A Victorian Christmas Dinner Menu

At Christmas, the line between past and present blurs. You notice it when carolers, ice skaters, and horse-drawn sleighs adorn greeting cards. It stands out as women in long dresses and men in elegant attire enjoy candlelit dinners, theater performances, and strolls through the park. You can't miss it whenever families gather for merriment, fond reflection, and good food. That's when it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to picture yourself in Victorian times.

Back then, dinner highlighted Christmas day. Cooked from scratch, it provided guests with the very best a host could offer. Tradition took its place at the head of the table, decreeing favorite decorations and dishes to produce another memorable feast.

Evergreens, holly, and mistletoe bedecked dining rooms. Fine cloth, candles, and floral centerpieces adorned tables. At every place, floral boutonnieres or breast-knots awaited guests who sat down to the household’s finest china. An array of forks, knives, and spoons awaited them, along with a fine napkin, salt cellar, a bread plate, and the best stemware. Christmas dinner arrived in courses, planned well in advance. The following menu comes from “The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook,” popularly known as “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook,” first published in 1896.

A Menu for Christmas Dinner

· Consomme and Bread Sticks

· Olives, Celery, and Salted Pecans

· Roast Goose, Potato Stuffing, and Apple Sauce

· Duchess Potatoes, Cream of Lima Beans

· Chicken Croquettes with Green Peas

· Dressed Lettuce with Cheese Straws

· English Plum Pudding with Brandy Sauce

· Frozen Pudding, Assorted Cakes, and Bonbons

· Crackers and Cheese

· Café Noir.

Consomme and Bread Sticks

Soup or salad? This dinner includes both, but it begins with soup. Some Victorians preferred oyster bisque, which neatly combined two courses for those who considered a fish course essential. Fannie Farmer dispensed with the fish course entirely, which no doubt catered to those who felt that cooking a lot of courses didn’t suit Christmas day.

Consomme, or clarified broth, is time-consuming to make. The broth might be made from a variety of meats--chicken, beef, veal, lamb, pheasant, or even turtle. It required the cook to boil the broth with a “clearmeat” of egg whites, cut vegetables, and ground meat. The result was a beautiful concentrated soup with superior flavor. Today, you can buy canned consommé, but that is often broth with gelatin added. You can find instructions for homemade consommé in the Fannie Farmer cookbook.

Olives, Celery, and Salted Pecans

Some Victorians served small delicacies at this point, while others offered them alongside the salad. Other tasty morsels included pickles, radishes, melon spiced with nutmeg, sweet- pickled grapes, and beets on a bed of mayonnaise-dressed lettuce.

Roasted Goose, Potato Stuffing, and Applesauce

Fannie Farmer’s menu is simple compared to others of the day. Besides roasted goose, a Christmas table might groan under the weight of a standing rib of beef, a turkey with cranberry sauce, and a boar’s head or ham. Goose is quintessential Christmas fare, of course. Just ask Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Whatever the main dish(es), the host carving the meat before his guests was a cherished tradition.

Applesauce needs no introduction, but potato stuffing was new to me. According to some, serving potato stuffing makes mashed potatoes redundant. I can get behind anything that eases that last-minute scramble to get everything to the table while it’s warm. I’m no expert, but a recipe at the New England website looks promising.

Duchess Potatoes and Cream of Lima Beans

Any overachiever should love Duchess Potatoes, or Pommes Duchesse as the French call them. The recipe has been around since it first appeared in La Nouvelle Cuisinière Bourgeoise (1746). In her Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, Fannie Farmer suggested piping the potato-egg mixture into interesting shapes—baskets, roses, pyramids, crowns, leaves, and the like. What’s not to love?

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m looking forward to trying Cream of Lima Beans. Read the comments to the recipe and you might want to make them too. The dish sounds easy and surprisingly delicious.

Other vegetables graced Victorian Christmas feasts: sweet potatoes, salsify, rice, creamed spinach, minced cabbage, creamed tomatoes, cauliflower au gratin, to name a few.

Chicken Croquettes with Green Peas

Victorians liked to make a dish that combined bits of meat, fruit, bread, grains, and/or vegetables in a fried crust. Croquettes were a thrifty way to use up leftovers or cuts that otherwise might not be eaten (such as brain or sweetmeat), Chicken croquettes with peas sound fairly safe, and might even get children to eat their peas.

Dressed Lettuce with Cheese Straws

By this point in the meal, diners were slowing down but anticipating dessert. One more course remained before that happy event. Wise cooks offered a simple salad course of lettuce with French dressing, enlivened by cheese straws and a few small delicacies (perhaps radishes, beets, and nuts) on the side.

English Plum Pudding with Brandy Sauce

At last arrived the grand finale. Plum pudding, or Christmas pudding, originated in the Middle Ages. At first a savory dish, it had transformed into its present sweet form by the Victorian era. Plum pudding has concluded traditional English Christmas dinners for centuries. Doused with brandy and set alight, it would be carried by the hostess into the dining room amid cheers and applause.

Despite its name, this pudding contains no plums. It features raisins, which used to be called “plums.” Currants, figs, and citron are included in Fannie Farmer’s English Plum Pudding recipe. Suet (a kind of beef fat) was chopped fine and incorporated into the batter. Although suet is an unfamiliar ingredient to Americans, cooking with it is not that different from using lard or shortening.

To buy suet in the United States, check with a butcher. If you want to experiment with a substitute, the Times Colonist website has advice for you, It also offers a pudding recipe that doesn’t call for suet. The steamed cranberry pudding with raisins, currants, and walnuts contains no alcohol and takes about twenty minutes to prepare. It cooks in under two hours. Victoriana Magazine has a selection of Christmas pudding recipes.

If you use shortening in your pudding, please make it a healthy version with no transfats. Butter has a lower melting point, so the texture will vary, but I did notice comments stating that it turns out delicious.

The pudding is steamed in a mold (available online). Good Housekeeping explains how to steam plum pudding. The traditional time to make plum pudding is the first Sunday of Advent. We’re a little late this year but early for the next.

Fannie Farmer’s cookbook has you covered for pudding sauces, by the way. If you're not into the traditional brandy sauce, you can choose another.

Frozen Pudding, Assorted Cakes, and Bon Bons

From what I can tell, Victorian “frozen pudding” was much like ice cream frozen in a mold. One example is Nesselrode pudding. A chef working for Russian Count Nesselrode created a decadent chestnut pudding and named it for his employer. A fancy dessert in Victorian times, Nesselrode Pudding remains popular today.

Victorians enjoyed a variety of cakes, as we do today. Folks are still raving over Mary Berry’s Christmas cake, a fruitcake-like confection.

Victorian bon bons were small candies, often covered in chocolate (because why not?). They were much like the boxes of chocolates we indulge in today. A list of homemade bon bons at Victorian Voices describes caramel walnuts, chocolate almonds, chocolate caramels, coconut ices, and something known as “American sweets,” which contained a variety of fillings.

Crackers and Cheese

“Salt after sweet!” an aunt of mine was fond of proclaiming. Her words had the ring of something she’d brought forward from childhood. I blame Grandma for instilling this mantra in her and, by osmosis, in me. I can’t eat a piece of cake without wanting potato chips. I’m kidding, mostly. Actually, crackers are considered a palate cleanser, and cheese contains casein, which strengthens tooth enamel and prevents acidic foods from damaging your teeth. They knew a thing or two in Victorian times.

Café Noir

Fannie Farmer’s Christmas dinner menu concludes with black coffee to let the meal “settle.” Many people believe that drinking coffee after a meal aids the digestion, and it does have certain beneficial effects. It is known to balance blood sugar after eating, which increases energy levels.

Conclusion

This menu is more attainable in terms of labor and resources than the Victorian Thanksgiving menu I wrote about last month. I do like the idea of hosting a Victorian Christmas dinner for friends and family. I'll try a few of the dishes this Christmas and next year go gung-ho. How about you?

What's New with Janalyn Voigt

I am enjoying a brief lull in my schedule to allow for the holidays. This is something I've wanted to do since my writing career blossomed. This is the first Christmas in a long while that it has worked out. I'm thankful for my blessings, and more time for my family and myself is one of them. Bedtime reading is in the picture again, and I couldn't be more ecstatic. My years judging literary contests and reading books for review meant that I read to a schedule. I can't think of anything more likely to kill a passion for reading. Fortunately, it's back, and I intend to guard it well. If you are struggling to read, I understand. One thing that helped me is getting excited about putting together a reading corner in my home. The plans, much delayed by Christmas, are in the works. Speaking of Christmas, have a lovely one. 

Janalyn Voigt is the author of the Montana Gold western historical fiction series and the Tales of Faeraven medieval epic fantasy series. Learn more about Janalyn Voigt.

The Perpetual Stew Pot

by Pam Hillman

I live in the 21^st century (surprise, surprise!), but my brain has been immersed in the 18^th century for the last several years. I’m writing a series set in 1790s Natchez and the surrounding area that includes the Natchez Trace. The series is appropriately called the Natchez Trace Novel Series. And the first book The Promise of Breeze Hill releases in August 2017. You can read more about the Natchez Trace here.

Yesterday, J. M. Hochstettler brought us an eye opening post about the mind-boggling amount of work the colonial housewife had to do each and every day, year in and year out. If you missed it, you can read Joan's post here.

When I read Joan's post, I was reminded of the Proverbs 31 woman who rises before dawn and well ... just does everything and then some... and they call her blessed. Then I'm reminded of the fast-food world we live in. The ease of doing laundry, picking up dinner at the drive thru, or just putting a roast and all the trimmings in a crock pot or an instant pot and walking away.

We love our shortcuts, don't we? Well, there were a few shortcuts that even the colonial housewife used... such as the perpetual stew.

In the 1790s, most colonists raised their own food and prepared meals from scratch. The staples were basically the same with a few variations depending on what part of the country people lived in… vegetables, pork, chicken, fish, beef, mutton, wild game, eggs, milk, corn and grains (also ground into meal and flour), molasses, honey. Spices such as pepper and salt might have been hard to come by, and refined sugar as we know it was a luxury, not a necessity. So was coffee for many people. Even if someone could afford to purchase or barter for something they didn’t grow on their own land, they still received the food in its “raw” state. No boxed dinners here.

While many of our modern day “plain fare” might be similar, like a hearty pot of meat and vegetable soup, we have all these conveniences that make preparing the meal so much easier, even if we choose to cook a meal from scratch occasionally. And that’s not even including the drive-thru where we can grab a burger and fries or even have a pizza delivered, or just pop a pre-made one in the oven.

The 18^th century cook should have spent most of her day preparing meals to feed her family. Just think about all that preparation if they had broiled fish for the noon meal, baked ham for supper, fried chicken or mutton stew the next day, not to mention all the vegetables and bread that she’d need to go along with the meat portion. It wasn’t like she could just run through McDonald’s or Domino’s and grab dinner for everyone.

I daresay that’s why she fed her family from the perpetual stew pot. What’s that, you ask?

“A perpetual stew, also known as hunter's pot or hunter's stew, is a pot into which whatever one can find is placed and cooked. The pot is never or rarely emptied all the way, and ingredients and liquid are replenished as necessary.” (Perpetual Stew, Wikipedia)

Now that we’re all sufficiently grossed out, done properly (and what 18^th century housewife wouldn’t have known how to do it properly), the contents of perpetual stew would be unlikely to kill anyone. Some resources I read said the perpetual stew pot might not be emptied and washed until Lent. For the uniformed, Lent only comes once a year. Gulp.

Another interesting blog mentioned that by having perpetual stew over the fire, the family could eat whenever the need arose. And if perpetual stew is being served in an inn, or a stand, as they were called along the Natchez Trace, then this makes perfect sense. The proprietor would have stew to feed travelers at any time of day or night. No rushing to the chicken coop to — you know — turn live squeaking chicken into chicken and dumplings or fried chicken that might feed two or three hungry men and no more. Nope. Instead, they’d save that chicken for the morrow and add it to the stew pot along with a lot of vegetables, grain, and an opossum or two.

What if Pop comes home from hunting and only has one rabbit? One rabbit isn’t enough to feed a family of ten, but the perpetual stew is simmering in the kettle, so Mom just browns the rabbit and adds it to the pot along with some wild onions that she found earlier in the day, and maybe a mealy potato or two, and it simmers all night and they have fresh meat in the pot for the next day.

Native Americans also got in on the act. Family groups (whole tribes, possibly?) used this method to feed their people.

Lest you think perpetual stew is something out of the dark ages, think again.

As recently as 2014, Chef David Santos prepared perpetual stew in his restaurant, Louro, in New York City. Chef David started his perpetual stew in August 2014 and as of the writing of this blog post on January 26, 2015, that perpetual stew (dubbed Stu) was still going strong. The last tweet on the Louro Perpetual Stew twitter account was March 9, 2016, so that means that Stu was alive and well and being consumed by customers for at least 18 months. Also, as an aside, Louro has now closed its doors, but Chef David has opened another restaurant with multiple locations, appropriately named Good Stock.

And last, but not least… “Some family restaurants in China claim that the same sauce has been used continuously for 75 years.” (Click for source)

I can’t even imagine. Would you? Could you?

Eat it, that is.

The Promise of Breeze Hill, available for pre-order from your favorite retailer. (The story may or may not feature a pot of perpetual stew.)

Amazon, B&N, CBD

CBA Bestselling author PAM HILLMAN was born and raised on a dairy farm in Mississippi and spent her teenage years perched on the seat of a tractor raking hay. In those days, her daddy couldn't afford two cab tractors with air conditioning and a radio, so Pam drove an Allis Chalmers 110. Even when her daddy asked her if she wanted to bale hay, she told him she didn't mind raking. Raking hay doesn't take much thought so Pam spent her time working on her tan and making up stories in her head. Now, that's the kind of life every girl should dream of. www.pamhillman.com

Holiday Food: From the Middle Ages to Your Christmas Table

I smile as I type this post today, because it is with great fondness that I look back on some of my childhood memories.

When I was young, maybe six or seven, we gathered around the table on Christmas Eve to eat lamb and fruitcake and Yorkshire pudding, I hardly realized one day I’d be write books set near the Regency Period of British history, nor did I realize that I'd one day be writing novels about Cornish immigrants to the the United States in the late 1800s. So there I was, a young child scrunching up my nose at funny shaped golden blobs that didn’t resemble pudding at all but were called pudding, grumbling that the lamb tasted funny, and complaining that the fruitcake didn’t look much like cake. But my English grandmother beamed throughout the entire meal, telling us how she used to eat these foods every Christmas when she was growing up.

During Regency days, goose, venison and beef would have been the prevalent meat at Christmas feasts, not lamb. Yorkshire pudding was a common food for the lower classes, and wouldn’t have been served in aristocratic households. Gingerbread has a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages and was brought from the Middle East by a monk. (For more information on the history of gingerbread, checkout my post from last year.) And eggnog is well over 300 years old, though that drink may well date back to the Middle Ages also.

In America during the 1880s, turkey, quail, and venison were all common Christmas fare, and depending on the region of the country where you lived, oysters, clams, and other seafood might be served as well. Much like the English brought Yorkshire pudding, eggnog, and fruitcake across the Atlantic to our modern Christmas tables, German immigrants brought apple sausage, sauerkraut, and potato dumplings, and list of traditional Christmas food kept growing as more people from other cultures brought their own special recipes. (Baklava, anyone? You can thank the Ottoman Empire for that delicious desert.)

I'm curious about your family and the food you eat for Christmas. Does it reflect your heritage or is the table filled with modern American fare such as cheesy hash brown casserole and spinach artichoke dip? Do you have any favorite Christmas dishes that you remember eating as a child? What makes those dishes special to you?

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Naomi Rawlings is the author of seven historical Christian novels, including the Amazon bestselling Eagle Harbor Series. While she'd love to claim she spends her days huddled in front of her computer vigorously typing, in reality, she spends her time homeschooling, cleaning, picking up, and pretending like her house isn't in a constant state of chaos. She lives with her husband and three children in Michigan's rugged Upper Peninsula, along the southern shore of Lake Superior where they get 200 inches of snow every year, and where people still grow their own vegetables and cut down their own firewood--just like in the historical novels she writes. You can find out more about her books at www.naomirawlings.com.

Medieval Foods

The foods eaten in medieval times were both similar and different than those we enjoy today. In a castle, meals were usually taken in the great hall, a chamber often located on an upper floor. Servants carrying hot dishes from the kitchen (found on a lower level or in separate building) had to hurry to deliver food that still contained some warmth.

Class considerations dictated diets, the order in which people were served, and the way they behaved at table. Three meals were served: breakfast, dinner, and supper. The use of alcoholic beverages at meals in the Middle Ages was a  widespread preventative measure that guarded against contracting illnesses from drinking unsanitary water.

Illustration from The Decameron, Flanders, 1432. Paris, Biblioteque nationale, Département des manuscrits, Français 5070 fol. 132. {{PD-BnFMandragorePic}}  

Breakfast

For servants,breakfast might consist of a portion or coarse bread and some ale or cider. Those of noble birth ate cold sliced meat, cheese, white bread that had been thrice milled to remove impurities and improve its texture. and a cup of wine.

Dinner

 Served around midday, dinner was the main repast of the day. A trumpeter or cryer summoned the diners, and then pages would bring a wash bowl and poured water from elaborate pitchers so that those seated at the lord's table could wash their hands. Others washed in lavers before seating themselves at trestle tables below the dais elevating the lord's table. The benches they sat on might later serve as their beds.

Silver salt cellars sat on the tables and cups fashioned from silver, pewter, wood, or horn. More exotic materials for cups used by the nobility included ostrich eggs, agate, and gourds. Guests were expected to supply their own knives. Forks didn't come into popular use until the Renaissance period, and it was considered bad manners (and probably not very smart) to put food into your mouth with a knife. People either ate with spoons, as in the case of soups and stews, or with their fingers.

Visiting clergymen were the first served, followed by noble guests, the lord and his family, then the lower classes.Those at the lord's table were served from a silver platter while the common folk took their food from wooden platters. Until plates came into use late in the 14th century, flat pieces of bread known as trenchers held individual portions of food.

After the chaplain blessed the food, the first course would be served with bread and butter. Cupbearers made sure cups of wine, beer or ale did not run dry. Three or four courses usually made up a dinner. Elaborate feasts called for more courses that offered a stunning array of culinary delights.

Vegetables were considered food for commoners, so the lord and his guests dined mostly on meat and pastries. As might be imagined, this diet caused health complications.

A variety of flesh, fish, and fowl were consumed, including swans, peacocks, seals, dolphins, venison, and mutton. Common vegetables were onions, peas, beans, cabbage, parsley, shallots, and pot-herbs. Fruits eaten in the Middle Ages were apples, pears, plums, peaches, and nuts. These were cooked, since raw fruit was considered unhealthy. Meals ended with cheeses, cakes, wafers, spiced wine, cookies, waffles, and jellies.

After the diners finished eating, servants would gather the trenchers and bread liners to be distributed to the poor.

Merchants had a diet similar to that taken by the nobility, except that they also ate vegetables. Peasants in the country consumed more humble fare. They might take porridge, turnips, coarse bread, herbal salads dressed with vinegar or verjuice, and beer or ale. They could supplement with fish or pork and bacon, in season. Villagers might enjoy bread made from rye, barley, or wheat, plus peas or beans, oat cakes, porridge, fish, and cheese curds. They would wash down a meal with ale, mead, or cider.

Peasant meal.
Aristotle, Politiques et économiques, France, 15th century. Paris, Biblioteque nationale, Département des manuscrits, Français 22500.{{PD-BnFMandragorePic}}

Supper

Later in the day, it was time for a light supper that usually included a main dish, side dishes, and cheese. This meal ushered in the evening's entertainment.

A livery cupboard in or near the great hall welcomed unexpected guests in need of nourishment with bread, meat pies, cold meats, cheese, and libations. Some lords had livery cupboards in their chambers, but this was frowned upon as gluttonous by the church. 

Medieval Table Manners

Strict table manners were observed in the Middle Ages, with participants expected to wash their hands before eating, wipe their mouths before drinking (since cups were shared), take their food in small bites chewed slowly, avoid speaking with their mouths full, resist gnawing on bones, and leave their trencher for the poor. Some of the rules of etiquette they followed are still observed today. They weren't supposed to rest their elbows on the table, slurp their soup, belch at table, or feed scraps to dogs during the meal.. We find echoes of the rules they followed as we take our meals today.

About the Author

Escape into creative worlds of fiction with Janalyn Voigt, an author whose unique blend of adventure, romance, suspense, and fantasy creates breathtaking fictional worlds for readers.

Beginning with DawnSinger, Janalyn's epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven, carries readers into a land only imagined in dreams.

Janalyn is represented by Sarah Joy Freese of Wordserve Literary. Her memberships include ACFW and NCWA. When she's not writing, she loves to discover worlds of adventure in the great outdoors with her family.

Source

The Writer's Guide to Everday Life in the Middle Ages (The British Isles from 500 to 1500) by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Gingerbread--From the Dark Ages to Your Christmas Table

Every year during the Christmas season, gingerbread men, women, stars, and trees fill plates and tables across the world. People spend hours baking and decorating gingerbread houses while children fill their mouths with candy that should be getting glued to the houses. You may not realize it, but gingerbread has been around for over a millennium, first appearing in Western culture during the 10th Century.

The first specific record of gingerbread being introduced to Europe tells the story of an Armenian monk who traveled to France, where he then taught gingerbread baking to French Catholics. From there, gingerbread making seemed to spread throughout Europe via monasteries and convents. In England, gingerbread was also known for it's medicinal properties and increasingly sold in monasteries and pharmacies during the Medieval Period.

Gingerbread Mould

Queen Elizabeth 1 of England is credited with first serving gingerbread biscuits (or cookies) in shapes resembling plants and animals--and possibly even men. These cookies were often decorated with gold leaf rather than the icing we know today, and elaborately decorated gingerbread figures became a symbol of all things fancy and elegant. In fact, gingerbread bakers were a distinct sect of bakers' guilds who made their livings based on their artistry with the food.

While Queen Elizabeth and the English entertained themselves with their gingerbread figurines, the Germans busied themselves by making gingerbread houses. These houses were usually decorated with foil and gold leaf, and they became synonymous with Christmas--a tradition that has stuck around for five hundred years. Gingerbread houses became even more famous in the early 1800s when the Brothers Grimm penned the story of Hansel and Gretel. Do you remember the giant gingerbread house with windows of sugar that Hansel and Gretel start to eat before the witch found them?

Today the town of Bergen, Norway makes it's own gingerbread town every year, while gingerbread house contests across the U.S. and Europe culminate with people spending hours and hours of time on their beloved structures. The world's largest gingerbread house was constructed in Bryan, Texas, as a charity endeavor to raise $200,000 for the children's floor of a local hospital. The house required a building permit and was built much like a normal house with a wooden frame, but over 4,000 bricks of gingerbread were used for the walls.

So what about you? Is gingerbread part of your family's holiday traditions? Do you have any special memories revolving around gingerbread? I'd love to hear them in the comments below.

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A mother of two young boys, Naomi Rawlings spends her days picking up, cleaning, playing and, of 

course, writing. Her husband pastors a small church in Michigan’s rugged Upper Peninsula, where her family shares its ten wooded acres with black bears, wolves, coyotes, deer and bald eagles. Naomi and her family live only three miles from Lake Superior, where the scenery is beautiful and they average 200 inches of snow per winter. She is looking forward to the release of her fourth novel, Falling for the Enemy, in January 2015. For more information about Naomi, please visit her website at www.naomirawlings.com.

Here We Come A-Wassailing

Thank you for having me today! Waes-hael! That’s an Anglo-Saxon greeting of good health, part of an ancient custom that’s changed in meaning over the centuries. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is the image of the wassail bowl, filled to the brim and redolent with sweet and spice, ready to be shared among friends.

When Anita Mae Draper sat down to write Here We Come A-Wassailing for Guidepost’s A Cup of Christmas Cheer, she said she “thought of the song and imagined a woman on her way home, gathering people along the way as they do when they go caroling on Christmas Eve. It only seemed natural that when she got there her mother would have a steaming wassail bowl waiting.”

Clearly, wassail is now and has always been about more than a warm, spicy drink. Today, we think of it as a Christmas tradition, but it was not specific to any holiday in centuries gone by. The first recorded mention of wassail—as an act of salute and fellowship, not just as a drink— is in the epic 8^th-century poem, Beowulf.

The rider sleepeth,
the hero, far-hidden; no harp resounds,
in the courts no wassail, as once was heard.

One can easily imagine the fellowship taking place in the great halls of England as folk gathered on chill evenings around a bowl of wassail, wishing one another good health as they drank.

One wonders what such a drink tasted like. Originally, wassail was made of ale, mead, or wine, eggs, sugar, spices, and curdled cream, garnished with floating toast (the source of our modern day term for raising one’s glass to someone!). The addition of roasted apples and their frothy-looking pulp gave rise to another name for wassail, Lamb’s Wool.

Regardless of the recipe, wassail of days gone by was undoubtedly stout in its alcohol content. Fruit juice in the bowl, if any, was no doubt fermented. Only the wealthy could afford the wine and spices, so the recipes varied according to the finances of the family serving it. Wassail was heated and then served from huge bowls, often made of wood, silver, or pewter.

While wassailing in some areas of England had a pagan connotation (orchard-wassailing entailed to the health of apple trees and scaring away evil spirits), eventually, wassailing came to be associated with Christmastide. By at least the 16^th century, wealthy landowners hosted villagers for a feast and wassail on Twelfth Night in exchange for the villager’s singing and toasts to the master’s health. Ever wondered why the singers demand figgy pudding in “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” after sharing their good tidings? It all goes back to wassailing—a salute in exchange for food and drink.

The Gloucester Wassail carol from the Middle Ages, puts it thus:

Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee.

By the 19^th century, wassailing evolved into Christmas caroling, going door to door sharing holiday cheer but still expecting alcohol in return. Around 1850, the popular wassailing carol came about, and we still sing it today:

Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wand'ring
So fair to be seen.

Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too;
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year
And God send you a Happy New Year.

Today, wassailing is almost synonymous with caroling, although modern folk don’t expect figgy pudding or mulled mead as the price of their songs. On the contrary, the fun and fellowship of the experience are payment enough, but if a neighbor offers cocoa to warm our cold hands, few of us are loath to say no.

Ready to make your own wassail for the holiday season? Some recipes call for claret mulled with spices. Others mix spices and juices (apple, pineapple, and orange) with sherry and brandy. Tamer versions (like mine, below) are alcohol-free. No matter the recipe, wassail will be fragrant with cinnamon and cloves, served warm, and sticky if spilled!

And best of all, it still tastes better when shared with friends.

Wassail Punch

Serves 6
In a crockpot or Dutch oven, combine:

6 cups apple cider (not juice)
1 cup cranberry or orange juice

In a cheesecloth pouch or large bag for steeping tea, place 4 cinnamon sticks, 8-10 whole cloves, and 8-10 whole allspice. Add to juices. If desired, add one sliced orange for color. I do not add sugar, but if desired, a small amount may be used.

Simmer until hot. Enjoy!


Have you ever gone Christmas caroling? Did anyone offer you a cup of cocoa or cookies as a result?

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Susanne Dietze began writing love stories in high school, casting her friends in the starring roles. Today, she writes in the hope that her historical romances will encourage and entertain others to the glory of God. She loves fancy-schmancy tea parties, travel, and curling up on the couch with a costume drama and a plate of nachos. Her first novella, Love’s Reward, is part of the Most Eligible Bachelor Collection, coming in June, 2015. You can visit her on her website, www.susannedietze.com.

Host a Medieval Holiday Feast

For a fun spin on Thanksgiving or Christmas, why not host a medieval feast? It’s easier than you may think, although the philosophy menus were based on in the Middle Ages seems a little strange to us today.

Similar to the modern adherence to the food pyramid, medieval meals adhered to the four humor system. This system was founded on the belief that all Creation labored under the influence of four conditions:  melancholy (cold and dry), choler (hot and dry), phlegm (cold and moist), and blood (hot and moist). Variations on these names existed but the principles were the same. If a person suffered an imbalance, he or she was said to be “out of humor.”

Physicians advised medieval cooks to balance the four humors in the foods they served to keep diners properly balanced. For example moist foods served cold (like some meats) aligned to the property of Phlegm and as a counter-measure called for sauces or spices that were hot and dry. Foods that were on the dry side were boiled, never roasted. Moist foods were baked to dry them.

That sounds like a lot to keep track of, but surprisingly, medieval feasts were not all that different from those of today. That’s because modern eating habits have their roots in history. A medieval feast often started with a soup, salad, light fruits, or light meats. Foods more difficult to digest like beef, pork, and heavier fruits and vegetables followed. The meal wound down with something sweet. As today, special occasions called for elaborate desserts.

Cheese was taken as a digestive aid prior to the meal and after consuming meats. Similarly, fish was followed by nuts. Medieval cooks were not afraid of spices, since they also were thought to aid digestion.

A medieval feast was served in courses, with each course composed of several offerings. There might be many courses of a few items each or only a few courses made up of many dishes. Diners ended the evening with wine and sweet fruits and cakes.

Royal feasts featured lavish spectacles called solteties, elaborate creations crafted mostly from sugar in the likeness of warriors, heroes, mythical tableaus, or whatever other shape might be desired. Another medieval amusement was to disguise one food as another. A cake might appear as a realistic-looking fish, for example.

Here’s a quick guide to blend old with new and create your own medieval-inspired feast:

Course 1: bread and cheese, soup or salad, peaches

Course 2: green vegetables, fish, lean pork or chicken served with a spicy sauce

Course 3: roasted beef or turkey (if you must), cranberry sauce, poached pears, or figs, potatoes or yams

Course 4: a selection of two or three desserts in small portions

Investigate medieval recipes at GodeCookery.com.

Medieval diners drank a variety of wine and ale throughout the meal, but if you prefer, you can substitute apple cider, grape juice, and water flavored with lemon or mint.

To replicate a medieval dining experience, take time to talk, listen to music, or enjoy a holiday presentation between courses. Your feast should span several hours. Give guests a final sweet snack and drink at the end of the evening.

The post is brought to you by Janalyn Voigt. Escape into creative worlds of fiction. 

When Janalyn was a child, her father read classic literature to her at bedtime, instilling in her a love of story. With a teacher's encouragement, she decided to become a writer at the tender age of twelve.

Beginning with DawnSinger, Janalyn's medieval epic fantasy series, Tales of Faeraven, carries the reader into a land only imagined in dreams. Janalyn is also working on a romantic suspense novel set in a castle. She is represented by Sarah Joy Freese of Wordserve Literary.

When Janalyn is not writing, she loves to find adventures in the great outdoors.

Janalyn posts interesting details from her research, travel journals, author journals, and updates about her books at her Creative Worlds website.