Looking ahead to Candlelight, I decided to consult Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt Book (1850) for some inspiration. After laying out menus for plain family meals, very nice family meals, company meals, and large dinner parties for each of the four seasons, gives the following list of dishes suited to standing suppers (functionally a buffet). This is precisely what our event logistics require.
SUPPER DISHES FOR A LARGE COMPANY
- Boned turkey with jelly
- partridge pie
- game dressed in various ways
- cold ham glazed thickly all over with a mixture of bread crumbs cream and yolk of egg
- two smoked tongues one placed whole in the centre of the dish the other cut into circular slices and laid round it
- cold alamode beef
- French chicken salad
- Italian chicken salad
- marbled veal
- potted lobster
- pickled lobster
- terrapins
- cream oysters
- fried oysters
- pickled oysters
- oyster patties
- biscuit sandwiches
- charlotte polonaise
- charlotte russe
- French charlotte
- calves feet jelly
- trifle
- Spanish blanc mange
- chocolate blanc mange
- coffee blanc mange
- maccaroon blanc mange
- vanilla blanc mange
- pistachio cream
- cocoa nut cream
- chocolate cream
- vanilla cream
- lemon custards
- orange custards
- green custard
- red custard
- meringued apples
- whipt cream
- meringues
- iced grapes
- orange water ice
- damson water ice
- vanilla ice cream
- lemon ice cream
- almond ice cream
- chocolate ice cream
- biscuit ice cream
- maccaroon ice cream
- preserved pine apple
- preserved citron melon
- preserved limes
- preserved oranges
- brandy peaches
- brandy greengages
- port wine jelly
- pink champagne jelly
- frozen punch &c
- plum cake
- lady cake
- almond sponge cake
- frothed chocolate with dry toast
From these may be selected supper dishes for a small assemblage, or for a company of moderate size.
Based on the usual cast size, I'd rank the Tolmey's party as a "small assemblage." While Miss Leslie does not specify how many dishes to use for each size of group, my old standby extrapolated from other bills of fare is 1/2 dish per course per person; including dessert this tends to work out to 1.5-2x as many dishes as guests.
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