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Dinner at Buckingham Palace - Secrets & recipes from the reign of Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II. Charles Oliver
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isbn 9781786068606
Автор произведения Charles Oliver
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
At least five different courses were served for the royal breakfast. Bacon and eggs, bloaters [herring], chickens, chops, cutlets, sausages, steaks and woodcock, were just some of the dishes on offer. The bacon, invariably streaky, was cut in rashers a quarter of an inch thick, and eggs would be served at a moment’s notice in a variety of ways, including boiled, fried, coddled, en cocotte, scrambled or as an omelette.
Despite such huge breakfasts, the royal household was apparently hungry again by lunchtime, when meals of eight or ten courses were the order of the day. And by dinner-time they were ready for more – again to the tune of eight or ten courses!
The royal supper was undoubtedly the most elaborate meal of the day. It was customary to serve both thick and clear soups, as well as fish either plainly cooked or prepared according to elaborate recipes requiring complicated sauces and flamboyant dressing. There would also be two entrées, two varieties of roast meat, chicken or quail, game, sweetbreads, two desserts, two savouries and at least two kinds of water ices to prepare overburdened royal stomachs for the next course. Notably there is no reference to hors d’oeuvres, which most likely originated in Russia, where people ate highly flavoured titbits called zakuski with a drink of vodka before settling down to dinner. English restaurants adopted the custom at the end of the nineteenth century because it kept the guests happy while dinner was being prepared, and English private houses duly followed suit.
The great gas and charcoal stoves and spits would daily cook something like 300 pounds of meat, 30 or more chickens, and numerous pheasants, partridges and quails. If necessary, a whole bullock, weighing about 150 lb, could be cooked on a giant spit, with a small army of chefs and kitchen assistants on hand to keep it continually basted. Another outsized dish was a type of raised pie with as filling a good plump turkey stuffed with an equally plump chicken, itself stuffed with an ample pheasant that had been stuffed with a healthy-sized woodcock. The whole lot was then placed in an enormous pie dish, roofed over with pastry, and baked until it was fit for a queen. This was a particular favourite of the German emperor Wilhelm I, when he visited Queen Victoria (whose eldest daughter married his son).
And just in case anybody ever felt hungry after consuming one of the huge luncheons or dinners, there were always side tables set out with cold chickens, tongues, rounds of beef, partridges and pheasants in season, and salads.
HER MAJESTY’S DINNER
BUCKINGHAM PALACE, 30 JUNE 1841
Hors d’Oeuvres
Les Petits Pâtes de Homards
Potages
Printanier
À la Reine
À la Tortue
Relevés
Les Poulardes truffées à la sauce Périgueux
Le Jambon glacé garni de Fèves de Marais
La Selle d’Agneau farcie à la Royale
Le Filet de Boeuf piqué à la Napolitaine
Entrées
Les Nageoires de Tortue, sauce au vin de Madère
Les Filets de Poulets à l’écarlate aux Concombres
Les Côtelettes de Mouton braisées à la purée d’Artichauts
Les Aiguillettes de Canetons aux Pois verts
Les Riz de Veaux piqués glacés à la Toulouse
Les Côtelettes de Pigeons panées à l’Allemande
Les Chartreuse de tendons d’Agneau à l’essence
Les Timbales de Macaroni à la Mazarine
Side Board
Haunch of Venison
Roast Beef
Roast Mutton
Vegetables
SECOND SERVICE
Rôts
de Cailles
de Levrauts
de Poulets
Relevés
Les Puddings à la Nesselrode
Les Puddings de Cabinet
Les Soufflés à la Fécule de Pommes de Terre
Flancs
Le Pavillon Mauresque
La Tente Militaire
Contre-Flancs
Le Nougat aux Amandes
Le Biscuit de Savoie à la Vanille
La Sultane Parisienne
Le Croque-en-Bouche historique
Entremets
Les Truffes au vin de Champagne
Les Artichauts à la Lyonnaise
Le Buisson de Prawns sur Socle
Les Anguilles en volute au Beurre de Montpellier
Les Tartelettes de Framboises
La Gelée de Groseilles garnie de Pêches
Les Génoises aux fruits transparents
Les Petits Pois à la Française
Les Haricots Verts à la Poulette
L’Aspic de Blancs de Volaille à la Bellevue
La Salade de Légumes à l’Italienne
La Macédoine de Fruits
Le Bavarois de Chocolat Panache
La Crème aux Amandes pralinées
Les Petits Pains à la Parisienne
Les Gâteaux de Pithiviers
In the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, as during the reigns of previous monarchs, state dinners were expected to be ostentatious banquets of many elaborate courses with a vast choice of extravagant dishes, many not to modern tastes. This dinner was one of those. Charles Francatelli, chief cook to Queen Victoria from 1840 to the end of 1841, spared no effort, or living creature, in order to produce such sumptuous feasts. He always made sure, too, that there was a generous supply of sweet dishes to satisfy the Queen’s sweet tooth.
This was for the privileged minority, of course. Middle-class families ate simple meals, though not quite as simple as those of today’s middle-income families, while the poor consumed small quantities of cheap foods, such as fish and chips, sausage rolls, bread and jam – and very often they didn’t eat at all. There was widespread hunger in Victorian times, and thievery and prostitution were rampant, largely due to the lack of food. It was small wonder that the impoverished would congregate in the street outside the royal kitchens, and each day many went away satisfied with a liberal helping of leftovers from the royal table.
Victorian high society frowned upon women – ladies – displaying enjoyment of eating, considering it unbecoming. Queen Victoria