Pineapples, Oysters and Ices: Georgian Cuisine Makes a Comeback in London

LONDON — What did Jane Austen have for dinner? Anything from steak and kidney pudding stuffed with oysters, to sweet-and-savory chicken pie, to cod fried in beef fat with a side of pickled mushrooms. Meals often started with delicate white soup, like the one served at the Netherfield Ball in “Pride and Prejudice,” and ended with a sugary rice pudding, a trifle with jelly, or something enhanced with a dusting of nutmeg, arguably the most fashionable spice of the 18th century. Obsessed with money, status — and aesthetics — the Georgians also went crazy for pineapples. The Hermès Birkin or Lamborghini of the age, the pineapple was a status symbol imported from Barbados, or grown at great expense in special hothouses. They were often rented to aspirational hostesses to decorate their dinner tables. It wasn’t just snobbery that informed cooking and entertaining. The era, which ran from 1714 to 1837 under the four King Georges and King William IV, was one of invention, experimentation and daring, too, with Georgians mixing all the foods and flavors flowing into Britain from America, the West Indies, China and India and the European Continent. They paired salt and sugar in unconventional combinations; added candied citrus peel, currants and

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