The Old Foodie

After pasties and pulpatoons of multiple ingredients and complicated methods, I think it is time for something lighter and more fragrant, do...

I thought it might be interesting to look briefly at some of the ‘traditional’ sauces served with certain foods, and see how many have stood...

Every baker knows that the smell of hot bread and pastry is a powerful lure for customers. When the VAT legislation was being formulated in ...

I have no idea how true today’s story is, but I love it – and you will too, if you have ever wondered about the origin of bottled beer. On...

Yesterday we considered bacon and eggs as they were described and cooked in the early seventeenth century – which is pretty well the same wa...

There is something about bacon, isn’t there? I am not sure what it is, but aside from vegetarians and those who eschew it for religious reas...

Samuel Pepys, who is a dear friend to this blog, made mention one day of a style of dinner that was unfamiliar to me. “… At noon went by w...

Earlier in the week we considered the lost art of picnic-catering. The idea of course at a well-catered anything is that the amount of food ...

The last of our kitchen words for this week is ‘buttery’. The buttery was another ‘room’ in a medieval household which has long since becom...

It has taken until this, day four of our exploration of ‘kitchen’ words, for me to fully realise the extent to which modern technology ha...

This week I want to have fun with ‘kitchen’ words – starting with ‘kitchen’ itself. I also intend, for no reason other than writer’s privile...

Lets be brutally honest here - the turnip is not a sexy vegetable. It is too old, for sure - being an ancient crone of the vegetable kingdom...

When is a cheese not a cheese? I became puzzled during my research for Menus From History when I came across fromage on several otherwise ...

A large manorial estate such as Gawthorpe (see yesterday’s story) was largely self-sufficient in the early seventeenth century. There were a...

Celia Fiennes (1662-1741; reputedly an ancestor of actor Ralph Fiennes) did an amazing thing for a seventeenth century Englishwoman – she m...

I cannot fathom the recipe I am giving you today. It is from Officers of the Mouth , by Giles Rose, published in 1682 (the English translati...

Samuel Pepys has not graced us with his presence for some time, but today he is back with inspiration for dinner. On this day in 1664 he wro...

Naturally today’s story must have an April Fool Feel. Last year someone thought that the Old Foodie Joke was that I published the story a da...

The roles of Master Confectioner and Master Pastryman were too obvious to need explaining to seventeenth century readers of The Perfect Scho...

Finally, the job description you have been waiting for with bated breath all week – that of a seventeenth century Master Cook, as portrayed ...