Regency Era Was Partial To Pickled Food (5 Pickled Foods For Historical Romance Novels)

Do you ever sometimes wonder if everything in the Regency era was pickled? Pickled herring, pickled kippers, pickled this, and pickled that. For those of us in modern times, these dishes might not sound like what you enjoy pulling out of your pickle jar. Still, the vinegar-laden diet probably had some health benefits like keeping GI issues at bay, aiding people in staying trim, and keeping food from spoiling, which would ultimately cause illness.

In fact, pickling was one of the main ways to preserve food in the regency era. Pickled food often came from places around the world and was known to be exotic because people had to have a way to get it back to England. It was served at parties, tea time, wedding breakfasts, and more. If you are already turned off by the pickling trend and imagine the smell of vinegar hitting your nose, think of our modern-day carnival. It is no different than the modern-day grease-sodden carnival food that we eat every summer. Well, perhaps the vinegar is a little healthier.

Let’s hit up five dishes that people pickled in Regency times. Who knows, you may want to incorporate them in your next Regency romance novel. 

Pickled Salmon

Pink salmon is a north Atlantic fish, common in the diet of those who lived in regency times. Sadly due to heavy fishing over the centuries, much of today’s fish comes from fish farms as the wild populations have declined. In regency times, people living in England could get salmon from the waters around the island nation itself and from around Sweden, Scotland, and other parts of the Atlantic. There were even salmon in the great lakes, though it is highly unlikely that this was the food source for those living in England. The dish was popular enough that that is was written about in the Ladies Best Companion as a recipe of choice. The recipes for such a dish were passed around by word of mouth. The Ladies Best Companion was a super popular book for women in the Regency era that had recipes and other helpful advice on decorum.

They were chopped up when a fisherman brought in salmon from the catch. After a drying period, the ladies removed the scales. They stored them in barrels of vinegar and water mixtures, like some strange pickle. A salt cure was used to dry the fish out a little better, and they had periods during the pickling process where they would boil the fish. I cannot recall reading Regency-era romance novels that include pickled salmon as a dish, though it was a traditional delicacy. 

Above you can find a clipping from The Ladies Best Companion; or, a Golden Treasure For the Fair Sex. It contains more information on how salmon was pickled in the regency era and was originally published in 1775.

Pickled Walnuts

Pickled salmon were popular in the Regency era but not for a heavy meal or as a midnight dinner at a regency ball. In fact, just like many nuts of today that are roasted and salted, pickled walnuts were served with cold meats and cheeses as a light repast or snack. They could have also been served at tea time. However, many regency romance authors lean towards giving their characters a sweet tooth and serving cakes at tea time. Just imagine a character with a preference for pickled walnuts served at tea. It would make for an interesting story detail.

Indian Pickle

Finally, a regular pickle like we might see in a jar on a grocery store shelf today. If this is what you thought, then you would be mistaken. At dinners, the Indian Pickle was another popular dish served during the regency era. While sliced cucumbers were included in the vinegar brine, a mixture of other common garden vegetables was also incorporated. So the Indian Pickle was like a pickled salad:

• Cauliflower
• Cabbage
• Celery 
• Capsicums
• French beans
• Garlic
• Asparagus
• Horseradish 
• Ginger
• Turmeric

The Indian pickle had plenty of spice and flavor with the veggies. 

Vinegar-Based Salad Dressing

In the regency era, most salad dressings were made with a lot of vinegar, like a vinegarette blend. Of course, they also had other ingredients for dressing vegetables and salads, like butter, boiled eggs, lemon juice, mustard, and even oils.

These regency-based salad dressings were poured from a sauceboat over various vegetable styles at dinners. For instance, salads could be considered traditional as we know them today, with various lettuce and vegetables in a bowl. However, there were also exciting dishes to place the dressing over like a gravy, such as mashed potatoes, sea kale, brussel sprouts, Spanish onions, and vegetable fritters. Any number of these dishes could be woven into a midnight ball dinner or a wedding breakfast scene in a historical romance novel to make them more factual. 

The above is a clipping on how to pickle cabbage during the regency era. It was first published in the popular women’s book The Ladies Best Companion; or, a Golden Treasure For the Fair Sex in 1775.

Pickled Puffins

Puffins are northern birds most commonly thought of as birds in Alaska, the Arctic, and other cold regions. But they are native to England as well. Puffins come to England in the spring and perch on their beautiful clifftops. However, this was a bit dangerous for the birds because they became a delicacy of the wealthy. For those who couldn’t afford to eat puffin meat, there were recipes and tricks to make pigeon meat look and taste more like the lucrative puffin meat. Pigeons were so much more common. One popular way to serve puffin meat was by pickling it. 

The above is another clipping from the Ladies Best Companion; or, a Golden Treasure For the Fair Sex (1775). It details how they pickled pigeons, a commoner’s form of the pickled puffin.

Put Some Popular Pickled Food in Your Next Regency Romance Novel

Now you know more about the popular dishes pickled in the regency era and why. This is not all the pickled food they ate, for it was the primary method of keeping food over the long winter and bringing in food from other parts of the world. Brine was a brilliant method for preventing diseases. The people were able to eat a much wider pallet than what could be grown or caught around England. All because of pickling!

You can include these dishes in various regency romance era novels to give them an authentic historical flare. Check out more articles by Lyrica Lovell to help you research your latest regency romance novel!

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