A Very Victorian Christmas
Records of the food eaten at Audley End House in Essex in the 1850s show that some Christmas dinner traditions hadn’t changed much since the Georgian era. There was still a lot of roast meat on the menu, including beef, mutton, turkey and venison. But instead of very large parties and gatherings, the Victorians saw Christmas as a family occasion.
Most Victorian families had roast goose for their Christmas dinner, wealthy families ate beef, venison and turkey, often served with a chestnut or veal forcemeat stuffing. In the north, spiced roast beef was the most popular dish. Queen Victoria is known to have enjoyed roast swan, and Avis Crocombe –the cook at Audley End during the 1880s –includes a recipe for swan in her manuscript recipe book.
Other Victorian Christmas favourites included frumenty, oyster soup and roasted ham with stuffing. By this time, vegetables were an important part of the meal for rich people as well as the lower classes. Popular choices were similar to the ones we eat at Christmas time today – potatoes, sprouts, cabbage, parsnips and carrots. For wealthy families, serving unseasonal vegetables like asparagus, beans and tomatoes was a way of demonstrating the skills of your garden staff.
Like the roast meats, a traditional TwelfthNight cake, Christmas pudding, mince pies and wassail punch were still served to the Victorians. They also enjoyed gingerbread, figgy pudding, sugar plums, and nesselrode pudding, a moulded ice pudding made from pureed chestnuts. Warm brandy and mulled wine were popular accompaniments.
