Day Two - Sunday

Sunday was an important day in the Victorian era - it was a day of rest, church, and the Sunday roast.  Everyone who could afford to buy a joint of meat would have it roasted for their Sunday lunch.  For the working classes, this might be the only time they bought meat, and they would eke it out in various ways throughout the week.  A middle class family like ours would have been able to afford to buy meat two or perhaps three times a week, but even so, the Sunday roast was the main event (and the leftovers would definitely still have been repurposed, as we will be doing).

For our Victorian week, I decided to combine two food "events" that a family like ours would have enjoyed - the Sunday roast lunch, and the dinner party.  A middle class household would have held a dinner party less often than an upper class one, but it still would have been done from time to time, especially if one was wanting to climb the social ladder.

So on Sunday, we had my mother and her husband over for Sunday lunch.  I was a bit stressed, actually, as I hate cooking meat (I never know when it's cooked), and I had so many unfamiliar side dishes and dessert items to look after at the same time!  Mum was great though, and pitched in with the vegetables etc.  Plus they both arrived full of enthusiasm for the theme - G. arrived in a suit with bowtie, and Mum ceremoniously presented us with a gift, which turned out to be three bananas.  This of course was intensely amusing, as bananas in Victorian England would have been terribly exotic and certainly not available to most people.  Clearly our guests were either very rich, or very well-connected, or both - thus our social climb has begun!  

Before all that though, we needed to have breakfast.

Breakfast:  Porridge with Strawberries.

I had never used steel-cut oats before, so this porridge was interesting for us, texture-wise.  Daughter would have been happier with some kind of extra sweetener obviously (sorry lovey, don't think they had maple syrup in Victorian England!), but basically this did what it says on the tin.  We like normal porridge, so we liked this.

Lunch - First Course:  Vegetable Soup;  Toast.

Except that I burnt the toast.  So it was just vegetable soup.  Sigh.  Carrot and turnip soup, to be exact, made the same way as yesterday's carrot soup.  I didn't bother taking a picture, as it looked the same as yesterday's.  Funnily enough, noone could taste the turnips in this, but they did improve the texture, as they cooked down to a softer mush than the carrot, making the soup less watery.  Everyone liked it.

Lunch - Second Course:  Roast Beef;  Yorkshire Pudding;  Mashed Potatoes;  Fried Potatoes;  Boiled Brocoli;  Gravy.

As you can see, I overcooked the meat somewhat based on modern standards.  As it happens, it wouldn't have been unusual for people to prefer it this way back then though.  Luckily, it wasn't dried out or tough, and had good flavour.

The mashed potatoes, broccoli, and gravy (made with pan juices, stock and a little butter and flour) were what one would expect - I did cook the broccoli a bit less this time, and it was much nicer!

The fried potatoes were suggested by Daughter, whilst we were trying to recover from the shock of discovering that potatoes were usually served mashed with a roast during Queen Victoria's reign.  No lovely golden roast potatoes!!  In the end, I served both - the fried ones were cut into half-centimetre-thick slices and fried in lard until golden.  They were yummy, a lot like having chips, really.

For my money though, the star of the show turned out to be the Yorkshire Pudding.  I have only made these once before (a long time ago), and that time I made them in muffin tins, as many people do now.

For our Victorian Sunday roast though, I made them the traditional way, in a large rectangular tin.  It puffed up spectacularly, and was so delicious!  

By this time I was so flustered trying to get everything on the table still hot all at once, that I forgot to take a photo of the whole beautiful Yorkie, and I am so disappointed!  I did eventually remember, and took this of one of the pieces:

Yum.  I am definitely making this again one day soon.

Eventually, it was time for dessert...

Lunch - Dessert:  

Prince Albert's Pudding;  Custard Sauce;  Baked Pears;  Brandy Cream;  Raspberry Jelly.

Naturally, at the end of our traditional roast meal came a traditional English pudding.  The recipe for this one is from a little book called Favourite Pudding Recipes: Traditional Ways to a Man's Heart, which I bought many years ago whilst on holiday in London.

The pudding was flavoured with raisins, citrus peel, mace, and brandy, and was cooked in a pudding basin in a large pot of boiling water.  We really enjoyed it - it was tasty, buttery, and not too stodgy, and was well paired with Mrs Beeton's "Vanilla Custard Sauce (to serve with Puddings)".

The Baked Pears are another Mrs Beeton recipe.  Really they are poached pears, but are cooked very slowly in a covered pot in the oven "from five to six hours".  Mrs Beeton advises using a "baking-jar", but not only do I not have one, I genuinely have no idea what one is.  If anyone knows, please do let me know!  I used an oven-safe saucepan with a lid.  I set these up to cook just before I went to bed on Saturday night, and left them to cook in the oven overnight (they would have had just over six hours).  By morning they had turned a delightful pale golden brown colour, and smelled heavenly.

These were sweet, and perfumed with lemon zest and cloves, and they were very good - everyone liked them.  They went very nicely with some whipped cream which I had flavoured with brandy and a little sugar.

Lastly, I made a raspberry jelly, set in a decorative mould.  I used Eliza Acton's instructions (in her recipe entitled "Strawberry Isinglass Jelly"), except I cheated and used packaged gelatine.  Turns out I should have used significantly more gelatine than I did, because this was a disaster.  It came out of the mould okay, but then immediately collapsed under its own weight.  My fault, not Eliza's.  Luckily, I had been a bit paranoid about it coming out at all, so I had set a small amount in a plain bowl...

Even this one didn't really want to hold its shape.  It looked hilarious, but it did taste quite nice.  

So our Sunday Roast Lunch / Dinner Party hybrid went quite well, though with a number of hiccups!  Still, we all had a nice meal and enjoyed each other's company.

Dinner - Bubble & Squeak

For dinner I fried up the leftover vegetables from lunch with a little bit of leftover roast beef mixed in for good measure.  I also added cabbage to this, to make it a kind of Bubble and Squeak.  It looked extremely unprepossessing, but actually tasted surprisingly good.

And so ended Day Two.  It was fun, but boy have the last two days been busy!  By the time I tumbled into bed, I was looking forward to a less hectic day on Monday...