Frugal Or Perhaps Not

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 🙂

George was not a well man, suffering from bouts of madness (porphyria), when he wasn’t allowed to use a knife and fork for fear he might harm himself, so his diet consisted of dishes that could be eaten with a spoon, e.g.,  soups and jellies. In addition to this, he was a man who liked plain food, unlike his predecessors, so he was known as the frugal king. In reality, the frugality was somewhat relative and from what I have seen of the cuisine of this period, it was actually quite rich, with a lot of butter, cream and eggs.

This week’s recipes included Barley Soup, which was fairly plain and simple, but I really didn’t fancy it since it is far too warm for soup. The additional recipes were for Asparagus Rolls and Spritzen, a kind of muffin. I’m quite partial to asparagus, so here’s my effort:

Asparagus Rolls

Quite a simple dish of cooked asparagus in a savoury custard, served in scooped out and fried french rolls. I haven’t bothered posting the full recipe but if you want it, just ask. 🙂

We are currently experiencing a heatwave so I haven’t had a chance to do the Spritzen either. I’ll catch up with those at a later date.

That’s all for this week, folks. In the next post I’ll be sharing my Victorian efforts and some recipes that will be rather more familiar.