Jekyll’s recommendations for alfresco dining in “A Shooting-Party Luncheon” require forethought and preparation impractical for most of us.
Her suggestions run low to high, from a wedge of cheese and a biscuit to a hotpot of game or poultry with celery, peeled chestnuts, and a milky gravy flavoured with Worster sauce or mushroom, together with a bowl of jacketed potatoes and a casserole of baked beans. She recommends beer, cider, claret, whisky with soda, and port for beverages. She says, “Lock up the port till dinner-time if a good shoot is desired.” (No word of advice about the beer and whisky.)
There are many shooting party picnics. Brillat-Savarin’s description of a “Haltes de chasse,”
Watteau’s Rendezvous de Chasse and Courbet’s monumental Le Repas de chasseurs, but my favorite literary shooting part is Isabel Colegate’s The Shooting Party. Her menu for guests at Nettleby Manor is lobster vol-au-vents, chicken mayonnaise, boiled potatoes, champagne, and lemonade; for the beaters, it’s rabbit stew, Baked potatoes, and probably beer or cider, though she doesn’t tell. Also, see Alan Bridges’ excellent film The Shooting Party (1985).
*Jekyll was the first food columnist for the Times of London. But her contributions for 1921-1922 were unsigned.
Featured Image: Cover for the reissue of Kitchen Essays with Harold Harvey’s odd painting for a cookbook where women relax in a kitchen. (In the Kitchen (1918)
See Agnes Jekyll. Kitchen Essays. London: Persephone Books, 1922. Rpt. 2008