Regency Menu for Four by Susanna Ives
Susanna Ives, author, most recently, of Rakes and Radishes, provides us with the menu of a multi-course Regency meal for a party of four. This menu comes from Louis Eustache Ude’s The French Cook, which was first published in 1815. In addition, Susanna includes table setting diagrams for the first and second courses, which helps us to better understand how meals were presented at table during the Regency.
Do you think you would enjoy this meal, were you a guest at this table?
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I struggled writing this post. I wanted to simply list some menus and recipes from The French Cook, or, The Art of Cookery, by Louis Eustache Ude from 1815. Unfortunately, the recipes in the original book are difficult to locate because the dish names on the menus don’t match the recipes. After spending more time on this little project than I intended, I found a second addition of the book from 1822. Everyone must have complained to Ude, so he made an easy to read version. However, he used the same images for the courses as he did in the original edition, despite switching to English for the dish names, as well as changing some of the dishes. So, I doubt there is a direct correspondence from the French to the English in this post, but I have tried to blend the two editions together to match the illustrations.
I shall endeavor to include more menus in the coming days. If you want to look up the actual recipes, I suggest the 2nd edition of The French Cook on Google Books. Also, Nancy Mayer has a great explanation of table Settings and Removes on her site. Bill of fare for a dinner of four entries in summer time.
- Le Potage printannier, or spring soup.
- Les tranches de cabilleau, sauce aux huitres, or crimp cod and oyster sauce.
- La poularde à la Montmorencie, or fowl la Montmorenci, garnished with a ragout a I’Allcmande.
- Le jambon de Westphalie, à l’essence, or ham glazed with Espagnole.
- La fricassée de poulets aux champignons, or fricassee of chicken and mushrooms.
- Les côtelettes d’Agneau sautés, sauce à la Macédoine, or lamb chops saute, with asparagus, peas, &c.
- Le sauté de filets de poulets gras, au suprême, or fillets of fat chicken, saute au supreme.
- Les tendrons de veau glacés aux laitues, à l’essence or petits pdtes of fillet of fowl a la bechamelle.
- Le chapon, or fowls roasted, garnished with water cresses.
- Les cailles, or six quails.
- Les pois à la Françoise.
- La gelée de fraises.
- Les asperges en bâtonets, or asparagus with plain butter.
- Les puits d’amour garnis de marmalade, or orange jellies in mosaiques.
* Later edition includes Cauliflower with veloute sauce and Petit gateaux d’ la Manon.
- La tart de groseilles rouges.
- Le soufflé au citron, or souffle with lemon.
* Later edition includes Ramequin d la Sefton.
Ude writes, "From the above statement it will be easy to make a bill of fare of four, six, eight, twelve, or sixteen entrees, and the other courses in proportion."
© 2012 – 2013 Susanna Ives
Originally posted at Susanna Ives — Writer of Reckless Abandon
Posted at The Beau Monde by permission of the author.
Sounds delicious. I’m surprised they weren’t all obese! Tweeted
It does sound good. I love mentioning food in my books.
Can you define a “remove” ?
Generally, all of the dishes were placed on the table at once. Removes would be any items like soup that would then be removed after being served to all who wished it and often replaced with items from a later course.
–I also made the above reference to Nancy Mayer’s description of Settings and Removes link to her page with the information: http://www.regencyresearcher.com/pages/food_setting.html