Several pages from late spring 1897 are full of notes, recipes and menus intended for Lady Roberts. I’m not entirely sure who she was, but the timing seems right for her to have been the wife of Lord Roberts of Kandahar. Certainly the menus seem designed to impress, which suggests she was a person of some importance.
Dinner Lady Roberts, May 25/26 1897.
Hors d’oevre
Clear Soup. Tarragon Chervil / New Turnips
Puree Cucumber
Smoked Salmon strips, Carrot + Parsley Turnip
Whitebait
Sweetbreads
Soufflet of Foie gras
Haunch Lamb. Beans etc
Spring Chickens Watercress Asparagus
Jelly a la Russe (Champagne)
Brandy Snaps
Tartlets de Indes18th June Clear Soup. Soles. Trout. Fillits Beef. Chicken Creams Cutlets. Ducks. Hare Cumberland Sauce. Cream straw ice. Whipped Jelly. Turkish Butters.
Dinner Lady Roberts June 23rd 1897, Barbellion
Clear Soup, Asparagus Puree
Fillets of Soles. Salmon. Cold Chicken Entree in Aspic
Rack of Lamb. Quails. Peaches in Jelly. Fruit in Saucepans
Hot Savoury.Quails forced and sent to table in Casserole with good thick mushroom sauce Brown and truffles cut very thinly.
Sweetbreads larded with truffle and tongue braised laid along Croutons. served with a good White Sauce with Champignons & Olives.
Hors d’oevre
Make a tiny croustade of pastry very thin just large enough to hold a large stoned olive Pipe some savoury butter round it fill it with some butter coloured finish with a caper on the top
Google informs me that Barbellion was the pseudonym of Devon-born diarist Bruce Cummings, but I have no idea what it means in this context. Any ideas?
