them in a real period kitchen, like my own in Cumbria, teaching them how to roast in front of a fire and prepare their sauces on a stewing stove. In the dining room, Christopher Hartop and his wife Juliet laid out the remarkable silver and trained the waiters. Christopher, a former Executive Vice-Chairnan of Christie's is the author of numerous books and papers on silver. We all learnt a great deal about the logistics of such an ambitious entertainment, including the long hours of washing up afterwards in the small hours. Though unlike the scullery staff of 1813, we had good washing up liquid rather than hard soap and plenty of hot water - though that failed at one point!

In the description above of Mrs Beaumont's ball, it is mentioned that the tables were decorated with emblematic wax ornaments. These pieces montées, or 'dressed plates' were also made out of sugar and edible materials. They were designed and made by very skilful confectioners who specialised in such work, and could even be hired just for the evening. One little known, but important book by the cook and confectioner John Conrade Cooke - Cookery and Confectionery (London: 1824) illustrates some of these extraordinary objects. The example I reproduce below was a sort of culinary 'mobile' that trembled elegantly when the guests sat at the table. It was appropriately called a 'tremblent'. These stunning wobbly centrepieces were popular all over Europe until the middle of the nineteenth century. They would have picked up and amplified every movement from the dance floor.

A 'drest plate' or tremblent by John Conrade Cooke. Although there was neither time, nor the budget to make table ornaments like this for the programme, I did make two of Cooke's ices for our reconstruction of the Netherfield ball supper - tamarind ice cream and negus ice, both served during the dessert in contemporary ice coolers, or seaux à glace.

A remarkable design for a tremblent by the Turin confectioner Prati to be entirely executed in sugar paste c.1825.

Bills of fare for ball suppers are actually few and far between in the cookery literature of the period. One of the best examples and the one we decided to use as the starting point for our supper was published in later editions of William Henderson's The Housekeeper's Instructor. It first appeared in the 1805 edition, a version of the book much 'corrected, revised and augmented' by Jacob Schnebbelie, principal cook at that iconic residence for high status bachelors - Albany in Piccadilly. 

Portrait of Schnebbelie with the Albany from William Henderson, The Housekeeper's Instructor (Twelfth Edition, London: 1803).

It is likely that Schnebbelie fed such regency worthies as Henry Holland, Lord Byron and Robert Smirke, who all lived in chambers or 'sets' in the Albany on his watch. Schnebbelie's scheme includes four dress plates down the middle of the table with a small dessert frame in the centre. These raised frames, also called plateaux or surtout were very popular for raising dramatic ornamental centrepieces above the level of the table. With four dress plates and a frame, this layout is for a very ambitious entertainment indeed - to my mind, in style and scope somewhat more Mr Darcy or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, than Mr Bingley. On either side of the frame is a Savoy cake. These large moulded sponge cakes were decorated with gum paste ornaments and made conspicuous ornaments for the table in their own right. I decided to drop the dress plates. but retain the savoy cakes.

Schnebbelie's ball supper scheme, with its 'frame' and 'dress plates' is for a very grand ball supper. He also included a plan for the dessert which followed. From William Henderson, The Housekeeper's Instructor (Twelfth Edition, London: 1803).

This large gum paste triumphal arch with its trophies stands on a dessert frame or plateau. I made it for the exhibition Royal Sugar Sculpture in 2003. It is now displayed in the table decker's room at Brighton Pavilion.

In this decorative title page to Cooke's book, the two little fellows at the table are preparing a 'drest plate'.

The items on this 1870s French ball supper buffet include pieces montées and trophies of game and fish.

One of my ornamented Savoy cakes. Photo by Andrew Hayes Watkins. © Optomen Television

A Regency period mould in my collection, which I used to ornament the Savoy cake above.

Ball suppers were prepared and served by professional caterers with advanced skills in both cookery and confectionery. 

Schnebbelie includes two blancmanges in his scheme, which were likely to have been made in the intricate moulds of the period. The mould used to make this beautiful blancmange basket of fruit was made by Wedgewood in the 1790s. Photo by Sarah Durdin Robertson.

Schnebbelie's cold fowls were likely to have been ornamented with fashionable silver hatelet skewers garnished with such delicacies as whole truffles and crayfish. Note the slices of ham on the napkin in the silver basket, served as per the instructions of John Conrade Cooke reproduced earlier in this post. Photo by Andrew Hayes Watkins. © Optomen Television.

Instead of a dessert frame, we used a stunning epergne by Benjamin Smith III of Birmingham, kindly lent by Koopman Rare Art. Photo by Andrew Hayes Watkins. © Optomen Television

The table is laid  à la française with all the dishes on the table at once. The guests choose just the dishes they want and help each other, making it a socially dynamic style of dining. The aim was to provide a sumptuous arrangement that honoured the guest with plenty of choice. Nobody was expected to eat everything. Photo by Andrew Hayes Watkins. © Optomen Television

Many of the savoury dishes in the meal were from Henderson's book, though some, such as the Austen favourites white soup and haricot of mutton were based on recipes in Martha Lloyd's and the Knight family manuscripts, housed at the Jane Austen House and Chawton. However, most of the recipes in these wonderful collections are of a domestic nature. Much grander dishes would have graced the table of the fashionable and aspirational Bingleys, especially at an entertainment at which they were attempting to impress grandees such as Darcy.

Crayfish in Jelly. Photo by Andrew Hayes Watkins. © Optomen Television.

A sweet jelly this time, moulded in cameo style made using a 1790s Staffordshire mould.

This is the final bill of fare for the supper. Its core is the 1805 arrangement designed by Schnebbelie reproduced above, but with the addition of two soups and a number of other dishes mentioned by Austen, such as haricot of mutton roast widgeon and ragout of veal. There was also a dessert course, which I will discuss in my next post.

Ivan enjoys a cup of tea after the stress of  unmoulding this 1790s Staffordshire core jelly obelisk. It was worth it as it did appear on the screen for a micro-second!

A lot of you who have already watched the programme and have contacted me to say that you would have liked to have heard more about the food. Well, the supper was just a part of the whole event and what had to be foremost in the narrative of the programme was how the context of the ball set the dynamics of Austen's plot. I thought the programme makers and presenters made a good job of this. The extraordinary culture of Regency dining really needs a six part series of its own. Though I am afraid that commissioning editors think that modern audiences do not have an appetite for this sort of thing. They are entirely wrong of course!

Some of the sharp-eyed among you noticed a few errors of fact in the voice-overs in food scenes. Alistair Sooke said that the parmesan ice cream was made from a recipe in Frederick Nutt's Imperial and Royal Cook, which of course does not contain any ice cream recipes. It was made from Nutt's earlier work, The Complete Confectioner of 1789. Well spotted! Three of you realised that the liquid unfortunately described by Amanda Vickery as a 'gallon of gravy', must have been the hare soup, because it was being poured into a particularly fine Regency soup tureen. It was! The other tureen was used for serving the famous white soup. And yes, the meat in a veal ragout was not 'slow roasted', nor shredded - it was stewed.

I am never sure who writes the texts of voice-overs, but in my experience they are the area in these productions where the most errors creep in. It can be particularly annoying when an expert contributor has mentioned on camera the true facts and in the presenter's voice-over which replaces it, the truth gets mangled, or ends up substituted by some nonsense gleaned from Wikipedia. It happens to me all the time - but I guess that is one of the joys of show biz!

If you live in Britain and you missed the programme first broadcast at 9.00pm on the 10th May on BBC2, you can catch up with it over the next week on BBC iPlayer. It is presented by Amanda Vickery and Alistair Sooke. It is an Optomen production for BBC2 commissioned by BBC2 Controller Janice Hadlow and Mark Bell, Commissioning Editor, Arts.   

Watch Ivan make Frederick Nutt's 1789 Spice Biscuits

Ivan Day - Some Forthcoming Lectures

I thought that some of you who follow this blog might be interested in some lectures I am giving over the next few months. I am in Hartford, CT later this month presenting a lecture at the Wadsworth Atheneum and a workshop at the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale. These are internal events and as far as I am aware are now fully subscribed. However, on the 14th April, I am giving a public lecture at Christies New York and reading a paper on the 30th at the Bard Graduate Center as part of the symposium Kitchen and Table in Early Modern Period Europe and Colonial America. On 7th June I am speaking at the Garden Museum in London on food at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. There are further details of all these events below.



Christies NYC
Dining Culture in Enlightenment Europe

A lecture by Ivan Day

From the townhouses of Edinburgh to the palaces of St Petersburg, from the chocolate houses of Madrid to the grand salons of Stockholm, the cuisine and dining protocol of the French ancien regime spread rapidly during the course of the eighteenth century to all of the great European centers, frequently obliterating the native high status food traditions of those who adopted it. In this illustrated lecture,British food historian Ivan Day will examine the dramatic cultural impact that the spread of French court food had on the non-French speaking aristocratic world. He will not only discuss the remarkable food itself, but its mode of service and the glittering material culture which it spawned.

Please join us for a fascinating look at the cuisine and dining protocol of the French ancient regime which spread throughout Europe during the 18th century. In this illustrated lecture, British food historian Ivan Day will examine French court food’s dramatic cultural impact, its mode of service and the glittering material culture it inspired.

Sunday, April 14 2013
3:00 pm

Christies

20 Rockefeller Plaza
New York City

Cost to attend is $25.00 and must be paid in advance – gratis to students upon presentation of school ID.
To RSVP and arrange payment, please contact Johanna Josefsson at
jjosefsson@christies.com or on +1 212 636 2215

The Bard Graduate Center NYC
Symposium: Kitchen and Table in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America



Displaying the Kitchen and Table
A lecture by Ivan Day

The vast material culture spawned by the consumption of food has frequently been studied by art historians whose chief criteria have been aesthetic developments, makers, materials and other formal issues. Considerations of utility - how objects were actually used and particularly how they were used together - have often been glossed over and rarely fully discussed. In terms of museum presentation, this means that most of the silver, glass, ceramics and other tableware associated with dining are arranged in display cabinets as precious objects worthy of our admiration, but removed from their original human context, a table surrounded by diners. On the other hand, the more humble utilitarian objects associated with the production of food have often been perceived as historical ‘bygones’ or curios, frequently grouped together as ‘kitchenalia’ and not usually considered worthy of study by the serious scholar. Using examples of period dining room re-creations and open kitchen displays he has curated over the past two decades, the speaker will discuss issues of interpretation, authenticity and ways forward for contextual displays of this nature.

Registration Details and Symposium Programme

Monday April 29 2012

9.30am to 6.00pm

The Bard Graduate Center
18 West 86th Street
New York, 

New York 10024
Telephone 212 501 3000
E-mail generalinfo@bgc.bard.edu

The Garden Museum London

Symposium: Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens

A Quart of Arrack and a Heart Cake

Food and Drink in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens 1661-1859

A lecture by Ivan Day

Monday 17th June 2012

For more information on this event go to the GARDEN MUSEUM WEBSITE

The Garden Museum

5 Lambeth Palace Rd London SE1 7LB

020 7401 8865

Eating Egypt

Pharaonical Feasts and a Regency Ghost

William (Gugliamo) Jarrin (1784-1848). Stipple engraving (1820). 

I have not posted an article on this blog for ages. A number of demanding TV and museum projects have conspired to make me so busy that I have had no time to add anything in the past couple of months. So with all this going on, I thought I would set aside an hour or two to share with you a recent and remarkable find.

I have frequently mentioned the Italian confectioner Willliam Jarrin on this blog. Resident in London in the first half of the nineteenth century, his book The Italian Confectioner (London: 1820) provides a remarkable insight into the extraordinary world of the European confectioner of this period. In my own practical endeavours in this field, I have learnt more from Jarrin's writings than from any other printed historical source. He came to London from Paris in 1817 to work as an ornament maker for the celebrated London confectioner James Gunter. Even by this time the young Italian was a consummate practitioner of sugar sculpture. In his book he boasts of an occasion when he produced a gum paste piece montée for an entertainment in Paris attended by Napoleon, which included a full length sculpture of the Emperor himself. Napoleon was apparently impressed with his work. Jarrin tells us that he preferred to freely model in gum paste, but he also pressed the material into wooden moulds to make all sorts of motifs for various purposes. Like many confectioners, he carved his own moulds, his preferred woods being pear and box. In a chapter entitled Engraving on Wood, he claims that anyone with enough patience could learn to carve moulds of this kind. In 1820, he tells us that he had been practising the art for 16 years, which would have made him 20 years old when he started.

Pear wood confectioner's mould. Engraved on the one side are the words  Jarrin Fecit (private collection)

Until a few days ago, I knew of only one surviving sugar paste mould actually carved by Jarrin, a small slab of pear wood engraved with the figure of a drunken man and two busts - one a man in a tricorn hat, the other a Turk in a turban. This mould is signed Jarrin Fecit (Jarrin he made). These intaglio motifs are for making free-standing features - once knocked out of the mould, the two halves were joined together. He probably used these figures for ornamenting the tops of twelfth cakes, for which he was famous. Unfortunately, I have not yet located any images of Jarrin's ornamented cakes. But in the trade card below, advertising the wares of one of his London competitors, a twelfth cake surmounted by a group of tiny figures can be seen on the stand on the right.

Now we know of another mould carved by Jarrin, because yesterday I bought a small, but spectacular collection of early nineteenth century confectioner's moulds, which included the striking specimen below which depicts a winged Egyptian mask signed by him on the side. Unusually it is dated - 1820, the very year in which his book was published and portrait engraved. You can imagine my excitement! It is also exceptionally large, taking up almost the full length of a ten inch long block of pear wood. The mould still retains small residual patches of gum paste and starch, though it would be romantic to think that these were left by Jarrin, as the mould may have been used by a more recent confectioner. Jarrin was declared bankrupt in 1828 and in an inventory of his goods are listed 'Moulds, tools and different apparatus' to the value of £200. No doubt this newly discovered mould was once among these items.

An illustration of wood carving gouges from Jarrin's book

Egyptian motifs in architecture, furniture and the decorative arts were very popular at this period. Napoleon's campaign in Egypt (1798-91) and Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile (1798) had created a fashion for all things Egyptian in both France and England. In 1807, the Sèvres manufactury near Paris produced a vast porcelain dessert service based on Egyptian motifs which was gifted by Napoleon to Czar Alexander I. It can be seen at the marvellous Kuskovo Palace Museum near Moscow. Another version is on display at Apsley House in London, originally ordered by Napoleon for Josephine, but given as a gift to the Duke of Wellington by Louis XVIII of France. 

The spectacular 1808 Sèvres Egyptian Service laid out in the Kuskovo Palace Museum

Two seminal publications, Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine's Recueil de décorations intérieures (Paris:1801) and Vivant Denon's Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte (Paris:1802) both contained beautiful plates which helped spread the trend for Egyptian based design. In England, the traveller and interior decorator Thomas Hope (1769-1831) was one of the arbiters of taste who was instrumental in popularising the fashion for all things Egyptian in London. His book Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (London: 1807) includes an engraved illustration of an Egyptian room in his own house in Duchess Street off Portland Square, which he designed to house his collection of Egyptian antiquities. 

Thomas Hope, Household Furniture & Interior Decoration. (London:1807).

Some of the most extraordinary examples of Egyptian influenced tableware from this period are a series of silver tureens designed by the great Regency silversmith Paul Storr. The earliest set was made as part of the 'Grand Service' for the Prince of Wales, later George IV (1762-1830) in 1802-3, for his dining table at Carlton House. In 2000 the Royal Collection generously lent one of them to us for the exhibition Eat, Drink and be Merry and there are some excellent photographs of it in the book of the same name, which I edited. A very similar set made in 1807-08 for the Duke of Cumberland can be seen in the Gilbert Collection in the V&A. Unlike the Royal Collection set these are not gilt. If you look carefully at the example below, you can see an Egyptian winged mask very much like that carved by Jarrin on the lower part of the bowl.      

Silver soup tureen and stand by Paul Storr (1771-1844) made in 1807-08. Photo © V&A.

A close-up of Jarrin's as yet uncleaned mould-  a pharaoh complete with remnants of sugar paste and starch

So the Prince Regent and his Carlton House guests enjoyed their soups served from Egyptian style tureens But what of Jarrin's mould? It is a sugar paste mould, probably used to make a motif for a complex sugar caprice for a dessert centrepiece. Certainly something much grander than a twelfth cake. When gilded this object was probably indistinguishable from some of the real silver gilt metalwork on the table. So did Regency diners actually enjoy eating food with a pharaonical theme? Well the evidence points to the fact that they did and not just as sugar decorations on fancy table ornaments. After the Battle of the Nile in 1798, Josiah Wedgewood started manufacturing creamware flummery and jelly moulds with Egyptian motifs. He produced moulds embellished with such motifs as the Nile crocodile, the sacred musical instrument known as a sistrum, funeral urns, lotus flowers and dozens of other ancient Egyptian symbols. Below is a selection of some of these unusual moulds.

Early nineteenth century Wedgewood mould with an image of the falcon god Horus. Photo: Mike and Sue Witts

Early nineteenth century Wedgewood mould with a sistrum. Photo: Mike and Sue Witts

Early nineteenth century Wedgewood mould with a sacred Nile lotus. Photo: Mike and Sue Witts

Early nineteenth century Wedgewood mould with Egyptian motif. Photo: Mike and Sue Witts

A couple of months ago, I was called upon to produce a full Regency ball supper for a forthcoming BBC documentary called Pride and Prejudice, Having a Ball. The programme celebrates the bicentenary of Jane Austen's wonderful novel by attempting to recreate the Netherfield Ball at Chawton Hall, her brother's home in Hampshire. It will be screened here in the UK fairly soon on BBC2. As this was meant to be a recreation of a Regency ball, I decided to have at least one ancient Egyptian themed dish on the supper table. So I used a mould in my collection which turns out the curious jelly below. In classical Greece this ram's skull was known as an agricranion, but in this version the skull is surmounted by a sacred lotus flower, so Wedgewood's designer probably concocted it from an Egyptian image he had seen somewhere or other. I cannot guarantee if you will see this colourful dish on the table in the programme, as I have no control over how it will be edited. Besides, across the first course and the dessert there are over 71 different dishes served out in a full scale à la française supper, so if you blink you will probably miss it anyway. Once the programme is aired I will post some details about the food and table setting that I am sure will be missed in the narrative.

As the nineteenth century rolled on, culinary Egyptomania continued and was particularly well expressed in a number of pharaonical ice creams. Ice cream pyramids, obelisks and even sphinxes appeared on the scene. In my own collection I have a couple of obelisks complete with hieroglyphics and the two small sphinx moulds below.

Nineteenth century three part ice cream moulds. Being an Italian, Jarrin specialised in ices and a whole chapter is devoted to them in his book. He even had his own ice house in Cromer Street near Kings Cross. When he went bankrupt in 1828, he owned £200 of pewter utensils.

The inside detail is very crisp

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that  I acquired Jarrin's Egyptian mould in a group of others. The remainder are unsigned, but Jarrin had a distinctive carving style and I suspect that some may also be by his hand. One of these allows a crown to be made out of sugar paste by flexing the sugar pressing round a former into a circle, a common technique that was also used to make three dimensional sugar baskets. I thought at first this may have been for making a royal crown for the top of a twelfth cake. But on the verso of the same mould - it is carved on both sides - there are some large ostrich feathers. In fact it was actually designed to make a sugar Prince of Wales feathers ornament. 

One of Jarrin's contemporaries, the Yorkshire confectioner Joseph Bell, actually illustrated a cake surmounted by a sugar paste Prince of Wales feathers in his A Treatise of Confectionery (Newcastle upon Tyne: 1817). Bell's cake is decorated with swags and drops, garter stars and patriotic emblems in the form of the flowers of England, Scotland and Wales. I own plenty of Regency period moulds for making all of these ornaments, with the exception of the lion and the unicorn. But I expect one day they too will turn up. When they do, I will make the cake for you. 

By the way, the ghost of Joseph Bell's daughter Eleanor is said to haunt the beach at Scarbororough, where he had a confectioner's shop. In 1804 she was tragically murdered and her body left on the beach at  Cayton south of the town. Her killer was never found. More on her distraught father Joseph, another forgotten British 'food hero' in a later post. 

An ornamented cake made in honour of the Prince of Wales from Joseph Bell, A Treatise of Confectionery (Newcastle upon Tyne: 1817).

Paul Storr's Egyptian tureens in the Royal Collection

For  information on the influence of the Egyptian style in Europe, see Patrick Connor ed., The Inspiration of Egypt: Its influence on British Artists, Travellers and Designers, 1700-1900 (Brighton Borough Council, Brighton, 1983); and Jean-Marcel Humbert, Egyptomania: Egypt in Western Art, 1730-1930 (Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris, 1994).

Henry VIII's Jely Ypocras?

Some spices commonly used in the preparation of hippocras - starting in the left hand bottom corner and rotating clockwise - grains of paradise (referred to in the recipes quoted here as grains), galingale, long pepper and cubebs

I recently had an email enquiry from the Australian historian Rachel Grimmer concerning the use of jelly moulds in sixteenth century England at the time of Henry VIII. Of all English monarchs Henry is probably the first to come to mind when thinking of feasting and gastronomic excess, though bills of fare for specific meals at his court are rare. Neither Peter Brears in his excellent book on the food culture of Hampton Court All the Kings Cooks, nor Alison Simm in Food and Feast in Tudor England give any examples of Henrician menus. Nevertheless, a few 'ordinances of fares of the dietts to be served to the King's Highnesse' transcribed from a manuscript of 1526 were published in 1790 in one of my favourite sources on British royal domestic matters, the wonderful A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household printed for the Society of Antiquaries. And jelly appears on the menu. In fact a jelly made with the spiced wine hippocras is featured at the beginning of the second course of a royal diet 'on a flesh day' served alongside cream of almonds. (Though some doubt has been raised about this because of the comma separating the words Jelly and Ipocras - please read Tudor Cook's very pertinent comment below). 

Jely ypocras seems to have been a royal favourite. It also occurs in an earlier bill of fare for a Henrician feast transcribed from a since lost manuscript in 1672 by the antiquarian Elias Ashmole in his magisterial History of the Noble Order of the Garter. Unlike the 'dietts' of 1526 this earlier meal was for a specific occasion and a very grand one too. In the second course of the dinner held as part of the Garter celebrations at St George's Hall, Windsor Castle on Sunday 29th May in 1520, 'jely ypocras' was again served to Henry XVIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon. As in the 1526 diet it is listed as the first dish in the second course.

How this jelly was presented to table is not indicated. Was it moulded, or served in glass or silver vessels? I don't suppose we will ever know. I have seen a number of carved wooden moulds (all continental) which date from the sixteenth century, but they are all carved in shallow relief and were probably used for printing marchpane paste and cotoniacs. But sophisticated methods of moulding jellies did exist at the Tudor court. A letter dated July 10th 1517, sent to Isabella d'Este, Marchesa of Mantua by Francesco Chieregato, the apostolic nuncio in England, describes a remarkable feast which Henry gave in honour of an embassy sent by the King of Spain. This extraordinary supper, which followed a magnificent pageant and joust, puts the 1520 garter feast and the rather domestic 1526 'dietts' firmly in the shade. Chieregato's comments at the end of his letter on the elegant manners at the English court belie the popular but mistaken image of Tudor dining as a boorish free-for-all. But note the fourth paragraph on the twenty different jellies served at the feast, 

' All the knights and jousters then assembled together, and having made a fine procession around the tiltyard, accompanied the King to the palace, where his Majesty had caused a sumptuous supper to be prepared. There were present the King, the two Queens, the Cardinal, all the aforesaid ambassadors, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis (of Dorset), and their ladies, together with other baronesses, in such numbers, that at table each man paired with a lady.

There was a buffet set out, 30 feet in length, and 20 feet high, with silver gilt vases, and vases of gold, worth vast treasure, none of which were touched. All the small platters used for the table-service, namely “seyphi,” dishes, basins, plates, saltcellars, and goblets were all of pure gold. The large vases were all of silver gilt, very costly and precious.

The guests remained at table for seven hours by the clock. All the viands placed before the King were borne by an elephant, or by lions, or panthers, or other animals, marvellously designed; and fresh representations were made constantly with music and instruments of divers sorts. The removal and replacing of dishes the whole time was incessant, the hall in every direction being full of fresh viands on their way to table. Every imaginable sort of meat known in the kingdom was served, and fish in like manner, even down to prawn pasties (fino alli gambari de pastelli); but the jellies (zeladie), of some 20 sorts perhaps, surpassed everything; they were made in the shape of castles and of animals of various descriptions, as beautiful and as admirable as can be imagined.

In short, the wealth and civilization of the world are here; and those who call the English barbarians appear to me to render themselves such. I here perceive very elegant manners, extreme decorum, and very great politeness; and amongst other things there is this most invincible King, whose acquirements and qualities are so many and excellent that I consider him to excel all who ever wore a crown; and blessed and happy may this country call itself in having as its lord so worthy and eminent a sovereign, whose sway is more bland and gentle than the greatest liberty under any other. After supper his Majesty and the chief ambassador from the Catholic King, together with other lords, danced with the ladies until daybreak.'*

The great Isabella d'Este, the recipient of Chieregato's letter had a real interest in this occasion, as her husband Francesco Gonzaga had gifted a magnificent horse to King Henry which was ridden at the joust. Feasting was an important element of life in the Gonzaga family and Isabella was well used to lavish banquets. Bartolommeo Sacchi (1412-1478), better known as Platina, author of the first printed cookery book had worked for Francesco's grandfather Ludovico II Gonzaga as tutor to his children. It is interesting to see how Cheiregato is trying to impress the marchesa with the scale of Henry's feast and to perhaps correct any stereotypical ideas she may have had about English food.

Isabella d'Este (1474-1539) by Titian

There were earlier examples of moulded jellies at the coronation feast of the eight year old Henry VI at Westminster Hall in 1429, including one in the form of a 'Gely party wryten and noted with Te Deum laudamus'. So the technology of making elaborate dishes of this kind had been around for at least a century before Henry's jellies in the form of castles and animals were borne to his table on the backs of elephants, panthers and lions.

Although there are recipes for plain hippocras in early sixteenth century cookery texts, a specific recipe for a jelly made with hippocras does not appear until the reign of Elizabeth I. It was published in A. W., A Book of Cookrye, Very Necessary For All Such As Delight Therin. (London: 1584) and is simply called jelly.

In case you find the black letter of the original difficult to read, here is a modern transcription.

To make Ielly.

Take Calves feete and fley them, and faire washe them, and set them on to seethe in faire licour, and faire scum them, and when they be tender sod, faire straine out the licour, and see your licour be verye cleere, and put your licour into a pot, if there be a pottle of it, put a pottle of claret wine unto it, and two pound Sugar, a quartern of sinamon, half a quartern of ginger, an ounce of Nutmegs, an ounce of grains, some long Pepper, a fewe Cloves whole, a few Coliander sads, a little salt, Isonglasse being faire washed and laid in water a day before, Turnsole being aired be the fier and dusted, and when they be wel sod, let it run through a bag, and put two whites of Egs in the bag.

One of the ingredients of A.W.'s recipe is turnsole, a dyestuff commonly used to colour jellies and other foods. It was chiefly made from the fruits of Chrozophora tinctoria, a type of spurge found in the Mediterranean. It appeared in commerce as a rag which you macerated in your jelly mixture in order to release its colour. Henry Lyte in his A niewe Herball or Historie of Plantes (London:1578) tells us that ‘they die and stayne old linnen cloutes and ragges into a purple colour wherewithall in this countrey, men use to colour gellies, wynes, fyne confeciones and comfittes.' More on turnsole and its applications in the kitchen in another post. 

Chrozophora tinctoria from Pierre Pomet, A Compleat History of Drugs (London: 1737)

Chrozophora tinctoria or turnsole. Be careful with this plant. Like other members of the Euphorbiaceae, it contains toxic glucosides. Put it in your jely ypocras at your peril.

From A Noble Book of Festes Royalle and Cokery (London: 1500)

There is much more on Hippocras on my website.

* Brown, Rawdon et al. Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 2: 1509-1519 (London: 1867) 918.