Elizabethan Era Food
The Elizabethan Era was from 1558-1603. This age is famous for great Writers such as William Shakespeare. But it is also famous for its food. In this era there were no famines. It was a revolution in food. Elizabethan food and drink varied according to your status and wealth .If you were poor, you ate like it, and if you were rich, you ate like it. It was important that when you prepared food for the nobility it had a great visual effect. The upper class diet differed considerably from the lower class diet. The upper classes consumed moremeats such as lamb, beef, bacon and goose and more fruits and vegetables such as turnips, carrots, onions, apple, pears and plums. They also ate a lot more deserts such as pastries tarts and cakes. They had a taste for spicy and also sweet foods and could afford the expensive spices and sugars to make exotic recipes. Compared to the lower classes diet which mostly consisted of Bread, Cheese, Milk and beer, with meat and vegetables being a treat. The lower class people couldn’t waste any food; stale breads could be made into bread crumbs and bread pudding. The typical poor farmer would sell his top products on the markets and would save the cheap food for the family.
Elizabethan food was prepared by several cooking methods like, Baking, boiling, smoking, salting and fried. With the most popular one cooking over an open flame. For this method of cooking they used pots, pans, kettles, skillets, and cauldrons. But instead of baking tin they used a baking tray made of hardened pastry, which was called “the coffin”. In large cities like London there were specific markets that sold fish, dairy, or fruits and vegetables. Meat was sold at large live stalk markets.
The Elizabethan age people were strict for when they ate, for breakfast food and drink were served between 6-7 AM, Dinner was served at 10-12 which for us would be lunch time, and supper was served at 6-7 PM.. For Breakfast people wanted a very fine diet, they wouldn’t eat much normal bread. They would eat a manchet, which weighed up to 6 pounds when cooked and is more brown then normal bread. They would flavor it with butter so it wouldn’t be so boring. Eggs were also a very popular breakfast item especially sunny side up. They also mixed eggs with breadcrumbs to fry fish and other meats. Elizabethan era people also ate pancakes made out of eggs and flour they were usually a treat for Sunday mornings. Dinner was the most important meal for any class. In a well put together household to set the table they would put a table cloth upon the table next a trencher, a napkin, a spoon were set in every place. Men had to remember to wash there hands and keep them clean throughout the meal. When sitting at a table some table manners were not to blow your nose also poking the meat or any other dish. When dinner guest were finished the meal they would put the bones on the floor not their plate. To finish the meal right a burp was accepted.
Since water was not clean during the middle ages people drank wine and ale the poor mostly drank ale and the rich drank wine and ale. The wine was mostly imported although some fruit wines