Food & Drink

Born in Brunswick, Louis Weltje became cook to the Prince of Wales in the 1780s and landlord of his Marine Pavilion at Brighton. L.W. Cowie describes his life and times.

Windmills abounded in England from the twelfth century onwards. Terence Paul Smith describes how their bodies usually revolved on a vertical post so that the miller could face the sails into the wind.

An elaborate hierarchy maintained the royal household of Elizabeth I, writes Alan Haynes, but there was much pilfering and graft among the purveyors of domestic goods.

Since before Roman times, writes Marjorie Sykes, pearl-fishing has been practised in North Wales, Cumberland and Perth.

David Lance on the history of food in the Royal Navy, from canteen messing to professional catering.

Ronald Webber describes how, from the banks of the Thames, London was supplied with asparagus, melons, artichokes, carrots, beans and berries.

Iris Macfarlane describes how the Malabar coast in western India was the earliest scene of European sea-borne trade.

William Gardener describes how, since the first century A.D. rhubarb was known to the Romans as a panacea for internal ailments, and imported from China.

‘Larger than a peahen and smaller than a peacock’, Jahangir wrote in 1612. Geoffrey Powell describes how the bird reached England from America some decades before the Indian knew it.

William Seymour takes us on a visit to the New Forest, stretching from Southampton Water to the Wiltshire Avon, and the favourite hunting ground of many English monarchs.