The Jane Austen Cookbook

Authentic recipes, modernized for today’s cooks, include:
• Buttered Prawns
• Wine-Roasted Gammon and Pigeon Pie
• Broil’d Eggs
• White Soup and Salmagundy
• Pyramid Creams
• Martha’s Almond Cheesecakes

Jane Austen wrote her novels in the midst of a large and sociable family. Brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, friends and acquaintances were always coming and going, which offered numerous occasions for convivial eating and drinking. One of Jane’s dearest friends, Martha Lloyd, lived with the family for many years and recorded in her “Household Book” over 100 recipes enjoyed by the Austens. A selection of this family fare, now thoroughly tested and modernized for today’s cooks, is recreated here, together with some of the more sophisticated dishes which Jane and her characters would have enjoyed at balls, picnics, and supper parties. A fascinating introduction describes Jane’s own interest in food, drawing upon both the novels and her letters, and explains the social conventions of shopping, eating, and entertaining in late Georgian and Regency England. The book is illustrated throughout with delightful contemporary line drawings, prints, and watercolours.

Authentic recipes, modernized for today’s cooks, include:
• Buttered Prawns
• Wine-Roasted Gammon and Pigeon Pie
• Broil’d Eggs
• White Soup and Salmagundy
• Pyramid Creams
• Martha’s Almond Cheesecakes

Library Journal

When a food historian and an Austenian scholar collaborate, you get a cookbook that is both intelligent and charming. Georgian and Regency recipes out of context would be cute but not necessarily a chef's first choice. Set against a backdrop of the era's social and domestic history, however, the cuisine finds its place. Black-and-white photos and drawings extend the descriptions. The first half is full of facts about and analyses of Austen's friends, novels, and letters; the second half has the recipes, most of which have been adapted to the modern kitchen, e.g., macaroni, jugged steaks with potatoes. It was more difficult to adapt the pigeon pie! Black and Le Faye's work offers interesting tidbits about 19th-century English social life and customs, and if anyone wants to know what "salmagundy" is, the answer lies here. Recommended for food history collections.Wendy Miller, Lexington P.L., Ky.

Maggie Black was a food historian and author of numerous books including The Medieval Cookbook.

Deirdre Le Faye is an Austenian scholar, author of Jane Austen: A Family Record and an edited collection of Jane Austen’s letters.