200 year old banquet
What would it have been like to go to a fancy dinner 200 years ago? Luckily this old cookbook tells us what should be served for grand and splendid entertainment and even has a drawing of how to lay out the table.
I have recreated all of the dishes on the table and it is nothing like what we’d serve today. There are no salads, no vegetables, no rice or pasta dishes, just lots of meat and desserts. If you’re looking to make your own 200 year recipes I’d recommend trying the raspberry puffs and almond cakes as they were the crowd pleasers.
First Course:
Second Course:
Below are all the dishes from the second course.
Blancmange
I used the second recipe for blanc mange, it is interesting to note that there is no sugar in the recipe so it is not sweet at all. As with all the recipes on this page I used gelatine instead of the steps for using isinglass or calves foot jelly. For more information on those methods click on the links provided.
Fruit in Jelly
Marmalade
Tastes lovely but very similar to marmalade now, so you may wish to save yourself some time and buy marmalade. I am also unsure as to what they ate it with on the table, perhaps one of the meats?
Moonshine
. To make this with gelatine skip the steps of boiling calves feet and adding egg whites to clarify the jelly. Instead make half a quart of sweet clear jelly using water, gelatine (see packet for the amount needed to set this volume of water) and sugar to taste. Then follow the rest of the directions as in the recipe. The chocolate jelly goes under the shapes and fills them so I suggest that once it is set, before you remove the shapes, use a straw to get it out of the moon and stars.
It tastes like a chocolatey jelly. The presentation was more creative than I was expecting for 200 years ago.
Almond Cakes
This worked well as a gluten free “cake”. It is more of a soft slice rather than a cake texture and if you change the rose water and orange flower water for other flavourings you could change to taste to your liking.
Dish of Snow
By the next day this had settled out into clear apple juice on the base and frothy apple flavoured foam on top.
Floating Island
Quite an acceptable dish to todays palette when made wiht 3 different types of jams layered with bread cut thin. There was a bit much cream, you could probably halve the amount.
Pear Compote
This recipe is still used today and you can see why, it looks classy and tastes great.
Custards
I definitely put too much orange flower water in this one. If making it again I would leave the rose and orange flower water out, the mace flavour was great on its own.
Raspberry Puffs
There was no recipe for raspberry puffs in the book so I used the lemon puff recipe but swapped in raspberries for the lemons. These were time consuming to pipe in tiny drops but tasted great.
Roast Chickens
Roast Ducks
Lamb Ribs
Collard Pork
Crawfish in Savoury Jelly
Snipes in Savoury Jelly
I was unable to source snipes so substituted for quail.
Potted Char
Char was substituted with salmon.
Marbled Veal
This was the least liked dish and ended up being fed to our dog, who thought it was delicious.
My Cookbook
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All recipe quantities in the book are in grams, ounces and cups.
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Can you please name the cookbook and it’s author? I love historical cooking. Mostly 18th century thanks to Townsend’s, but I’m curious to see what else there is out there for 19th century cookery.
“Housekeeper’s Instructor” or “Universal Family Cook” by William Augustus Henderson.
In case anyone is wondering, the 200-year-old cookbook that Ann Reardon uses is named above. I am unsure if she ever names the book herself, but the PDF version can be found online.
The concept of savoury jelly reminds me of that debunking video with vinegar and salt jelly. Sounds disgusting, but I’ll keep an open mind. I’ll make it and see.
We just made the lemon puffs. My daughter is going to take them to our county fair. They were tricky to bake properly but were delicious when we got it right! Thanks for the recipe and video!
They look nice! I’d like to make this too. May I ask, what time and temperature did you bake them for?
That was very interesting. There were a couple of them that made me think that I would like to give it a go.
What is the name and author of the 200-year-old cookbook you used?
“Housekeeper’s Instructor” or “Universal Family Cook” by William Augustus Henderson.
In case anyone is wondering, the 200-year-old cookbook that Ann Reardon uses is named above. I am unsure if she ever names the book herself, but the PDF version can be found online.