Cooking for the long departed

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 06:00:00 GMT

The other day it dawned on me that I have cooked a lot of meals for celebrities in their homes, often using their fabulous dinner services. Not the kind of celebrities who grace the pages of Hello or OK magazine like Posh and Becks, but the dead sort - the kind of celebrities who have been resting in peace for a century or two, or in some cases even three or four. Puzzled? Well let me explain. I have just set up a table with a Royal repast typical of the 1890s in Queen Victoria's dining room at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Visitors to this marvellous house can now see the kind of stunning table arrangement typical of Royal entertainments of this period. What they might not appreciate when they look at my table, is that the body of the old queen was laid out in state in the same dining room for ten days after she died! http://www.historicfood.com/events.htm

I have also re-created period meals in dining rooms which formerly belonged to Bess of Hardwick, Francis Drake, William Wordsworth, Robert Burns, Jane Austen and many other English notables. I have also laid out food on spectacular dinner services which once belonged to George IV, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Its a bit frustrating that the original hosts are not present at my re-created meals, but perhaps they are in spirit. Not that I really want to see them turn up at any of my museum exhibitions! Did you know that when some English kings could n't attend an important meal, they used to send a portrait of themselves to sit at the dinner table in their absence!

Next year I am going to have the privilige of laying out a 1745 Meissen table service that belonged to Elizabeth, Czarina of all the Russias. The exhibition will be at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhatten. I have had the good fortune to recreate a number of Royal and Ducal meals, but this will be my first gig for an Imperial hostess, albeit a dead one!

Being a food historian gets me some pretty outlandish jobs. I have just been approached by a film company who are making a movie about Sweeney Todd, the demon barber. They want me to train the leading actress to make large Victorian raised pies. If you know the story, you will also know what the fillings were! I should be able to dine out (not literally) on that one for years!

Historic Food - Ivan Day

Cooking for the long departed