1790 Parlor
Every winter the Geffrye Museum decorates its period room sets in authentic festive style. (More information below the photo.)
This information is taken from the information signs at the Geffrye Museum.
"Dined at my House on rost Beef and Plumb Pudding"
It is Christmas Day and the family are about to have their dinner of roast beef and plum pudding. Although turkey was introduced into this country by the 1530s, it did not replace beef as the main dish of Christmas dinner until the late nineteenth century. Plum pudding, a boiled pudding of suet, eggs, flour and dried fruit, the forerunner of Christmas Pudding, was served with the beef rather than a dessert.
By the late eighteenth century, Christmas was a pale shadow of the feast celebrated 150 years before. Even in rural areas the 'keeping' of Christmas, whereby landlords provided a large feast and charitable gifts for their tenants, appears to have been less common and was a cause for concern among those that felt the wealthy were not honoring their obligations to the poor. On a smaller scale, however, Christmas was still about eating, drinking and giving alms.
This information is taken from the information signs at the Geffrye Museum.
"Dined at my House on rost Beef and Plumb Pudding"
It is Christmas Day and the family are about to have their dinner of roast beef and plum pudding. Although turkey was introduced into this country by the 1530s, it did not replace beef as the main dish of Christmas dinner until the late nineteenth century. Plum pudding, a boiled pudding of suet, eggs, flour and dried fruit, the forerunner of Christmas Pudding, was served with the beef rather than a dessert.
By the late eighteenth century, Christmas was a pale shadow of the feast celebrated 150 years before. Even in rural areas the 'keeping' of Christmas, whereby landlords provided a large feast and charitable gifts for their tenants, appears to have been less common and was a cause for concern among those that felt the wealthy were not honoring their obligations to the poor. On a smaller scale, however, Christmas was still about eating, drinking and giving alms.
