Titanic's 1st Class Banquet

Let Jim and Lucy Fisher pipe you aboard for a week of gourmet cooking, period music, flowing ball gowns and black bow ties...

The Titanic cooking course opens its watertight doors on the lavish excesses of a contemporary Edwardian feast.

Chef, Jim Fisher, shows you how to cook authentic recipes as served to Titanic's rich and famous - and not so rich and famous - passengers, demonstrating classical and modern cooking techniques en route.

Jim's wife, Lucy, gives advice on laying of table and suggestions on decking out a domestic dining room in order to host your own ‘Titanic Dinner Party’. She also helps with suggestions for the dress of the day, and there is a goodie box of props such as tiaras, bow ties, false moustaches and feather boas!

Kate & Leonardo, eat yer hearts out...

Welcome aboard for a week of 1st class cooking, gourmet dining and Edwardian splendour...

As a timely celebration of the forthcoming centenary of Titanic’s maiden voyage (10th April 2012), Cookinfrance is recreating the Escoffier-inspired dishes and Edwardian splendour experienced by passengers aboard the "unsinkable" luxury liner.

From the sumptuous banquets lavished on the 329 1st Class passengers, to the simple but sustaining meals consumed by the 899 crew, Titanic’s kitchens prepared over 2,000 meals each day.

Luxuriate in Edwardian excess, from gourmet food to sumptuous table decoration...

On Wednesday 10th April 1912, the RMS (Royal Mail Steamer) Titanic set sail on her maiden voyage for the New World with over 2,200 passengers and crew.

She was the largest and most luxuriously appointed vessel of her time and easily the most famous cruise liner ever to ply the oceans. Had she survived, even now Titanic would put many a young contender to shame with her opulent interiors and 1st Class food.

The Food...

Scant record remains of the sumptuous food served on the great ship aside from a few water-stained barely legible menus. Most of the original recipes followed by the 60 or so chefs went down with the ship, so we've had to rely on snippets and anecdotal evidence from surviving passengers and crew.

However, many of the dishes would have been standard Escoffier-inspired favourites and, with a little ingenuity and imagination, a close enough approximation can be made.

1st Class Dining Room Menu:

First Course:
Hors D'Oeuvres

Foie Gras
Smoked Duck Breast & Quail Eggs Benedict

Oysters

Second Course:
Consommé Olga
Cream of Barley

Third Course:
Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce, Cucumbers

Fourth Course:
Filet Mignons Lili
Saute of Chicken, Lyonnaise
Vegetable Marrow Farci
Lamb with Mint Sauce

Main Course:
Roast Leg of Lamb
Minted Lamb Sauce
Pommes Dauphinoise

Roast Duckling with Apple Sauce
Sirloin of Beef

Chateau Potatoes, Green Pea Puree, Creamed Carrots, Boiled Rice, Parmentier & Boiled New Potatoes

Sixth Course:
Punch Romaine

Seventh Course:
Roast Squab & Cress

Eighth Course:
Cold Asparagus Vinaigrette

Ninth Course:
Pate de Foie Gras with Celery

Tenth Course:
Waldorf Pudding

Dessert:
Waldorf Pudding with French Vanilla Ice Cream

Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly
Chocolate & Vanilla Eclairs
French Ice Cream

Coffee, Cigars, Port and Brandy

Dates...

Cooking course weeks commence Monday:

• February 2012: 6th, 13th (Valentines Week), 20th & 27th

• March 2012: 5th, 12th, 19th & 26th

• April 2012: 2nd, 9th (Titanic Centenary Week), 16th & 23rd

Prices...

The food aboard the largest and most luxurious vessel afloat...

Aside from being referred to - somewhat optimistically - as “unsinkable”, Titanic was never-the-less lovingly heralded as the greatest and most luxuriously appointed ship in history.

Titanic's kitchens catered for a total of 2,240 people made up of 1,324 First, Second and Third class passengers and 899 crew.

The food served on board literally brimmed with Edwardian excess. The Escoffier-inspired menus that graced the tables of the rich and famous in 1st Class - among them some of the wealthiest and most influential people of the day - were epic in both variety of ingredients and number of courses.

2nd and 3rd Class passengers didn't fare too badly either, while those traveling steerage, and members of the crew, ate simply but comfortably. 

George Auguste Escoffier, "King of Chefs, Chef of Kings"...

The influence of Escoffier and several subsequent decades of French-inspired chefs means that many of the dishes served on board would be recognised, and possibly served, by us today: Consommé; Filet Mignon; Roast Leg of Lamb with Mint Sauce; Calvados Glazed Duckling; Stuffed Marrow; Poached Salmon; Pommes Anna (like Dauphinoise, but with butter!).

Others are rather less identifiable: Waldorf Pudding; Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly; Coconut Sandwich; French Ice Cream; Cabin Biscuits.

Chef Jim takes you through these dishes giving them his unique twist in order to bring them bang up to date for today’s busy cook. With a plethora of exotic ingredients available at almost every supermarket and deli, a dinner party based around Titanic's 1st Class menu is easily achievable.

As with all of our courses, a range of techniques will be incorporated...

• Knife skills

• Bead making

• Sugar work

• Butchery

• Fish filleting

• Patisserie

• Desserts

Some history...

In March 1909, at the Belfast shipyards of Harland and Wolff, Titanic's vast hull was laid down and work began on what was to be the largest and most famous ship in the world.

Around the same time that year, an immense block of ice peeled away from a glacier north of Greenland and began its ponderous three year southward journey toward the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.

On 10th April 1912 the R.M.S. Titanic slipped her moorings at Southampton and embarked on her maiden voyage to New York. Four days later, at 11.40pm, whilst traversing a dead calm mid-Atlantic Ocean some 600km from the Grand Banks, she met her destiny with the iceberg. Her nemesis ripped a fatal 100m gash in her hull.

The rest, is history...