Insatiable Appetites: Eating Out in Georgian London

Step into the kitchens, streets, and chop houses of Georgian London—one day, one city, and countless appetites. From dawn until past midnight, Londoners dined at taverns, coaching inns, oyster rooms, confectioners, coffee shops, chocolate houses, soup shops, and dining rooms. For the poor, the streets bustled with vendors offering early versions of fast food: hot green peas, baked potatoes, suet puddings, curds and whey, rice milk, gingerbread, pastry “pigs,” and the now-forgotten saloop, a warming drink made from orchid roots. After dark, sex workers and their clients indulged in a glass of jelly, then considered an aphrodisiac, as a precursor to a visit to the brothel. As the empire expanded, culinary influences poured in: London’s first Indian takeaway appeared in 1773, while the East End became home to Jewish fried fish, Italian boloney, and German sausages. Through the course of a single day, Insatiable Appetites takes readers on a journey through breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper in Georgian London, drawing on contemporary archives to follow hungry citizens from all walks of life as they navigate the city’s diverse food landscape. It reveals not only culinary pleasures and horrors, but also the social challenges and daily struggles that shaped life in the capital. Read more