Elizabethan Food

The biggest change over time in our eating habits has been how involved we are with our food. In the 1700s colonists grew many of their own crops and hunted their own game. Most individual families also had a dairy cow in their backyard, especially in New England. This was a tradition that they brought back with them from England. They would use the milk for cooking steamed puddings, cheeses, and custards. It also provided colonial families with fresh milk in the morning. Preparing meat was very laborious and difficult in the 1700s. Colonists had to prepare a dead animal, not just parts of it. The cookbook we read in class walked us through how to dress a turtle and the entire process of preparing it used to take hours. This shows that food would not have been made every day. Colonists had to grow their fruits seasonally and did not have the opportunities to go out and purchase what they did not have.

One of the important things during the time of the Renaissance was food. Food was very important to the people. They cooked and served food in a unique way. Others had ovens and others did not. Others who did not have ovens, they cooked their food over an open flame. In Renaissance times, food relied on what your social class is. There were the upper class people and lower class people. The upper class people had more choices of what they wanted to it and the lower class people didn’t have many choices of what they wanted to eat. Some of the foods were expensive. For them to have food they had farm. The upper class owned farms and they planted crops and harvested the crops for food. They raised animals for them to have meat and milk.

     Breakfast was usually eaten around 10 A.M. It might have consisted of cornbread with butter, cold meat, cider or beer, or maybe coffee or tea. The main meal was eaten around 4:00 P.M. This would be the lavish meal. When it was time to eat the man and his older sons would take their places at the table. The wife would sit next to her husband while the oldest daughter would serve the meal. Any young children would stand, not sit at a separate table and were not allowed to speak. (John F. Warner – pg.50-54)

Peasants were the lowest of all the social classes and had little to none privileges; they worked on the lord’s manor. Peasants lived in the village community. The freemen were poor farmers. They were not allowed to step foot out of the land. They worked under the rule of the lord. Serfs owned no property they were borderline slaves, but were considered without the title of one. Serfs must have consent from their lord when it came to marriage. Their jobs were laborious and physically intensive. “Landless peasants... did most of the work on the fiefs: They planted and harvested crops and gave most of the produce to the landowner” (History.com). Serfs tend to plants and mend equipment, and hunt and gather food. With a hut-like house, half is for livestock. The meals were simple: vegetables, porridge, bread, and cheese. The serfs worked on the land and did not possess anything. The land was corrupt, since the serfs worked on the land for the lord, then they were charged for making use of the land. They were paid via labor and food. There was a fee for everything such as, using the mill to pulverise grain and using the oven to bake

Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English Protestants established a group referred to as the Puritans. The Puritans were resistant to bold flavors and intense ingredients, such as garlic, for these had “Catholic Continental political references”. This led to a distinguishable description of English cooking. (Amelia Meyers) Puritan meals and meal times are different from what we know today. Although the English from this time ate most of the same foods that we eat today, their selection was quite divergent from ours. In fact, citizens back then had an abnormal idea of what foods were healthy for them (Plimoth.org). The Puritans had several meal responsibilities; women were in charge of meal planning, and food preservation

Summary: This website tells the history of food at the time of the Elizabethan Era.Poor people had unvaried diets consisting largely of bread, fish, cheese and ale, but the rich of Elizabethan England ate well.All kinds of meats were served to the rich people of Elizabethan England.Vegetables and fruits were regarded with some suspicion and was far more common for roasted and boiled meat to be accompanied with bread.Tudors were fond of desserts.Sometimes wine glasses, dishes, playing cards and trenchers were made out of a crisp modeled sugar called sugar-plate which would be elaborately decorated.

All serfs were farmers. Serfs had poor shelter and lacked a diet. Most serfs lived in small homes made of stones, with roofs made of clay tiles or shingles. They had hard dirt floors and slept on straw mattresses that were on the floor. They had some furniture such as stools benches and a table (Cels 9). Peasants often ate bread and had pottage which was like a soup. Pottage was flavored with various types of vegetables. Since peasants weren't that wealthy, they rarely ate meat because it was expensive to buy and keep animals. Small amounts of chicken, pork and beef were considered treats (Cels 9). Serfs children often helped the parents around the house. Young children that were peasants normally played with toys such as dolls, carts, horses,whistles,

Gentry and rich folks ate “brown meats” like: beef, venison, mutton, and pork. Poor also ate a lot more vegetables than the rich they could make it just fine without fancy dishes eaten by their richer social class. Nutritionists today would appreciate the peasant’s simple diet.

The diet between the upper and lower class differed in what they could afford. The upper class citizens of the Elizabethan era ate lavishly and extravagantly. As they could afford the spices from Asia and the freshest meat on the market. While the lower class citizens ate poorly. The lower class diet consisted of many vegetables and fruits with meat as a rare luxury. Vegetables were seen as unfit for the wealthy because they came from the ground. While the diets of the upper classes seem to be very different from those of the lower classes, there are many similarities that can be

For the well-to-do, eating during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods was a fancy affair. A king or queen when going abroad could expect banquet tables filled with hundreds of dishes--for just one meal! There was much pageantry and entertainment. At Leicester, Queen Elizabeth I (predecessor of King James VI & I) was greeted with a pageant of welcome displayed on a temporary bridge. There were cages of live birds--bitterns, curlews, hernshaws and godwits. One pillar held great silver bowls piled with apples, pears, cherries, walnuts and filberts. Other pillars held ears of wheat, oats and barley, gigantic bunches of red and white grapes, great livery pots of claret and white wine, sea fish in quantity laying

They commonly ate many types of meat including wild game, which was the most prized and preferred, beef, fowl, seafood and fish. The aristocratic household employed a master cook who oversaw the kitchen, which prepared food for the entire household. Such cooks were professionals, men with great skills in preparing a variety of dishes. Not many recipe books from this period survive, and most contain only ingredients and general directions, without specific measurements indicated (Rohr, 2002). One of the most valuable skills of the master chef was his ability to create fantastical dishes known as sotilties, or subtleties, which were dishes created to imitate other things and entertain the guests.

The Elizabethans, like us, had three main meals a day: breakfast, dinner, and supper. Breakfast was eaten, usually between 6-7am, dinner at midday, and supper between 5-8pm. The kinds of food eaten depended very much on wealth and status. Poor people, had humble and unvaried diets, the rich ate well. They enjoyed all kinds of meat, including beef, pork, lamb, mutton, bacon, veal, deer, fancy fowl, swan, and goose. Their diet also included freshwater and sea fish,salmon, trout, eel, pike,sturgeon, crabs, lobsters, oysters, cockles and mussels. For the poor, they would eat bread with butter, cheese, eggs, and pottage. Poor people could not afford red meat, like beef or pork, so they eat white meat, like chicken, rabbit or hare, and birds they.

On our second stop on our amazing food journey thru the Renaissance, we will be looking at the quality of the food. The food back then was fresh but no one new if it was cooked all the way or if it had no diseases in it. Another thing about the food being so fresh when they had left overs they didn't know what to do so they put some salt on the meat or fish and left it in a dark room to rote till they were ready to use it. “The peasants would preserve the food by putting salt on the fish and meat to keep it from spoiling” (Elliott, pg9). From this information we can see how they would store there fish. People would argue that it was better because everything was fresher and you had to eat it because there was nothing unhealthy that you could

Lunch otherwise known as “Prandium”: The romans, at mid day, ate a light meal of fish, cold meat, bread and vegetables. Often the meal consisted of the leftovers of the previous days Cena.

Food and drinks played an essential role in the life of a wealthy Roman citizen. Unlike other periods of time food had an important social impact during Ancient Rome and the daily life of Ceaser. However in many cultures breakfast, lunch and dinner were the three main courses of the day. A wealthy citizens breakfast consisted of bread with olives or cheese and lunch was usually quick with bread, cheese, and fruit (Ermatinger 1). Dinner was their main affair, and the largest meal of the day (Ermatinger 1). It contained bread, vegetables, olive oil, cheese and meat (Ermatinger 1). Banquets and feasts were also another elaborate way people would celebrate and enjoy their food (Moulton 27). How the poor ate was quite unlike the wealthy. They had the duty of finding and preparing their dishes in order for their families to eat. Wine was the favorite drink for both social classes and consumed with most meals. The knowledge and responsibility of women in ancient history pertained mainly to the preparation of food.