Persuasions#12, 1990Pages 88-98
Dining at the Great House:
Food and Drink in the Time of Jane Austen
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EILEEN SUTHERLAND
North Vancouver, BC
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What did they have for dinner? Jane Austen gives us few details. Elizabeth Bennet and the Collins are invited to dine at Rosingswith Lady Catherine: what did they eat?Not a word from Austen on that subject, except that Mr. Collins carved,and ate, and praised every dish on the table.Fanny Price and Edmund dined at the parsonage in Mansfield Park,an important occasion in Fanny’s social life – but what did Mrs. Grantserve? We had been told earlier therewould be a turkey – otherwise, not a clue!Austen was writing for her contemporaries, and they all knew just whatsort of a meal would have been provided on each occasion, so why should sheelaborate?
Eighteenth century England was in a state oftransition, and one of the changes was in the houses themselves. Earlier in the century, the upper classhomes consisted of a multi-purpose Great Hall, surrounded by a number of formal“apartments” opening into each other, decorated with rich, patterned fabrics,marble and stucco, gilding and tapestry.By Austen’s time, however, ideas of comfort and privacy were becomingcommon; rooms, opening off a corridor, were described as “pretty” or “smart,”and a new taste for intimacy and informality was prevalent. Instead of the multi-purpose hall, roomswere being used for specific purposes: there was a billiard room, a music room,a library – but the idea of a special room for eating was still uncertain aslate as the mid-1700s.
If there was a dining room, it was most oftenused only for formal dinners; the family usually had their meals in a“breakfast parlour” or “morning room,” or even in the library. Most paintings of interiors of this periodshow the rooms empty in the centre, with the furniture arranged around thewalls, to be brought forward by servants when required. The old-fashioned parlour in the Great Houseat Uppercross was being modernized by the Musgrove daughters, with “littletables placed in every direction” (P, 40). The dining tables were often made as “sets,” of several tables ofdifferent sizes, which could be brought together for special occasions, andbetween meals the tables and chairs were placed back along the walls.
In Edinburgh, the Georgian House, designed byRobert Adam, has been opened to the public, furnished as it might have beenwhen it was first occupied as a town house in 1796. In the dining room the table is made up of a rectangular gate-legtable and two half-circles, which together form a large oval table covered witha single cloth. Some country housesused either of two tables, one large and one small, according to the number ofdiners. This custom of different-sizedtables and folding tables that could be moved around at will, lasted until nearthe end of the 18th century. Peoplestill preferred dining in small groups: Mr. Woodhouse “considered eight personsat dinner together as the utmost that his nerves could bear” (E, 292).
The single large table was just becomingfashionable at the turn of the century.In Emma, the company take their places
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roundthe large modern circular table which Emma had introduced at Hartfield, andwhich none but Emma could have had power to place there and persuade her fatherto use, instead of the small-sized Pembroke on which two of his daily mealshad, for forty years, been crowded. (E,347)
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At Mansfield Park, Mrs. Norris complains, asusual about the Grants, who have succeeded to her place at the Parsonage:
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[Therewill be five at dinner] and round their enormous great wide table, too, whichfills up the room so dreadfully! Hadthe Doctor been contented to take my dining table when I came away, as any bodyin their senses would have done, instead of having that absurd new one of hisown, which is wider, literally wider than the dinner table here! (MP, 220)
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Except in circles very conscious of rank, there wasno formal “taking in” of the ladies by the gentlemen. The host would escort the most important lady, and the otherguests would follow in a body. Inearlier years, the gentlemen all sat on one side of the table, the ladies onthe other. When it became customary tosit alternately, this was called “dining promiscuously”! The numbers of ladies and gentlemen did notneed to be equal, and guests usually sat wherever they liked. At dinner at the Coles’ house, Emma foundFrank Churchill
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seatedby her – and, as she firmly believed, not without some dexterity on hisside. (E, 214)
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In Pride and Prejudice, Bingley, formerly courting Jane, hasreturned after a long absence.
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When they repaired to the dining-room, Elizabeth eagerlywatched to see whether Bingley would take the place, which, in all their formerparties, had belonged to him, by her sister. Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore to invitehim to sit by herself. On entering theroom, he seemed to hesitate; but Jane happened to look round, and happened tosmile: it was decided. He placedhimself by her. (340)
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The hostess sat at the top of the table, thehost at the foot. Dining at Rosings,Mr. Collins “took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her ladyship’sdesire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish nothing greater” (P&P,162).
Married ladies sometimes took precedence overunmarried ones, and a new bride was singled out for special treatment. In Pride and Prejudice, the youngestdaughter Lydia comes home after her scandalous elopement and subsequentmarriage. Elizabeth joins the family atdinner time
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soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up toher mother’s right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, ‘Ah! Jane, Itake your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.’ (317)
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Another who insisted on all her rights andprivileges was Mrs. Elton, the newly-married, nouveau-riche social climber fromtrade circles in Bristol.
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Dinnerwas on table. – Mrs. Elton, before shecould be spoken to, was ready; and before Mr. Woodhouse had reached her withhis request to be allowed to hand her into the dining-parlour, was saying –‘Must I go first? I really am ashamedof always leading the way.’ (E,298)
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Kitchens, also, were changing and being modernizedat this period. Cooking had formerlybeen done over the open fire in the great fireplaces, with racks to hang potsand kettles, and spits to roast meats.At Saltram, in Devon, the kitchen of the Great House was rebuilt after afire in 1779. It is probably typical ofkitchens in Great Houses of that period.
A small room at one end is a butchery, fittedwith racks for hanging carcasses, massive chopping blocks, cutting tables andscales. At the other end is thescullery, with a large lidded copper tank for steeping meats or vegetables, andtwo pairs of double sinks, for washing up.
In the kitchen itself is a great open range,heated by coal and fitted with a water tank with taps for hot water. The draft created by the heat from the firedrives a fan set in the chimney and connected to gears, pulleys and chains,which turn the spit for roasting. Thewidth of the fire can be adjusted by moving the sides, called “winding cheeks,”in or out. Across one end of thekitchen are shelves on which are ranged the batterie de cuisine, thecopper pans and molds (in the case of Saltram, over 600 pieces) which werenecessary for preparing the enormous meals; and on a dresser, the china forserving them. There is the usual fullcomplement of iron kettles and pots, pewter plates and earthenware and woodenvessels.
On tables and in odd corners are spice boxes,cannisters for tea and coffee, vinegar barrels, mincing and grinding machines,pestles and mortars, vast milk jugs, and brass skimmers. The ceiling was well stored with hangingprovisions of various kinds, such as sugar loaves, black puddings, hams,sausages, and flitches of bacon.
A baking oven was separately fired – usually bybuilding the fire inside the oven itself until it was hot enough, then rakingout the ashes, sweeping it clean, and putting in the bread to be baked. When the bread was finished, a secondbaking, at a lower temperature, could be done with the reserved heat. Most ordinary homes did not have their ownbaking ovens. The local baker wouldusually agree – perhaps for a small fee – to bake the neighbours’ dinners afterhis bread baking was done. In the midstof a long monologue, Miss Bates, in Emma, mentions, “Then the bakedapples came home; Mrs. Wallis sent them by her boy.” (236)
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In Cranford, just a little later thanAusten’s day, the ladies
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discussed the circ*mstances of the Captain taking a poorold woman’s dinner out of her hands one very slippery Sunday. He had met her returning from the bakehouseas he came from church, and noticed her precarious footing … and he relievedher of her burden, and steered along the street by her side, carrying her bakedmutton and potatoes safely home.(Gaskell, 20)
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Another change in Austen’s lifetime was thetimes of meals. Breakfast was notearly. Some great ladies had traysbrought up to their rooms and remained in bed until noon. Most households, however, assembled in the“breakfast room.” The usual hour was 9or 10. It was often the custom to be upand doing something for several hours before breakfast. In Sense and Sensibility, EdwardFerrars walked to the village to see to his horses before breakfast (p. 96);Georgiana Darcy travelled to Pemberley arriving “only to a late breakfast,”although we don’t know where she had come from (P&P, 266). In Emma, John Knightley and hislittle boys go for a walk before breakfast and meet Jane Fairfax, on her way tofetch the letters from the Post Office (p. 293). And in Persuasion, Anne Elliot and Henrietta have a strollalong the beach at Lyme, a long talk, meet Louisa and Captain Wentworth, andwalk in to town to shop, “loitering about a little longer,” all beforebreakfast was ready (p. 104).
Jane Austen herself, in London, wrote to her sister:
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Thursdaymorning, half-past seven. – Upand dressed and downstairs in order to finish my letter in time for theparcel. At eight I have an appointmentwith Madame B. [Henry’s housekeeper], who wants to show me somethingdownstairs. At nine we are to set offfor Grafton House, and get that over before breakfast. (Letter 82, 322-23)
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In a later letter, she mentions that at Grafton House,the drapers, she bought material for a gown for her sister and also someworsteds, which she hopes will be approved of as “I had not much time fordeliberation” (Letter 83, 326). I don’tknow how far she had to travel to the shops and back, but she certainlyaccomplished a lot before breakfast!
A Frenchman, visiting England at this time,wrote
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Throughout England it is the custom to breakfasttogether; the commonest breakfast-hour is 9 o’clock. Breakfast consists of tea and bread and butter in variousforms. In the houses of the rich youhave coffee, chocolate and so on.(Rochefoucauld, 21)
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At Mansfield Park, after her brother Williamand Mr. Crawford had left, Fanny walked back to the breakfast-room where shelooked sadly at the “remaining cold pork bones and mustard in William’s plate”and the “broken egg-shells in Mr. Crawford’s” (MP, 282) – a moresubstantial breakfast than tea and toast.
The “morning” was all the rest of the daybefore dinner – usually all the daylight hours; the word “afternoon” was seldomused. There was no formal regular mealbetween breakfast and dinner. Somethingto eat at midday was gradually becoming more common, as the dinner hour grewlater. In the novels, a noon meal isnamed only twice: in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth and Jane on theirway home from London are met at an inn by Lydia and Kitty, who plan “the nicestcold luncheon in the world” (222) and which, incidentally, Elizabeth and Janehad to pay for; and in Sense and Sensibility, Willoughby, rushing to seeMarianne who is very ill, stops only for a “nuncheon” of cold beef and a pintof porter. Travellers often had to stopand rest their horses, and inns usually served cold meals at this time of day.
Although a table was not formally laid atmid-day in the dining-room, a fairly substantial meal was usually eateninformally. At Pemberley, the ladiesare served “cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits in season …beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines and peaches” (P&P,268). Picnics are planned for mid-day,in Sense and Sensibility with “cold ham and chicken” (32), and in Emma,with “pigeon-pies and cold lamb” (353).At Mansfield Parsonage, Dr. Grant does the “honours” of the sandwichtray (MP, 65) and at Uppercross, at Christmas, tables and trestles groanunder “the weight of brawn and cold pies” (P, 134).
Another meal that varied considerably according tothe time and place, was the evening meal called “supper.” The main meal of the day was called“dinner,” and if it was early, a light supper would be served in theevening. Among the wealthy andfashionable, dinner was served late, and supper was dispensed with, except atparties and balls. In less pretentious homes,supper was served informally, often in the room where the family was sittingfor the evening. Many letters mentionthat no servants were waiting at supper.
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Mr. Woodhouse “loved to have the cloth laid,because it had been the fashion of his youth” (E, 24), and meal includedminced chicken, scalloped oysters, boiled eggs, apple tart and custard, as wellas the basin of gruel which was all he wanted.Mrs. Bennet served suppers, perhaps, as Austen herself wrote in aletter, “the remains of her old Meryton habits” (Letter 77, 300). Supper at Mansfield Park was served in thedrawing room, from a tray, where Edmund found a glass of Madeira for Fanny (MP,74). In The Watsons, thedistinction between dinner and supper is made quite clear: the snobbishsocial-climbing Mrs. Robert Watson declares “We never eat suppers” (W,351), and the equally snobbish and socially-conscious Tom Musgrave leaves theWatsons’ house at the first sign of the supper-tray, because he intends hisnext meal to be a dinner at his inn (W, 359).
Dinner was the grand meal of the day. Generally speaking, the hour of dinner gotlater and later during the 18th century.The time varied with the degree of fashion and status of the diners. At Barton Cottage and at Hartfield, it was 4o’clock (S&S, 361, E, 81); at Mansfield Park it was 4:30 (MP,221). Mrs. Jennings, in London, dinedat 5 (S&S, 160); General Tilney, even in the country, also dined preciselyat 5 (NA, 162). The Bingleys,people “of decided fashion,” dined at 6:30 (P&P, 10, 35). In the shooting season, dinner tended to belater, and in the country it was usually earlier than in London.
Service à la Russe – whereservants passed each dish to the guests to help themselves, the usual manner inEurope – was just beginning to be fashionable in England in the early 19thcentury. More commonly, dinner wasserved in courses, but the word “course” did not mean what it does today.
All the dishes of food were placed on the tablein a precise, formal, symmetrical fashion: certain ones at the top and thebottom of the table, others in the middle, the corners, or the sides. Cook-books often specified where a certaindish should be placed; perhaps a top dish for a second course would beconsidered a side dish for a first course.When some of the dishes of food had been finished, servants sometimesexchanged them for others – these were called “removes”: a brown soup might be“removed [i.e. replaced] with fish”; a “rump with greens” removed with aroasted turkey. When the diners hadeaten all they wished, the dishes would be taken away; even the tablecloth wasusually removed and replaced with a new one, and the table was covered againwith more dishes of food. Each of thesecomplete layings of the table was called a “course.” A family meal might be only one course. In The Watsons, Elizabeth Watson leads the family,including the visiting brother and sister-in-law, to the table and announces,“You see your dinner” (354), meaning that there will be no second course tofollow. There was a roasted turkeybrought in later (a “remove”), but that didn’t count as another course.
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In Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Bennet wasdetermined to impress Bingley and Darcy.She
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had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay anddine there that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did notthink any thing less than two courses, could be good enough for a man, on whomshe had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who hadten thousand a-year. (338)
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At the famous dinner at the Coles’, Emma and Frank Churchill were
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calledon to share in the awkwardness of a rather long interval between the courses,and obliged to be as formal and as orderly as the others; but when the tablewas again safely covered, when every corner dish was placed exactly right, andoccupation and ease were generally restored(E, 218)
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they could carry on their private conversation.
We read of enormous banquets of this period,with literally almost a hundred separate dishes (“Dr. Grant had brought onapoplexy and death, by three great institutionary dinners in one week”) (MP,469), but usually a diner only ate a little of several dishes – much like asmorgasbord today. Each person wassupposed to carve or serve the dish that was immediately in front of him, butthis did not always work out very well.The near neighbours on each side could pass a plate and ask for aserving, but others farther down the table wouldn’t receive any of thatparticular dish. In one of her letters,Jane Austen mentions a friend at dinner:
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She placed herself on oneside of [Mr. P.] … & she had an empty plate, & even asked himto give her some mutton twice without being attended to for some time. (Letter 75, 293)
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Two courses was an average dinner, with from fivedishes a course for a simple family meal, to as many as twenty-five for a grandentertainment. Both sweets andsavouries came with each course, but the first course was usually slightlyheavier. Then the table was clearedagain, even the tablecloth taken away, and the dessert and wines were broughtin. Things like custards, blanc mange,molded jellies, and fruit pies, were part of the earlier courses. Dessert was simpler – fruit, raisins andnuts were commonly served.
The ladies usually drank one glass of wine, andthen left the table all together and returned to the drawing-room. There, they entertained themselves inwhatever way they wished until the gentlemen joined them. At Netherfield, when Jane was ill, “with arenewal of tenderness” the Bingley sisters “repaired to her room on leaving thedining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee” (P&P, 37).
When Darcy and Bingley had returned toLongbourn, but the future was still uncertain, “the period which passed in thedrawing-room before the gentlemen came was wearisome and dull to a degree thatalmost made Elizabeth uncivil” (P&P, 341). At Rosings, it was merely dull: “there was little to be done butto hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any intermission till coffeecame in” (P&P, 163).
Meanwhile, the gentlemen remained at the tabledrinking. Heavy drinking after dinnerwas not universal, of course, but it was a hard-drinking age, and obviously wascommon. Much would depend on the hostand hostess, and what they expected of their guests. Sometimes the men left the dining-room in a body: the host’s“Shall we join the ladies?” would get everyone up and moving. On other occasions, the men left one or twoat a time, as they pleased. Where therewere marriageable young ladies and eligible young men in question, no hostess wouldkeep them long apart.<![if !supportEmptyParas]><![if !supportEmptyParas]><![endif]>
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“Ihave found you out in spite of all your tricks.” (S&S)<![if !supportEmptyParas]><![endif]>
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Old cook-books of the period, like TheExperienced English Housekeeper of 1782, give an interesting view ofEnglish “cookery” – recipes call for condiments, sauces and spices galore; wineis used in almost every meat dish; butter and cream are used lavishly; and thevariety of fruits and vegetables that were available to the cook of the time isamazing: all the common ones we have today, as well as finocha, borecole,cardoon, coleworts, rocambole, bugloss and skirret,for example (Raffald, 172-83).
Anchovies were often used as a substitute for saltin flavouring sauces. Other commonseasonings were black, white and Jamaica peppers (the last is allspice), mace,sage, parsley, garlic, shallots, juniper berries, scraped horseradish, capers,savory, pickled mushrooms or mushroom powder, morels and truffles. This doesn’t sound like the notorious blandEnglish cooking we hear of. Cooksdistinguished between loaf sugar, double or triple refined, brown and powdersugar. They used Rhenish wine, Lisbonwine (which may be port), Madeira, Claret, Champagne and French brandy. Recipes are given for home-made wines,brandies, beers and mead.
In one of Jane Austen’s letters, she mentionsbeing given “a Hare and 4 Rabbits” and thus they were “well stocked for nearlya week” (Letter 117, 437). Among meats,mutton was the most common. Itspopularity resulted in the expression which Jane Austen uses several times in thenovels for a casual dinner invitation: “Come and eat your mutton with us” (NA,209; MP, 215, 406).
Mr. Watson, like Mr. Woodhouse, likes to have abasin of gruel before retiring to bed.Poor old dears, one pities them as victims of indigestion and insomnia. At least, I used to think of them like thatuntil I came across recipes for gruel, which gave me second thoughts aboutthese two elderly gentlemen. Mostgruels in old cook-books – made from groats, sago or barley – call for almostas much wine as water, and are flavoured with sugar and cinnamon ornutmeg. One would certainly sleep likea baby after a bowlful.
White soup seems to have been servedcontinuously all evening at a ball – it had to be made before the Netherfieldball (P&P, 55), Emma Watson enjoyed it at the Edwards’ after theirball (W, 336), and Fanny Price had it at the ball in her own home atMansfield (MP, 280). It was madeby stewing together veal, fowl, bacon, rice and herbs, and adding groundalmonds, cream and eggs. It should bevery relaxing for young ladies who had “danced every dance.”
Mrs. Bennet, expecting a guest for dinner,lamented “how unlucky there is not a bit of fish to be got today” (P&P,61). The “fysshe days” ordained by theMediaeval Church amounted to as many as 166 a year. Even with more relaxed conditions in the 18th and 19th centuries,on Fridays and all forty days of Lent at least, meat was not served. Larger estates had their own well-stockedfish ponds, or good fishing streams.But there was plenty of variety to substitute for meat besides fish –eels, lampreys, oysters, shrimp and lobster, co*ckles and mussels, were allcommon foods, and relatively inexpensive.
Potatoes were just becoming popular in the late 18thcentury – it took real famine conditions for them to be totally accepted. Gilbert White wrote, in 1778
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Potatoes have prevailed in this little district … withinthese twenty years only; and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who wouldscarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign. (201)
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Mrs. Austen herself, at Steventon, grew potatoes in her garden, andtried to get the villagers to grow them, but they refused.
Kitty and Lydia Bennet were employed “dressinga sallad and cucumber” while they waited for their sisters (P&P,219). We don’t know what was in their“sallad.” It may have includedtomatoes, which were becoming a popular food at this time. Early 19th century cook-books give recipesfor "tomata ketchup” and “pies made of tomatus,” and sliced raw tomatoeswere gradually finding favour, instead of being thought poisonous as they wereat first in Europe. Cucumbers, on theother hand, were well known in England since the 14th century, although notalways appreciated. Dr. Samuel Johnsonsaid, “cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, andthen thrown out, as good for nothing” (Root, 99).
The early cook-books give a good indication of thewide range of imported foodstuffs as well as the variety of locally-grownproducts in England at the time.Besides the lavish use of ingredients, the time and labour required forsome of the recipes seem incredible.Many of the directions include “beat for half an hour” or “whisk it anhour.” A cake recipe calls for “an hourand a half of beating” and a preserve needed to be boiled an hour and a halfstirring all the time. Well beaten eggswere required in the days before baking-powder, and cheap labour was abundant:even the Bates had a maid, and the Watsons and the Prices had two.
Halfway around the world, at a similar time, theartist Paul Kane described a Christmas feast at a fur-trading post in theNorthwest. Everything was kept as muchas possible “just like home”
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[Thiswas] the fare set before us, to appease appetites nourished by constant outdoorexercise in an atmosphere of 40-50° below zero. At the head, before Mr. Harriett, was a large dish of boiledbuffalo hump; at the foot smoked a boiled buffalo calf … My pleasing duty was to help a dish ofmouffle, or dried moose nose; the gentleman on my left distributed, withgraceful impartiality, the white fish, delicately browned in buffalomarrow. The worthy priest helped thebuffalo tongue, whilst Mr. Rundell cut up the beavers’ tails. Nor was the other gentleman left unemployed,as all his spare time was occupied in dissecting a roast wild goose. The centre of the table was graced withpiles of potatoes, turnips, and bread conveniently placed, so that each couldhelp himself without interrupting the labours of his companions. Such was our jolly Christmas dinner atEdmonton; and long will it remain in my memory, although no pies, or puddings,or blanc manges, shed their fragrance over the scene. (103)
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WORKS CITED
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All references to Jane Austen’s works are to TheNovels of Jane Austen, ed. R.W. Chapman, 3rd ed. (London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1934); Minor Works (The Watsons) (1954): and Jane Austen’sletters to her Sister Cassandra and Others, ed. R.W. Chapman (London:Oxford University Press, 1952).
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Gaskell, Mrs. Elizabeth. Cranford (London: Macmillan, 1922).
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Kane, Paul.“Christmas at Fort Edmonton,” Beaver, December 1927.
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Raffald, Elizabeth W. The Experienced English Housekeeper (London: R. Baldwin,1782).
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Rochefoucauld, François de la. A Frenchman’s Year in Suffolk.Trans. Norman Scarfe (London: Boydell Press, 1988).
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Root, Waverley. Food (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980).
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White, Gilbert. The Natural History of Selborne (Harmondsworth, Middlesex,Penguin Books Ltd., 1977.
