In another first for Tastes Of History, we travelled to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight to support English Heritage's "Victorian Christmas" in 2019. Our aim was to provide a sampling menu of food and drink of the period for visitors to try. Here, then, are the recipes.

Mention the word "swastika", or worse draw or display the image, and today you risk causing offence for so many valid reasons. Discover how this symbol was once commonly used over much of the world without stigma, because quite simply it represented good luck.

The origin of how turkey became the Thanksgiving dish and fashionable at Christmas.

Each year English Heritage remember the pivotal battle that took place on October 14th, 1066 and changed the course of English history. Here are some Anglo-Saxon recipes fit for any warrior. 

Stonehenge in England is known for its alignment with the summer solstice sunrise, and it remains a popular destination for thousands of revellers welcoming the longest day of the year. But should they actually be celebrating the winter solstice? Find out more.

Tastes Of History was delighted to be part of the Bosworth Medieval Festival in 2019 at the brilliant Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre. Here, then, are the recipes visitors could sample.

Located in sunny southern Italy, the ancient Roman city of Pompeii was perfectly positioned between lush vineyards and fertile plains to one side and the bountiful waters of the Bay of Naples to the other.  “Last Supper in Pompeii”, a major exhibition in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, told the city's amazing story.

The design of Dionysios of Alexandria’s “Polybolos” is somewhat unique in the annals of ancient artillery. Recreating the machine presents many challenges not least of which are what missiles did might it have shot?

The history of the game of quoits appears, on the face of it, to have an ancient origin. At least that is what you would believe from several website authors who attribute the game's invention to ancient Greece. The evidence, however, suggests this is pure myth.

In an earlier post ("Daily Meals in Tudor England") mention was made of "Collop Monday", the day before Shrove Tuesday, in connection with the origins of breakfast.  More recently we produced "Scotch Collops" for English Heritage's "Elizabethan Pageant" at Kenilworth Castle, but what is a "collop"?

What do the letters “SRD” marked on stoneware jars mean?

We have been celebrating a mid-winter festival for millennia, but have you ever wondered where Christmas comes from?

Yet another TV drama refers to Britain's Secret Service, but why?  Britain has not had a "secret service" since the end of the Second World War. Why, then, do journalists, media types, film and TV producers continue to confuse the title with the US agency of the same name?

With 2018 marking the centenary of the end of the Great War, at Waddesdon Manor we recreated a taste of the Home Front in 1918.  Visitors were surprised to discover that many of the things familiarly associated with World War 2 had been instituted just over two decades earlier.

In 1563, Elizabeth I granted Kenilworth Castle to her childhood friend and favourite, Robert Dudley, the soon to be Earl of Leicester.  She visited four times during "progresses" through her realm. For English Heritage we recreated recipes fit for an Elizabethan pageant.

Most people are familiar with the idea of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. In Tudor England, those of means and social status likewise ate three times a day, but this had not always been the case.

The first episode of Britain's Most Historic Towns aired on April 8th, 2018 on Channel 4.  We had the pleasure of working alongside the team from IWC Media to produce the Roman dining experience for host, Prof. Alice Roberts, and West Cheshire Museums curator, Liz Montgomery.

Tastes of History ran a workshop for the volunteers at Plas Mawr, an Elizabethan townhouse in Conwy, North Wales to teach something of food and dining in the Tudor period.  From the questions we fielded, it became evident that a précis of the etiquette expected at a wealthy Tudor table might be of interest.

Connoisseurs of Roman cuisine may be familiar with the recipes of "Apicius".  Indeed, "Apicius" was the inspiration for the Roman recipes in Tastes Of History's recent post "Fast Food or Dinner Party", but just who was he?  Did he really write the first cookbook?  And was he really a skilled Roman cook?

Although World War II began in September 1939, it was not until January 1940 that rationing in Britain began. Cooks had to become increasingly inventive so here are some wartime recipes you might wish to recreate.