William Verral's Red Currant Tea Bags

Will Verrall's Currant Fritters en surprize 1759

In my last posting I lamented the decline of the standard of food at the White Hart Inn (now Hotel) in Lewes. So I thought it would be fun to make a dish for you from the 1759 cookery book written by William Verral, the master of the inn at the apogée of its gastronomic fame. I have chosen an unusual, but easily made fritter. Here is Verral's original recipe. He almost certainly learnt it from Clouet, the Duke of Newcastle's cook. It is hardly a great set piece baroque dish, just a simple fritter made in rather an eccentric way, but Newcastle loved Clouet''s tasty little treats like this.

From William Verrall, A Complete System of Cookery. (London: 1759).

Fritters of all kinds were popular in the Georgian period and there were many unusual varieties on offer. I have already introduced you to skirret fritters. Here is a clever way of deep frying currant jelly in batter to produce an incredibly rich and buttery parcel of crisp batter with a soft fruit centre. Most fritters were fried in hog's lard at this period, but clarified butter (oiled butter) is used here to give these little devils their decadent buttery character.

The little wafer paper packages of red currant jelly look like tea bags.

Modern wafer paper (rice paper) is too thin to withstand the heat of the boiling butter and will split open and release its jammy contents, but if you use a double layer of rice paper, the recipe works very well. Wet the edges lightly and pinch them close together to make a good seal. Dip them in an eggless beer batter and drop them into the hot butter immediately. They need a turn, which must be done carefully with a perforated spoon. Then drain on some paper. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and eat them while still hot. As you savour their delicious texture and flavour, you will also feel the indescribable sensation of your arteries rapidly furring up! Enjoy!

One of Will's heart attack fritters cut in two

Wafer paper must have been made commercially at this period. It crops up from time to time as an ingredient. However, after  a lifetime of searching I have only found one recipe, which I have posted below. The more adventurous of you may like to experiment with it. 

A rare recipe for wafer paper from John Thacker, The Art of Cookery. Newcastle upon  Tyne: 1758

Verral, in his recipe for currant fritters en surprize, refers to a previous recipe, so I have reproduced it below. If you do not have any wafer paper, you might like to try this one instead. If you have ever prepared hand-made ravioli, you will be familiar with the technique. It works very well when made with very thinly rolled puff pastry. 

On early recipes using deep fried puff pastry (and wafer paper) - more anon!

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How are the Mighty Fallen

I recently had lunch in the White Hart Inn in the delightful Sussex town of Lewes. In the middle of the eighteenth century the master of this establishment was William Verral, whose lovely book A Complete System of Cookery was published in 1759. Verrall trained under the celebrated chef de cuisine Pierre de St. Clouet, who for a while cooked for Thomas Pelham Holles, the First Duke of Newcastle. Holles, who was a lover of high class French cuisine, owned the White Hart and with Verrall as cook the inn became famous for the quality of its hospitality. Sadly it is no longer a centre for fine gastronomy - in fact my lunch was so poor that I left most of it on the plate. Afterwards I checked out the hotel on Trip Advisor and discovered that I was far from being alone in my criticisms of this once celebrated inn. Here is what I found - 

What a sad state of affairs that such an important place in our culinary history should have fallen on hard times. In fact none of the staff at the hotel to whom I spoke, had ever heard of William Verrall, despite the fact that his book has recently been reissued by Penguin under the title Recipes from the White Hart Inn! An enterprising hotel manager would have exploited this link and had copies of the book for sale at reception and perhaps a few of Verrall's dishes on offer in the restaurant.

Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle entertaining Henry Clinton,  7th Earl of Lincoln at Claremont Palace. The Belvedere, the Duke's banqueting house can be seen through the window on the right.

Verrall's landlord Thomas Pelham Holles held lavish entertainments both at his London home Newcastle House and at his vast country palace at Claremont just outside Esher. Claremont was designed by Vanbrugh as his own home, but Holles bought it from the architect and commissioned him to enlarge it considerably. Nothing remains of this huge baroque palace, as Clive of India bought it and demolished it after Holles' death.  Ironically, Clive spared Vanbrugh's romantic banqueting house, the castellated Belvedere, which still survives on a mount in the gardens. It was here that the elderly Holles entertained his choice guests in the summer months with dessert foods and sweet wines. In the engraving above, the Belvedere can be seen through the window on the right. 

The Duke of Newcastle's banqueting house the Belvedere at Claremont

About fifteen years ago I recreated an early eighteenth century style banquet of sweetmeats in memory of Holles at Claremont. The other day I found a photograph of the table setting, which I have posted below.

My colleague Peter Brears made the sugar paste model of the Belvedere and I made the Duke  of Newcastle's arms from almond paste and all the other dessert dishes from eighteenth century recipes. Just a week after setting this event up, I was lucky enough to buy a very nice copy of the wonderful etching below of Holles in his kitchen with his cook Clouet, who of course was also William Verrall's mentor. Aha - the wonders of synchronicity!

This blog is created by Historic Food. Go to the Historic Food Website.