Category Archives: 18th Century Cooking

A Pork Pie with a Standing Crust

In a previous post, I presented three common types of pastry crust used in the 18th century: the standing crust, the puff paste, and the short paste. These are fairly broad categories of crusts, and recipes for numerous variations for … Continue reading

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Suet, Part Four: A Few Recipes.

While perusing several 18th century cookbooks, I’ve identified and included below a selection of recipes using suet. I chose these recipes because they seem to be fairly typical representations of food categories which commonly use suet: puddings, dumplings, pastry crusts, … Continue reading

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Suet, Part Three: Preparing it.

Suet was apparently used both raw and rendered (refined) in 18th century cooking. While some of the original recipes specified the use of rendered suet, most seemed to leave the option open.  It is fairly common for recipes to instruct the … Continue reading

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Suet, Part One: Its role in 18th Century Foodways and Life

Scan through almost any 18th century cookbook and you will find a recurring term: Suet. Suet was an important ingredient in English cooking. It’s still used today, though it seems to have reserved its spot on British grocery shelves much more … Continue reading

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Salted Meat for a Long Journey at Sea

I recently received an email from a fellow historical foodie, who…well, for efficiency sake, I’ll include his email message while respecting his privacy: Good evening, First I’d like to say that I watch your YouTube historical cooking videos quite avidly, … Continue reading

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The Christmas Pie

In most English societies, for centuries Christmas has been a time of gatherings, and food, and festivities, and traditions, and family. For many people in the eighteenth century, Christmas was celebrated much differently than it typically is today. Remnants of … Continue reading

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An 18th Century Cookbook Dedicated to the Sweet Tooth

Here’s an interesting cookbook by Frederick Nutt, originally written in 1789, called “The Complete Confectioner, or the Whole Art of Confectionery.” Just in time for the holidays, its repertoire of recipes includes biscuits, drops, prawlings, ice creams, water ices, fruits … Continue reading

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