Fellow - Dining at Downton: Traditions of the Table From The Unofficial Guide to Downton Abbey

If afternoon tea was the ladies social gathering, dinner, in the 1920s, was a far more powerful thing. For allegiances were created, societal manoeuvres were performed, and commercial (and romantic) alliances were built in the dining room of Downton Abbey, all performed with blithe smiles and with the most subtle finesse.

Carson and his footmen discretely placed beautifully prepared meals in front of guests, each dish designed to secure the estate with ever more promise of success. Mrs Patmore and Daisy created culinary masterpieces that would ensure guests would continue to visit and deal with the family for many years to come. This was networking on the very grandest of scales.

The intricate arrangement of the menu and the dinner itself was a feat of great co-ordination. Mrs Patmore, creating a suggested menu from the seasonal vegetables in the garden and conversations with the butcher and gamekeeper, would keep a very tight rein on the budget. Her suggested menu would then be taken to her Ladyship who was a font of all knowledge about likes, dislikes, and taste buds of her guests! It would be at her behest that more exotic dishes might come to the table.

A good cooks objective was always be to optimise the amount of yield she could get from any one ingredient. Beef then, would come to the Abbey complete with the organs and bones of the beast as well as the regular cuts of meat. A carcass would always be boiled up to produce ever more wonderful stock. Entres in particular, would often feature what we would term as offal these days, the innards, the liver, kidneys, and heart. These cheap cuts were turned into exquisitely light dishes, often served with potatoes and a deliciously rich sauce.

The wild Yorkshire countryside is wonderful farming country, and much of the food eaten at the table came from the working estate. Many of Lady Marys pigs, of course, would eventually become bacon ( bless them ) as well as other fine cuts of meat such as the York Ham in the recipe later. Nothing was ever left over from a good animal. In Christmas at Downton, I list a recipe for brawn, the favourite dish for using up the trotters and pigs head!

In the twenties, fish courses were standard fare in the menu. This was game in plenty, as the rivers in the area team with stock. With fishing ports like Whitby and Scarborough less than 50 miles away, sea fish were easily available too. Herring, cod, haddock, prawn, mussels, crabs, oysters, and lobsters were all considered local foods hailing from East Yorkshire.

In England, seasonality has as much to do with hunting restrictions as it does with what is ready to harvest (mainly to protect the younger animals in the spring). The collaboration between the game keeper and Mrs Patmore ensured that as much of the money going out of the kitchen went back into the coffers of the estate, with a smaller portion going to the butcher. However, legal restrictions dictated what could find its way to the table and when.

In Yorkshire, duck and goose can be hunted between September and January. The Glorious 12 th marks the celebrated opening of the Grouse season in August and ends on 10 th December. Hares can be shot between 1st August and 29th February. Partridges were often served up on plates between the beginning of September and the end of January. Pheasant has a shorter year, available between 1st October and 1st February, making it a wintertime favourite delicacy. Quail, wood pigeon, and rabbits were shot and served all year round.

The availability of venison is always good in England (although expensive), but shooting is limited to hunting bucks between August and April, and does between November and February. Being such a heavy meat, it was not missed when not available for lighter spring menus.

Estates of the day also provided dairy from the cattle, to be churned into milk, cream, and butter. We do not ever see a dairy maid on screen potentially because she was always out in the dairy, or otherwise huddled by the fire keeping warm! Dairies of the period were punishingly cold, tiled from floor to ceiling. Churning the butter and constantly washing away the whey was cold and exhausting work.