Free Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey by Emma Rowley Page B

classic manners are observed throughout. ‘Food always comes in – and is taken away – from the left, and drink comes in from the right,’ notes Alastair Bruce, historical advisor. The menu card is removed after the main course and before the pudding, and the footmen serve with a seat between them, to avoid jostling each other. ‘It is old-fashioned, it’s the way it’s done and we observe it meticulously,’ Bruce says.

    ‘I always try to put something inoffensive like watercress or cucumber on the plate so the actors can push it around a bit. Some of them like to tuck in, but they have to remember that once they start eating, they’ve got to keep doing it each take.’
    Lisa Heathcote
    FOOD ECONOMIST

    MEAGRE OFFERINGS
    Cancelled wedding banquets aside, the staff eat very simply. ‘Below stairs, they tend to get a lot of bread and cheese, and stew and porridge,’ Lisa Heathcote says. ‘Apart from when Edith’s wedding went wrong and they ate the dishes from the wedding breakfast, there’s certainly nothing exciting for them to eat, except leftovers from dinners above stairs.’

    CONTINUITY IN THE KITCHEN
    What is prepared in kitchen scenes always corresponds to what appears on the table upstairs, notes Heathcote. ‘Often I can do a dish that we see in the kitchens, and we see it seconds later above stairs, but the reality is we don’t actually film it until three or four weeks later, so I’ve got to recreate the same dishes again, and make sure they look exactly the same.’

FOOD
Dishes of the Decade
    Mrs Patmore would have produced a ‘lot of classic French cuisine’, says Heathcote, who draws on period cookbooks for inspiration for the menus, such as
Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management
. The house would also have had its own cookbook and would have used recipes that had been passed down over the generations. ‘The family would have eaten very well, because they would have been able to get ingredients from the dairy and the home farm, and they would have had wonderful walled gardens filled with vegetables – as well as servants trained to cook them.’
    Food is presented just as it would have been in the period, so poultry arrives at the table with its feet still on, while a simple pudding of fruit, biscuits and cream looks like an edible masterpiece. ‘They had a finickety way of presenting things to show off their culinary skills – and it’s fun,’ says Heathcote. ‘It’s like painting with food.’ She may also tweak recipes to make sure they are ‘visually strong’, such as using mango pieces and berries to brighten up a beige spongy pudding.

    DUBIOUS DISHES
    The tables are laid with food destined for the Earl’s table, but the cast admit to nibbling on the dishes and ingredients that pass through the kitchen. ‘You always regret it!’ says Sophie McShera (Daisy). ‘You start to think, “How many people have touched that?”’

    ‘What’s great is that someone on the props team used to be a chef, so before any kitchen scenes we’ll have a chat and he’ll show us the techniques he would use when preparing food.’
    Matt Milne
    ALFRED NUGENT

    ‘Mrs Patmore loathes the mixer, which scares her, but Daisy doesn’t – she makes lots of soufflés with it. Daisy is happily embracing all the modern technology.’
    Sophie McShera
    DAISY MASON

TWENTIES TECHNOLOGY
Keeping Up with the Times

    The appearance of new props on set helps to reflect the passage of time on screen and can also create quite a stir inside the Abbey. As well as its telephone, Downton now boasts a food mixer, while upstairs the younger generation can listen to music on the gramophone.
    Many of these items are actually original pieces that have been carefully restored to look as if they are new. The controversial kitchen mixer was an eBay find, sourced from America, then sent to specialist prop makers who cleaned, stripped and resprayed it. It also had to be rewired by an electrician, both to make it safe