Alexis Soyer's Grouse Salad

A brace of red grouse (gélinotte d'Ecosse)

Both red and black grouse (the latter sometimes called black game or black cock) were extremely popular table birds with wealthy Victorian diners. Their dark gamey flesh was served up in a myriad ways, often in dishes with high-sounding French names - Black Game à la Montagnarde and Black Game à la suedoise were just two of a number of elaborate removes published in a chapter wholly devoted to these game birds in The Modern Cook (1846) by the great chef Charles Elmé Francatelli (1805-1876). Francatelli was chief cook and maître d'hôtel to Queen Victoria in 1841-2 and frequently dressed gélinotte d'Ecosse for her Majesty's table. At a royal dinner on 15th August 1841, Escalopes de Gélinottes aux Trûffes appeared among the entrées. Five days later he served spit roasted grouse to the queen among the rôts.

The more light heartedly named Grouse à la Rob Roy and Grouse à la Bonnie Lassie were invented by Francatelli's rival, the much better known chef Alexis Soyer (1809-1858). With their ring of Walter Scott and the Highlands, Soyer's grouse dishes reflected the contemporary fashion among the English aristocracy for all things Scottish. Soyer's signature grouse dish was a salad, which he invented in Paris at a culinary competition. It became so famous that a number of other cookery authors cited the recipe, usually quoting Soyer's own anecdote about its origin. For instance, in later editions of Meg Dod's The Cook's and Housewife's Manual (first published Edinburgh: 1826), the recipe and story were almost certainly included because of the dish's strong Scottish connections. In the 1862 edition of this iconic Scots cookery book, with its supposed connections to Sir Walter Scott, the editor paraphrases Soyer's own words,

'This salad, M. Soyer confesses, is better adapted to gentlemen than ladies. It was first served in Paris at a competition of the most celebrated artistes of the Stove, on whose head certain English noblemen and gentlemen had large bets. What cook can fail to envy the Chef of the Reform Club, when he is able to say, "My first course, being full of novelty, gained the approbation of the whole party;" but the salade created such an unexpected effect, that in brief the inventor was invited to the honour of the sitting, and over several rosades of exquisite Lafitte, it was christened by General Sir Alexander Duff, who presided over the noble party "SALADE DE GROUSE À LA SOYER!" These are moments which occur but once in a man's life. this was M. Soyer's Waterloo or Trafalgar; his Bridge of Lodi; his Austerlitz!'

The trimmed down version of Salade de grouse à la Soyer made from the recipe in The Modern Housewife or Ménagère (1849). With its garniture of egg quarters decorated with little dots of radish, it looks like a formation dance team of Clangers about to do a backward somersault into the salad bowl. It was made by my students at a Victorian Cookery Course last Sunday. It met with everybody's approbation, including the ladies. The frothy looking ferny herb on top is chervil.

General Sir Alexander Duff (1777-1853) was a younger son of the Scottish peer James Duff, the 4th Earl of Fife. After a distinguished military career, Alexander became Lord Lieutenant of Elginshire. Soyer was a shameless name dropper and was very proud that he had been invited to sit with Duff's noble party and share their Chateau Lafite. He gives his own account of the incident in The Gastronomic Regenerator (London: 1846) and explains in the recipe that, 'I must observe that the salad is better adapted for gentlemen than ladies, though if less eschalot were used it might also meet their approbation'. As well as the shallot, the salad dressing included chilli vinegar, so this was an ardently piquant dish - perfect for high ranking military officers pumped up with testosterone and mustard such as Duff and his companions. Soyer published two slightly different versions of the dish. The first, which appeared in The Gastronomic Regenerator was somewhat more ambitious than a slightly trimmed down incarnation he included in The Modern Housewife or Ménagère four years later. He illustrated the more complicated variation of the salad as below, which had two layers of quartered eggs in the garniture and a curious pointed dome topped with salad stuff, which he does not explain in the recipe.

The fancier version of the salad from The Gastronomic Regenerator (1846)

These two books were aimed at different readerships. The Gastronomic Regenerator was intended for fellow professionals who catered for fairly elevated establishments, while The Modern Housewife  for middle class housewives and their cooks. The former's employers were likely to have their own grouse moor, the latter might get their birds from a game dealer.  Here is the simpler version of the recipe,  

SALAD OF GAME
Boil eight eggs hard, shell  throw them into cold water, cut a thin slice off the bottom to facilitate the proper placing of them in the dish, cut each one into four, lengthwise, make a very thin flat border of butter about one inch from the edge of the dish you are going to serve them on; fix the pieces of egg upright, close to each other, the yolk outside, or alternately the white and yolk; you lay in the centre a layer of fresh salad that may be in season, and having previously roasted a young grouse rather underdone, which you cut into eight or ten pieces, then prepare sauce as follows : put a spoonful of eschalots, finely chopped, in a basin, one ditto of pounded sugar, the yolk of one egg, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, tarragon, or chervil, and a quarter of an ounce of salt, mix in by degrees with a wooden spoon, four spoonfuls of oil and two of Chilli vinegar; when all mixed, put it on ice, or in a cold place; when ready to serve up, whip a gill of cream rather thick, which lightly mix with it, then lay the inferior parts of the grouse on the salad, sauce over so as to cover each piece, then lay over the salad and the remainder of the grouse; sauce over, and serve. The eggs may be ornamented with a little dot of radishes on the point, or beet-root. Anchovy and gherkin, cut into small diamonds, may be placed between, or cut gherkins in slices, and lay a border of them round, or in any way your fancy may dictate. Leaves of tarragon or chervil are very pretty round it.

From The Modern Housewife or Ménagère. London: 1849.

Soyer's second cookery book was targeted at middle class housewives

The edge of a dish is lined with butter to support the garnish of egg quarters. The morsels of roast grouse are coated in a chilli mayonnaise enriched with whipped cream and buried under layers of salad stuff

In October 1850 Soyer served the salad to Prince Albert at a magnificent banquet given by the Mayor of York in the city's Guild Hall. No doubt it was the more complicated version of the dish. Ten dishes of the salad were served among the entremets of the second course. Here is the full menu from Soyer's spurious history of food through the ages The Pantropheon (London: 1853).

Prince Albert's feast in York 1850

A few years ago I made Soyer's grouse salad at Castle Howard in Yorkshire in an episode of a very silly BBC2 television series called Royal Upstairs Downstairs. In September 1850 Victoria and Albert had been entertained by the Earl of Carlisle at this magnificent house and Soyer provided a spectacular ball supper. This particular episode in the twenty part series, which charted Victoria's visits to various stately homes, was meant to document this royal occasion. Unfortunately no menu has survived. I decided to make the grouse salad because it was served at the York feast a month later. If it was also served at Castle Howard, I wonder if Soyer made a version for the queen without the shallot and chilli vinegar. If so, I wonder if it met her 'approbation'?

Pride of place at the York banquet was Soyer's famous 'Hundred Guinea Dish' which was served on the royal table

For those of you who are wondering what on earth those bizarre heads are, here is Soyer’s shopping list of ingredients for the hundred-guinea dish. I will let you work it out yourself. Our sensibilities about what is acceptable on the plate in front of us have changed so much since 1850. As have our attitudes to the politics of food. Just consider that when Soyer prepared this absurd dish, the great famine was still raging in Ireland.

Battenburg Cake - the Truth

A factory-made Battenburg Cake - 2011 - four panels

There are lots of stories about this popular English cake, which is composed of alternating coloured slabs of genoese enclosed in an overcoat of almond paste. In cross section it looks like a child's drawing of a window, which no doubt is the reason why it is known in my part of Northern England as 'Chapel Window Cake'. The most commonly told tale about the cake relates to its alleged origin. It is said to have been created to celebrate the 1884 wedding of Prince Louis of Battenburg to Queen Victoria's granddaughter Princess Victoria. There are a few more detailed variations on this theme. One of these was aired recently in Episode 1 of Series 2 of BBC's competitive baking series The Great British Bake Off. This is the theory that the four sections of the cake originally represented the four Battenburg princes - Louis himself and his brothers Alexander, Franz-Joseph and Henry. 

The only problem with this story is that the earliest recipes for this kind of Battenburg Cake all call for nine squares and not the four that are found in modern versions. 

The earliest recipe I know for a Battenburg cake with coloured sections was published by Frederick Vine in 1898 in his marvellous book Saleable Shop Goods. Vine was one of the most eminent professional bakers and confectioners of his day. Not only was he the author of numerous books, but was also the editor of the leading trade magazine The British Baker. In his Battenburg recipe, he clearly tells us to create a cake with nine sections, alternately coloured red and white. He illustrates the finished cake in this diagram.

Battenburg Cake - 1898 - nine panels

This image appeared only fourteen years after Louis and Victoria's wedding and was published by London's most respected baker. If Frederick Vine did not know what a Battenburg Cake was meant to look like, then who did? Well, a few others actually. In the early years of the twentieth century, a number of professionals also published recipes and illustrations that agree entirely with Vine's. For instance, the recipe in T. Percy Lewis and A. G. Bromley's The Book of Cakes (London: 1903) also calls for nine panes, as shown in their striking chromolithograph illustration.

Battenburg Cake- 1903 - nine panels

I have been completely unsuccessful in finding any contemporary accounts of this cake that confirm it was invented to honour the 1884 royal wedding. This fact could well be true and perhaps the tradition is based on a folk memory, but it does not appear to be grounded in any written records. Nor are there any accounts that link the number of its sections to the Battenburg princes, unless of course there were five others we do not know about. Perhaps Louis had some other siblings about whom his father kept quiet! The story of the four panels and the princes appears to have surfaced quite recently and is described on Wikipedia without any citation of its source. If there is somebody out there who is aware of early documentation linking this cake with the Battenburg wedding I would be grateful if they would share their sources with me. 

In 1923, the Battenburg cake was still being made with nine panes, witness the photograph below from Richard Bond's Ship's Baker (London: 1923) an image brought to my attention by the sharp eyed Food History Jottings research assistant Plumcake. Bond is another forgotten British food hero who specialised in books about cookery at sea.

Battenburg cake from Richard Bond, The Ship's Baker (London: 1923).

Richard Bond from the frontispiece of his book Sea Cookery (London: 1910).

A neatly made Battenburg cake is a technical challenge for any baker and I can understand why it was chosen as a trial of skill for the contestants in The Great British Bake Off. In the past, the task of constructing one of these cakes was frequently given to apprentice bakers and confectioners to test their prowess and the results were often exhibited. In a 1936? edition of Vine's book, we can see what Battenburg Cakes (well at least showoff versions of them) had come to look like by the thirties. 

Battenburg Cakes - 1936? - twenty- five panels!

The Battenburg Cakes are those on the left and right. It is the thirties and the number of panels has multiplied from nine to twenty-five - Art Deco gone mad!. Perhaps the bakers are now not only honouring His Serene Highness's princely brothers (including the illegitimate ones), but all of his grandchildren and great grandchildren too! Just how many did he have?

So when did Battenburg Cakes end up with just four panels? I am not sure, but it is possible that it dates from the time that they began to be manufactured by large industrial bakers like Lyons, who as far as I know started mass producing them before World War II. I suppose a four panel Battenburg is much easier to make on a production line than one with nine. Could somebody please enlighten me? 

So where did the story come from about the four Battenburg princes? Well I guess that it was probably invented by the same fairy who has made up so many other stories about our traditional foods - of which more anon. 

If there is a hero in this story, it is Frederick Vine. This forgotten British food writer, about whom you will hear a lot more on this blog, was the author of another book called Cakes and How to Make Them. Unfortunately none of the editions of this book are dated, though some evidence points to a publication year earlier than that of Saleable Shop Goods, possibly about 1890. If this is correct, and more research is needed to confirm it, this book contains the very earliest known recipe for Battenburg Cake. However,  it is a completely different animal to the cake that now bears this name. Vine's earlier Battenburg Cake is in fact a simple fruit cake baked in a loaf tin. If you want to make it, here is his recipe - 

No. 84 Battenburg Cakes.

4lb flour.

One and three quarters of a pound of butter.

One and three quarters of a pound of sugar.

Two and a half pounds of sultana raisins.

Three quarters of a pound of peel (mixed).

1 oz of cream of tartar.

1 oz. carbonate of soda.

8 eggs.

1 quart milk.

Method. - Weigh and rub on the board as before directed, and weigh into large size twopenny greased bread pans ten ounces for sixpenny cakes. sprinkle chopped almonds over. Bake in a moderate oven. These cakes sell well wherever introduced.

From Frederick T. Vine ("Compton Dene"), Cakes and How to Make Them. (nd. c.1890), p. 77.

Battenberg Cake - c.1890 - no panels, but lots of juicy sultanas and mixed peel.

Note that Vine, whose pen name was Compton Dene, tells us that "These cakes sell well wherever introduced." This would indicate that the Battenburg cake was a fairly recent arrival on the bakery scene in the early 1890s. The royal couple were married only six years before the recipe was printed. So perhaps this earlier cake has more claims to being the original celebratory cake than the better known cake of many colours. Vine was at the height of his career at the time of the wedding. If he was alive now I am sure he would be able to tell us why a delicious, but nondescript fruit cake was replaced by a flashy, sickly sweet interloper in a matter of about six years. 

Well, I suppose the moral of this story is not to believe everything you see on television, or read in Wikipedia, which I suppose is where the television researchers found the Battenburg history nuggets that were served up in The Great British Bake Off.

For those of you more interested in fact than fiction, here is Frederick Vine's signature and book plate taken from his copy of Alexis Soyer's Gastronomic Regenerator, which is now in my library. It is a treasured possession. You may also have noticed that throughout these notes, I have spelt Battenburg with a 'u', rather than as Battenberg, which seems to be contemporary practice. Well, I have followed Mr. Vine in this matter too, as I think he should have the last word.

Frederick Vine's signature and book plate.

Since this was published, we have discovered much more about this cake - Click on the links below.

Battrenburg Cake revisted

Yet more on the history of Battenburg Cake

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