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Simpson's-in-the-Strand

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand

Have you been out to dinner at a nice restaurant lately? When you told your friends, did they look at you with pity and then gossip about you behind your back? Is your reputation ruined? How times change, LOL!

The fact is, during the Regency in England, dining out as a social event the way we know it was not done. The very concept of the modern restaurant was still in its infancy –it evolved in France (of course?) in the later 18th century and had not successfully caught on yet in England. But there was a glimmer on the horizon, and a few eating establishments were heading in the right direction. (I’ll come back to these near the end.)

People did “eat out”, of course. You could obtain a meal in a tavern, pub, or an inn or a fine hotel, particularly if you were traveling. You could purchase specific foodstuffs from street vendors, but that wasn’t a “meal.” And any of these were, in general, patronized out of necessity or convenience, not for pleasure. There were no menus offering choices –only perhaps, a list of what was to be served. Generally only the simplest inexpensive meats and vegetables were served, except for a few taverns that catered to a specific well-heeled (male) clientele.

simpsons-tavern

simpsons-tavern

If you were an upper-class male, you could enjoy a meal at your private club. The food offerings might be somewhat more elegant, but would still be limited. You ate what they served, at the time they served it. Men could also patronize the coffee and oyster houses, which often served other food in addition to their main focus. For females to dine in public was quite shocking, however, unless in a coaching inn, and if you were of the upper class, you would still insist on a private parlor.

Part of the stigma, of course, came from the fact that acceptable households employed their own cooks. Why would you prefer to eat out when you could eat in? “Dining out” socially meant going to dinner at someone else’s private home, eating food prepared by their cook instead of yours.

Another part of the stigma was the idea of rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi –the general public. Not done! People forced to “eat out” were the poor who had no cook, and often, no kitchen at all. Taverns were noisy and crowded, with communal tables. “Even a moderately well-to-do person would have preferred to order food delivered to a private home or a room at an inn or hotel or an elegant salon rented for the occasion…” (1)

No wonder your friends viewed you with pity! What calamity caused you to need to eat out? And if you were female in mixed company, oh, dear. Shocking!

These social aspects of dining out offer a clue to why the modern restaurant was born in France (and why England resisted). The French Revolution brought in sweeping social changes that coincided with some new developments. “Restaurant” originally meant a type of meat soup, like consommé or bouillion, used medicinally as a “restorative”. In 1765 a bouillion-seller had opened a shop with tables where ailing customers could sit and eat their soup. Different customers required different types of restoratives, so the idea of individual customized servings was introduced. Others copied the idea. In the early 1780’s a man named Beauvilliers, the former chef of the Count of Provence, carried the conceit further and opened the first real restaurant with small individual tables and a menu listing individual choices with prices.

In 1786 he opened the first “luxury” restaurant in the Palais Royale, featuring mahogany tables with white tablecloths, trained waiters, chandeliers, a wine list and an extensive menu of fine food choices. That same year, the Provost of Paris issued a proclamation officially recognizing and authorizing these new types of establishments. These developments paired with a ready supply of cooks and servants no longer employed by the artistocracy, the dissolution of the guilds that had restricted how and by whom food could be prepared, and a customer base of displaced provincials without families in Paris, journalists and businessmen, a newly important middle class. Two different principles were suddenly wedded in a successful new way to do business –the personal tastes, budget and choices of the individual now controlled the purchase of a meal, while the egalitarian social climate celebrated that “Eating [well] was no longer the privilege of the wealthy who could afford to maintain a cook and a well-supplied kitchen.” (2)

Dining Out-3estates_2Within ten years there were more than half a dozen restaurants in Paris, and “dining out” was accepted practice there enough to provide the basis for a political cartoon about the 3rd Estate in France (above), entitled “Separate cheques please”:

 

Rules with Glass Ceiling

Rules with Glass Ceiling

Meanwhile, back in London, the oldest still-surviving restaurant in London, Rules, was started in 1798, on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden. Although at first it was simply an oyster bar, as their website states: “Contemporary writers were soon singing the praises of Rules’ “porter, pies and oysters”, and remarking on the “rakes, dandies and superior intelligence’s who comprise its clientele”.

Two other London establishments might challenge the “oldest” claim by Rules, but one (Wilton’s, opened 1742 as a seafood street stall, 1805 as an oyster room) has changed locations and nature many times, while the other (Simpson’s Tavern) is more of a pub, and ancient pubs are not rare anywhere in England! Note ladies were not admitted to Simpson’s Tavern until 1916.

Simpson’s-in-the-Strand (not related) was founded in 1828 primarily as a chess club/coffee house/smoking room (“The Grand Cigar Divan”). They are still famous for serving meats at tableside from antique, silver-domed carving trolleys, a practice said to have evolved to avoid interrupting the play during chess games.  Simpson's history

You can see these were not yet exactly “restaurants” in the Parisian sense at the time they opened their doors. The modern form of “dining out” really didn’t take hold in Britain until the mid-Victorian era, when the swelling ranks of the new middle class provided an enthusiastic customer base for it.

Have you written or read characters who needed to dine out for one reason or another? Are you surprised to know what a big difference existed between customs in Paris and London during this time period? Have you ever eaten at any of the London restaurants mentioned, or have a favorite restaurant there to share?

Sources quoted:

(1) “The Rise of the Restaurant,” Food: a Culinary History, Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari

(2) Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999)

For further reading online:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/restaurants.html#oldestmenu

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255-s01/pleasure/history_restaurant.html

Also, check out:

A History of Cooks and Cooking, Michael Symons [Universtiy of Illinois Press:Urbana IL] 1998 (p. 289-293)

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indexRevisiting an old story intent on revising it can be a scary journey full of rocks and potholes. I’m deep in the throes of revising my old Signet Regency, The Magnificent Marquess, and I have to tell you, the process isn’t pretty! It’s not just the mess of annotated pages scattered over my dining room table and all the handwritten notes that are keyed to them, but also my precarious state of mind.

What do you think about “new and improved” versions of older books? Have you ever picked up a new version of an old favorite and read it to see if you liked it better? And did you? If you write, have you gone back to previously published work and significantly changed it? I’m not talking about just a minor tweak or correction here or there. Were you pleased with the result? Please let me know in the comments!writers-block21

While I am firmly convinced this original book can be greatly improved, I am also terrified I may make it worse rather than better.

There seem to be two schools of thought about reissuing backlist books. One is that old books are like old friends and should just be sent back out again in the same lovable form they originally presented to the world. The other is that reissuing them offers an opportunity to improve them –to fix mistakes, enliven the writing, or even indulge in the deeper surgeries (or expansions) required to improve plot, character, or motivations. What’s your experience with this, as a reader, or a writer, or both?

writing_as_professionalMost of my old Signets packed a lot of plot into a relatively short book format –the length was a requirement of the publisher’s line. I believe that by expanding The Magnificent Marquess, I can tell the story more effectively. Too much had to be left out of the original version. But one of many dangers then becomes losing the pacing, not to mention the challenge of keeping the writing tight. All the same problems of writing any original version!

I just keep reminding myself that even though these characters and their story are old friends of mine, for readers who never read the first version, this revised one will be brand new. I’ll let you know when it’s ready!! happy reading 2 peeps

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On Friday (Sept 30) at Risky Regencies, we’ll have Caroline Warfield as our guest! Caroline has a book giveaway for you and a fascinating glimpse of a Canadian setting used in her new release, The Renegade Wife. Her new “post-Regency” series follows the children of characters introduced in her first series. To learn more, please drop in to visit her with us on Friday!

therenegadewife Today at Risky Regencies, we are delighted to have Caroline Warfield as our guest! Caroline has a book giveaway for you and a fascinating glimpse of a Canadian setting used in her new release, The Renegade Wife. Her new post-Regency series follows the children of characters introduced in her first series. To learn more, please read on!

Traveler, would-be adventurer, librarian, technology manager—Caroline Warfield has been many things, but above all a romantic. She is now a writer of historical romance, enamored of owls, books, history, and beautiful gardens, who sits in an office surrounded by windows and lets her characters lead her to adventures in England and the far flung corners of the British Empire. She nudges them to explore the riskiest territory of all, the human heart.

Children of Empire

Raised with all the privilege of the English aristocracy, forged on the edges of the British Empire, men and woman of the early Victorian age seek their own destiny and make their mark on history. The heroes and heroines of Caroline’s Dangerous Series overcame challenges even after their happy ending. Their children seek their own happiness in distant lands in Children of Empire.

Caroline will give a Kindle copy of the winner’s choice of Dangerous Works or Dangerous Secrets to one randomly selected person who comments.

Book 1 in the new series is The Renegade Wife, which releases on October 12. Betrayed by his cousin and the woman he loved, Rand Wheatly fled England, his dreams of a loving family shattered. He clings to his solitude in an isolated cabin in Upper Canada. Returning from a business trip, he finds a widow and two children squatting in his house. He wants them gone, but his heart is not as hard as he likes to pretend. Meggy Blair harbors a secret, and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep her children safe. She doesn’t expect to find shelter with a quiet, solitary man, a man who lowers his defensive walls enough to let Meggy and her children in.

Their idyllic interlude is shattered when Meggy’s brutal husband appears to claim his children. She isn’t a widow, but a wife, a woman who betrayed the man she was supposed to love, just as Rand’s sweetheart betrayed him. He soon discovers why Meggy is on the run, but time is running out. To save them all, Rand must return and face his demons.

Caroline says: “When my Dangerous Series came to an end, and I looked around for my next project, I realized that I had populated my earlier books with young people who would grow up and need to search for their own happiness. A quick look at timelines of English history showed me that I would be moving into a really rich period of social upheaval and empire building. With it came exotic locations, something I particularly value. One wearies of the London drawing room after a while. The result was not just one book, but a whole new series. I named it Children of Empire.

The first books take place during the reign of William IV, the time in between the Georgian and Victorian eras. The Reform Crisis, social upheaval, growing interest in the Canadian timber industry, the expansion of the East India company, and the seeds of the First Opium War all lurk in the background of the first three books.

One major treat in researching The Renegade Wife was learning about the building of Rideau Canal. The story takes place months after the completion of the canal, certainly a wonder when it was built, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My characters travel the Rideau watershed and visit Bytown, now called Ottawa.

2waterpics

The untamed river and the lock 100 feet away.

I took the opportunity to go take a look, and the locks at Ottawa—still functioning after 180 years—astounded me. So did the whole length of locks, dams, and blockhouses, all built to defend the Canadas (as the provinces were known in 1832) from those pesky Americans down south. ”  bytownlocks(1827 Commissariat Building, shown behind me in the photo, is now the Bytown museum.)

Do you enjoy following characters into the post-Regency era and more exotic locations of the British Empire? Have you ever been to Ottawa, or visited the Rideau Canal or the Bytown museum? Post a comment to be entered into the drawing for Caroline’s giveaway!

A brief excerpt from The Renegade Wife:

She pushed away from the door. “If you’re finished, I’ll clear up your dishes.

“Damn it woman, I fend for myself here.” He looked her up and down. He noticed her deep blue eyes, midnight black hair, and dusky skin. “What are you? Gypsy? Is that where you learned how to diddle a man out of his belongings?”

She drew her back up straight and squared her shoulders. The gesture pulled her dress tight across obviously ample breasts.

There’s a practiced enticement. She’s in for a surprise if she thinks that trick will work on me.

Chin high, she met his eyes without flinching. “My grandmother is Ojibwa, my father was French, and my husband was a Scot. You can despise whichever one of those your English heart chooses, or all of them, but I am not a thief.”

She grabbed her skirt and took a step toward the door. “Do fend for yourself. We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

“I’ll decide when you’re a thief,” he snarled, bringing her to a halt. “It’s my house.”

For (pre-order) purchase on Amazon.      https://www.amazon.com/Renegade-Wife-Children-Empire-Book-ebook/dp/B01LY7IRT6/

Also check out Caroline online:

Website and Blog   http://www.carolinewarfield.com/

Facebook   https://www.facebook.com/carolinewarfield7

Twitter      @CaroWarfield

There’s also a Pinterest Board for The Renegade Wife!    http://bit.ly/2aHWOr6

Please leave a comment, to be entered in the giveaway.

Thanks for visiting with us today, Caroline!

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conker Did you know that in Britain, the second Sunday in October is “National Conkers Day”?? Yes, yesterday you should have pulled out your best hardened-up horse chestnut on a string and challenged some other conker player to a match. What, you didn’t know? Well, I confess I didn’t either until I ran across this factoid while doing research for my current revisions.

So, this time it started because my heroine needed to climb a tree. Not just any tree, but a big old one, tall with spreading branches that would be stout enough for the job –not to mention that earlier in the story a cheetah needed to perch on one of said stout branches of the same tree.  horse-chestnut-tree-4  (I do know that cheetahs don’t climb trees. You’ll need to read the story –The Magnificent Marquess wasn’t originally and in the new version still won’t be your standard Regency romance.)

I thought a horse chestnut ought to do the trick, and they are common in Great Britain in modern times, but –I was pretty sure they aren’t native to Britain. So first thing to check: when were they introduced? Second thing to check: how big can they grow?

I’ve learned that in doing research, assumptions are the biggest stumbling-block (and often the hardest thing to recognize!). That’s where the conkers come back in. I found the info I needed (trees introduced from Persia/Turkey/the Balkans in the 16th century, can grow to 100 feet high). I thought about having children in the story engage in playing conkers since the tree was there.

 

Have you ever played conkers? I haven’t –but my husband says he did in his youth. I was aware of it as a thing people (mostly boys) used to do, and I assumed that conkers was a game well-venerated through the ages, human nature being what it is. And actually, it is. Just not with horse chestnuts.

2014-world-conkers-cred-jez-shimell

2014 World Conkers, photo courtesy Jez Shimell

It seems, at least according to the sources I saw, that in earlier times conkers was played with snail shells, cobnuts, even stones, but conkers with horse chestnuts (they claim) is 20th century. I also saw the date 1848 given in several sources as the year of the first recorded conkers game, on the Isle of Wight. Victorian, and not with horse chestnuts, apparently. Now the World Conker Championships are held in Northamptonshire on the second Sunday in October every year.

1200px-stringing_conkersIt would take some more digging to verify if the sources I saw were actually correct. I did not take the time to look further. Too many rabbit holes out there, and time is always short. Who could prove they were the first person ever to put a horse chestnut on a string? I am not convinced that it was not being done during the Regency, or earlier, but it was also not important for my story. The point is the surprise. So often things I assume are old enough to be Regency turn out not to be. This is just one example.

I love doing research, and I do a lot of it. I like to think my stories “could have happened” even though I made them up. But the hardest part of doing story research isn’t finding the information –it’s figuring out what bits you need to check!

Of course, in the end, the story is what matters most. And all of us story-tellers hope that when the reader is engaged deeply enough, any glitches we missed won’t matter. What research pitfalls have you encountered, as a writer or a reader? If I had tripped over this one, would you have known, or cared?

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