reference: moxon-1764

Dense pudding of breadcrumbs, sugar and butter, or flour and suet, with ground almonds (Woolley 1677, Moxon 1764, etc)

Cream-and-egg custard with Sack, ground almonds and sugar (Wooley 1672, Moxon 1764)

Ground almonds with butter, sugar, eggs, rosewater and mace. "Bake these in little tins, in cold butter paste." (Moxon 1764, Mrs.B)

Custard flavoured with almond. (Robert May 1660, Moxon 1764, etc)

Cake, or almond fondant, formed into a rounded shape with currants for eyes, orange peel for a tongue and stuck all over with split almond spines (Moxon 1764, G...

Base of minced white meat, cream and ground almonds.

Cockles mixed with yolks, flour, cream and nutmeg, fried. "A side-dish either for noon or night." (Moxon 1764)

Apple coated in sugar and spices, baked until the sugar caramelises (Moxon 1764, Eaton 1822, etc).

Round slices of apple, with core removed, battered and fried. Known since Moxon 1764, Mrs.B, etc.

Cooked apricot slices with egg custard sauce poured over (Moxon 1764)

Barberries pulp with sugar, dried-out on paper (Moxon 1764, Eaton 1822).

Open tart filled with sugared barberries. Known in many earlier cookbooks including 'The Cook and Housekeeper's Dictionary' by Mary Eaton (Eaton 1822), 'English...

Boiled sugar, usually coloured orange or yellow, formed into small strips, c3ins long by ½in wide, and twisted as they set, or moulded in imitation of this. Kno...

Small unleavened cakes of butter-rich sweet dough, very lightly baked and topped with sugar or comfits etc. (Moxon 1764, Raffald 1769)

Thin beef, spiced, rolled inside suet. Fried brown, then stewed (Moxon 1764).

The made-wine from the sap of silver birch trees, collected by drilling into the trunk and allowing the liquid to trickle out over several days. Mixed with wate...

Boned calves feet stewed with parsley, bacon, butter lemon, onion, herbs and spices (Mrs.B, Moxon 1764)

Usually small, lightly baked, egg-and-butter rich bread rolls (Eaton 1822, etc). Moxon 1764 adds currants and nutmeg.

The English wild plum (Prunus insititia), blue-black and white varieties.

Potted puree of 'bullies', bullace, the English wild plum, Prunus insititia (Moxon 1764)

Baked cream-rich custard, usually now flavoured with vanilla, and topped with a sugar crust caramelised under a very high heat, by grilling, by flame or by igni...

Whole dressed trout stewed with butter.

A set jelly made by boiling calf's feet in water or milk. The liquid is strained, then mixed with sugar and spices for a cold dessert or with pepper to make wha...

Shredded boiled calves-foot meat with crumb, suet, dried fruit, sugar, eggs and cream. Boiled in a buttered cloth (Moxon 1764).

Grated carrot with sugar and spices, set with crumb or egg, in a pastry case.

Boiled florets, cream with egg, spices and orange-water poured over, baked. Sugar, sack and butter for sauce.

A made-wine from cherries. Although now a staple of home wine-making, we can't trace cherry wine to much before the late 18th Century, partly because of confusi...

Now usually a double shortcrust pie with chicken and ham pieces, usually in a white sauce.

Xocolatl, a drink processed from cacao bean of Central and South America, was brought to Europe by the conquistadors, probably arriving in England about 1530. I...

Omelette with chopped clary leaves (qv), fried in lard, served with lemon slices (Bradley 1728, Moxon 1764)

The Sound is the swim bladder of a fish. Formerly a highly-prized delicacy.

Cod's head, boiled or baked whole, skinned and served with a rich sauce (Moxon 1764, Glasse 1747 Francatelli 1852, Mrs.B, etc).

Cowslip peeps (flowers) steeped in brandy and ale, with spices, then distilled (Moxon 1764)

Cowslips boiled with sugar (Moxon 1764)

Infusion of the 'peeps' (petals) of Cowslip (primula veris), with sugar, fermented. Moxon 1764 adds brandy and says "This is right good." (Evelyn 1699)

A cream soup, often with a stock made from the pounded shells (Mrs.B, etc)

Grains, usually frumenty wheat, or occasionally rice or oats stewed very slowly until all the available water is absorbed. Usually then enriched with, for insta...

Sliced cucumber boiled in vinegar with hot spices such as mustard, garlic, ginger etc. to imitate mango pickle. From a time when mango pickle was a rare delicac...

Almonds boiled in sugar, rolled in coloured comfits. "They are pretty to put in glasses, or to set in a desert." (Moxon 1764)

Curds mixed with egg, cream, orange-flower water, nutmeg, breadcrumb and dried fruit, boiled (Eaton 1822, Soyer 1845)

Known since Moxon 1764.

Round flaky pastry rolled into a circle, well-filled with currants stewed with sugar, butter and sweet spices, formed up into a bag and turned over to make a bu...

Unlike the French version, English onion is now almost always a white soup. It has the onions less toasted, or not at all, in a creamed base (Mrs.B, etc)

English Table Service is taken to mean the old-fashiond practice of giving each diner an empty plate, and placing every dish on the table, sweet and savoury at ...

Oysters placed in scallop shells, butter and breadcrumbs over, grilled (Bradley 1728, Moxon 1764, etc). This is remarkably similar to the modern French 'Coquill...

Fancy putting on an old-style feast? You'll find thousands and thousands of individual dishes on these pages, but, to re-discover the true taste of Old England,...

Slice of bread fried in cooking fat. Part of a full breakfast.

Thick batter of cream with eggs and flour. Boiled to set, cooled, cut into pieces and fried "so dish them up with a little white wine, butter and sugar for your...

Fried in butter, as an accompaniment for mutton or dark meats (Moxon 1764, Mrs.B, etc)

Very sweet, rich wine, most traditionally made from raisins, flavoured with ginger. Usually fortified - Mrs.B recommends 1 pint of brandy to each 9-gallon batch...

Old term for paste wafers made using a decorated 'goffering' iron (Moxon 1764)

Gooseberry infusion, fermented with sugar.

A 'Made-Wine' from gooseberries. (Moxon 1764, Eaton 1822, Mrs.B, etc) Known at least since Bradley 1728, "one of the richest and strongest Wines made in England...

Sorrel, butter, and gooseberry (Moxon 1764)

Pouring sauce for meat made from green herbs such as spinach and tansy or sorrel, commonly with verjuice and bread as a thickener. Known since the 1400's (Moxon...

Ground rice boiled in milk with eggs, cream, butter, sugar, lemon and nutmeg baked in puff-paste "you may prick in it candid lemon or citron if you please", (Mo...

Hare pie us usually a top-only crust dished pie made with very rich ingredients, often including sweet spices and fuit such as dates or redcurrants.

Commonly includes a small admixture of a contrasting flavour such as brown sugar, anchovy, wine or vinegar (Moxon 1764, Soyer 1845, Mrs.B)

Small oval bread dough teacakes made with added lard and caraway seeds. Whigs are known in this form at least since Moxon 1764.

Now usually suet pastry dumplings with savoury herbs as c1¼" balls, boiled in a stew.

Herring baked in a pie crust, in the receipt from Wooley 1672 with onions, currants, raisins and butter

A mixture of ingredients, commonly diced sheep meat with carrot, lettuce (or cabbage) and other vegetables, cooked so as the ingredients fall and produce a high...

Steamed suet pudding with dried fruit, peel, brandy, lemon and a very sharp, strong spice flavouring. Moxon 1764 uses a whole half-nutmeg, Rundell 1807 uses 'Ja...

A rich steamed pudding with dried fruit, lemon peel.

Individual fruit cakes made with butter, currants, white wheatflour, sugar and egg yolk, flavoured with mace. Known since Moxon 1764.

Jelly desert set with isinglass, sweetened and flavoured with fruit and almonds (Moxon 1764)

Sugar, butter, egg, lemon and (often) ground almonds in a pastry base, baked (Moxon 1764, Eaton 1822, etc)

A thickened preserve of sweetened lemon juice and zest, usually made from lemon, whole egg and sugar boiled together until soft set, used as a spreading jam and...

Hard-dried meringues with lemon, made by dropping the mixture onto paper (Moxon 1764)

Breadcrumbs with bone marrow, egg, fruit and spices, baked (Family Guide 1747, Moxon 1764, Mollard 1802, etc)

Cream, yolks, sugar, spices, wine with biscuits, bone marrow and peel, "stir it on the fire till it becomes thick" then, and when it is cold put it into a dish ...

Oysters with chopped meat, often beef, though Moxon 1764 uses veal kidney, usually under a puff-paste.

Milk with brandy, citrus and spices (Moxon 1764)

Small shortcrust case filled with sweet mincemeat and usually dusted with sugar. Open or closed, often decoratd on the top. A winter treat. Now almost always ro...

Minced beef with onion and seasonings. The word 'collop', in use from at least the 14th to the late 19th Centuries refers to a cut piece of meat, ready for cook...

Cooked mixture of dark dried fruits, dark sugar, citrus peel, sweet spices and suet, often with brandy. Used as a pie filling during the Christmas and New Year ...

Soup made in imitation of the, prized but impossibly expensive, turtle-meat soup. Known since the mid-18th Century and popular in the 19th. Usually made from ca...

Roast sheep-meat usually with chopped or pureed celery (Moxon 1764, Mrs.B, etc)

Dough of breadcrumbs, dried fruit, suet (or marrow suet), egg, sugar, sherry and nutmeg formed into small flattened rounds. Fried, sprinkled with sugar and serv...

Batter of boiled oatmeal with milk and egg, spooned onto a butter to fry. Served with sugar over, "have sack, butter and sugar for sauce (Moxon 1764)

Ox-lips, boiled. Moxon 1764 serves them with truffles, mushrooms, coxcombs and forcemeat balls.

Small bread-bun, hollowed out and the cavity filled with cooked oysters and breadcrumb. Known at least since Moxon 1764.

Stuffing of chopped oysters with breadcrumbs and pepper, mace and onion, for mutton (Moxon 1764)

Pie made of a thin forcemeat-and-breadcrumb crust and containing small birds (pigeons, larks etc.) or other small game such as rabbits, in a rich sauce, possibl...

Very thick soup of large marrowfat peas boiled until fallen, usually with a meat flavouring from, for instance, stock or bone or with ham flecks.

Confection of soft-boiled pearl barley with eggs, sugar and spices, in puff-paste (Moxon 1764), or baked in a dish (Eaton 1822).

Cockle meat in vinegar and brine.

Cauliflower florets with pepper in brine and vinegar, coloured bright red with cochineal (Moxon 1764, etc)

Red currants in brine and vinegar, as a garnish (Moxon 1764)

"The largest and youngest shoots of elder, which put out in the middle of May, the middle stalks are most tender and biggest ... peel off the outward peel or sk...

Uncooked, cleaned and dressed herring, rolled and skewered in spiced white vinegar with shredded onion.

Nasturtium buds, heavily salted, in vinegar. An alternative to, and almost indistinguishable from, capers.

Thinly sliced (c¼ins, much thicker than used for sauerkraut) leaves of the coloured cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata f. rubra) in vinegar.

Mollard 1802 has them boiled with herbs then breadcrumbed. Hartley 1954 explains how they were once stewed with wine or vinegar and served with mustard, lemon o...

Large sausage of finely ground meat (typically pork and beef) cooked in a red or orange skin. Typically sliced and served cold.

A hot drink of ale, or ocasionally wine, with milk and spices. The name has more recently been transferred to Caudles and Syllabubs

Mashed potato (probably sweet potato in earlier receipts) with sugar, spices, etc. Baked and served as a dish by themselves or as accompaniment to meats. (Bradl...

Sauce based on chopped shallots with vinegar and stock, "a proper sauce for turkey, or any other sort of white fowls." (Glasse 1747, Moxon 1764, Eaton 1822).

A wobbly semi-set desert. Thick cream mingled with flour and eggs, boiled in a buttered cloth and served with a sauce of butter, rosewater and sugar "you may st...

General term for small, rich, sweet, decorated cakes made in shapes.

Soft cheese set in a rush box (9ins x 5ins), possibly similar to the French Broccio. (Moxon 1764)

Sago boiled, cooled and added to cream, egg and spices, brandy. Cooked and set in glasses (Moxon 1764)

Sago boiled in water, spices, wine and citrus added (Moxon 1764)

Sagoo (sago) boiled, cooled and mixed with lemon peel, spices, almond, breadcrumbs, cream, rosewater, sack and butter. Filled into a paste-lined dish and baked ...

Patties of minced veal with spices, fried or baked and served with gravy and pickles.

Seed Cake

There is significant variation among records of Shrewsbury cake, but they seem to agree around a sort of very large, circular, shortbread with rose or lemon fla...

Unripened, very soft, white cheese formed in a small mould, or moulded in leaves. Once commonplace, we know of only one producer, High Weald Dairy in West Susse...

"Industrious and intelligent boys who live in the country, are mostly well up in the cunning art of catching small birds ... pluck them free from feathers, cut ...

Shredded fish, or other light meat, with flavourings and vegetables (eg. onion and lemon). Traditionally served cold, formed into a shape (such as of a fish) of...

Chopped, stewed spinach with butter and currants, served on toast; "This is proper for a side-dish either for noon or night" (Moxon 1764)

Typically a soup of garden peas in a light stock, sometimes with cream and often with mint. Served hot or cold.

Whole eggs boiled with minced apple, suet, currants and spices and "a spoonful or two of brandy, and sweet meats, if you please." (Moxon 1764)

Minced veal kidney with spices, salt, currants, sugar and lemon, baked or fried in puff paste (Moxon 1764)

Sweet white mixture, such as bread scraps soaked in milk, suet, boiled long-grain rice, currants, sugar, rose water and sweet spices bound with egg, filled into...

Sugar syrup of 'Gilliflowers' - a name for cloves, or, more likely here, for the flowers of the similarly flavoured Dianthus Caryophyllus, a wild carnation (Mox...

Poppy flower-heads boiled, commonly with raisins, liquorice, aniseed and sugar (Moxon 1764). A cough remedy or the basis of sedative drinks.

Open tarts of very thin paste, the filling unspecified (Moxon 1764), or with filling of egg, sugar and nutmeg (Eaton 1822).

Strong white gravy with chopped celery, anchovies, lemon peel, cream, mace, wine (Moxon 1764)

A form of small bread cake of distinctive shape. Whiggs are one of the mysteries of traditional English baking as (like Wastel Bread) they are repeatedly mentio...