Last updated on July 19, 2006
Refreshments
Between sets at the Assembly and during the afternoon gaming on Sunday, we will
enjoy a selection of delicious refreshments prepared from recipes in
the "Household Book" of Martha Lloyd, a dear friend and long-term
housemate of Jane Austen who later married Jane's brother Francis.
Enjoy our homemade rout cakes and ratafia biscuits, gingerbread cakes
and apple puffs, Mrs. Perrot's Pound Cake, salamagundy (left, at the 2005 Assembly), and refreshing
lemon syllabub with Naples biscuits.
"She had a delightful evening with the Miss Middletons -- syllabub, tea, coffee, singing, dancing, a hot supper, eleven o'clock, everything that can be imagined agreeable."
--Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, May 31, 1811
"At last, when the cloth had been drawn and the King's health drunk
in a glass of port suited to a very young head, they took their
coffee and ratafia biscuits...in the great cabin."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Yellow Admiral
"She was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at the poor attempt at rout-cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury card-parties."
--Jane Austen, Emma