So, March is upon is; the power of winter is broken. To us, it means that the sun is growing brighter, and the clothes are growing lighter; it might also mean such things as the spring cleaning, the May holidays… however, beyond these factors, our lives are not likely to be affected by the changing of the seasons all that much.
Our Regency forebears – or our favorite Regency literary characters – would have found that peculiar.
The coming of spring had a profound effect on many facets of life, from the contents of your pantry and table to the contents of your social calendar.
First of all, needless to say, before the invention of refrigeration and the advance of global trade as we know it, any food even a wealthy estate owner would have enjoyed would have been fresh and local. These two things sound rather delightful to us, but they also meant quite a lot of restrictions – and quite a lot of susceptibility to the changing of the seasons.
Spring mean the appearance of veal and lamb, as well as duck and chicken, upon the plates, while The Epicure’s Almanack claimed that “Pork in this month disappears from all polite tables”. If the men of the household could hunt, your meals could be enriched with pigeon and hare, as well as, until the end of April, various types of wild fowl. You could do all kinds of things with this fare – hares alone could be made into a soup or baked into a pie, or just plain roasted. Herbs growing in your warming kitchen garden could provide some nice seasoning – a welcome thing after the plainer palate of winter. However, while herbs would be available, most types of fruits and berries would not – the earliest you would be able to expect cherries and strawberries for your dessert would be June. If your estate was wealthy enough, though, you might have some ‘forced’ (i.e. grown in a greenhouse) peaches and nectarines.
For the gamekeepers of the estate, spring would have meant more work and careful planning. The pheasant shooting occasions and great hunting parties took place in August. That meant that the birds’ eggs had to be purchased in March, so that the creatures grew sturdy enough by the time the day came for them to be hunted down. Sometimes they bought these eggs at Leadenhall Market in London, but, given the London prices, more usually they were purchased from tenant farms.
It might be that spring would have found you far away from your family’s or your husband’s estate entirely – after all, the famed London Season lasted from early spring and usually until June. If your spouse had to be in town for the sitting of Parliament, you would usually accompany him – especially if you had unmarried daughters who could benefit from the social opportunities of the Season.
Not all spring highlights consisted of entertainments, however – some occasions were pious and earnest enough. I am talking, of course, about Easter. Like now, the celebrations was associated with eggs (though cute bunnies, perhaps, not so much). Pace Eggs were hard-boiled eggs with patterned shells, traditionally made in the north of England, and easy to paint and decorate. If Easter fell on April, you could also enjoy Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday!
Ann Hawthorne is a closed-door Regency romance author who is currently working on her first Regency mystery. She hopes to be able to apply her love for the era in both genres. Among other things, she also helps fellow authors with things ranging from developmental editing to social media marketing.
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