Food & drink takeaways – 7 September
A curated taster menu of every day’s food & drink associations
An 18th century review of an inn's food that would have gone viral today, a nation’s celebratory stew and the centenarian ‘Queen of Desserts’.
Just some of the food and drink delights for which we can thank 7 September.
Click on the links for extra helpings.
Food in diaries and journals
1782
Diarist John Byng, Fifth Viscount Torrington, was on a horseback tour of England and Wales when he came across an establishment in Andover that didn't exactly meet with his approval. His on-this-day entry reveals:
“Andover, Hampshire: I never dined worse, or was in crosser humour about it; a little miserable stale trout, some raw, rank mutton chops and some cold hard potatoes. For the sake of hasty gain, innkeepers hire horrid servants, buy bad provisions, and poisonous liquors; would any man dare, with a large capital, to set up a good inn, with the best beds, and wine, he would get a fortune, let him charge ever so highly. I am more and more convinced that fowls are the only things to bespeak at an inn, every other dish is either ill-dress’d or the leavings of other companies.”
Better treatments of trout from the same year are discussed here by food historian Janet Clarkson
Celebration days
“The national dish is feijoada {header photo} a thick stew of black beans and pieces of pork and other meats. It is usually served with orange salad, white rice, farofa (ground manioc, a potato-like root vegetable) and couve (kale).”
UK: Scottish Food & Drink September
Unofficial
USA: Acorn Squash Day
USA: Beer Lovers Day
Food birthdays
1916
American pastry chef and cookbook author, ‘the queen of desserts’, Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts, Happiness is Baking, Chocolate is Forever
1967
Dutch head chef and TV-personality, known for his cooking in the Michelin starred restaurant Ron Blaauw
