Dining with Jane Austen Cookbook

This is a wonderful book, especially if you're a fan of Jane Austen. You feel as though you are walking through life with her. So interesting to learn the cooking methods back then, and the book then converts those recipes to our methods of today. A wonderful gift for anyone who loves Jane Austen, cooking or both!

Super disappointed it was a paperback, for the price it should’ve been a hard cover, otherwise it was nice

Beautiful book!!!! Bought this for a gift and am very pleased!

Lovely photography. Despite being a 33 year member of the Jane Austen Society I learned a great deal about dining in the Austen era.

This book will make a wonderful gift. I’ve already ordered three copies for friends, and the number keeps growing. It’s a cookbook, yes, but even if you’re not a cook, there are many, many reasons to enjoy reading and owning it. It’s also a coffee table book: because Austen lived in the Georgian period, the book looks like it could be an offering from Colonial Williamsburg. Only one two-page spread lacks illustration; often there are three or four pictures per spread. Featured are photos of the food on china used by Austen’s family, photos of the family homes and furnishings, plus photos of the English countryside, engravings, and recipes written by hand in Austen’s day.If you are a Jane Austen fan, you’ll also be glad to know that proceeds from book sales benefit Jane Austen’s House Museum and Chawton House Library in Hampshire. Both historic places opened their doors, resources, and kitchens to Gehrer, who is a lifetime member of the North America Chapter of the Jane Austen Society and was long a Regional Coordinator. She knows her Austen and her cooking.As for the cooking, Gehrer has done the hard work for us. She has modernized recipes and tested them until they worked, since the originals sometimes left measurements or even ingredients out. She has struggled through bad handwriting and the creative spelling of that day. Naturally, she also allows us to use modern conveniences like food processors and blenders. I’m even tempted to bake, which is the one kind of cooking I don’t enjoy. Most of the dishes don’t look any more challenging than recipes from an average cookbook. Gehrer has also brought to bear what we know of safe food practices in the twenty-first century. (More about that later.)Now comes the biggest reason I recommend this book. History comes alive when we see where people lived, how they dressed, what they ate, what their daily lives were really like. Dining with Jane Austen is just plain good reading. It educates us in the life of Georgian England through food and dining habits. As a bonus, the food ties into quotes from Austen’s books and letters. I kept telling my husband interesting tidbits as I read, so he wants to read it, too. Even if you don’t make any of the recipes, you’ll be glad you read it. Gehrer’s writing is warm and engaging, at times even amusing. If you’re a fan of Austen, you probably know the famous opening to Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” I think Austen would be proud of Gehrer’s equally witty quote: “When recreating period recipes, the author of this book has one cardinal rule: Nobody dies.”

When reading Julienne Gehrer’s Dining with Jane Austen, one has a lot to digest. This book is a beautifully presented, modernized collection of recipes (“receipts”) found in two Austen-related cookbooks: Martha Lloyd’s Household Book and The Knight Family Cookbook.The gorgeous photography and well-constructed recipes bring Jane’s world to life through food. The author has translated hard-to-read handwritten recipes into language that today’s cooks can instantly understand. Woven amongst the recipes are commentaries gleaned from meticulous historical research that help paint a fuller picture of food and food preparation in Jane’s day. Each section of the book covers a location where Jane Austen lived and the foods associated with each area, resulting in a comprehensive picture of Jane’s culinary world.How did the author ever manage to read and make sense of the original recipes? From the many photographs of the handwritten recipe manuscripts, it is obvious that this was a daunting challenge. What is small beer barm, one may ask. It’s the “foam or scum that gathers on the beer’s surface during fermentation” (page 89). And what if small beer barm can’t be found—the updated recipe calls for the substitution of yeast. And then there are the spelling differences and the antiquated measurements. “Oringe” is orange and a teacup of broth is who knows how much. In spite of it all, the author has done a magnificent job of creating recipes wholly understandable using common ingredients and precise measurements. They read so easily. The mystery has been removed and the resulting recipes are foolproof.A truly amazing feature of this book is the exquisite photos of finished recipes served in original Knight family Wedgewood china. The author received special permission to use the family china and even the Dining Room of Chawton Great House. Page 185 shows the dining room set with the Knight family china.Jane Austen’s attitude about food, found in her letters and in food references in her novels, contributes to the flavor of the book. Jane’s famous comment, “You know how interesting the purchase of a sponge-cake is to me,” appears on page 117 with other comments on sponge cake and precedes a recipe for “A Rich Cake without Yeast.” In presenting a recipe for “Ragout Veal,” the author writes: “In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen characterizes the snobbish Mr. Hurst as someone ‘who when he found [Elizabeth] to prefer a plain dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her’” (page 54). Yet, one can imagine Jane herself having plenty to say about a ragout.For cooks always interested in picking up good cooking tips, there is no disappointment. The way to secure parchment paper to a cookie sheet, found in the recipe for French macarons is with a dab of butter under each corner of the paper. And to dislodge air bubbles, drop the sheet on the counter.Should a reader be interested to know how “To Hash a Calves Head” or what to do with fish blood, this book contains basic instructions. All angles are covered. Jane’s era featured the original whole animal butchery movement.From reading this book, it’s clear that today’s cooking is much easier than it was for Jane. Happily, we don’t need to use a whisk made of twigs or grind our own almonds. We can use modern whisks and almond flour. And we now know that some ingredients common in the early 1800s are poisonous, like tansy. Today we can substitute thyme for tansy. Good to know! Plus methods that took days in Jane’s time, like pickling Patagonian cucumbers, can now be accomplished in a few hours.Dining with Jane Austen is a very handsome book, expertly written and produced and, the design, layout, and production are top-notch professional.Jane Austen might very well be touched that we in this day would be so curious about her and her daily life. No doubt she would have wry comments to make about our interest, but she would probably also realize that her writing has struck a chord with us and be amazed by her enduring fame. This book helps Jane Austen’s life come alive in a truly tangible way.