The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook Author:Annie Gray This is the first official cookbook from the Downton Abbey series, with 300 million viewers worldwide and the most sucessful British series of all time, and timed to coincide with the release of the Downton Abbey movie in September 2019. — This engaging and historically accurate cookbook presents more than 100 recipes that showcase the intrinsic ... more »role of food in the Crawley household and narrative?and bring this exciting gastronomic time to modern kitchens and Downton fans.
The period between 1912 and 1926, when Downton Abbey is set, was a tumultuous one and marked by numerous significant historical events and huge technological advances. Culuturally it was a time of jazz, art deco, and evolving Victorian values. Across all six seasons of Downton, the impact of these events and developments?on the Crawleys and their wider household?are visible: Downton Abbey looks solid and never changing, but this was an era in which everything changed, and did so very fast. Food, too, underwent change from the late Edwardian era to the swinging twenties, and it was an especially exciting time gastronomically.
The food of the Edwardian era, which has a modern reputation for being heavy, rich, and reliant on aspic, was phenomenal. This was the key period for the codification of French haute cuisine, and many of the dishes and techniques that are still regarded as intrinsic to classical French cooking today were developed at this time. British cooking was also quite good?raised pies, syllabubs, trifles, and roast meats were very popular and seen as quintessentially English, and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding was already a national dish.
The recipes included here reflect all the influences found on the Downton Abbey tables, upstairs and down. They are adapted from original recipes published or written down between 1875 and 1930 and have all been chosen to be easily made in a modern kitchen. Some are as seen on screen, some are alluded to, and others are typical of the time. They would all be at home in a stately dining room, with candles and gold and tightly corseted female figures. But more important, they would be at home as part of a twenty-first-century meal as well. These are historic recipes, and they are Downton recipes, but they are also delicious modern recipes.