C. Anne Wilson

From comforting hypocras to a genuine 'liquid diet', this book traces the history of nourishing beverages from prehistoric times to the present day. Using original research on their preparation and consumption, the chapters focus on drinks and liquid foods which have all but disappeared in their original form, and place them in their social context. Amongst the subjects examined are: prehistoric pottages and their strange ingredients, exotic sherbets, the last domestic brewhouse, the emergence of modern cider, the rituals accompanied by hot spiced ale, and surprising new evidence on the date wine distillation began. With early recipes, and a host of stimulating and not so stimulating beverages, Liquid Nourishment makes an important contribution to the history of food.

"This book recalls in words and pictures the full cyle of provisioning of great houses such as eighteenth-century Felbrigg, Erddig and Calke Abbey, and Victorian Tatton Park. It begins by looking at how produce was grown, from digging, sowing and cropping in the open ground, and the supply of seeds, plants and trees to country house kitchen gardens, and orchards, to the use of frames and greenhouses for protecting exotic fruit and tender vegetables, and the growing of aromatic herbs and flowers for food and physic. The second part of the book is devoted to the produce itself, and its transfer from garden to table: its preparation, its preservation, and the use of medicinal herbs."--Jacket.

Conventional food histories tend to tell us more about the diet of the nobility and gentry than the everyday food of ordinary people. This book takes a different viewpoint. It describes how people living and working together for a common purpose often shared a common diet, and examines the food preparation for certain groups restricted in their choice of foodstuffs. So, what did medieval monks eat? How did the catering arrangements for servants change between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century? What were school dinners like at the French school of St Cyr? What delights did a typical Yorkshire workhouse diet contain? What was on the menu if you were a sailor between 1530 and 1830? And have soldiers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries really marched on their stomachs? These questions and many more are answered in this fascinating new examination of Food for the Community, shedding as much light on contemporary dietary theories and the social context of special diets as it does on the actual foods consumed.