These days there’s a lot of talk about food localism: the practice of eating food that was grown close to where you eat. Enthusiasts of the movement often try to make their meals only out of food grown within 200 miles of where they live.

If I did that, I’d be without my two (okay, three!) cups of coffee every morning, but I admit that I see the appeal. I’m lucky enough to live in a region with community-supported agriculture (or “CSA”) groups, which means that our family largely eats produce that was grown only miles from where we live.

But families in the Regency took local eating to a whole new level, especially in the large country estates. These estates, formed hundreds of years before there were safe and reliable roads and trade routes, grew almost all of their own food out of necessity, and even in the Regency, when importing food was more feasible, many of these large estates still produced most of what they ate right there on the property.

What kinds of foods were produced on a country estate?

The food produced on an English country estate ran the gamut from meat to vegetables, wheat to fruit, dairy to game.

Estates supported large farms, which could grow grains and vegetables in their fields, while the more well-off landowners could also support greenhouses dedicated to expensive and rare tropical fruit like pineapples (a princely gift in those times!). Wheat was made into bread and also used for brewing beer.

Estates also were hugely concerned with animal husbandry. Cows provided the milk for on-the-grounds dairies, and they also provided meat, along with pigs and sheep. There were even estates with dovecotes that raised pigeons for the table – the nestlings, or “squabs”, were prized for their delicate meat. Large estates could also contain fishponds.

The extraordinary thing to modern eyes was not necessarily how much food was produced in the lands surrounding the great English houses, but how much of the processing of that food was done on the property. Nowadays, farms grow food and factories process them. But in the 1800s, the growing and processing was often done on the same property, with the cows being milked, the dairymaid making cheese, and the cook arranging the cheese dish all being owned or employed by the same family.

Further Reading

For a much more thorough overview of the food production and processing on an English estate, I recommend Christina Hardyment’s “Behind the Scenes: Domestic Arrangements in Historic Houses”.

And for a fascinating look at current localism, I recommend Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell 

Originally posted 2012-08-27 10:00:00.

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.