Gemma Jones as Louisa Trotter
A few years ago, I stumbled upon a show from the late 1970s called The Duchess of Duke Street starring the inestimable Gemma Jones as Louisa Trotter - proprietress of the exquisitely eccentric Bentinck Hotel and an addictive, guilty-pleasure-of-a-show.
Cast of Duchess of Duke Street.
It was full of colorful characters played to perfection by a superb ensemble cast getting up to all kinds of mischief and perfectly complimenting Gemma’s masterful turn as the tart-mouthed Louisa.
Rosa Lewis before WWI
But Louisa, like Lottie Crump of Shepherd's Hotel in Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies (Stephen Fry's film version HERE ), was in fact a barely disguised Rosa Lewis.
Rosa was the proprietress of the legendary Cavendish Hotel from 1902-1952. For 2 or 3 generations of British high society beginning before WWI, and continuing through the 2nd World War, Rosa and her establishment were glittering threads in the fabric of that society. She was, as she said herself, at the top of the tree. After WWI, the world, as they had known it, shifted forever and the gilded threads tarnished and frayed. The Cavendish kept on for decades and had a last hurrah during WWII, but more and more it survived as a beloved, fading memory passed along from parents to children – a heritage with an eccentric keeper of the flame.
I must say, I came across the hotel in so many delicious anecdotes intersecting in so many of the lives I have researched over the years at LostPast. It felt like everyone had a link to it during Rosa's fifty-year tenure. It was time I took a deep dive into the legend.
Daphne Vivian with Viscount Weymouth on their wedding day 1927
Daphne Vivian Fielding, 1935
To begin with, I picked up The Duchess of Jermyn Street by Daphne Fielding. I thought, who better to write about The Cavendish than a member of the fabled social set of the 20's and 30's?
Bright Young Things with Talllah Bankhead and Cecil Beaton
They were known as the Bright Young Things and they cavorted at the Cavendish as their parents had done the generation before. As her book was written in 1964, (12 years after Rosa’s death), Daphne was able to interview many of the Cavendish revelers of both generations who were still alive and kicking and ripe with reputation-staining tales for the plucking.
I then discovered American journalist Mary Lawton's 1925 book of interviews with Rosa– The Queen of Cooks--and Some Kings . It filled in the blanks that the longer range of Fielding’s book had to gloss over – especially stories from the golden, pre-WWI age of the Cavendish (there is also another biography from 1977 that dug through the ashes a bit more - An Exceptional Edwardian by Anthony Masters).
It all begins with Rosa.
Rosa as a girl
She was born Rosa Ovenden on Sept 27, 1867.
Although Rosa subtly spread the legend that she was born of French royalty (albeit from the wrong side of the bed), au contraire, she was very much English and very much from the scrum of trade – not nobility.
Rosa’s family was large - 9 children were crowded uncomfortably into their small house, and at the age of 12 she escaped the stifling confines of the Ovenden household for good.
The Ovenden watch-making business
Her father had a small-time clockmaker/undertaker business, but her mother descended from a family of fine jewelers dating back to Elizabeth I – the Cannons.
Victoria’s Coronation Crown, 1838
One of her uncles was a friend of King George IV, whose patronage, even years after his demise, was enough to honor his clan with some of the work on Victoria’s coronation crown (the firm of Rundell, Bridge & Rundell London was the primary creator/jeweler of the crown).
Rose was ambitious from an early age, good at anything she set her mind to, hardworking, and terribly attractive. Fielding observed, “She must have been an exceptionally lovely girl, tall and well made, her mass of silky dark-brown hair contrasting with her deeply set forget-me-not blue eyes. One can see in her photographs the strength and beauty of her bone structure, the high cheek-bones and characteristic well-moulded chin, its firmness tempered by a roguish rounded nose and a laughing mouth.”
Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose, John Sargent.
“Her brilliant high colouring reminded one of Sargent’s picture, ‘Carnation, Lilly, Lilly, Rose’. How Renoir would have been enchanted by that fabulous skin of hers which took the light! She held herself proudly and walked with an air, full of the vitality which sprang joyously from youthful strength and health and shone in the radiance of her smile.”
Sheen House
She started working as a simple maid in a middleclass house, but at 16, her family connections got her a place in a grand kitchen at Sheen House.
Isabelle, Le Comtesse de Paris
Working for Isabelle, Le Comtesse de Paris at Sheen House, she had her first interactions with the best of London society. She started at the bottom but rose quickly from washing floors to washing the fine china (a testament to her assiduous ministrations to her ladyship’s fine possessions). Next, she was tasked with preparing poultry, then making coffee, tea and toast and then promoted to preparing vegetables (which became her specialty) before being allowed to cook full meals. At this she excelled. It was here she came to the attention of the Prince of Wales. She was ‘volunteered’ to lead a song for him at one dinner and rewarded for her performance with a presentation to the Prince who complemented her voice and her ptarmigan pie. She curtsied and laughed, “The chef makes the pies, sir, I just take the innards out of the birds, sir…” The Prince patted her shoulder and gave her a sovereign for her charming ways.
Determined to conquer society with her food, Rosa charted her course and started her ascent by observing the Prince of Wales meticulously. She found he, “…liked very simple food. Whatever it was, it had to be very plainly cooked. If he had a pear, it would be a perfectly plain – no colouring; and the only flavouring he liked with his fruit was kirsch. He also liked very plain boiled bacon and flat (kidney) beans, and he was especially fond of plain boiled truffles. He didn’t like anything coloured, or anything sloppy, or anything that would spill down his shirt-front; just simple plain cooking, and truffles I used to do specially for him. If a dinner party was being given in his honour, this dish used to always be there every time, just served in a white serviette.”
Lady Randolph Churchill 1887
Next, she flew, onward and upward to the London home of a renowned fixture in the Prince of Wales’ circle, Lady Randolph Churchill . Rosa may have begun as an extra chef, but her dishes left the Prince of Wales’ guests ecstatic with pleasure and she quickly rose through the ranks.
This genius for pleasing royal palates, and her talent for food organization, led to her becoming a huge success as a private chef to others on her off days and no wonder - she had an inspiring take on the art of preparing food. I really can't think of a more glorious acknowledgment of the source of creative genius in the kitchen -- to Rosa, it was driven by the engine of the cooks's own passionate fire and feeling. She reflected,
“Some people's food always tastes better than others, even if they are cooking the same dish at the same dinner. Now I will tell you why - because one person has much more life in them —more fire, more vitality, more guts-than others. A person without these things can never make food taste right, no matter what materials you give them, it is no use. Turn in the whole cow full of cream instead of milk, and all the fresh butter and ingredients in the world, and still that cooking will taste dull and flabby-just because they have nothing in themselves to give. You have got to throw feeling into your cooking. Yes, you have got to throw feeling into cooking always.”
Rosa was also a keen observer of her employers and quickly learned how best to appeal to them, “You see, if I met a woman, or I went to a house, I would note by the painting over the door what kind of a woman she was. Then I would create my conversation according to red, pink, blue or green-just as she wanted. I would know whether that woman's clothes were the most important thing in her life, or whether her house was the most important thing, or whether what she was going to eat was the most important thing, or whether love was the important thing. And then I would treat her accordingly. I learnt the great secret of life humanity-understanding other people. A person who is not interested in art and colour, you don't waste your time on giving them that. You use your time and your money on the one thing which is to please that person.”
Lady Randolph Churchill,1899
“For instance, Lady Randolph Churchill only wanted a few things, but those things she wanted the most perfect, and perfect things to eat. She was one of the most perfect women herself that I have ever met. She always put all her money in & few things. I learnt that the first time I saw her. You knew very well that you could put all your money in one or two dishes for her, so long as they were perfectly cooked and the room was
the right temperature, for instance.”
Lady Randolph soon decided she wanted Rosa’s cooking all to herself. Rosa was happy with her place there, and she stayed with Lady Randolph for a few years before becoming restless again – her encyclopedic brain filled with all the wishes and desires of the cream of society – she was a remarkable resource all on her own.
Rosa 1890s
After leaving Lady Churchill’s employ, her life took a short detour from her dizzying rise through her profession. Rosa’s parents pushed her to marry a husband they had chosen for her. She did, against her natural reservations, and it was an unholy mess. Her husband, Excelcior Lewis, turned out to be a drunk and a spendthrift. She was not in love with him.
55 Eaton Terrace
It started well enough for a partnership. He brought savings from his years as a butler to the marriage, and with it they bought a lodging-house with an owner’s floor at 55 Eaton Terrace. Rosa was unhappy from the start. There was only a tiny kitchen that made her catering challenging, and the addition of Excelcior’s sister to the household made it unbearable to live there when they took to nagging her. She spent as much of her time as possible out of the place and worked like the devil was at her door. However, what could have been a life ruining catastrophe became her great good fortune – after a few more bumps.
.jpg)
Cavendish Hotel
Soon a client told her that a perfect fit for her might be had in a property whose lease was up for sale. The Cavendish Hotel at 81 Jermyn Street became hers in 1902. She thought the small hotel might give Excelsior something to do as host – but the assignment proved nearly disastrous. He drank and gambled away the earnings – keeping no accounts and paying no bills. In the end Rosa had to double her efforts, barely sleeping, to pay the nearly £5000 debt. She threw Excelsior and his sister out, started divorce proceedings and repaid the debts in 16 months. Like a phoenix from the ashes, she rose with grand plans for her new life in her hotel.
Fielding recounted, “She wanted her hotel to be different from any other, to be imbued above all with the atmosphere of a big country house in which nothing was too new – a house gay and fresh with old-fashioned glazed chintzes and paneled walls painted white or dove-gray. Instead of opulent Turkey carpets, she would have polished floors and Aubusson rugs. To the fashionable ormolu furniture and spindly gold chairs she preferred winged arm-chairs and broad comfortable sofas. Nor did she want a lot of plush and gilt, but a mellow lived-in setting.”
She made innovative changes to the hotel, creating suites with private dining rooms - often tailored to a long-term resident’s specifications (one was reserved especially for Prince/King Edward). These private dining rooms, paired with Rose’s excellent cooking, were much loved in the food desert of the area (Lady Churchill referred to one local hotel’s fare as ‘an apology of a dinner’ and the men’s club’s dining rooms were not much better). Rosa made the Cavendish a place to be for company and comfort as well and great men and women came to call The Cavendish their London retreat and home.
Lord Ribblesdale by Sargent
Lord Ribblesdale's Gisbourne Park country house
Lord Ribblesdale was an early fan of both the hotel and of Rosa’s cooking, a long-term resident and a true gentleman. A bit of a paradox, he was a grand sportsman, but also a trustee of the National Gallery. His memoir, Impressions and Memories , was published after his death and is as charming and warm as I imagine he would have been.
Lord Ribblesdale 1854
Understandably devastated after a ghastly succession of losses - one son died in the Boer War in 1904, his much loved first wife, Charlotte Monkton Tennant passed in 1911 and his other son was taken in 1915 in WWI. Rosa always undertook to protect him and feed him back to good spirits in his suite with her genuine care and her excellent gustatory ministrations. He thrived there and endeared himself to all as he treated staff and royalty with the same respect and courtesy – Rosa never forgot that.
Viola Tree
Viola Tree as Trilby
Lord Ribblesdale went back into the world – often at the insistence and in the company of Rosa – to theatres, parks and parties. He met and was charmed by the adorable Viola Tree , daughter of theater impresario Herbert Beerbohm Tree (who was about to have a whopper of a hit with his daughter playing Trilby - I wrote about Trilby HERE ). Ribblesdale saw a good deal of Miss Tree for some time - prompting rumors of something serious afoot.
.jpg)
Ava Willing
But it was Astor heiress, Ava Willing who was responsible for his departure from the Cavendish. He subsequently left the hotel for Ava’s London home on Grosvenor Square after their marriage, but left Rosa a copy of the famous Sargent portrait as a parting gesture of appreciation. As the years passed, Rosa would often toast the portrait, “Here’s to Lordy - the greatest gentleman of them all.’
Sir William Morton Eden
Perhaps a rival to that title might have been another early guest, Sir William Eden , who was a fine artist and, like Ribblesdale, friendly with all strata of society but who differed from Ribblesdale in that he was a terrifying perfectionist with a horror of red – a color he forbade to have anywhere near him.
.jpg)
Eden Studies
.jpg)
Eden Studies
.jpg)
Eden Studies
He also loved the suite that Rosa made for him in the building next to the hotel on Duke Street. She even gave him a private entrance so he wouldn’t have to mix with other guests if he wished his privacy for his comings and goings (a similar passage was created for the Prince/King). He would hold up for days to paint and write.
.jpg)
Lord Eden’s Windlestone Hall
Eden was also a great sportsman, excelling at many things. He was brilliant at riding, shooting, and boxing – all of which he practiced at his county estate, Windlestone Hall in Durham. But on at least one occasion, he took his love of boxing to the Cavendish as a letter to Louisa announces,
"Dear Mrs. Lewis,
I am coming up crowned in glory on Tuesday. The Hon. Ashley too. Now look you ‘ere. I shall have a dinner-party that night – noblemen, gentlemen, women, ladies, and prize-fighters – and we will box in the dining-room after.
See?
Tell your Lord Ribblesdale I want him, dinner and after, and anyone else you may think of – pretty- either sex – none but the brave deserve the fair."
W. E.’
Eden’s time there was not always solitary – guests, male and female came and went. A famous fight with the painter, Whistler came over the price of a commissioned study of Eden’s wife – the fight was the talk of the town and Rosa loved it. A delicious scandal always burnished her reputation wondrous well.
Eden lived there till the end of his life in 1915. His son Timothy’s book– The Tribulations of a Baronet , said of William, ‘He lived in a world of imagination, and by the gift of genius, unfortunate to its proprietor, had known how ‘to make madness beautiful in the eyes of others.’ ” If I may say, it is another lovely book if you want a dive into the period.
Tragically, Fielding reported that Eden’s last entry in his commonplace book as the war raged on was a heartbreaking quotation from Philip Bailey’s 1872 poem Festus , “The worm of the World hath eaten out my heart (47).” WWI took so much from so many.
Cavendish dining room
As time passed, Rosa expanded and finally added a dining room to the Cavendish premises with a courtyard and expanded the kitchen as well. Before that, she cooked up a storm in the small space in those glory days before the war.
But I’m getting ahead of myself – the stories do weave themselves over decades… pulling them out makes for a jumbled time line. In an odd way – that makes sense for the Cavendish.
Now let's talk about the food!
The menus were divine whether at the hotel or Buckingham Palace – just ordinary for them was gourmet fare for most save the King. He enjoyed his favorite dish – surprisingly simple – broad beans and bacon with parsley sauce instead of Rosa's inspired dishes!
Highcliff Castle
Rosa also took on extra work – managing a club – which didn’t go well, and cooking for the Kaiser at Highcliff castle which was a triumph. The Kaiser loved her food – but the local markets were overwhelmed so Rosa had to travel to London every day to stock high quality provisions.
She did have her traveling staff to soften the work load – they took over the kitchen to the chagrin of house staff.
She was also a stager – she believes she originated the idea for dinner parties and balls and described her technique;
“In those days I used to take empty houses and furnish them for people to give their balls in. I would take an empty house and furnish it just for the night, in competition against all other catering people. I'd furnish up a place, put in windows, take out windows, build up stair- cases, put lights outside and inside, in about twelve hours. It would cost about £700 to £800, including supper, wine, waiters and flowers, un- less you were very extravagant. I didn't believe in spending more than £30 on flowers. I preferred to put the money into the food and the wine, and I used to have messenger boys and telegraph boys and the most perfect waiters. I furnished the linen and silver and everything and my linen had no names on, silver had no Maison de Blanc in Paris. I would get all the curtains and new carpets from Paris, and then I would go and hire all the best rugs I could find, and all the best furniture I could find, and the whole house would then look as though it were lived in, and not a rented place, the whole idea being, that that was your home, that was where you were living. In other words, you were giving a party in your own home instead of a rented place. I'd do it on twenty-four hours' notice any time. This was an entirely new idea of my own.”
Rosa with the dog Freddy and the Porter, Scott, packing for a party
“In the height of the London season, if families came up with their daughters and could not afford to get a very big house, sometimes people would lend them houses, or else they would have to rent a place to give a big ball in—that's where I came in. I used to make everything look beautiful. I would go to Mr. Charles Davis and borrow some lovely pieces of tapestry or lovely pictures, and would insure them. I had this idea because lots of people do not want to use their own houses to entertain in—it's too much trouble, so I did all these things for them, and did it so that they did not feel they were giving a ball in a hired house, but in their own house-their own atmosphere (something Searcys was doing as well). I started that fashion, and I started giving bacon and eggs to eat during the night thirty years ago at a ball, and also hot soup. About two o'clock you would start on the eggs and bacon. You would have dinner, supper and breakfast really, at these balls, and stay till five o'clock in the morning. That was my idea, too. I made a great hit with the bacon and eggs at midnight, and I used to say the hens would have to get in extra roosters and work overtime they would have to lay ten eggs at a shot if the people went on at the rate they did eating them on that first night!”
“I had another new idea for balls - I had little cushions made, which people could sit on, on the stairs for their flirting, to save their clothes from getting dirty. A man could just pick up two one for himself and one for his lady. They were little flat cushions that were easily taken about. They were & great innovation-and a huge success.”
Although he railed against it, the Kaiser would eat Rosa’s French food before the war.
He would, however, not drink French wine (save champagne) and so provided his own wines and dark beers.
During this time, Rosa became friends with Escoffier, who she considered, “one of the greatest chefs of France, and one of the greatest in the world. He is the greatest gentleman amongst the bourgeoisie, and one of the few Frenchmen I ever had any respect for. " He felt the same way and called her the Queen among cooks – his signed photograph had pride of place on her parlour table. Her reputation was really an enormous achievement for a woman as she was respected by both her clients and the top male chefs like Escoffier.
.jpg)
Hever Castle
She also went to Hever Castle to cook for William Waldorf Astor, a frequent guest at her hotel. Astor was a well-respected gourmet and composed his own menus - hiring Rosa to create his dishes was a great honor indeed.
In 1909 she also undertook one of her greatest triumphs, the Foreign Office Banquet. It was reported, “… on Monday night, when Lord Crewe gave his full-dress dinner, as in 1908, all the arrangements were undertaken by Mrs. Lewis, the well-known cook who is not only proprietress of the Cavendish Hotel in Jermyn Street, but is called in by the most exclusive houses in London, when the dinner or ball-supper is to be something quite exceptional.” It was a raging success, as can be seen in the thank-you note from Reginald Farrer. She followed that up with an Admiralty dinner in 1912.
She paid attention to details and made quite innovative changes just listening to the guests. Vivian observed “Rosa must have been ‘a born courtier’, knowing just when to make a risqué remark and shock a party into life with an injection of spicy language. Her timing was as good in dealing with people as it was in preparing a complicated dish, and it was this, combined with her discretion and culinary genius, which appealed to her royal patrons.”
But not all the parties were away from the hotel, in the 19 aughts, the American polo team called the Cavendish home base and held exuberant parties with Rosa’s chosen girls in the Elinor Glyn room. Fielding recounts the history of the room;
“It was about then that she started using the Elinor Glyn for special parties. Apart from the name, this room had no association with the red-headed novelist, who was not a habitue of the hotel, but Rosa used Glyn's name, believing it to have the seduction atmosphere of her best-seller Three Weeks. It was one of the prettiest rooms I have ever known: beautifully proportioned, with white panelled walls and a very fine Adam chimney-piece . Rosa had furnished it with Sheraton and Hepplewhite furniture. In a corner was the biggest sofa I have ever set eyes on – four people could have slept on it comfortably- covered with a glazed mauve chintz and piled high with lavender, apple-green and rose-pink cushions…. Here the American team used to celebrate their victories.
Her world contracted at the King’s death in 1910 – the hotel would never be as highly esteemed as it was during the time of his patronage but it did well through WWI, after which it contracted yet again but continued to support high spirits and high jinks (she loaned out her collection of corsets signed by Edward VII during the heyday of London scavenger hunts in the 1930s between the two wars).
She enlarged the kitchen in 1911. Jazz arrived in 1912 with intimate parties with the actress of the moment – catered with care and respect by the staff in the private dining rooms with flower arrangements of rose, sweet-pea and London Pride (saxifraga urbium) in low, cutglass containers that would not obstruct the view or the heated interaction of a pair of diners.
It was during the time around WWI that she developed her Robin Hood pricing system. She thought it unfair that some of her favorites were not rich so she charged them less and the rich got a bit more on their bills to cover them – she did this shamelessly during the wars – giving free champagne to poorer soldiers and charging it to old men and rich officers.
Rosa 1920s
WWI took a terrible toll. Her hair turned white – and so, so many of her favorite young lads never came home. “Yes, the War is the only thing that ever brought real sadness into my life. I can never get over it. Such bravery-such pain-all mixed up together.” During this time, Fielding reveals that she gave up doing the cooking at the Cavendish, “in her parlour only Escoffier’s photograph reminded one of her former prowess as black velvet and sandwiches replaced set meals and well-chosen menus.” Her heart was no longer in it and by her own standards of her craft – that was reason to quit. She had lost that vitality.
Instead, she channeled that energy into caring for the soldiers, “I made a home for all here. With money, without money, with crutches and without crutches, with legs, and without legs. I made all the pleasure I could for them, but none were allowed in my house that hadn't been in the War.”
Financially, Rosa was flush at the beginning of the war, allowing her establishment to become a Mecca for young men on leave. She did her best to make them forget the front while they were there, often charging nothing. They rewarded her efforts by organizing donations enough to get her a sable coat – which she wore until she died. She called them, her ’sables of sin’. Rosa wouldn't allow the boys to leave for the front hungry. She made sure that, “Every man who left for France always had a package, too. If it was not pies or cakes, or suet puddings, it was cocktails, eau de Cologne, listerine, ham, chicken, cheese— some would want even a beefsteak. I always got all they wanted without any War coupons. Sometimes I would get them a trout, sometimes new potatoes, and they would take them back…”
Rosa took the Kaiser’s portrait and hung it upside down in the gentleman’s bathroom during WWI.
Rosa and her dog, Kippy around WWI
After the war, she continued to support the aforementioned Bright Young Things – she had known their fathers and grandfathers by this time – so they were family and she tried to keep them out of trouble, taking care of them as well as she could. But as Vivian observed, “Despite the frivolity, the real world of London society that Rosa had known and with which she had been so involved came to an end in the years between 1926 and 1930. Her attitude to this is best typified by the similar attitude of Max Beerbohm (who I wrote about HERE ), who left London for Rapallo in 1926 in disgust. His view was that London, and in particular, Piccadilly, had been ruined. Gone were the hansom cabs, gas lamps and the red carpets and the striped awnings outside the great houses during the season. Gone were the great houses-such as the Devonshire House – or at least most of them. Other Georgian buildings were being torn down, property speculation was active and the aristocratic landowners of the great town estates were being forced to sell up or to raise the rents London was no longer a fit place for an Edwardian gentleman and therefore Beerbohm fled.
Rosa cared for the next generation during WWII. Even though the Cavendish sustained a good deal of damage from a bombing, she still pulled things together and found spaces for soldiers and wine to keep them going for a few years more
Life Magazine photos of Rosa and Cavendish (late 40s)
“And so I just want to go on living here and taking things as they come, and I want to end my days in these beautiful rooms, amongst the memories of the great people that have lived here, and amongst what remains of their families —in this hotel that I love so much. I owe everything in life to these great people and I love this hotel because it holds the memories of everything beautiful that I have ever had in my life, and in the end one must live twenty percent of their life in their thoughts and memories. So I don't want anything better than just to go on—and I never want to be anything more or greater than Rosa Lewis, in the Cavendish Hotel, where people can come from all over the place and say: "Oh, here's Mrs. Lewis with her 'Sables of Sin' and her Herbert pearls. Whether it is four o'clock in the morning or four o'clock in the after-noon she is always cheerful, you can always get a drink; always find a welcome, and she can always furnish you a thrill!" Yes, I want to finish like that. It must always be to the very end-"Oh, Mrs. Lewis is still here, still gay and cheerful, still here with her welcome." What more can you ask than that?”
Nothing – absolutely nothing.
This is just a small taste of the riches in Fielding's book and the memoirs of so many others. I recommend looking into some of the books I've linked here. What lives they led!
To honor the memory of Rosa Lewis and her Cavendish Hotel I bring you a version of her truly legendary Pudding with partridge instead of quail – a favorite of Lords and ladies from all over the world.
Rosa was most famous for this one dish, ‘which King Edward had a special liking. There was a whole quail under the paste cover for everyone at table, with a wonderful gravy, to the making of which go all sorts of good things and when it has soaked into the bottom layer of paste makes that not the least delicate part of the dish.”
Here is Rosa's description of the dish and a recipe for one much like it from the period. As I start to make it, I can't help but think of Rosa's wise thoughts about cooking or anything creative for that matter, "Some people's food always tastes better than others, even if they are cooking the same dish at the same dinner. Now I will tell you why - because one person has much more life in them —more fire, more vitality, more guts-than others. A person without these things can never make food taste right, no matter what materials you give them, it is no use."
I wanted to get one post out before 2025 comes to a close. It is shocking how out of practice I've become at putting this blog together. My New Year's resolution is to be better about writing-- and not let the mess of the world distract!
Partridge Pudding
for pastry:
1c ap flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup shredded suet (or 1/2 c butter or shortening
2 T milk
1/2 c water (as needed)
Add the flours, soda and salt together. Then add the suet and liquids. Add as much of the water as you need to make the dough easy to roll out. divide 1/3 for top and 2/3 for bowl lining. Roll out circles and grease the bowl. Press the dough into the bowl leaving a bit over the top to join with the top crust.
For Filling:
2 partridges, backbone removed, cut into 4 pieces (D'Artagnan has lovely Scottish partridges )
2 Tb butter
1 shallot, sliced
10 mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup calvados or cognac
1/2 c red wine
1 c reduced stock
fresh herbs (rosemary, sage marjoram)
Parsley
2 T flour
4 thin slices roast beef (beef from the deli section works well)
In a large skillet, salt and pepper the birds then brown lightly in the butter and remove from the pan.
Add more butter if needed and add the mushrooms and shallot. Add salt and pepper. Splash in the cognac/calvados, then the red wine and reduce somewhat. Then add the stock. Remove some of the liquid and add the flour. Stir until smooth and add back to the skillet. Stir until slightly thickened. Add the herbs and the meat back into the skillet. Cool a bit.
Line the bottom of the pastry bowl with the beef, then place in the partridge pieces and sauce and mushrooms up to the top. Put the pastry on top and close. Cover with a folded piece of parchment and then cover that with aluminum foil and close with a rubber band.
Have a large pot with a footed wire insert if you have it (I used English muffin rings - you can also crumple foil - you don't want the bowl to touch the bottom). Fill 2/3 up to the sides of the bowl and let simmer gently for 2- 2 1/2 hours.
Turn it over onto a plate and remove the bowl -- garnish and serve a dish much loved by Prince Edward!
