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What Did the Georgians Eat at a Dinner Party?
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What Did the Georgians Eat at a Dinner Party?

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‘What Did the Georgians Eat at a Dinner Party?’

The Georgian era was a time of luxury and decadence. At least if you were one of the fortunate few who were members of the upper class, gentry or nobility. From fancy balls to trips into the ton, life was good for the glamorous Georgian elite, and it’s easy to see why the period is portrayed so often in films and TV shows, like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Bridgerton’.

One of the many extravagances the nobility enjoyed in this period was fine dining. Dinner parties were huge, complicated affairs with multiple courses served at once and strict rules of etiquette to follow.

In this video, the first in our new series ‘History Bites’, Dan Snow takes on some of the weird and wonderful foods that would have graced a Georgian dining table.

First, he tries some Claret, a red wine from Bordeaux that was very popular at the time. Wine was an essential component of any social event in the Georgian calendar and there were strict rules governing what you could drink, when and with whom.

Next, he samples some white soup, a mainstay of Georgian dinner parties which crops up in Jane Austen’s novels. The soup, which was made from veal stock, egg yolk, ground almonds, cream, chicken and bacon, was commonly served at balls and is not exactly to Dan’s taste.

He goes on to try some venison pie, which is more to his liking. Meat made up a large part of the Georgian diet and venison and game were particularly popular, because they had to be procured from country estates and were therefore a status symbol.

Next up, he tastes some sweetly named but not so sweet tasting sweetbreads. Sweetbreads are offal from the thymus gland (throat) and the pancreas gland (stomach) of calves or lambs. Unsurprisingly, this is not Dan’s favourite part of the meal!

Finally, Dan enjoys some juicy pineapple. Pineapples were a sign of wealth in the Georgian period because to get ahold of them, you’d have to be able to either ship them over from the tropics or grow them in England and therefore, would have to be extremely rich. Pineapples were so popular that businessmen opened pineapple rental shops across the country. Weird!
Do you think you’d be able to stomach a Georgian dinner party? What would be the dish you’d least want to try? Let us know in the comments!
And keep your eyes peeled for the next episode of ‘History Bites’ where Dan tackles a feast fit for King Henry VIII.

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29 Comments

  1. MrPh30

    Sweetbreads became more of status as we now know it as during late Victorian ,early Edwardian . And most known recent years Marco Pierre White and others took them forward again into the levels.

  4. Janet Stoker

    Still a cute video, even if it's a "re-upload".
    BUT at 08:25 you show a famous painting that is thought to have been painted around 1675.
    So still quite some time away from the 'Georgian'
    (1714-1830) or let alone 'Regency' (1811-1820) Period!!

    The painting shows your 'Restoration' King Charles II. Who is presented with a Pineapple. And where to the left of the King, a man, possibly John Rose, the Royal gardener, kneels before the King, and presents him with what is said to have been the first pineapple grown in England. (Although it is thought that at this date it is more likely that the pineapple had been imported). ✌🏻

  6. ThomasD66

    In the American State of South Carolina the image of the pineapple persists, carried over from the Georgians. But it has been ever so genteelly rebranded as a "symbol of hospitality" rather than one of wealth or status.

  7. Calum McGee

    I'd be very interested to see another version of this describing what the lower classes were eating

  10. Elizabeth Cornwell

    Claret should be served from a claret jug,not a flat bottomed ship’s decanter.Additionally ice cream was even more a symbol of status at this time.In an era before electricity it provedyou had access to an ice house as well as servants who could sit & churn cream in a pot of ice to produce ice cream.It would then be served in elaborate dishes of ice with an inner to contain the ice cream,or moulded into fancy shapes.

  11. Nerathul1

    I'm starting to think Dan Snow is incredibly picky with food… then again this matches most of my british friends.

  13. Nerathul1

    A quick google search tells me a pineapple during the time was 60£, which translates to somewhere around 5000£ in today's money.

  15. Ursprungsbo

    Black people in dresses during during the Gregorian era? keep debasing yourself "History Hit" ………. ridiculous

  19. Anaterka

    I have an idea why offal was a thing: when an animal is butchered, meat could be preserved somewhat, by salting, brining or smoking, offal on the other hand had to be eaten pretty much immediately. So i imagine good quality offal was a bit harder to come by (and pricier) especialy in cities or towns, therefore a suitable flex to your diner guests.

  24. Michael Gray

    Sweetbreads are the THYMUS glands which are situated in the neck of spring lambs….Absolutely delicious fried in olive oil and with
    a squirt of lemon juice

  26. Pieter Visser

    I don’t know how your sweetbreads where prepared but you are wrong. Veal Sweetbreads are very nice to eat. Cleaned, salt and pepper, flour and then fried in butter, very tender in structure and mild in taste. I would eat them a lot more but they are quite expensive here (Germany, Netherlands)

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