Readers responded with stories of serendipitous finds, unexpectedly lofty ambience (that would be the diner at the airport), and charming décor as well as bills of fare.
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"Bill of Fare for June", including turbot, venison, sweetbreads au bechamel, jellies and syllabubs, and ruffs and reeves The book was illustrated with 12 copper-plate engravings of Bills of Fare for the 12 months of the year, each one being a table layout of oval or octagonal dishes. These plates preceded the first chapter.
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Satisfactorily Answered by Numerous Bills of Fare for from Two to Eighteen Persons. It contained many suggested menus for meals of varying complexity together with a few recipes. It went through several editions until 1860.Susan M Rossi-Wilcox, Dinner for Dickens: The Culinary History of Mrs Charles Dickens' Menu Books, Prospect Books, 2005.
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Frank E. Buttolph (born Frances Editha Buttles; 1844–1924) was an American collector known for initiating the Miss Frank E. Buttolph American Menu Collection, 1851-1930 at New York Public Library in 1899.Newton, Harry W. "" Buttolph Collection" at the Astor Library Includes 14,500 Bills of Fare from All Parts of the World---Unique and Painstaking Work." The New York Times. June 3, 1906.
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A Bill of Fare for a dinner for 6 persons Francatelli provides "A Series of Bills of Fare for Every Month Throughout the Year", including dinners variously for 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 16, 18, 20, 24, 28 and 36 persons (though not all of these in every month). The bills of fare for dinners for 6 persons thus represent the simplest menus in the book. All the dinners are divided into a first and a second "Course", but each course was divided in turn into three or four servings, in most cases with a choice of two or more dishes. Thus there might be one or two soups, two fishes, two "removes" of meat, and two savoury "entrées" in the first "Course", with a second "Course" of one kind of game, followed by a choice of three "entremets" which included both savouries, generally vegetables, and desserts.
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Chevalley de Rivaz's eldest son, Victor Chevalley de Rivaz (1833–1895), emigrated to England in 1852 and became a British citizen in 1857. He worked as a stockbroker but also had a keen interest in cooking. He wrote cookery columns for The Queen under the pseudonym "The G. C." (Grand Cordon), and published two books on the subject: Round the Table: Notes on cookery, and plain recipes, with a selection of bills of fare for every month (1872) and Practical dinners (1887).
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Where Acton's was a book to be read and enjoyed, Beeton's, substantially written in later editions by other hands, was a manual of instructions and recipes, to be looked up as needed. Mrs Beeton was substantially plagiarized from authors including Elizabeth Raffald and Acton. The Anglo-Italian cook Charles Elmé Francatelli became a celebrity, cooking for a series of aristocrats, London clubs, and royalty including Queen Victoria. His 1846 book The Modern Cook ran through 29 editions by 1896, popularising an elaborate cuisine described throughout with French terminology, and offering bills of fare for up to 300 people.
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The book offered elaborate dishes, described with French terminology such as bisque, entrées, entremets, vol-au- vent, timbale and soufflé. It included bills of fare for meals for up to 300 people, and for a series of eight- or nine-course dinners served to Queen Victoria; one exceptional royal dinner in 1841 had sixteen entrées and sixteen entremets, including truffles in Champagne. The Modern Cook was the first to mention filling wafer cones with ice cream. The book, written for upper middle-class housewives, is illustrated with 60 engravings, often showing how to present carefully decorated centrepiece dishes such as "Salmon à la Chambord" for large dinner parties.
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Corn Street was the location of The Bush, 'the most famous of the coaching houses', until it was demolished in 1854 to make way for the new premises of West of England and South Wales District Bank. When Dickens' Mr Pickwick came to Bristol, it was here that his fictional stay took place. Bush proprietor John Weeks made a lasting reputation for himself for his generous bills of fare, and for his public spirit; his larder at Christmas time was described as 'gargantuan'. In 2016 these same premises came full circle when, together with the former Midland Bank building next door, they were converted into a luxury hotel.
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Tom King's Coffee House in William Hogarth's painting Four Times of the Day, 1738 John Nott's The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary (1723), still with rather few precedents to go by, chose an alphabetical treatment for its recipes, from Al to Zest. The book covered everything from soups and salads to meat and fish, as well as pastries of many kinds, confectionery, and the making of beer, cider, and wine. Bills of fare are given for each month of the year. James Woodforde's Diary of a Country Parson gives a good idea of the sort of food eaten in England in the eighteenth century by those who could afford to eat whatever they liked.
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There is a single bill of fare for a "Ball Supper for 300 Persons", and one for a "Public Dinner" for the same number. A Bill of Fare for a dinner for Her Majesty Queen Victoria There are 13 bills of fare for "Her Majesty's Dinner", each with an exact date in 1841 and the words "(Under the control of C. Francatelli.)". Each of the royal dinners has either eight or nine courses (including a buffet or sideboard), except for that of 30 June which is divided into two "Services" and has 11 courses. The royal dinners are described almost entirely in French, with the exception of the heading, the phrase "Side Board", and a few specifically British dishes such as "Roast Mutton" and "Haunch of Venison".
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He notes that it would have taken years to eat all the dishes listed, and that it is impossible to tell how often middle-class families may have eaten "fillets of haddocks, à la royale". He considers it likely that only the wealthiest could have aspired to eat the sort of food described by Francatelli, but concedes that his bills of fare for dinners for six persons (by month) do indicate that the middle classes could afford the best meat and vegetables, and indeed that they had domestic staff able to prepare dinners of that complexity described in Francatelli's French terminology. Panayi concludes that Francatelli represents "perhaps the most extreme example" of the nineteenth-century British habit of giving dishes French descriptions.
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During such four-hour-long bills-of-fare, regular patrons might skip an item on the programme to eat in one of the theatre's plush restaurants, play billiards in the on-site Billiard Room or drink in one of its several bars. Thespis from The Illustrated London News of 6 January 1872 In 1870, H. J. Byron's Uncle Dick's Darling starred a young Henry Irving. This was the last play that theatre buff Charles Dickens saw before his death. Irving also played in the popular and frequently played comical interlude, The Trial of Mr. Pickwick, with Gaiety favourites J. L. Toole and Nellie Farren, who played Sam Weller. Thespis, the first collaboration between Gilbert and Sullivan, played at the theatre in 1871, with Farren as Mercury and J. L. Toole in the title role. Offenbach's Les deux aveugles played in 1872, starring Fred Sullivan.
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The book consists almost entirely of numbered recipes, prefaced only by Woolley's letter "To all Ladies, Gentlewomen, and to all other of the Female Sex who do delight in, or be desirous of good Accomplishments." and a one-page address "Ladies, I do here present you" in verse. After the recipes are bills of fare (pages 353 to 369) for different times of the year, including "for extraordinary Feasts in the Summer", "for Winter Season", "for Lesser Feasts", "for Fish Days & Fasting Days in Ember week, or in Lent", "without feasting", "in Winter in Great Houses".Woolley, pages 353–369 Woolley then describes (pages 378 to 383) the duties of each "office", including the cook, the "Maid under such a Cook", the butler, the carver, and other servants, and then "the Gentlewomen who have the Charge of the Sweet-Meats, and such like Repasts". Part 1 of the book describes the making of many such "Sweet-Meats".
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