I thought, during this time of Thanksgiving, it might be fun to do another post on food.
Special Celebrations deserve special things to eat and in the Regency era sculptured sugar will often be mentioned as the piece de resistance. Pictured above is a desert from the 1820's all made from sugar, known as pastillage. Can you imagine the work that went into it? And then to eat it!
Here is a mould and then the final result.
It was common to serve bonbonniere at the table in pastillage baskets. Here we see a pastillage basket containing 'jewell fruit', which are in fact vegetables, cauliflowers and cucumbers.
I was particularly enchanted by the following design. A sculpture where the ornaments hung from a central column and would have trembled as the guests touched the table.
I think we can see where the ideas of our fancy wedding cakes came from, don't you think.
I used to love helping make my mother ice our Christmas cake each year, and it was always my job to pipe on the royal icing decoration. Of course what I liked was getting to snack on the little silver balls when she wasn't looking and eating the left over icing in the metal tip that goes on the end of the icing bag. I always did have a sweet tooth.
In those days I had no idea about pastillage, and the designs of two hundred years ago. If you would like more detail on this check out this link.
Have a sweet week, and until next time, Happy Rambles