I was delighted to have obtained recently a menu of a banquet held for the Annual Provincial Meeting of the Incorporated Law Society of the United Kingdom which took place in the magnificent Grosvenor Rooms of Birmingham's now being restored Grand Hotel on Tuesday 13 October 1896. The banquet took place in the presence of the first ever Lord Mayor of Birmingham, the Right Hon. James Smith (pictured below) and so it took place at a time when Birmingham was really finding its feet as a great English city. The legal profession attending the banquet clearly represented the elite in the city if the magnificence of their menu is anything to go by and the menu tells us what the "foodies" of the end of the Victorian age were being offered to eat by the chefs of the time. It's fascinating to compare it with the "tasting menus" of today which, after all, are mini-banquets of the 21st century.
As the photograph below of the Grosvenor Rooms shows, they were dining in sumptuous surroundings and the food needed to match the place where it was being eaten. What else should a late-Victorian foodie expect?
And what a menu! I presume that the menu offered two or three choices for most courses:-
Torte Claire
Purée Tomate
Clear Turtle soup
Tomato purée
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Soles au Vin Blanc
Éperlans Fris, Sauce Tartare
Sole in white wine sauce
Fried smolt with Tartare sauce
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Ris de Veau Braisé aux Champignons
Côtelettes de Mouton a la Réforme
Calf sweetbreads with braised mushrooms
Lamb cutlets in Reform Club sauce
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Hanche de Venaison, Sauce de Vin d'Oporto
Dindon Bouilli, Sauce au Céleri
Jambon de York Braisé
Haunch of venison with Port wine sauce
Boiled turkey with celery sauce
Braised York ham
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Grouse
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Pouding Mousseline
Géléé aux Fruits
Genoise Glace au Pistache
Plombière á la Nesselrode
Mousseline
Fruit jelly
Genoese pistachio ice cream
Nesselrode ice pudding
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Crevettes au Diable
Devilled shrimps
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Desserts
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Café
Coffee
The dishes listed on the menu are fascinating - on one hand there are dishes which could not possibly be served now - turtle soup for instance since turtles are protected internationally and killing them to make a soup would be illegal - and then the pre-nouvelle cuisine dishes heavily dependent on the recipes of Escoffier and his cuisine of sauces.
Two dishes were of particular interest to me and I had to look them up to see what they were - the côtellettes de mouton à la Réforme and the Plombière à la Nesselrode.
The Reform Club sauce was invented in the 1830s by Alexis Soyer, head cook at The Reform Club in Pall Mall, who created it when a troublesome club member arrived at the club late one evening and there was a need to create for the hungry member a dish out of whatever ingredients were available in the kitchen at the time. The sauce is produced from a sauce poivrade - a pepper sauce - with juliennes of gherkin, mushrooms, hard boiled egg white, pickled tongue and cooked truffle.
Nesselrode pudding. Mmmmm....... This stupendous dessert was created by Carême in 1814 for the diplomat, Count Carl von Nesselrode. It became the popular ice pudding of the 19th century and was particularly admired by the English upper classes. It was usually made in a dome-shaped bombe mound to make it resemble a pudding boiled in a basin. The dish is made from simmered chestnuts with sugar, vanilla, egg yolks, chestnut purée, cream and Maraschino. It is then frozen while currants and raisins are boiled in syrup and added to the mix with chestnut cream and whipped cream. Personally, knowing that Nesselrode pudding was in the line-up, I think I would have skipped all the previous courses, as delicious and as extravagant as they may sound, and then consumed vast quantities of this gift from God.
Purnell's, Adam's, Wilderness, Simpson's, Carter's - no matter what your view of food is - get serving the Nesselrode pudding and make the diners of Birmingham very happy! Come on, you know you must!
The menu also includes the wine list (below) and a page dedicated to the price to be paid for such a sumptious dinner - the after dinner speeches. Finally, on the back page there's a list of music played during the banquet.
The meal is a contrast to what we think is right for our day and age but I wouldn't mind travelling in a time machine to 13 October 1896 to The Grosvenor Rooms and trying it all out.
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