Believe that the protagonists of the kitchens of Downton Abbey would have become very expert in preparing the richest and most appetizing dishes in the world would be a lie. The series, winner of numerous awards, had the merit of telling with elegance the ties and intrigues that lurk within an Edwardian residence of the early twentieth century, with particular attention not only to aristocrats, but also to servants. It is in the common room and in the kitchens, in fact, that the plots become thicker, inebriated by the smell of the sandwiches to bake and the stuffed salmon mousses. A principle that is also honored in the film by Downton Abbey that arrives at the cinema on October 24th and that in America has been full of consents reaching the first place at the box office in its first weekend of programming. Everything is studied in such detail to give the impression that time has crystallized, especially when we see the wonderful delicacies prepared by Mrs. Patmore and Daisy, always with the apron tied and the bonnet in her hair. To reveal something more than the organizational machine of Downton Abbey in terms of food, however, the food stylist Lisa Heathcote, who in several interviews, from the "New York Times" to "Hello", opened the secret drawers of the pantry explaining that it's not all as it seems.

Secrets … in the kitchen

To indicate what will be served for lunch or dinner on the upper floors is the script signed by Julian Fellowes, creator of the series: it all starts from there. The food is prepared both at the castle of Highclere, which would be the residence of Downton, and in the studios of Ealing, where the lower floors of the castle are recreated, those occupied by the servants, so to speak. For the first three seasons of the series, the preparation of the dishes was outdoors, in a special tent called "easy-up" which had caused many problems. Like when Lady Carnarvon's dogs escaped his control by pointing the meat dish that the Heathcote was preparing, or when the cold was so stiff that the food stylist discovered, to his enormous surprise, that the sauce he was spinning had frozen. . This is why, starting with the fourth series, the food staff had the chance to work inside their own small truck. However, the fact that the actors learned little in the kitchen when shooting is a fact. "Maybe they are getting better at chopping, but also managing all kinds of food. It may be because they are not picky, "says Heathcote, amused, ready to solve even the most insurmountable problems. Like that scene that foresaw that a lobster would fall on Jimmy's silk suit arousing the ire of the costume department, not at all enthusiastic about welcoming the news. "So I glued the real food on the plate with fake prawns and parsley, just enough to fall into my lap without the stain," insists Heathcote, who adds that keeping the food so delicious and perfect at the sight despite the hours of filming and the warm lights of the set it is a challenge that he thinks he has solved in the simplest way: to restore the dishes from time to time as if they were in the restaurant.

Secrets … in the set

In this sense, it is also important to choose the right ingredients: «It is important to consider, for example, that some leaves wither with time. A good fresh watercress is fantastic, but to continue restoring it is better to use a dry one , specifies the food stylist reassuring that not everything you see at Downton Abbey it is edible. Aspics and jellies much more solid than they should be in reality allow, in fact, to resist as long as possible at the time of shooting, guaranteeing a particularly attractive appearance. The same goes for the salmon mousse which is mentioned several times during the fourth season of the series but which, in reality, is made with chicken because «otherwise the fish would have been smelly and unpleasant after a while. Despite these precautions, the typical menu of an evening at Downton Abbey is more or less always the same: a clear soup, a fish dish, an appetizer, a roast, a composition of cheese and fruit and a savory morsel, like prunes wrapped in bacon to make up your mouth. Beyond the breeding of pigs carried out by the Crawley family and responsible for a large part of the estate's economy, Heathcote concludes by saying that the estate, if it were active, would be completely self-sufficient. "All the vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy products and cheeses would have come from near the estate and they would have all been absolutely delicious. At the time they would all have been organic and produced directly from the soil and put on the plate. It would have been an excellent country kitchen, good healthy food, but elegantly decorated .