Alex+Gruebele

Elizabethan Food

During the Elizabethan era, many new exotic foods were discovered, often implementing ingredients brought over from the New World. However, what you ate tended to depend on your class, and even the time of year. Here I will look at Elizabethan food, the factors that decided what it was like, and who it was available to.

**Preservation**
Animals were slaughtered in the fall, since it was uneconomical to continue to feed them through the winter. So, in order for the meat to last, it had to be heavily preserved. Typically, the meats were heavily salted and stored in barrels. The richer could afford to also put in some layers of butter (to seal the meat from air) and put in some spices so that it would start to flavor (Paston 95). Meats would also be smoked, with the benefits being an additional flavor and better preservation. Vegetables were often pickled (Alchin). Generally, when the time came for eating, the meats would be washed thoroughly in cold water in an attempt to lose most of the salty taste (and to promote softening). Then they would be spiced for flavor (for more about spices, see ‘Nobility’ and ‘Commoners’) (Alchin). Special syrups and scents would be made from herbs and flowers to flavor and preserve food in the “stillroom” (the noble’s brewing and preserving cellar) (Alchin).

=Drink= Since water was often a hazard, most Elizabethans drank alcohol instead. When water was used (for cooking or for lightening alcohol), there were different grades of water: the best was pure rainwater, next came water from ‘rocky places’ such as brooks, then water from the sea, food, or ponds, and finally standing water and snow. To test the purity of water, it would b e boiled, and should not froth. To purify it, oil of sulfur could be added, or it could be boiled. People were also advised to beware of water as it could cool the stomach too fast making one sick (O ‘Hara 212). The rich tended to drink high alcohol content drinks (such as wine) as well as ale, whey, cider, metheglyn (boiled fermented herbs), and mead (O ‘Hara 211)), while the lower class were restricted to beers and ales. All classes would sweeten them with peppers or honey to make drinks like mead. Up to a gallon of such drinks was consumed per day (Alchin). England did not have much of a wine industry, so wines were typically imported from countries like France. Beer was prepared in three strengths: single, double, and double-double (after a short while, the highest strength was no longer produced, much at the Queen’s request). These beers were usually brewed at home to ensure high quality and low price. Nobles could afford Cordial waters (named thus for their believed warming effect on the heart). These were strong alcohols flavored heavily with spices (Paston 105).

=Bread= Bread was defined by consumer status (Paston 85). Manchet high class white bread was made with wheat and ale-bran and heated gently. For second rate bread, yellowish coarse bran called pollard was made into bigger loaves in strong heat. Commoners had a lower grade of this bread that had the color of modern day brown bread. The worst quality (for slaves or serfs) had little flour in it. White bread gradually rose in popularity even for non-nobles (Paston 86)).

=Nobility= Nobles always took great enjoyment in their meals. Meals were supposed to be entertaining themselves. Peacocks were bred especially for their feathers. A classy meal would often have the food arranged on all sorts of props and racks, decorated with colorful feathers (Elizabethan Food and Drink). For a special surprise, birds might be put into the pie! When someone started to cut it, the birds would fly out, giving the noble a good laugh! Their meals were always eaten with multiple utensils, made of nice metals (Alchin).

To add flavor to meals, nobles had a huge selection of spices. They typically had access to “strong powders”, or powerful spices. These included cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and pepper, and saffron (as well as the cheaper mixes like mustard). Spices were so valuable that they were locked up in spice cupboards. Nuts, rice, dried fruits, and sugar were also considered spices (Paston 103).

Sugar was only for the rich, and they took advantage of this very much. As part of adding flair to a meal, sugar was used to candy foods. Playing cards and even wine glasses could be made out of melted sugar, and marzipan was commonly eaten with candied fruits (Thomas, Elizabethan Food and Drink). In fact, nobles ate so much sugar that their teeth would tend to rot and turn black (Queen Elizabeth suffered from this) (Paston 103). It became fashionable in fact to have rotting teeth (it showed wealth) so that lesser nobles would buy cosmetics to blacken their teeth (Alchin).

Other candies included candied rose petals and buds. Other flower buds were put in cream for tarts (Paston 99). Favorites included apples: Shakespeare mentions ‘codlings, Pippens, Leater Coats, Apple-Johns, Bitter-Sweets, Pomewaters and Costards’. To avoid plague, apples might be baked for 6 hours in a pie. Almonds were largely imported, though hazelnuts and walnuts were grown locally (Paston 102). Oranges and orange juice were very fashionable (Paston 101). These were valued as they would combat diseases such as scurvy. Lemon salad (naturally with sugar) was also popular.

To compare a typical preparation of a meal, the poor would stuff pumpkins with apples and bake them. The rich by contrast would slice and fry the pumpkin with herbs, spices and sugar, mixed with eggs and put the mix into pastries with apples and currants (Paston 97).

There was a drawback to all the classy foods however. Nobles had less balanced diets than the poor because they tended not to eat fresh fruits and vegetables since they could have them baked or spiced or candied. They tended to look on fresh dairy products (known as “white meats” (O ‘Hara 235)) as lower class foods as well. They would only eat dairy as butter or in puddings (with eggs, cream and rice or a sweet cabbage-cream with rosewater mix) (Paston 88). Nobles would eat cream cheeses which would be flavored with spices and become more common. Parmesan was imported to England, and became a popular softer cheese (Paston 89). Finally, they left most roots (such as potatos) to the poor since something that came out of the ground clearly was not good enough for them. Nobles would eat rapes (canola), leeks, tomatoes (brought over from the New World, and known as ‘Love Apples’ (Thomas)), onions, and of course, garlic (Alchin). Also, herbs like turnips, parsnips, carrots, apples, leeks, plums, cherries could be roasted or boiled (but not eaten fresh by nobles) (Elizabethan Food and Drink).

The high class could eat pretty much any type of meat available, and some that were not ‘available’. While most people (regardless of class) could eat veal, pork, venison, beef, mutton, chicken, cheap fish, and lamb, nobles could afford pricier poultry such as swans, herons, and peacocks (Alchin). They could also get a larger variety of fish such as rarer shellfish, and anchovies (pickled in brine, and used to promote thirst at wine drinking sessions) (Paston 90). They also were allowed to hunt game such as deer and boar (a commoner was not allowed by law to do this (Alchin).

Nobles often received their meats served cold since the kitchens were far from the banquet hall. But the kitchen was a pretty hectic place (with each cook using his own cookbook), furnished with all sorts of utensils (large forks and knives, as well as the mortar and pestle were the most important) (Elizabethan Food and Drink). Elizabethan cooking (for all classes) was mostly done over an open fire, be it frying, boiling, baking, smoking, grilling, etc (Alchin). But in a noble’s kitchen, they could cook things in special ways. For example, meat on a spit might be turned by a dog on a treadmill nearby! (Elizabethan Food and Drink). While these general methods of cooking were used, nobles had special methods that varied for fish and birds: Since Wednesdays and Saturdays (and for a brief time half the days of the year) were fish days, nobles also had to eat fish. They got their fish fresh no matter the cost. Often, since non-salted fish could not survive the trip from the coasts, nobles would build personal fish ponds (one noble had built five fish ponds). Larger fish were put into broths with spices, butter, and dried fruits. They were also stuffed and put on a spit. Small fish were fried in butter (Paston 90).  Green goose (killed under four months old) was eaten in sorrel sauce. But a stubble goose (older than that) was eaten in mustard and vinegar. Most water dwelling birds were served in sauce mixed from their blood and breadcrumbs. The price for poultry also increased while the price of fowl decreased. Big halls would have cages for 1,500 pigeons oft used in pigeon pie (Paston 95).

Finally, the rich would also use thickening and coloring agents in their food. Since butter was one of the few fresh dairy products the rich would eat, it had to look good. ‘Good’ meant it had a gold color to it. So, carrot juice and marigold petals were used to dye butter for noble tables (Paston 89). Alkanet roots could be ground into a red dust. Sandalwood (bark from E. Indian trees) could be ground for a dark red dye. Turnsole made an edible purple dye. To thicken dessert dishes, pastes of ground almonds and wine would be mixed in (Alchin). Other specialties included new foods from America such as chili peppers, chocolate, vanilla, coffee (used as medicines), corn, pumpkins, many nuts (Alchin).

Description of an extravagant: banquet

**Commoners:**
Commoners had much simpler meals. Every Elizabethan had his/her own knife (forks were not in yet) but tended not to have a spoon (soups could be drunk directly from the bowl/cup). Utensils and kitchen implements tended to be out of wood. Pretty much all commoners had three meals a day (dinner being the main meal), just as the nobles did (Alchin). Since most of their food was grown at home, or depended directly on what crop they sold, commoners might go hungry when there was a bad harvest (Alchin). Otherwise, they generally got enough food, mostly in the form of bread and porridge, boiled cabbages, carrots, turnips, and parsnips with supplements of meat and some vegetables (usually roots). The most useful food from the New World was the potato. The sweet potato was preferred, and said to be sweeter than “any sweet apple sugred” (Paston 99). A daily allowance might be 1/2 pound of bread, a pint of beer, and a small portion of meat (Alchin).

Most of their foods were salted, especially fish, since it had to travel far. Cod as well as red and white herrings were fished and still salted while at sea (Paston 90). When the commoners tended to eat meat, it was often bacon, as said Dr. Boorde in his book //Dyettary of Helth// (in the 1550’s): “Bacon is good for carters and plowman, the whiche be ever labouringe in the earth or dunge… I do say that coloppes [slices of bacon] and egges is as holsome for them as a talowe candell is good for a blereyed mare” (Paston 91). The poor also tended to eat fresh food from their own gardens, seasoned with the occasional ‘good spice’ (a weaker spice like mustard or pepper) (Alchin).

People could bake their own bread, biscuits, and pies at communal ovens (Elizabethan Food and Drink). Instead of metal pans, they would used super hardened pastries called coffins (Alchin). They tended to eat convenience foods such as biscuits with cheese, especially when going out (like to work). City streets were often full of vendors selling such meals. While the working class could not afford sugar, they could afford honey to sweeten their fruit jams (a way of preserving fruit for the winter) (Alchin). Vegetable dishes were also preserved, and were generally called sallets. These vegetables and mushrooms were preserved for the spring in vinegar (Paston 99).

In any meal (though more importantly in a noble’s meal, where there are more choices in food) the order in which foods were consumed was said to be very important. First, foods easy on the stomach should be eaten (the belief was based on the fact that it is better to cook lighter foods over the fire before it gets too hot). Next, moist foods should be eaten (boiled meats for example), in order to conserve the natural moisture within. Next the “slippery” foods come, so that the “hard foods” are not rushed through the system. Finally the dry, hard foods (baked meats or roasted) are eaten. Then desert (O ‘Hara 184).

//Avens// – typical salad herb //Borage// – blue-flowered plant. Tasted like cucumber, used in salads //Clary// - a plant of the sage family which cuts the grease of fatty meats and fish //Dittany// - a plant of the mint family with clusters of purplish flowers, used in salads //Galingale// - an aromatic root and main ingredient of galyntyne, a pungent medieval sauce //Hyssop// - a blue-flowered plant whose leaves cut the grease in fatty meats and fish //Laver// - an edible purple seaweed used in salads //Orach// - a garden plant with red and green leaves used as a vegetable and in salads //Pellitory// - a climbing plant of the nettle family whose leaves were used in salads //Purslane// - a plant with a pinkish fleshy stem and small, round leaves; leaves in salads //Rocket// - mildly pungent plant grown like spinach, used in salads //Rose Hips// - the fleshy, bright-colored fruit of the rose plant //St.John's-Wort// - a plant with brownish stalks & narrow leaves which were used in salads //Southernwood// - a shrubby fragrant plant with yellowish flowers and bitter-tasting leaves
 * List of typical herbs and roots:**

Original list from (Alchin) but edited.

Works Cited:

Alchin, Linda K. "Elizabethan Food." //Elizabethan Era//, 20 Mar. 2008. Web. 18 Sept. 2010. .

"Elizabethan Food and Drink." //The Lost Colony's Education Pages//. 12 Aug. 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. .

O’Hara-May, Jane. //Elizabethan Dyetary of Health//. Lawrence, KS: Colorado Press, 1977. Print.

Paston-Williams, Sara. //The Art of Dining : A History of Cooking & Eating//. London: National Trust, 1993. Print.

Thomas, Heather. "Elizabethan Food." //Elizabeth//. 9 June 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2010. .