Anne Lister's cuisine


Shantel SmithPublished on 01 December, 2020 · Last updated on 29 June, 2023
 Cover photo: Shantel Smith

The evolving menu of Anne Lister 

Do you like raw eggs and wine for breakfast? What about boiled milk and a side of gin? Maybe soup and salmon is more up your alley. Whatever your preference, all of these menu items were part of Anne Lister's diet. As with everything in life, Miss Lister tracked her diet in detail, often providing a thorough review of the experience, especially while traveling. These details are essential in understanding Anne as a person and the world around her. 

More than just boiled milk

Our goal is to record all mentions of food and drink documented by Anne in her journals and correspondence. The food and drink data that we gather can provide valuable insights into 19th-century life and offer unique research opportunities.  In addition to food and drink, Anne Lister provides a unique narrative abounding with health details, including the state of her bowels and urination experiences. Analyzing both her diet and health will promote a better understanding of her life and self. 

We invite everyone to join us in collecting these references. Whether you are actively transcribing and have time to gather fresh content or you want to assist transcribers and pull information from blogs, anyone and everyone can participate.  Someone may be inspired to eat like Anne Lister! 

Reference Tracker: Food & drink

Contributors

This project is made possible through ongoing contributions from the following people:

How to contribute to this project

Tip: Don't be too concerned with redundancy; enter any information you have and we'll reconcile duplicates later. 

Data in this spreadsheet is in English, but please preserve names of people and food/drink  as written by Anne Lister and others.

Anyone can help research and add additional information for each references in this spreadsheet.