Canadian historian’s blog about Downton Abbey’s food an internet hit

If your "Downton Abbey" viewing party needs some era-appropriate food, a Toronto historian can help you out.

Pamela Foster's blog, Downton Abbey Cooks, has become an online hit with an average of 3,000 visits a day and a Twitter following of 7,790. With everyone suddenly fascinated by all things related to the wildly successful British show, Foster's early-20th-century recipes help bring a little British history into Canadian kitchens.

"I hoped to inspire cooks to bring a touch of Downton elegance to their own Abbey," Foster, who has a history degree and works in corporate marketing, tells Radio.com.

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The avid home cook has written a cookbook, too. Abbey Cooks Entertain contains recipes for all the famous meals featured in the three seasons of the award-winning drama, from apple charlotte to Christmas plum pudding to calvados glazed duck.

Foster hopes to inspire people to get excited about cooking and entertaining.

"Pretend you’re having a 'Downton Abbey' party, or an afternoon tea or cocktails, and really embrace cooking. If that’s one way to get people into the kitchen, then by all means let’s go for it," she tells the Canadian Press.

Try some recipes, including ones for roast chicken and asparagus salad with saffron vinaigrette from Foster's cookbook here.

If you're hesitant to indulge in the decadent dining seen on the show, Foster reassures readers that she's updated many classic recipes to be healthier.

"Even though the Crawley sisters are lovely and beautiful and very thin, that wasn't really the typical shape of women in that period…Mrs. Patmore is likely more the norm," Foster says, referring to the more voluptuously shaped cook on the drama.

"I started making healthier choices," she tells the Canadian Press of her own eating habits. "I took up more of a disciplined running and exercise regime, and started finding ways to cut the fat and sugars and the bad chemicals out of what I was eating, and that’s what I’d like to pass on to readers."

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Foster isn't the only one obsessing over "Downton Abbey's" fine dining. Bon Appetit features a Dining at Downton blog, and several other Downton Abbey-themed cookbooks can be found on store shelves and online.

"I went through every episode a million times," says Emily Ansara Baines, author of The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook, which was published last fall.

Are you a big enough fan of "Downton Abbey" to want to dine like the Crawleys? If not, which television show's cuisine would you most want to sample?

And, yes, there's a Star Trek Cookbook.