To invite the historical characters to join you, provide the sort of food that they will recognize and like. Here are some of their favorites, nibble-size, and perfect for serving to your book club.
The Confessions of Young Nero
Luckily for us, all Roman meals or get-togethers were not banquets. For the Roman ambiance, you can have finger food and satisfy authenticity as well as your guests. Wear long tunics and sandals.
Roman tidbits:
- Green and black olives
- Fresh cheese
- Figs
- Pomegranate seeds
- Fruit in season—grapes, apples, cherries, pears
- Stuffed dates
- Artichoke hearts
- Nuts—walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts
- Stuffed mushrooms
- Pork skewers
- Walnut cake
- Fricassee of roses—fresh rose petals, baked with rose water in small pastry shells
Drinks:
- Spiced wine (winter)
- Red or white wine
- Nero’s ‘decocta neronis’—his melted and boiled snow drink—substitute sparkling water with an herb or flavoring
This will satisfy, unless you are planning a full-scale Roman banquet, in which case, you will need to round up three large couches arranged in a horseshoe shape…several small tables…and have a room big enough to hold all this and the many servers, courses, platters and goblets it will require! And you will need a cookbook with recipes from Apicius.
Elizabeth I: A Novel
Elizabeth liked sweets, but she enjoyed these other foods as well:
- Miniature meat pies
- Pickled herring and fruits on toast
- Artichoke hearts baked with sherry, dates, and orange peel
- Almond custard laced with rose water
- Lemon tarts
- Ale, wine
Helen of Troy
- Honey cakes (baklava)
- Small stuffed grape leaves
- Figs, raisins, dates
- Olives
- Fig spread on goat cheese
- Goat and sheep cheese, feta cheese
- Date nut bread
- Grapes, Melon
- Edible or candied flowers
- Pomegranate juice (blend)
- Apricot nectar
- Wine
Mary Called Magdalene
- Dates, figs, raisins, nuts (including pistachios & almonds)
- Olives
- Pita bread and hummus
- Olive spread
- Fig spread on goat cheese
- Date nut bread
- Grapes, Melon
- Goat and sheep cheese
- Grape juice
- Apricot nectar
- Yogurt drinks: pomegranate, date, grape, mint
- Wine
The Memoirs of Cleopatra
- Gummi ‘snakes’
- Figs, dates
- Olives
- Fig spread on goat cheese
- Olive spread
- Grapes, Melon
- Date nut bread
- Edible or candied flowers
- Grape juice
- Apricot nector
- Beer
- Wine
Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles
Scottish phase of her life
- Scones
- Shortbread
- Oatcakes
- Marmalade
- Scotch whisky (single malt)
French phase of her life:
- Cheeses
- Strawberry tartlets
- Wine
The Autobiography of Henry VIII
- Beef sandwiches (cocktail size)
- Smoked eel on toast (Henry loved eel)
- Little meat turnovers
- Plum pudding-cupcake size
- Little mince pies
- Tartlets
- Ale
- Wine