Dining at Downton tracks the exhilarating culinary ups and downs of our favorite PBS costume drama, including but not limited to Edwardian fork etiquette and The Raspberry Meringue Incident.
SEASON 1, EPISODE 2
A monstrous creature has arrived to cast crumbs upon the snow-white expanse of Downton's tablecloths, to flout the rules of polite comportment, and to guzzle tea cakes with wild abandon. They call this beast...COUSIN MATTHEW CRAWLEY. Over the course of this episode, the new heir to the estate and his mum present themselves for two get-to-know-you dinners at the big house, little suspecting the trials and tribulations that await them...
Despite a middle class upbringing that his landed cousins seem to regard as abject poverty--with only a cook and one maid, for heaven's sake--Matthew more or less holds his own at the table. When uppity footman Thomas (a.k.a. Dirtbag Scumcrumpet) tries to instruct Mr. Matthew on how to serve himself from a platter of assorted sea life, Matthew shuts him right on down ("I KNOW") and picks out a nice fillet of fish to enjoy while the ladies of the house slice him with their eye-daggers.
Later, Matthew manages such delicate maneuvers as plucking a cluster of grapes from a fruit tray (jolly well done!) and managing to transport a single raspberry from the pudding to his mouth without mishap (bravo!).
Suffice to say that Lady Mary is still not having it. "Marry a man who can barely hold his knife like a gentleman?" AS IF. She may have a point: Take a gander at Matthew housing his tea-time madeleine and ask yourself if you'd really want to look at that face across the breakfast table every morning. Well, okay, maybe yes. Definitely yes. But as Mary points out to her mother, "You're American, you don't understand these things."
We say, Lady Cora knows what's up. If behaving properly means not getting excited about pastries, then behaving properly is for chumps. --Rachel Sanders
EPISODE CUPPA COUNT: 11 (!)
CUMULATIVE CUPPA COUNT: 13
If you're feeling particularly authentic about your teatime treats, try your hand at deciphering the below recipe for "Little Sponge Cakes" from a classic 1861 cookbook that we like to imagine was Mrs. Patmore's equivalent of the Joy of Cooking. Or, if you're not feeling quite so authentic, you might enjoy our slightly more modern recipe for Orange-Blossom-Honey Madeleines.
From Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management (check it out online--this thing is a gold mine), Chapter 35: Bread, Biscuits, and Cake: