The secrets of upstairs downstairs cooking
MARION McMULLEN UNCOVERS THE SECRETS OF UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS COOKING
THE highlyanticipated Downton Abbey film is out this week and that means Mrs Patmore is back in the kitchen cooking for the entire household.
Esteemed author and leading food historian Annie Gray has been busy researching the meals included in the world of Downton
Abbey and says aristocratic families in Edwardian Britain would often sit down to seven or nine courses which were sometimes broken up with a
sorbet halfway through.
Food plays a big part in the life of Downton Abbey and Annie’s new book – The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook – shows how the recipes can be adapted to modern kitchens with dishes from both upstairs and downstairs.
She says: “These are historic recipes, and they are Downton recipes, but they are also usable modern recipes.”
Annie says showpiece meat dishes like chicken stuffed with pistachios were a mainstay of the aristocratic table and could be decorated with the family crest cut out of truffles.
Meanwhile, the fare for the household staff was very different.
She says: “Beef stew is a true servants’ dish: cooked low and slow, hard to spoil, and filling for hungry bellies.
“It features several times on Downton, both as a dish in the servants’ hall and at the soup kitchen, where it is set up for starving and injured soldiers in the episodes set during the Great War.
“The secret is to have a cut, such as brisket, that has some fat with it and that will benefit from long cooking. Beef was considered a symbol of Britishness, and a great deal of it was consumed both below and above stairs in country houses.”
■ Recipes from The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook by Annie Gray, £25, from White Lion Publishing.