If you are following my progress on the Historic Food and Feasting course, you’ll know that I am now up to Week 4 on this blog. We’ve looked at the sort of foods eaten during the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and George I, the latter including the introduction and rise of chocolate. This week is the turn of George III. Yes, the mad one 🙂
I know you’ve been waiting in breathless, drooling anticipation for this post about…chocolate!
As part of the Historic Food and Feasting course, we covered the arrival and subsequent popularity of chocolate, imported to Britain from the newly opened up New World in the early 18th century. We are not talking about the bars of confectionary that we think of as chocolate today, however. Until the 19th century, chocolate was drunk, much like tea and coffee. Indeed, there are many similarities with coffee in particular, insofar as it is made from ground roasted beans.
Thus, racing through Week 2, we come to Week 3 covering the early Georgians, specifically George I and focusing heavily on sweet things and…chocolate. Don’t get too excited just yet – I’m saving my experiments with that for the next post 😀
Britain’s love affair with sugar was well-established by this time. From the early luxury of Persian imports in Henry VIII’s day, through Elizabeth I’s reign when sugar became much more readily available and therefore cheaper via Europe (pre-EU). By George I’s day, the New World had been opened up and sugar was being grown and imported from there, further increasing availability and blackening the nation’s teeth.
After a busy few weeks, I’ve been playing catch up on my Historic Food and Feasting course. Last week, I wrote up my efforts at making Tarte Owt Lent from Week 1. This week will be a bit of a veritable treat of recipes from weeks 1 and 2, with week 3 hot on their heels.
Kenilworth Castle
A while ago I mentioned that I had signed up for a short course on Historic Food and that began a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, I’ve been off trading at Kenilworth Castle and then the Chalke Valley History Festival, respectively, for the last two weekends and frantically trying to finish my Victorian outfit for the latter in between the two. I promised you an update once I’d started and here it is.
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