An aspect of the Regency that is so different from today were the menus. Granted, we read much more about the meals of the wealthy than the poor, but it gets me thinking about managing the meals in one of those grand homes.

Just for fun, I have a passage for you from the The Poor Relation, by Marion Chesney, published in 1984. It gives us a taste of the type of menu expected for breakfast at a country house party:

“Amaryllis walked over to the sideboard, which was laden with cold joints, collared and potted, meats, cold game, veal and ham pies, game and rumpsteak pies, and dishes of mackerel, whiting, herring, dried haddock, mutton chops, rump steak, broiled sheep’s kidneys, sausages, bacon, and eggs.”

One more thing to be thankful for is that we don’t have to plan or prepare meals like this!

If you’ve read even a few Regencies, you’ll have come across the concept of young ladies being prepared for the marriage market. One way they prepared was by learning to run a large home and its staff of servants. Many rules operated in this arena, and the young lady had to master them all.

Today, we have other things to master, such as shopping, cooking meals, cleaning (oh, where are those servants?) and possibly gardening, a home business, home education and more. God still equips his saints and doesn’t give them more than they can handle, with or without servants. The following proverb applied then and does today:

She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Proverbs 31:27

It’s always amazing when we notice how God’s word is so timeless!

Originally posted 2012-08-17 10:00:00.

It’s no secret that America has a problem with disordered eating. In a land of abundance, food isn’t just fuel; it’s comfort, it’s reward, it’s entertainment.

I’m no exception to this trend, so this devotional is written from a place of weakness, not strength. But as I’ve been thinking about this month’s theme of “Food and Frolic”, I find myself meditating on St. Paul’s dictum that he who does not work shall not eat.

This verse comforts me because it reminds me what food is for. Food is a thing with a purpose. Food lets us work, and work is such a great good that it existed even before the Fall.

So in some ways food is a reward. It’s the proper end to a day full of employment. It’s the proper preparation for a day full of good work. It’s both a reward and a necessity. We need food to do the good things God has given us to do, and we are blessed with food after we do those good things. (Because, after all, if you plant the garden, you get to enjoy its fruits. If you put in the hours, you get the paycheck.)

I think this is why saying grace before our meals is one of the best correctives to the disordered American appetite. So many traditional table prayers contain within themselves a proper theology of food. My favorite is the very simple, “Bless, O Father, thy gifts to our use and us to thy service; for Christ’s sake.”  This to us, Lord, and us to You. Or, as I prayed regularly once upon a time, “Lord, please bless this food, and may I use the energy I get from it to serve You.”

Indeed. Amen!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Originally posted 2012-08-10 10:00:00.

The “Traditional” Regency is a subgenre of the historical romance field whose style, tone, and mores were imitated by and solidified by Georgette Heyer and followers like Clare Darcy, Marion Chesney, and after that so many great authors I still read again and again such as Carola Dunn, Jo Beverley and her early books, Kasey Michaels, another favorite, I could go on and on. These are comedies of manners, which doesn’t mean they’re funny, though the tone is generally fast-paced and lighter than historical romances. These books were squeaky clean. If a couple was married or even indiscreet beforehand, we received no graphic details about their relationship. At one time, about the time I got interested in the genre, every publisher had a traditional Regency line, including some smaller presses. Regency readers were smart, savvy, and up on the time and details of the Regency.

Then the genre died. Door after door closed to the traditional Regency. Those of us who preferred it to the steamier replacements were reduced to reading our old books over and over again, or giving in and just skipping a few pages here and there.

But why did this happen?

Yvonne of the Regency information web site http://hibiscus-sinensis.com/regency explains the problem with a story about something that happened in Sweden, her home country, in the 1930s.

“Back in the 1930s there were two toothpaste companies that basically shared the market. The bigger brand had about 70% of the market and the runner up 30%. The most popular toothpaste had mint taste, not surprisingly, while the other had cinnamon. Market researchers told company #2 to switch to mint also, since it was the more popular taste. So they did. But… People that liked mint toothpaste still bought brand #1, while all those that had bought the cinnamon tasting toothpaste certainly weren’t interested in mint. Company #2 folded due to lack of sales.

The bottom line: Publishers never understood, or rather, wanted to accept that Regencies, like cinnamon toothpaste, are a niche market. Not even in their heyday did they appeal to the general mass market.”

Some claim authors gave into reader and/or publisher demand for steamier love scenes. Some claim the stories got too hung up on historical facts and not enough on character and story. Still others say the problem lay in too much inaccuracy in the stories and readers got disgusted.

Although all of the above are contributing factors, the bottom line is what is usually the situation in business—the bottom line in the accounting books. The traditional Regency just did not sell enough books. Authors moved on to bigger books for which they could get higher advances and more room for character and plot development.

Yet readers still wanted—still want—the traditional Regency. Thanks to digital books and the Christian market, readers can get them again. Many of the authors of the traditional Regency have gotten the rights to their books and made them available through Amazon and other e-book venues. My first Regency was sold to the family friendly–translate squeaky clean—Avalon Books. Family Guardian won the National Readers Choice Award for Best Regency in 2007 (and may end up available digitally now that Amazon owns Avalon). That opened the door for me to sell Regencies in the Christian market. Many others have come along, too. Love Inspired publishes Regencies on a regular basis.

My bottom line on this is that readers are the driving force and will cry out for cinnamon instead of mint until someone makes it available.

(My thanks to the ladies on the Regency fans Yahoo group for their input on this subject and for Yvonne for giving me permission to quote her.)

Originally posted 2012-08-08 10:00:00.

I absolutely adore breakfast foods. In my house we frequently eat breakfast for dinner. I make a wonderful omelet, if I do say so myself. Bacon, sausage, biscuits, grits, and the like are some of my favorite foods in the world. Unfortunately, I rarely actually eat these for breakfast.

When I get up, I’m hungry. My kids are hungry. The very first order of our morning is breakfast and no one wants to wait around for me to cook so our morning meals consist of toast, muffins (already cooked), waffles (of the frozen variety), and toaster pastries.

The morning food offered in my house fits right in with a Regency breakfast, but that’s where the similarity ends.

Breaking Your Fast Meant You Had To Fast

While the concept of lunch was emerging in the Regency time, it was still not a normal meal. With only two meals in the normal day, breakfast was often delayed several hours after rising. Country farmers or those who worked for a living might eat as early as 8:00AM, but families of leisure would delay the meal until nearly 10:00AM.

Many people would rise, dress, and go for a ride, read books, shop, or write letters for two or three hours before eating. Just thinking about it makes me cringe. I’m so hungry when I first get up in the morning, there is no way I’d be able to concentrate on anything until I had breakfast.

Surprisingly Light for One of Two Meals

Given that it was one of two common meals in the day, one would think that breakfast would be filled with rich, delectable foods that would stay with you for hours. On the contrary, it was frequently toast with butter, honey, or marmalade.

It could be accompanied by meat such as ham or bacon, eggs made an occasional appearance, and those striving to impress a guest might include kippers (a fish dish), cold meat pies, or other types of pastries. Sometimes cake was even served.

Coffee, tea, and chocolate were served as well. I’m not much or a coffee or tea drinker, but I may pick up the habit of a mug of hot chocolate in the morning. It sounds rather appealing.

Of course, chocolate of the Regency period was more bitter, being much closer to raw chocolate than our sweetened version topped with whipped cream and chocolate sauce.

The Creation of Lunch

Because breakfast was such a light meal and dinner creeping later and later, especially for those living in Town, another meal emerged during the Regency.

At first luncheon was considered a feminine thing. Women unable to endure the eight to ten hours between breakfast and dinner started gathering for luncheon. Men, considering it too feminine a pursuit, simple grabbed some food at the pub or club without calling it luncheon. Later in the 1800s it became a more accepted endeavor, morphing into the essential business meal we still have today.

The Modern Variation of Breakfast Habits

Today, breakfast has as many variations as there are people. Some people, like me, eat a breakfast along the lines of Regency fair, simple, light, and fairly high on the carb scale. Others keep alive the tradition of waiting to eat, skipping breakfast and eating an early lunch or a light mid-morning snack. Others swear by that first cup of coffee.

What are your breakfast habits? Do you cook a big breakfast as a family? Grab the most convenient thing on your way out the door? Share your breakfast habits in the comments below.

Originally posted 2012-08-06 10:00:00.

Dawna from Dayton, Washington  won:

 A Captain’s Courtship by Regina Scott. Thank you Regina for stopping by and gifting one of readers. Keep visiting Regency Reflections for more chances to win.

Originally posted 2012-08-05 12:58:46.

Keeping with this month’s theme of holidays, I bring you a regency Christmas in July, er, August. Having authored a non-fiction book on the subject (Regency House Christmas: The Definitive Guide to a Remarkably Regency Yuletide), I thought it would be appropriate to share a fun fact about the holiday that even many authors have got wrong.

A Christmas Tree?
If you see a Christmas Regency romance in the bookstore with a big tree on the cover, all decorated with baubles and sparkly stuff, it is certain the author and/or publisher and/or illustrator didn’t research adequately.

While the tall tree was introduced to England in 1800 by Queen Charlotte (the Regent’s mother), it wasn’t copied except by a few wealthy aristocrats, if at all. Queen Charlotte was of Germanic descent, and Christmas trees had been used in her country for ages. It was a new idea to England, however, and very few people even got to see it.

During the regency, if there was a tree at all, it was a table-top specimen, much smaller than what we are accustomed to, nowadays. Dickens recounts memories of one Christmas of his youth and describes a great, wondrous tree beneath which lay wonderful presents and toys. (No wrapping paper, by the way. Another sign of an ill-informed publisher/illustrator or author is a description of wrapped gifts beneath a tree during the regency. Christmas wrapping paper just wasn’t around, yet.) We have to assume that Dickens was remembering an early experience, in which case even a table-top tree would appear large. We know he was young, because by the time he was 12, his father was sent to debtor’s prison, and you can rest assured that put an end to his having Christmas trees for a time.

In any case, it wasn’t until Prince Albert (also of Germanic descent) once again introduced the really tall Christmas tree in it’s glorious splendor, (in 1845, if memory serves) that it suddenly became all the rage and everyone everywhere started putting up tall ones like his. The newspapers ran a picture of the royal tree and that did it. The growing middle class, now with the power of spending money, ran out to copy the wonderful sight and the upper classes did so, also. But this was long after the regency

Left: Even the larger, royal tree is upon a table! And this is 1845

(When I refer to the regency, by the way, I use the stylistic parameters; in other words, not the POLITICAL regency which was a mere nine years, from 1811 to 1820. But even using the stylistic regency, which extends to the death of George IV (formerly the regent) in 1830, Prince Albert’s large tree is still fifteen years away.)

So, now you know one cool Christmasy fact about this fascinating period. Stay tuned for the 2012 update of my Christmas ebook to learn much more!
Warmest Blessings,

Linore

Originally posted 2012-08-03 19:47:48.