Cures for freckles, sunburn, wrinkles, rough skin, dry skin, blotched skin and even facial hair were all offered with impressive assurances of their miraculous powers and efficacy. The first patent for a depilatory was taken out in 1804 and by the time of the Regency various treatments for the removal of unwanted or excess hair were being offered in newspapers and magazines—often at great expense to the unwary man or woman seduced by persuasive advertising. The manufacturers of Trent’s Depilatory promised (at a cost of £1 sent by mail) ‘efficacy and innocence’ and beautifully smooth skin as a result of applying their product, confident that there was no way for dissatisfied customers to regain their money.
Home-made beauty aids were also popular during the period and hints and recipes were a common feature in the books and magazines of the time. Two books popular in the early nineteenth century were The Toilet of Flora; or a collection of the most simple and approved methods of preparing baths, pomatums and sweet-scented waters; with receipts for cosmetics (1775, translated from the French, with numerous editions) and The Mirror of Graces (1811). Both books offered readers recipes and suggestions for enhancing beauty such as pimpernel water as the ‘sovereign beautifier of the complexion’ or the juice of green pineapples for removing wrinkles and giving ‘the complexion the air of youth’. In The Grand Sophy, Lady Ombersley and the Marquesa de Villacañas discussed the respective merits of the ‘Lotion of Ladies of Denmark’, distilled water of green pineapples, raw veal laid on the skin, and crushed strawberries and chervil water as aids to the complexion. Recipes often called for expensive ingredients such as spermaceti, rose oil and pure white wax (for chapped lips), brandy and white wine (for lavender water) or exotic items such as myrrh, alkanet root, benzoin or gum sandrach for making products to improve the complexion.
11
Eat, Drink and Be Merry
FOOD, REMOVES, REPASTS AND A LIGHT NUNCHEON
London during the Regency was still surrounded by market gardens and small farms with dairy farms in Islington and Belsize Park, fields of grain in Chelsea and Hammersmith, and cows grazing in the meadows along Kensington High Street all helping to feed the growing population. Meat was the centrepiece of the English diet—bacon for those of the poorer classes who could afford it, mutton and beef for the middle classes and the same for the upper classes with the addition of pork, poultry, game, fish and occasional delicacies such as turtle. Fruit had long been considered by many to be indigestible but the discovery in the eighteenth century that scurvy could be prevented by eating fresh fruit and vegetables led to an increase in their consumption in the nineteenth century.
Among the wealthy, three courses was considered the optimum number for dinner. The first course generally consisted of soup, a series of entrées, several meat dishes and fish, while the second course focused mainly on meat including game birds, poultry, beef, pork and mutton with a number of vegetable dishes, savouries and sauces served in addition. In False Colours, the portly gourmand, Sir Bonamy Ripple, felt that a second course of just a goose, cauliflower, French beans, peas, asparagus, lobster and a basket of pastries with side dishes of perhaps a braised ham and a haunch of venison would be the ideal thing for a ‘small’ dinner. The third course was the dessert or ‘afters’ course, usually consisting of an assortment of pastries, creams, jellies, ices, nuts and fruit. Each course was laid out according to a particular pattern, depending on the types of food included in the menu. A first course with soup and entrées, for example, saw the soups placed on the four corners of the table ready for serving and the entrées placed in lines along the sides of the table thus making them ‘side’ dishes. Once the soup was finished with, servants would remove the tureens and replace them with dishes of fish such as turbot, smelts, salmon or eel. Dishes to be taken away and replaced in this manner were known as ‘removes’. Guests selected their food mainly from the dishes nearest to them as no one was expected to eat from every dish on the table. It was considered acceptable, although not always desirable, to ask one’s nearest neighbour to pass a particular dish or to call on a servant to bring one’s choice from the other side of the table. Kitty Charing was overwhelmed by the vast array of food when she was invited to dinner at the vulgar Mrs Scorton’s in Cotillion and was unable to eat much more than a French olive. In some houses the table was cleared and completely relaid between courses while the dinner guests continued conversing around the servants’ activities; the cloth was always removed before the dessert was laid out. For a formal dinner the best linen, crystal, china and silverware were used and the guests were seated around the table according to rank. Dinner guests were expected to gather in the drawing-room before the evening meal for at least a quarter of an hour of introductions and conversation before being summoned to the table. On the butler’s announcement of ‘Dinner is served’ the men would offer their arms to the women and the host would escort the highest-ranking lady present to the dining room, followed by the rest of the guests in order of precedence. Despite a general preference for Sir Thomas Bolderwood’s lovely daughter Marianne in The Quiet Gentleman, etiquette demanded that several of her admirers escort other ladies in to dinner. The Earl of St Erth gave his arm to the Duchess of Rutland, his brother Martin took in a countess, Lord Ulverston escorted another high-born lady and to Mr Warboys was given the privilege of escorting the baronet’s daughter.
Although an ever greater array of food became available during the Regency with imported dishes from foreign climes, a wider variety of fish due to faster transport and new recipes brought to England by foreign chefs—particularly after the French Revolution—traditional English fare remained popular and predominant. Hot and cold meat continued as the focus of every meal and it was not uncommon for men to eat cold beef or ham for breakfast, washed down with a tankard of ale. In The Reluctant Widow, Nicky Carlyon was glad to serve himself a large plate of cold roast beef before sitting down to join his brother and Mrs Cheviot for breakfast. Meals or repasts could be large or small depending on the occasion but as the gap between breakfast and dinner was gradually extended it became more common for the wealthier classes to indulge in a small repast between these two meals. To this end a refreshment known as a nuncheon was sometimes served, particularly when guests were in the house, which often consisted of cold meats, cheese, bread and fruit. A repast could be a meal of any size but it was usually specified as either a ‘light repast’ or a ‘grand repast’; the Prince Regent was particularly fond of the latter.
MEALS AND MENUS
For the wealthier classes meals were an important part of the daily routine with breakfast eaten at nine or ten in the morning and dinner at five or eight in the evening, depending on whether those dining were keeping country or town hours. Breakfast tended to be a more substantial meal than in the previous century and often included kippers, herring, eggs or slices of ham kept hot in chafing dishes laid out on a sideboard in the dining room from which guests could serve themselves. This was usually in addition to the traditional toast, tea, coffee, chocolate and fresh rolls with butter which was the preferred breakfast for many Regency ladies (and which was frequently served to them in bed by their maid).
The gradual shift to a later dinner hour than had been usual in the previous century also saw the introduction into some households of a midday meal in the form of luncheon (not to be confused with the light refreshment of a ‘nuncheon’ which could be eaten at any time of the day), a practice which had become increasingly common by the end of the Regency. Traditionally, dinner had always meant the midday meal, eaten at around noon, but by the early nineteenth century the country dinner hour was usually five, or sometimes six, o’clock, while in the city the fashionable hour, for what had by then become the main meal of the day, could be as late as eight or even nine o’clock in the evening. Upper-class visitors to the country often observed town hours while staying at a country estate or shooting-box although Arabella, used to dining at five, caused Mr Beaumaris’s French chef, Alphonse, great distress by unwi
ttingly forcing him to bring dinner forward by two hours instead of having it ready for the usual time of half past seven. While cold meats were deemed acceptable for daytime repasts, it was considered usual for a dinner menu to include two main courses with several different kinds of meat as well as fish and shellfish, several sauces, vegetable dishes, savouries such as an omelette or pie, and a selection of cakes, creams and sweetmeats for dessert. Supper was designated as a light meal to be eaten late at night. Not all country dwellers made the change, however, and for some provincial families a midday dinner remained the main meal of the day.
For those who could afford them, gargantuan dinners were the order of the day in many upper-class households and elaborate evening meals often consisted of an extraordinary number of dishes making up each of the courses served. Menus were devised by the chef or head cook with individual dishes personally made by them or by one of their assistants under their direction. After the Revolution in France, many French chefs, pâtissiers and confectioners emigrated to England to escape the Terror and were employed in the houses of the aristocracy. The Duke of Sale in The Foundling had a confectioner in his kitchen and Scholes, the French-trained chef in A Civil Contract, made himself indispensable in the Lynton household. A good French chef was a status symbol among the nobility and the Prince Regent himself paid an extortionate amount in late 1816 to acquire the services of the celebrated chef Marie-Antoine Carême for just a few months. The Regent was famous for his lavish celebratory dinners served at Carlton House or the Pavilion at Brighton and when he held a grand banquet at the latter on 17 January 1817 it was Carême who was responsible for the sumptuous menu, which listed over one hundred separate dishes in nine courses, including thirty-six different entrées. The menu also paid homage to the art of the pastry-cook with eight magnificent set pieces created in pastry and depicting historic entities such as ‘the ruins of a Turkish mosque’, ‘a Syrian hermitage’ and ‘the ruins of Antioch’.
WHAT’S FOR DESSERT? GUNTER’S
Originally known as ‘The Pot and Pineapple’, Gunter’s was founded in 1757 by an Italian pastry-cook, Domenico Negri, who set up a confectionery shop at number 7 Berkeley Square, in the centre of the increasingly upper-class West End of London. Negri specialised in a wide range of sweet and savoury foods and was one of the first confectioners in England to establish ice cream and water ices as a sought-after delicacy. His elegant trade card listed such tantalising treats as Cedrati and Bergamet Chips, Naples Divolini, sugar plums, biskits, marshmallow, English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats and ices, fruits and creams made in the traditional Italian style. In the late eighteenth century James Gunter took over ownership of the Berkeley Square premises and renamed the business Gunter’s. The name quickly became synonymous with the finest pastries, sweets and ice creams and every society host or hostess went first to Gunter’s when catering for a large dinner, important ball or party. It was Gunter’s who supplied much of the fare for Lady Ombersley’s ball in The Grand Sophy and from whom Lady Bridlington’s chef ordered additional refreshments for the elegant ball in Arabella. Confectioners were often remarkably inventive with an extraordinary range of ice and ice-cream flavours including jasmine, elderflower, orange and lemon, pistachio, burnt filbert and even Parmesan ice cream to tempt their customers. In April Lady, Felix Hethersett offered to take his cousin Nell to Gunter’s for an ice after he met her in Clarges Street but found his lovely cousin was not in the mood for the treat. Gunter’s had a vast ice house in the cellars under the shop and an advertisement which appeared in 1827, a few years after the Regency, alerted customers to the availability of their famous fruit ice cream thanks to the arrival of the ship Platoff with a cargo of ice brought from the sea off Greenland. Gunter’s enjoyed royal patronage throughout the nineteenth century and remained in business until well into the twentieth century.
DRINKING BY DAY AND BY NIGHT
Alcohol was an inherent part of Regency life that cut across all classes and although excessive drinking was very much a male indulgence, both sexes considered it perfectly acceptable to drink alcohol during both day and night. Water was generally eschewed as a beverage, mainly because of uncertainty about its quality and the dangers associated with drinking dirty or contaminated water. In The Foundling, Mr Shifnal was shocked when the Duke of Sale asked for water in preference to alcohol. Milk was sometimes drunk in the morning or at bedtime but was more often used in cooking. Tea, coffee and chocolate were the preferred drinks at breakfast although many men liked to take ale with their morning meal. Wine was drunk at other meals and Madeira, burgundy, claret, sherry and brandy were the drinks of preference throughout the day and into the evening, while port was generally reserved as an after-dinner drink. The custom of separation between men and women—so prevalent during the Regency—was also manifested in the types of drinks deemed suitable for the two sexes. Carefully brought-up girls might decline to drink at all in certain circumstances or else choose to nurse a glass of punch or champagne at an important social event if unsure of the effect on their senses. The heroine of Arabella was greatly relieved when the butler removed her glass of wine and replaced it with a goblet of lemonade when she dined with Mr Beaumaris at his shooting-box. The exclusive Almack’s club was well known for its ‘insipid’ liquid refreshments of claret-cup, orgeat, tea and lemonade, but these were considered the drinks most suitable for debutantes. Claret-cup was made by mixing claret with soda, fruit juices and sugar, sometimes with brandy added, and was generally served chilled. Orgeat was distilled from barley or almonds and orange flower water and was intended as a light, refreshing drink. Tea and lemonade were, of course, non-alcoholic drinks, with lemonade made from large quantities of lemon juice mixed with sugar and water. The other common ladies’ drink was ratafia, a liqueur flavoured with either peach, apricot or cherry kernels or with the essence of bitter almonds. In Friday’s Child, Lord Sheringham ordered ratafia for Hero (and burgundy for himself) to toast their wedding. Women also sometimes drank porter, a type of bitter-tasting beer, dark brown in colour and brewed from brown malt. It was considered by some to be a healthful drink and very strengthening.
In Arabella, a debt of honour led Bertram Tallant into the back-slums of
Tothill Fields where he drank too much rough liquor and was
cared for by Leaky Peg.
In general, upper-class women did not get drunk, although the prevalence of alcohol in society sometimes made this difficult. The arrack-punch served at Vauxhall Gardens was drunk by both men and women, despite a reputation for potency. It was said to have been made from the grains of the Benjamin flower mixed with rum and was freely imbibed on gala nights. Some men preferred to mix their own punch as Freddy did in Cotillion and rum punch (rum, lemon, arrack and sugar), Regent’s punch (various fruits, rum, brandy, hock, Curaçao, Madeira and champagne) and Negus (port, lemon, sugar and spices) were popular brews. Fortified wines such as Madeira and sherry were also popular with men and some women during the Regency but red wines such as claret, burgundy and port tended to be the more exclusive province of male drinkers. Brandy, gin and rum were drunk by upper-class men, although they often chose to drink the rougher forms of these spirits in the less salubrious surroundings of the inns and taverns of the poorer quarters of London.
Drunkenness was common, particularly among young men for whom it was deemed an acceptable condition. To engage in a revel-rout, wine party or a spread (where an undergraduate invited up to a hundred other students to a drinking party) was practically a requirement of an Oxbridge education. Among upper-class men, to be inebriated was not only acceptable but, in some circles, expected—although to be drunk in the middle of the day as Dysart frequently was in April Lady was not considered appropriate behaviour for a well-bred man. The propensity for men to drink heavily after the evening meal made it a well-established custom for the ladies to leave the table at the end of dinner and withdraw, at which point the doors were locked and the port brought to the table. Not
everyone drank to excess but of those who did it was quite usual for two or three men to drink as many as eight bottles of wines such as claret, burgundy or champagne at a single sitting.
12
The Sporting Life
Sport was considered by many to be the natural pursuit of the true Englishman. Love of a contest, the test of courage, fair play and a readiness to step into the fray and defend his home or his country were often touted as the inborn characteristics of the English male. During the Regency sport was a major preoccupation for men of all classes and many men would go out of their way to attend a boxing match or horse race, or to watch two dogs or a couple of cocks fight to the death as Peregrine Taverner did in Regency Buck. Hunting, fishing, shooting, racing, fighting and cricket were the major sporting pastimes in which Regency men participated either as spectators, punters or players. Of the various physical activities and outdoor entertainments enjoyed by men, a limited number were also available to women and, for the upper class in particular, these generally centred on the equestrian sports—mainly riding, coaching and, for a few women, hunting. It was in horsemanship that women found one of their few outlets for strenuous exercise and independent activity, as well as the opportunity to match men in both knowledge and expertise. In Bath Tangle, Lady Serena Carlow found a much-needed outlet for her pent-up energy and frustration in taking her horse for a gallop through the hills surrounding Bath. In general, women were not expected to be interested in sports but women of all classes could and did attend horse races, and some females of the lower orders enjoyed watching (and occasionally participating in) boxing matches and contests between animals.