Sexy Victorian jellies? Heston Blumenthal eat your heart out

Looking demonically happy, Heston Blumenthal experimented in his Victorian Feast TV prog with sex-shop vibrators to get the perfect jelly wobble.

The Victorians did indeed love a jelly, and every cook advertising themselves in The Times small ads listed "understands jellies" as their prime qualification.

This fabulous account of a Lord Mayor's feast from 1824 lists 90 marbrée (marbled) jellies (recipe below) on the general bill of fare, (with the justifiable comment: "It would be curious to see on the day after the feast the list of killed and wounded by this batterie de cuisine"). This was the general menu, but there is plenty more if you want to make yourself sick reading the whole thing.

200 tureens of turtle, 60 dishes of fowls, 35 roasted capons, 35 roasted pullets, 30 pigeon pies, 10 sirloins of beef, 50 hams (ornamental), 40 tongues, 2 barons of beef, 10 rounds of beef, 5O raised French pies, 60 dishes mince pies, 40 marrow puddings, 25 tourtes of preserves, 25 apple and damson tarts, 90 marbree jellies, 50 blanc-manges, 10 chantilly baskets, 4 fruit baskets, 36 dishes shell-fish, 4 ditto prawns, 4 lobster salads, 60 dishes of vegetables, 60 salads.

Remove: 60 roasted turkeys, 30 leverets, 30 pheasants, 9 dishes pea-fowl, 24 geese, 30 dishes of partridges. Dessert: 200lb of pineapples, 100 dishes of hot-house grapes, 200 ice-creams, 60 dishes of apples, 60 dishes of pears, 50 Savoy cakes (ornamented), 30 dishes walnuts. 75 ditto dried fruit and preserves, 55 ditto rout cakes, 90 ditto filberts, 20 ditto preserved ginger, 4 ditto brandy-cherries.

My favourite jelly occasion is from a little earlier, a party given by the Princess Royal in 1789. As well as telling us, in totally modern OK or Hello! detail, what everyone wore, we get a fabulous description of the food, and especially the jellies - created to look like ponds with swans and ducks swimming on them:

That part of the Supper which was hot consisted of twenty tureens of different Soups, Roast Ducks, Turkey, Poultry, Cygnets, Green Geese, Land Rails, Chickens, Asparagus, Peas and Beans. The cold parts of the collation were the same kind of Poultry boned, and swimming or standing in the centre of transparent jellies, where they were supported by paste pillars not in circumference thicker than a knitting needle. This, with the lights playing from the candles and reflected on by the polish of the plates and dishes made a most beautiful appearance. Crayfish pies of all kinds were distributed with great taste, and the Hams and Brawn in Masquerade swimming on the surface of pedestals of jelly, seemingly supported but by the strength of an apparent liquid called for admiration.

*Recipe: Marbrée Marbled, Coloured
From The Professed Cook: Or, The Modern Art Of Cookery, Pastry, And Confectionary , by B. Clermont, 1776

Take eight Pigs Ears, as many of Calves, well scalded, two pounds of Ham, a good large Calf's Tongue, and eight Beeves Palates; boil those altogether with half Wine, and half Water, plenty of sweet Herbs, four Cloves, Thyme, and Laurel, whole Onions, and fine Spices; when done, let them cool to chop fine: Put a bit of Butter into a Stew-pan with a few chopped Truffles, green Shallots, chopped Parsley, and a glass of white Wine; simmer about a quarter of an hour, then put in the minced Meat, with bits of Breasts of Fowl roasted, Pistachio-nuts, sweet Almonds, and hard Yolks of Eggs cut in quarters; season all together with Salt and fine Spices, and boil with a pint of white Wine, until the liquid is quite reduced: Take another Stew-pan of the bigness the Marbrée is to be; rub it all over with Butter slightly, sufficient only to stick Wafers of different colours in what shape you please; then place the Meat in this very close, with the Juice of two Lemons, and put it in a cool place to forma Jelly. When you want to use it, dip the Pan in warm Water, and turn it gently over upon a Napkin.

What they didn't seem to have was sweet jellies for pudding. When did those come in?

Comments

[Takeaways]

Oh my word, I wonder how many people this ginormous amount of food actually served... and how much was left and fed to the dogs afterwards!

[Ivan Day]

If you want to see what Victorian Jellies really looked like, take a peek at the pictures and video on the following webpages -

http://www.historicfood.com/events2008-9.html#jelly

http://www.historicfood.com/Jellies.htm

Victorian cooks did not need vibrators to get their extraordinary jellies to misbehave!

[alex cadman]

he is absoluetly amazing i enjoy wathcing him sososos much completely out of this world honestly cant say enough about how wierd and clever his food just mind blowingly incredibly xxxxx