3. Pig’s Tongues Were a Delicacy
Pork was an everyday staple for middle and upper-class diners of the Regency period. Little of the animal went to waste, with the pancreas, called sweetmeats, and head being common delicacies of the age. At dances, finger foods were highly prized as they allowed revelers to mingle and continue dancing while eating. This was much preferable over a massive, multi-course seated dinner that would surely get boring quickly to the young attendees with courtship on their mind. One tasty finger food was chicken stuffed with pigs’ tongues. Pig’s tongues were, in general, considered a delicacy to be savored when served a whole pig’s head.
Beef was another favorite food during the era, taking on a primarily political air during the war against the French. Dining clubs sprung up that focused heavily on eating beef, as it was unpopular in France at the time and considered by the British to be an unpretentious patriotic food that set them apart from continental Europeans. Eating specific foods or renaming them for political purposes is an old tradition that persists into our time, with hamburgers being renamed “liberty steaks” during World War I and french fries being called “Freedom Fries” in the early 2000s when France refused to support the United States’ war with Iraq.