Last year, I started a tradition of making something named after Queen Victoria on her birthday, May 24. So far I have made Victoria Sandwiches and Victoria Buns, both recipes from Isabella Beeton. This year, I’m breaking the Mrs. Beeton-baked-goods trend and trying out a frozen punch recipe from American author Fannie Merritt Farmer instead.
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“‘But punch, my dear Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, tasting it, ‘like time and tide, waits for no man.'” -Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, 1850.
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This punch recipe comes from Henrietta Nesbitt’s The Presidential Cookbook: Feeding the Roosevelts and Their Guests. Mrs. Nesbitt served as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s housekeeper in the White House for 13 years. She writes in her chapter on teas and punches that two hundred guests would be considered a small tea party for Eleanor Roosevelt – many White House teas would include over a thousand guests. “When the guest list reaches the thousand mark…the only solution is fruit punch, and plenty of it.”
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History in the Making 