Sapphire Lebesque's Blog: Margin Notes - Posts Tagged "gunters-tea-room"

Luxury and expensive food features in the lives of the gentlemen and ladies of 3 Titled Gentlemen Find Love Series, and below stairs, the household staff generally ate better than the working class or poor.

Gunter's ice cream parlour (and tea rooms) of London, is mentioned in many Regency novels and was famous among society of the ton looking to go out for a treat or be seen in fashionable places. Flavours were more varied than we know today, including sweet and savoury, such as Parmesan Cheese! Unusual sweet flavours included Elderflower, Muscadine (Grape) and Currant.

Gunter's logo was a pineapple, a prohibitively expensive and difficult to obtain fruit. A pineapple centrepiece was a must-have status symbol of any dinner-party hostess trying to impress and were passed from hostess to hostess until they rotted.

A common cure-all was seawater mixed with milk. The seawater probably made the unfortunate drinker sick, but they didn't know that at the time.

Lady Madeleine is taken to Gunter's Tea Rooms by one of her suitors. She has pineapple and elderberry ice, he has vanilla and strawberry (One scoop of each). It's the most romantic experience she's ever had... so far.