College by candlelight: 500 Years of festive food

Get into the spirit of seasonal celebration with an extraordinary candlelit evening of culinary time travel.

Join the Royal College of Physicians – unlikely home of one of the country’s most remarkable collections of ancient recipes – to venture back across five centuries of festive food and drink and encounter the edible delights that once graced our ancestors’ feast day tables.

On hand to lead the way are a team of experts from the worlds of history and gastronomy with a range of demonstrations, tastings and explanations of the flavours and savours of times past.

Escape from the tyranny of today’s ever-present turkey is guaranteed on this voyage of cookery discovery taking in everything from Tudor boars’ heads garnished with rosemary and bay to exotic sounding but apparently unappetising 17th century swan in saffron sauce, Georgian sweetmeats to actual meat-laden Victorian mince pies.

Comfortingly, some things remain a constant throughout the ages: fruit, nuts, cheese and wine have always been mid-winter favourites. The good news is that renowned caterers, Fare of London, specialists in ‘forgotten foods’, will be offering the opportunity to sample the best British cheeses and pick of England’s newly fashionable wines, once again considered sufficiently superior to be served at state banquets.

Food scholar and broadcaster, Ivan Day, famed for his recreations of historic meals and table settings, has been rummaging through the archives of the Royal College and will reveal some of the interesting recipes he’s found, along with iconic dishes from days gone by.

Christopher Hartop, silverware expert and ‘Antiques Roadshow’ regular, who worked with Ivan to stage the famous Netherfield Ball scene from Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ for BBC television, will explain the art of table top and food ornament, as well as shedding light on the Royal College’s own sparkling silver collection.

Cook, lecturer, and resident food historian on Radio 4’s ‘The Kitchen Cabinet’, Annie Gray, will raise the curtain on how chocolate became a Christmas staple and provide the essential overview into the special forms of sustenance (and excess) that have accompanied mid-winter celebrations from the time of Henry VIII right through to the present reign of ‘Queen Delia’.

For foodies with a festive bent, historians with a gastronomic slant, or simply the fun-seeking and culinary curious, there is no more fascinating event this Advent.


Doors open 6pm for tastings and candlelit exploration of the collections of the Royal College of Physicians
7pm: In Conversation with a panel of experts
8pm onwards: Demonstrations, tastings and talks from food specialists and historians