insatiable Appetites
eating out in georgian london
6 October 2027
Digby hall , hound street, sherborne at 3 pm and 7 pm
“Substitutes-for-bread-or-right-honorables-saving-the-loaves-and-dividing-the-fishes”
An obese doctor acknowledging the favours of a French chef in his kitchen; denoting their complicity, the chef’s food providing patients. Coloured etching by C. Williams, c. 1815. after: Charles Williams; Published: c. 1815
Temperance enjoying a Frugal Meal-Hannah Humphrey
Interior of a London Coffee House – 17th Century
Georgians of all classes dined out in pubs, coaching inns, French ordinaries and confectioners. They also ate all kinds of street food and had an almost insatiable appetite for buns. On a journey through London we will discover the early morning drinks consumed on the street before dawn, ‘nuncheons’ served at coaching inns,
Billingsgate dinners, confectioner’s cakes, syllabubs and ices, the proverbially thin ham dished up to diners at
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, as well as the Jewish takeaway foods of the East End and even London’s first ‘Indian’ restaurant . Our journey will be illustrated from prints, paintings and broadsides of the period, some long neglected, as a source for a forgotten but fascinating part of our Georgian ancestors’ way of life.
Peter Ross
Peter Ross has a BA in the History of Art, an MA in London History, and a PhD in the cultural history of the early eighteenth century criminal, Jack Sheppard. Until 2023, he
was the Principal Librarian at the City of London’s Guildhall Library. He is also a Fellow
of the Society of Antiquaries. Peter has appeared on television and radio as a consultant
on crime in eighteenth century London, the history of English food, and Shakespeare’s
First Folio. Peter’s The Curious Cookbook, Viper Soup, Badger Ham, Stewed Sparrows, and a Hundred more Historic Recipes was published in 2012 by the British Library and subsequently published in the US, China and Taiwan. Peter is currently engaged in
writing a book – Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in Georgian London to be published by Bodleian Library in May 2026.