The Forgotten Menu
Back to home

Recipes

Dishes from history’s famous tables, from the old menus and cookbooks. Each one names its source and scales to the size of your table.

Search by recipe name or ingredient.

Sort & filter213 recipes

37–48 of 213 recipes

  3. Four small white porcelain cups of pale yellow lemon custard, smooth and spoonable, with a few flecks of grated lemon rind, one with a teaspoon lifting out a spoonful, beside a halved lemon.
    Lemon custards

    Desserts & Sweets · 2 hr 35 min total

    Lemon Custards (1806) 

    Maria Rundell’s lemon custards, 1806: egg yolks thickened with boiling water, grated lemon rind and sweetened juice, set in cups and eaten cold.

  4. A brown glazed earthenware bowl heaped with fluffy mashed potatoes, the top left rough and flecked with black pepper, on a striped cream towel, with two table forks beside it on a wooden table.
    mashed potatoes

    Vegetables & Sides · 45 min total

    Mashed Potatoes (1854) 

    Alexis Soyer’s mashed potatoes from his 1854 cookbook for working families, beaten light with two forks and a little butter and milk, as served with the Cratchits’ Christmas goose.

  5. A wide-rimmed ochre-glazed earthenware soup plate of golden onion soup with soft, swollen pieces of bread and strands of lightly browned onion, flecked with coarse black pepper.
    Potages maigres aux oignons

    Soups & Broths · 1 hr 5 min total

    Onion Soup Maigre (1771) 

    A meatless French onion soup of 1771: sliced onions colored lightly in butter, simmered in water with salt and coarse pepper, and thickened with bread.

  6. A dark, domed plum pudding studded with fruit on a white plate, a sprig of holly with two red berries in the top, on a red cloth beside a jug of white sweet sauce and a spoon.
    the pudding

    Desserts & Sweets · 4 hr 40 min total

    Plum Pudding (1854) 

    Alexis Soyer’s 1854 Christmas plum pudding of raisins, currants, suet, sugar, peel, flour and crumbs, boiled four hours in a mold: a working family’s Christmas pudding, with flour in it like Mrs. Cratchit’s.

  9. A shallow coconut pudding baked in a puff pastry case in a pie plate, its pale golden top flecked with grated coconut and dusted with white sugar, one wedge cut and drawn a little away, showing a light, close-textured filling.
    Cocoanut Pudding

    Desserts & Sweets · 2 hr 20 min total

    Cocoanut Pudding (1864) 

    A cocoanut pudding of 1864: freshly grated coconut folded into butter, sugar and stiffly beaten egg whites with rose water, wine and brandy, baked on puff pastry and dusted with sugar.

  10. Squares of dark brown, dense gingerbread with a flat, slightly shiny top, cut from a buttered rectangular earthenware baking dish, one square lifted out and set beside the dish, showing a close, moist crumb.
    Lafayette Gingerbread

    Breads & Cakes · 1 hr 50 min total

    Lafayette Gingerbread (1864) 

    Lafayette gingerbread of 1864: a dark molasses cake with brown sugar, butter, five eggs, freshly ground cinnamon, allspice and cloves, a great deal of ginger and two lemons.

  11. Four small hollowed bread rolls fried golden brown, filled with plump halved oysters in a little thin sauce, their crisp lids leaning against them, with fried breadcrumbs scattered around them on a white platter with a slotted spoon at its rim.
    Oyster Loaves

    Fish & Seafood · 40 min total

    Oyster Loaves (1864) 

    Oyster loaves of 1864: small French rolls emptied, fried crisp in clarified butter and filled with oysters stewed in their liquor with white wine, gravy, lemon peel and mace.

  12. A whole stewed duck with pale golden skin in a deep earthenware dish, surrounded by small whole white onions, bright green peas and pieces of bacon in a thin brown sauce.
    Stewed Duck and Peas

    Meat & Poultry · 2 hr 45 min total

    Stewed Duck and Peas (1864) 

    Stewed duck and peas from a recipe written as a poem: a whole duck stewed with butter, streaky bacon, twenty small onions, parsley, bay and cloves, finished with green peas.