R is for Research: The Power of a Bun in the Palm of Your Hand

Moving along in our periodic series, wherein I describe nuggets of research gold. Today, let us talk about food.  (And please forgive the Spider-Man pun.)

I must be a mean person, because in my books, I keep wanting my characters to eat food that sounds repulsive to us today (and even sometimes to people of the 1810s).  But it also needs to be food that existed at the time.  You can’t have, you know, your characters eating a Fudgesicle.

The Jane Austen Cookbook is a wonderful print source for Regency-apropriate recipes, giving many table and stillroom (that is, home remedy) recipes that were hand-copied by a friend/relative of the great Jane.  Since we don’t often cook with isinglass these days, for example, the recipes are updated for modern cookery methods (you get to use powdered gelatin instead of isinglass — whew).

This source is especially wonderful because it’s period -appropriate – that is, there are no Victorian inventions, innovations, and influences.  Sometimes you run into that in social histories of the nineteenth century — which, uh, covers a lot of territory.  JAC is all Regency and earlier, so you can feed your characters a curry (yes!) and know it’s ok for the time.

This book is out of print, but it’s pretty easy to find inexpensive used copies.