Although it took its final form in Victorian England, the origins of Christmas pudding lie back in the middle ages, in the now-forgotten 'plum pottage'. Pottage was a general term for a mixture of ingredients, usually meat and vegetables, boiled together in a cauldron for several hours. It was very versatile and was a staple …
Tag: recipes
A history of mince pies
Mince pies are an inescapable feature of the Christmas period in England. This is great for people like me who are fond of them, though not so much for those odd people who don't have a sweet tooth. Yet if the modern incarnation of the mincemeat pie divides opinion, how much more would the original …
Mrs Beeton’s Advertisements
Tucked in the row of cookery books in our dining room, we have an edition of Mrs Beeton's Every-Day Cookery. Although it's from 1923 and the sections on household management had been updated, the great bulk of the book is the same as it was when it was first published in 1861. To my knowledge we've never …