Daily Life in Elizabethan England (33 page)

164

Daily Life in Elizabethan England

An Elizabethan meal. [By

permission of the Folger

Shakespeare Library]

breakfast at all but waited until dinner in the late morning. Those who did have breakfast might eat right after rising or up to several hours later. A simple breakfast might consist of a pottage (porridge or stew) or leftovers from previous meals. A more hearty breakfast could include bread with butter or cheese, ale or wine, fruit, and some sort of meat—beef, mutton, or chicken.

The real meals were dinner, served around 11 a.m. or noon, and supper in the evening, somewhere from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. For ordinary people, the midday dinner was probably the largest meal of the day, while the privileged classes often had their principal meal in the evening. A simple meal might be served all at once, but in wealthy households—or on special occasions like holy days—a meal might consist of several courses, each containing multiple dishes, with cheese and fruits at the end of the meal.

Sweet dishes would be included in each course, rather than served at the end. One contemporary cookbook offers the following sample menu:

The First Course: Pottage or stewed broth; boiled meat or stewed meat, chickens and bacon, powdered [salted] beef, pies, goose, pig, roasted beef, roasted veal, custard.

The Second Course: Roasted lamb, roasted capons, roasted conies [rabbits], chickens, peahens, baked venison, tart.1

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DINNER AT A TOWNSMAN’S HOME

Wife
Go cause the folk to sit which are in the hall, and I go to the kitchen to cause to serve the board.

Father
Make speed then, I pray you, for truly I am hungry. Masters, you be all welcome: I am sorry that I make you tarry so long.

Guests
No force, sir, we do warm us in the mean while. Come near the fire, come warm you.

Father
Truly I am more hungry than a cold. Go to, let us wash hands . . .

James
What is your pleasure mother?

Wife
Where are you? Why went you not to meet your father, and your uncle? I will tell your master: I will cause you to be beaten. Go quickly, say grace, and take your sister by the hand. Take off your cap, and make curtsey.

James
Well mother, I go thither. You are welcome father, and all your company . . .

Wife
Joan, is the children’s table covered?

Joan
Not yet mistress.

Wife
Bring their round table: and make them dine there at the board’s end.

Read a chapter or two of the New Testament, whilst they make ready your table. . . . Husband, I pray you pull in pieces that capon, and help your neighbour: truly he eateth nothing.

Father
Tarry a little wife, I have not yet tasted of these cabbages.

Wife
You cannot eat of them, for they be too much peppered and salted.

Father
Ah, what pity is that? It is the meat that I love best, and it is marred: they say commonly in England that God sendeth us meat, and the Devil cooks.

Claudius Hollyband,
The French Schoolmaster
(London: Abrahame Veale, 1573), 86–102.

These formal meals were not the only times people ate. Those who felt hungry during the day might have a bit of bread or cold food, and perhaps a bit of ale. During haymaking and harvesting seasons, rural folk took their food into the fields; common harvesting fare included bottled beer, apple pasties (a sturdy, hand-sized pastry), bread, cheese, and butter. At the other end of the social scale, an aristocratic hunting party might bring along cold meats, pies, and sausages.

DIET

Bread, a prominent feature of everyone’s diet, was always present

at meals, although contemporaries agreed that it was less important in England than on the Continent. Wheat was the favored grain for bread, and whiter breads were preferred to dark ones, although even the whit-166

Daily Life in Elizabethan England

REGULATIONS ON FOOD AND MEASURES

Innholders, cooks, and victualers are not only by the laws and ancient good orders of this realm forbidden to bake, seethe, or roast any fish or flesh twice, or sell and utter unto the subjects any manner of corruptible victuals, which may be to the hurt and infection of man’s body; but also that they shall not utter and sell their ale and beer within or without their houses by retail or otherwise unto any the Queen’s Majesty’s subjects, with any false or unsealed measures, lesser than the standard beforementioned . . . Item, if any butcher, fishmonger, innholder, victualer, baker, poulter, or any other whatsoever, which shall sell any victuals unto the subjects at any excessive price or prices otherwise than the plenty or scarcity of the time, and the distance of carriage of the same considered, shall accord with equity and good conscience, then mayors, bailiffs, and other chief officers of cities, boroughs, and towns corporate shall have full power and authority to enquire and examine all such offenses and defaults therein done and committed, and to inflict punishment on the offenders.

The Assize of Bread
(London: John Windet, 1600), sig. F1r-v.

est Elizabethan bread was almost as brown as a modern whole-wheat

loaf. The finest bread was the small hand-loaf called a
manchet.
Commercial manchets typically weighed 8 oz. when they went into the oven and 6 oz. when they came out—the price of a loaf of bread was fixed by law, but the weights were allowed to change according to the current price of grain. The next highest grade was called
cheat,
which was less refined; a cheat loaf weighed 18 oz. going into the oven and 16 oz. when it came out.

Poorer people often made do with rye, barley, or mixed-grain bread; beans, peas, oats, tares, and lentils were used in times of dearth. Breads were not baked in pans, so they were low and round rather than tall. Bread would go stale after a few days, since there were no preservatives to keep it fresh.

However, nothing was wasted: stale bread could be used to make bread puddings, and bread crumbs served to thicken soups, stews, and sauces.

An alternative to bread was biscuit, which kept longer and was especially useful aboard ships. Unground oats and barley were used in pottages and stews, as was imported rice.

Contemporaries agreed that just as bread was less prominent in the English diet than it was on the Continent, meat was correspondingly more so—according to the Elizabethan traveler Fynes Moryson, England was particularly noted for the quality of its roast meats. A greater variety of meat was consumed in the 16th century than is common today. Red meats included beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, and pork. For poultry there were chickens, ducks, geese, and even pigeons. Game meats included deer, rabbit, and an enormous variety of wildfowl—for example, larks, sparrows,
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pheasants, partridge, quail, crane, plovers, and woodcocks. Another distinctive feature of Elizabethan cuisine was that very little of the animal went to waste: cookbooks for prosperous households include recipes for pigs’ and calves’ feet, lamb’s head, and tripe.

Seafood was another important source of protein—in fact, fish were a much larger part of the Elizabethan diet than is generally the case today.

English fishermen exported a great deal of cod and herring, the coasts abounded in oysters and mussels, and the rivers supplied freshwater fish and eels. Popular seafood included flounder, mackerel, carp, pike, salmon, trout, shrimp, crab, and even the occasional porpoise or seal. During the season of Lent, people were supposed to abstain from eating meat, relying on fish instead: this was no longer a religious requirement, as England was a Protestant country, but the ban was reinstated by Elizabeth as a means of supporting English fisheries (and thereby English sea power in general). The same rule applied on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, as well as throughout Advent and on the eves of certain holy days; in total, it accounted for over a third of the year. This fasting was not rigorously observed by Elizabeth’s subjects—one could purchase an exemption, and the Queen herself refused to be bound by the decree, although she saw to it that everyone else at her court was served no meat on fast days. Never-theless, seafood was a handy staple: it was relatively cheap, it was available fresh in much of the country, and it could be preserved by salting, drying, or pickling.

The truly poor probably derived most of their protein from what was termed
white meat
: milk, eggs, butter, and cheese. Cheese featured in the aristocratic diet too, being commonly served at the end of a meal. Nuts were another source of protein: chestnuts, walnuts, and hazelnuts were all common.

Vegetables probably played a larger part in the Elizabethan diet than is sometimes supposed today. Houses normally had gardens, even in the middle of London; these provided a variety of vegetables for the household, including artichokes, asparagus, cucumbers, endive, radish, spinach, lettuce, beans, cabbage, carrots, leeks, parsnips, peas, and turnips.

Fruits were also a regular part of the diet: they were used to flavor dishes and were often served at the end of a meal. Domestically produced fruit included apricots, grapes, figs, strawberries, raspberries, apples, pears, plums, currants, mulberries, and cherries. England also imported certain fruits, especially oranges and lemons from the Mediterranean.

Fruits were probably the principal source of sugar for most people.

Honey, although not cheap, was a common sweetener. Refined sugar was expensive—about a shilling a pound—although still within the reach of people of means. People at the top of the social scale liked to indulge in a variety of sweet foods, including gingerbreads and cakes, candies, marzipan, conserves, and marmalade—ordinary people probably had such

foods only on special occasions, such as holy days.

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Daily Life in Elizabethan England

Spices, like sugar, were expensive. Then as now, they were mainly

imported from Asia, but their transport was much more difficult, dangerous, and time-consuming than it is today. Consequently, the use of spices was a good way to demonstrate one’s social position. Elizabethan recipes call for a distinctive range of spices, particularly cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, mace, saffron, ginger, and pepper. Other imported flavoring agents were capers, olives, and lemons.

Ordinary people relied more on the seasonings that grew in their household gardens, such as cress, fennel, mint, onions, scallions, marjoram, parsley, rosemary, sage, savory, thyme, and tarragon. Mustard was a particular favorite, especially in sauces for dressing meats. Vinegar and oil were popular, as was
verjuice,
the sour juice of the crabapple. Salt was the commonest flavoring agent of all; it appears in many Elizabethan recipes, and it was always set out on the table at mealtimes. One last additive worth noting is flowers, which provided both flavor and coloring: marigolds, primroses, and violets were commonly used in this way.

Some staples of the modern table were either rare or wholly unavailable in Elizabethan England. This is especially true of New World plants such as coffee, vanilla, and cocoa. Tomatoes had arrived in southern Europe but not yet in England. Potatoes were first imported to England during Elizabeth’s reign: they were an extremely expensive delicacy!

The content of a meal depended very much on the season, since many kinds of food did not keep or transport well. In November, people at the low end of the economic scale would slaughter any excess pigs they planned to eat during the winter. The meats were preserved by smoking or salting; bacon, ham, and sausage were all familiar winter fare. Fish were likewise smoked, dried, or salted. Salted meats were soaked before cooking to remove some of the excess salt, but they tended to be fairly salty nonetheless. Butter and cheese were essentially ways to preserve milk by reducing its water content, and they were also preserved by salting.

Another means of preservation was pickling, especially for seafoods and vegetables. Fruits, peas and beans could be preserved by drying; fruits were also made into preserves.

THE KITCHEN

At all levels of society, the conditions under which a meal was prepared would be beyond the skills of most modern cooks. All cooking involved an actual fire, requiring a fair bit of attention to control the cooking temperature. There were three principal ways of cooking a main dish: boiling, roasting, or baking. Of these, boiling was the easiest and probably the most common. It involved placing the food in a pot over hot coals or an open flame. Many pots had legs so they could be set directly in the fire, and fireplaces typically had chains and hooks for suspending pots; sometimes a ratchet allowed the pot to be moved up or down to adjust
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the temperature. Once the food was set to boil it needed relatively little attention, so boiled soups, pottages (stews), and meats were convenient dishes for busy housewives. Frying similarly involved laying the pan on a gridiron over the fire.

Roasts were turned on a spit next to the fire, with a dripping-pan below to catch the grease—a byproduct that might be used in other recipes or in providing domestic lighting. Roasting was a laborious procedure, since the spit had to be turned constantly. Some kitchens had automatic devices for this job, powered by the rising heat of the fire, but usually it was done by hand, often by the children of the house or the lowest-ranking kitchen servants.

Baking involved an enclosed clay or brick oven, sometimes built as a separate structure outside the home to reduce the risk of fire. A fire was lit inside the oven and allowed to burn until the interior was sufficiently hot, at which point the coals were raked out, the baking surface wiped with a damp rag-mop called a
malkin,
and the food slid inside with a
pell
(a flat long-handled wooden shovel) to bake in the residual heat. Those who could not afford a proper oven might bake under a crock turned upside down and covered with coals. Probably the commonest form of baked