Objects
Posset
Alcohol
Consumption
A Southwark delft dated baluster posset-pot and cover. Dated 1668. With opposing scroll handles, painted in blue, manganese and pale-yellow, with Adam and Eve to either side of a tree, the serpent coiled around its trunk, within a shield-shaped cartouche. With initials I/A/A/1668 inscribed within an oval cartouche flanking the curved spout, the domed cover similarly inscribed and dated within crossed branches.
Posset was made from cream or milk, curdled with alcohol, and thickened with bread, oatmeal or biscuits - the crust that formed could be eaten with a spoon. A great number of posset pots survive, as they were often used only on special occasions and could be given as gifts.
Many recipes for posset survive and there are numerous references to the drink in diaries and letters of the period. The diarist Samuel Pepys recorded drinking a posset after a night of revels in 1668. Posset could function as a reviving drink - it was given to women after childbirth, to those returning from the fields in winter, or to anyone too weak to eat a full meal. Posset sometimes replaced the evening meal during Lent.
Production
Dates of Production: 1668
England
Consumer
I A A
[Not specified]
Materials
Earthenware
Earthenware- white
Museological Details
D.O.C/16
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