Historical Tidbits

A peek into Ratty’s picnic basket offers a glimpse into the foods enjoyed during Edwardian England. Some items sounds familiar to us today, while others, like potted meat or cold tongue, might seem a little unusual to modern tastes.

• The cold meats in Ratty’s basket, beef, ham, and chicken, likely came straight from the remnants of a Sunday roast, a cornerstone of English culture. But did you know, in the early 1900s, when The Wind in the Willows was written, refrigeration wasn’t yet common in English homes. These cold meats would have been stored in an ice house or a cool larder.
• Cold tongue was both thrifty and elegant, prepared by salting, brining and slow-cooking beef or pork tongue before slicing it thin for sandwiches or salads. Common in Edwardian households but rare to find in modern picnics!
• Potted meat was another staple, its origins stretching back centuries. Before refrigeration, preserving food meant drying, curing, smoking, pickling, or potting. Meat was cooked, packed into small pots and sealed with clarified fat to keep air out, a technique that gave way to today’s pâté.
• Ratty’s list could mean cress and sandwiches, but I’ve taken it to mean cress sandwiches, simply buttered bread filled with crisp cress, a springtime favourite in Edwardian England.
• It’s worth pausing on that little word cress. Because Ratty and Mole picnic along the riverbank, I lean toward it meaning watercress, a peppery green that grows naturally in cold English streams and was widely gathered in the countryside. By the late Victorian and Edwardian periods, growing and selling watercress had become industry, and was a staple for both the working class and the rural gentry, sold in London markets and transported along the “Watercress Line” railway from Hampshire. That said, cress could also refer to garden cress (Lepidium sativum), a milder, fast-growing herb often used in egg sandwiches and kitchen gardens. Both were common in Edwardian households and Ratty’s “cress sandwiches” could easily have featured either.
• For drinks, ginger beer was a popular non-alcoholic refreshment made by fermenting fresh ginger, sugar, yeast, and water into a naturally fizzy beverage. Soda water often came as powders that fizzed when mixed, a novelty at the time. And lemonade, in its simplest form, was just lemon juice, sugar, and water, a simple option you can easily make at home.
• No English picnic would be complete without a jar of mustard, preferably Colman’s (est. 1814). But take care, English mustard has far more bite than its American cousin, a little goes a long way!