Easy Homemade Beef Stew

February 25, 2023

This easy homemade beef stew is tasty and makes a great meal for a chilly evening.

Welcome to the Virtual Book Club—Culinary Version.

I join three bloggers during the fourth week of each month to share our interpretation of a different book.

On Thursday, we share a home-decor related post and follow

on Saturday with a culinary post, both inspired by the month’s book.

Table of Contents

Jane Austen’s Emma

This month’s book is Emma, by Jane Austen. On Thursday, I shared my interpretation of a bedroom from the Georgian-Regency Era of the early 1800s. You can read that post here. The main character in the book, Emma Woodhouse, is from a wealthy family living in the English countryside in the fictional village of Highbury. Her family and acquaintances would have had meals that reflected that status.

Food during the Regency Era

While Emma was wealthy, poverty was rampant during this time. Most people ate meat, soups and breads throughout the year. The wealthy had kitchen gardens that provided fresh produce, and the very rich grew fruits and vegetables in hot houses all year long. Root vegetables were stored in cellars.

Source

Easy beef stew shown on a table in a wallpapered dining room

The setting for the meal

For most people, dining was a simple affair. Food was what could be hunted or grown. Unless their house was large enough to accommodate a dining room, most people ate in the kitchen. Emma’s meals would have been shared in a formal dining room by candlelight. I imagine that the wealthy families would have had cutting gardens that provided fresh flowers on the tables and sideboards in the dining room.

My interpretation of an Emma-era meal

I chose to make a homemade beef stew. My research showed that, while people of the time ate beef, it wasn’t always of the best quality, because the animals had to be brought a long way to market. Venison and game that was procured from country estates was more fresh. I’m making the leap that, because Emma’s family was wealthy, they had access to a cattle farm. The vegetables in the stew would have been grown in their kitchen garden or hot house.