Food fit for early modern banqueting needed to have a distant provenance to distinguish it from everyday local fare. In The Winterās Tale the young shepherd is sent to do the shopping for a sheep-shearing feast with a list that doesnāt sound very different to an Ocado order for the Christmas baking weekend: sugar, currants, raisins, dates, prunes saffron, mace, nutmeg and ginger. In Francis Beaumontās The Knight of the Burning Pestle Mr Merrythought ā whose every disturbing utterance is a proclamation of insane good cheer ā ascribes his Rudolfian ājolly red noseā to ānutmegs and ginger, cinnamon and clovesā, key ingredients in early modern party foods and still the flavour profile of most things Christmassy.
I canāt pretend my recipe has a pedigree that stretches back to Shakespeare, but itās got some historical lineage. It belonged to my grandmother, Rosamond Sillem, known as Rob, who died many years ago at an advanced age and who carried with her an air of the Edwardian world in which she was brought up (she was born in 1904).