Pen Vogler - Dinner with Mr Darcy: Recipes Inspired By the Novels and Letters of Jane Austen

DINNER
WITH
MR DARCY

DINNER
WITH
MR DARCY

Recipes inspired by the novels and letters of Jane Austen

PEN VOGLER

For my Mum
For being much like
Mrs. Austen and nothing
like Mrs. Bennet

This edition published in 2020 by CICO Books

An imprint of Ryland Peters & Small Ltd

2021 Jockeys Fields

London WC1R 4BW

341 E 116th Street

New York, NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First published in 2013.

Text Pen Vogler 2013, 2020

Design & photography CICO Books 2013, 2020

The authors moral rights have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress and the British Library.

eISBN: 978-1-78249-914-5

ISBN: 978-1-78249-848-3

Printed in China

Copy Editor: Lee Faber

Designer: Louise Leffler

Food Photographer: Stephen Conroy

Home Economist: Emma Jane Frost

Stylist: Luis Peral

Art Director: Sally Powell

Head of Production: Patricia Harrington

Publishing Manager: Penny Craig

Publisher: Cindy Richards

NOTES:

All recipes serve four unless indicated otherwise. All eggs are large (UK medium) unless indicated otherwise.

CONTENTS

Northanger Abbey

Pride and Prejudice

Emma

Letters of Jane Austen

Emma

Mansfield Park

Pride and Prejudice

Emma

Persuasion

Sense and Sensibility

The picnic at Box Hill in Emma: Mrs. Bennet preening herself over a fat haunch of venison, roasted to a turn; a gooseberry tart offered to a tired and homesick Fanny PriceJane Austens novels and letters are lightly sauced with dishes, dinners, and picnics, which tell us much about her characters warmth, neighborliness, ambitions, and anxieties, and about the important role that food played in comfortable society in Georgian England. And, with a bit of help from contemporary recipe books, Janes novels let us put together a wonderful idea of what life tasted like at the time.

In Janes comic Juvenilia, she happily describes whole meals her characters enjoy, but in the mature novels, her least lovable characters are often those most preoccupied with what they eat. We are a little repelled by the indolent and greedy Dr. Grant in Mansfield Park, and a little scared by the active and punctiliousbut equally greedyGeneral Tilney in Northanger Abbey. It is great fun to laugh at Mrs. Eltons social anxiety as she professes to be shocked at the quality of the rout cakes in Highbury, in Emma, or the ghastly Mrs. Norris as she spunges pheasants eggs and cream cheese from Mr. Rushworths housekeeper, or pilfers the remaining jellies after the Mansfield Park ball, but Janes true heroines are unembarrassed by hunger or greed.

In her letters, however, Jane shows a lively interest in housekeeping and she describes meals she has enjoyed, or plans to have, and the many edible gifts that were made within her large family and circle of friends.

Her first home at Steventon Rectory in Hampshire offered marvelous training for what Mary Crawford archly describes as the sweets of housekeeping in a country village. Mr. Austen was both rector and farmer, producing meat from his pigs, and dairy from five Alderney cows. He was particularly proud of his excellent mutton. Mrs. Austen ran the dairy, poultry yard, and a productive fruit and vegetable garden, besides having a family of six boys and two girls (Jane was the seventh baby.) They were self-sufficient in all, except some Georgian essentials such as coffee, tea, oranges, lemons, and spices.

When Jane was twenty-five, her father retired, and the family moved to Bath. Janes letters started to mention prices and the problems of getting good meat and dairy, later reflected in Mrs. Grants gentle rejoinder to Mary Crawford when she points out the exorbitant charges and frauds, which were part of housekeeping in towns. Jane has a very funny passage on the price of fish:

I am not without hopes of tempting Mrs. Lloyd to settle in Bath; meat is only 8d. per pound, butter 12d., and cheese 9 d. You must carefully conceal from her, however, the exorbitant price of fish: a salmon has been sold at 2s. 9d. per pound the whole fish. The Duchess of Yorks removal is expected to make that article more reasonableand till it really appears so, say nothing about salmon. (Letter to Cassandra, May 5 1801.)

The widowed Mrs. Lloyd and her daughters, Martha, Eliza, and Mary, had become great friends with the Austen family when they lived in Mr. Austens second parish of Deane in Hampshire. After the deaths of Mrs. Lloyd and Janes father in 1805, Martha joined the Austen household, partly to combine resources, but also because Martha was the trusted friend & sister under every circumstance for the Austen sisters (letter to Cassandra, October 13 1808.) She moved with Mrs. Austen, Jane, and Cassandra to Southampton where, by 1807, they were in a town house in Castle Square; here at least they had access to fresh sea fish and their own garden. Their happiest domestic arrangements came with the cottage at Chawton in Hampshire, which became their home in the summer of 1809. It was the gift of Janes brother Edward, who had been adopted by a childless couple, the Knights, and inherited the estates of Godmersham in Kent, and Chawton Manor in Hampshire. There were other wealthy friends and relatives, too: Mrs. Austens cousin lived at Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire; her son Henry, Janes favorite brother, was a successful banker in Covent Garden. Jane, Cassandra, and Mrs. Austen all spent happy visits in these houses, writing light-heartedly to one another of their temporarily grand lifestyles and dinners.

It was at Chawton that Martha Lloyd compiled her Household Book of recipes, and gave us a wonderful record of dishes that Jane ate with her family and friends. Many of the recipes in Marthas book were given to her by her circle, but it is also easy to trace the influence of some of the key cookery writers of the day. Foremost of these was Hannah Glasse, whose