A Victorian Thanksgiving Menu?

Picture the Victorian era, and America doesn't usually spring to mind. We think of England. Women in elaborate gowns ride in carriages beside men in top hats, cravats, and tailored jackets. Meanwhile, in London town, impoverished waifs with dirt-smeared faces shiver in icy winds. Did you know that the term, “street urchin,” originated in Victorian times? No wonder Charles Dickens featured them in his writing. It's not amazing that we find ourselves transported to the land of Queen Victoria. The era that took Victoria as its namesake spanned her entire reign (from 1837 to 1901). 

America also experienced the Victorian era. It coincided with western expansion and encompassed the Civil War, Spanish-American War,  Mexican-American War, and the annexation of Texas. The Pony Express rose and fell, and a golden spike completed the Transcontinental Railway during this period. Vast herds of buffalo and indigenous nations dwindled in the face of Manifest Destiny. Nineteen states joined the Union. Hawaii's King Kamehameha lit his palace with electric lights. 

A Victorian Thanksgiving Menu

The first Thanksgiving feast didn’t much resemble the traditional meal familiar today. There’s some debate on whether turkey was even present. One of two firsthand accounts mentions them, but not cooked or as the main course. That position may have belonged to duck and geese, unless the wildfowl was carrier pigeon or swan. The pilgrims also ate fish, eel, and shellfish, along with a variety of vegetables (peas, beans, squash, and corn, plus cabbage and carrots). They consumed no mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes, as these hadn’t made their way to North America yet. They wouldn't have possessed enough sugar for cranberry sauce. Pumpkins were plentiful, but other pie-making ingredients were not.

By Victorian times, Thanksgiving dinner included traditional dishes we know today but also unusual ones. Jenny June’s American cookery book by J. C. (Jane Cunningham) Croly (1870) suggests the following menu: “Oyster soup, cod, with egg sauce, lobster salad, roast turkey, cranberry sauce, mixed pickles, mangoes, pickled peaches, cold slaw, and celery; boiled ham, chicken pie ornamented, jelly, mashed potatoes browned, tomatoes, boiled onions, canned corn, sweet potatoes, roasted broccoli. Mince, and pumpkin pie, apple tarts, Indian pudding. Apples, nuts, and raisins."

Oyster soup

Victorians cherished oysters. They ate these in a variety of dishes, including beef and oyster pie, bacon-wrapped angels on horseback (an appetizer) and on a special plate with a well in the middle for the dipping sauce. It’s not surprising to find them featured in this opulent menu.

Cod with egg sauce

Cod was popular for eating but also the source of cod liver oil, which people often took in the 19th-century to ward off sickness. This seafood dish seems a carryover from the first Thanksgiving.

Lobster salad

This is another luxurious concoction that hearkens to a pilgrim’s feast.

Roast turkey

Turkey shares the honors with other entrées.

Cranberry sauce

The sugar necessary to make cranberry sauce became more readily available in 1876, when America signed the Reciprocity Treaty with Hawaii, allowing the import of tariff-free products from Hawaii. The sugar beet industry was also picking up.

Mixed pickles

Special glass jars framed in plated silver, often with silver-plated tongs or a pickle fork, sat on many Victorian tables. These contained pickled vegetables and fruits. The presence of a pickle castor meant that the family was wealthy enough to pay servants both to fill and serve them. Pickle castors were made of pressed, colored, or art glass and decorated with gargoyles, lattice, beading, cherubs, birds, animals, and other ornamentations.

Mangoes

Loved since Ancient times, mangoes are native to southern Asia but then moved to other tropical climates. They arrived in Mexico in the early 19th Century. They came to Florida in 1862 or 1863 and to California in 1880.

Pickled Peaches

You may not have heard of these delicacies if you’re not a Southerner. That seems the area of the United States where the recipe has survived. (I did see some for sale in an Amish store.) Judging by the number of recipes posted online, pickled peaches are delicious. If nothing else, including them in the Thanksgiving menu provided an opportunity to impress guests by putting out a second pickle castor.

Cold Slaw

No, that’s not a typo. By 'cold slaw' Jenny June’s cookbook means 'cole slaw,' the shredded cabbage salad. This represents a misspelling, as ‘cole’ is the Dutch word for cabbage. A quick search reveals numerous Thanksgiving cole slaw recipes online. One blogger praised this dish because it doesn't wilt like regular salad.

Celery

This humble vegetable has been a Thanksgiving staple for over a century. People serve it chopped with mayonnaise, in celery soup, stuffed with peanut butter or cottage cheese, and more. It’s still going strong.

Boiled Ham

I haven’t tried this method of cooking a ham, but folks swear by it. Here, for the interested, is the original Victorian boiled ham recipe from Mrs. Beeton’s Book Of Household Management (1861).

Chicken Pie Ornamented

You will notice the abundance of meat selections in this menu. People in the past usually consumed more variety than we do today. 

I can link to a Victorian chicken pie recipe, but the ornamenting is up to you.

Jelly

People in the Victorian era loved making savory and sweet molded gelatin dishes. The molds they used are a popular antique item.

Mashed Potatoes Browned

I believe these were not the browned butter mashed potatoes we see today, although those sound yummy, but rather oven-browned mashed potatoes. Duchess potatoes seem the modern equivalent.

Tomatoes

Victorians preferred cooking their vegetables. They probably sliced and baked or stewed tomatoes, as shown in this article from VegHotPot.

Boiled Onions

This may refer to the creamed pearl onions we serve at holiday feasts today. Americans use onions in lots of dishes, but we tend to overlook them as a separate vegetable. New England Recipes provides instructions on boiling onions.

Canned Corn

Corn is a uniquely American vegetable, which makes it perfect for Thanksgiving.

Sweet Potatoes

Christopher Columbus carried this tuber to Spain, and it was cultivated in Virginia by the early-1700s. Recipes don’t pair marshmallows with them until around 1917, although American Cookery (1796) by Amelia Simmons contains a recipe for potato pudding topped with egg whites and baked.

Roasted Broccoli

Broccoli likes cooler weather, and it’s vibrant around Thanksgiving.

Mince

This strikes me as more a British traditional item. Victorians liked to add meat to their mince recipes, like this one by From the Larder.

Pumpkin Pie

America’s standard Thanksgiving dessert takes a bow! Lisa Cook teaches how to create a light Victorian version.

Apple Tarts

Victorians loved pies and tarts, something we have in common with them. What could pair better with pumpkin pie than apple tart? Honestly, I don’t know how anyone would have room for dessert after everything else on this menu.

Indian Pudding

This treat is a historical dessert made from cornmeal and molasses. Early colonists created it, possibly as a substitute for hasty pudding. I’d never heard of it before, and you might not have either. The recipe is not well-known, but the view from great island has us covered.

Apples, Nuts, and Raisins

Hosts included these items to fill any possible empty spaces in guests’ stomachs. Right? ;) 

Whew! Just thinking about cooking that meal is exhausting, and most people couldn't afford such a spread. Not to worry. The mixed pickles give away that folks with servants served this feast. I think this was the ideal that folks strove to attain, kind of like trying to scale up your home to match beautiful images on Pinterest. Still, breaking away from tradition to try something new doesn't hurt. I want to include Indian pudding in this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. How about you?

What's New with Janalyn Voigt

Fall is the perfect time for sinking into a comfortable chair and reading. It's one of my favorite things to do. Adding a  cozy fire earns me bonus hygge points. No, I didn't swear. 'Hygge' (pronounced hoo' ga) is a Danish word for that feeling of contentment you feel while drinking hot chocolate with snow flying outside the window. It comes when you dine by candlelight with someone you love. Watching vintage movies in your pajamas is sure to bring it on. 

These days, we could all use more hygge in our lives. I hope, as the days grow shorter and darker, that you will take time to savor quiet moments and good company.

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.

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.

Fall Festivals

by Guest Blogger Ane Mulligan

Fall festivals have their origins in pagan times. Known as Harvest Festival, it’s one of the oldest and most traditional festivals, taking place at the time of the Harvest Moon or when the harvest is over.

In Sugar Hill, Georgia, where I live, we’re at the edge of agriculture and city. Our festival, called Sugar Rush (isn’t that a great name?) is a time to gather downtown to celebrate Fall. It includes street vendors, food, and our volunteer groups, like the Women’s Club, host booths. You can bob for apples, indulge in face painting, try various crafts, listen to live music, and wander through a car show.

Players Guild, the theatre troupe of which I’m Artistic Director, provided street actors handing out cards about our upcoming holiday play. We had a booth complete with props, including a skeleton dressed in a cloak.

Prior to Victorian times, farmers would lay on a harvest feast, where a corn dolly might be given a place of honor and hung up in hope of a good harvest the following year. Long-ago, Anglo-Saxon farmers believed the last sheaf of corn contained its spirit, and it would be sacrificed along with a hare usually found hiding in the field. A model of the hare was then made-up using corn – and evolved to the dolly, said to represent the goddess or spirit of the grain.

Some harvesters felt it was bad luck to cut the last stalk of corn standing. Farms would compete, racing to finish first. Sometimes, reapers would take turns to be blindfolded and sweep a scythe back and forth to finish. I wouldn’t want to be near anyone blindfolded and wielding a scythe, would you?

Our traditional turkey wasn’t on harvest tables in the past. Michaelmas Day, celebrated at the end of the harvest on September 29th, became a religious feast in the Middle Ages. The main dish was goose, which they believed would bring financial protection for the coming year.

In America, we’ve all studied the first thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621. Turkey wasn’t on the menu either – instead the feast included goose, lobster, fish, and deer. While the early colonists hunted wild turkeys, it wasn’t until after Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday in 1863 that turkey became a traditional choice.

Now it’s your turn. What’s your favorite part or tradition at Fall Festivals?

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Ane Mulligan has been a voracious reader ever since her mom instilled within her a love of reading at age three, escaping into worlds otherwise unknown. But when Ane saw Mary Martin in PETER PAN, she was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. She submerged herself in drama through high school and college. Years later, her two loves collided, and a bestselling, award-winning novelist emerged. She resides in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler. Find Ane on her website, Amazon Author page, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and The Write Conversation.

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She traded Sugar Hill for Vaudeville. Now she’s back.

The day Cora Fitzgerald turned sixteen, she fled Sugar Hill for the bright lights of Vaudeville, leaving behind her senator-father’s verbal abuse. But just as her career takes off, she’s summoned back home. And everything changes.

The stock market crashes. The senator is dead. Her mother is delusional, and her mute Aunt Clara pens novels that have people talking. Then there’s Boone Robertson, who never knew she was alive back in high school, but now manages to be around whenever she needs help.

Will the people of her past keep her from a brilliant future?