Purportedly the favorite dish of Queen Victoria, Brown Windsor soup was a thick meat soup popular during the era. It’s referenced in Harry Potter- and Downton Abbey-themed cookbooks and was served in an episode of Poirot.
The problem? Victoria never heard of the dish, much less loved it, and historians doubt it ever existed in the 19th century. Nonetheless, everyone seems to have heard of it, even though historians have found no record of it until the 1920s. They believe the recipe started as a joke, which conflated Victoria’s love of Brown Windsor soap with the actual dish of Windsor soup, which is white, to concoct a traditionally awful British dish.
Regardless of the origin or whether everyone was in on the joke, what story possibilities do you see in the creation of an imaginary dish? A joke gotten out of hand? A spy’s red herring? A clue to a murder? An anachronism created by time travelers? What happens with it?
Image: Queen Victoria at Lunch with Son Edward VII and Family, Windsor 1895, via <a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A_Royal_Luncheon_Party_at_Windsor.jpg”> Wiki Commons </a>
