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Cakes and Ale
- University of Wisconsin Press
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Cakes and Ale The food of the Elizabethan was less like "stodge" than that the English are supposed to be sustained. by today. In some ways Elizabethan food was far from bland; it was, in fact, rather spiced with the preservatives that The Crusades had brought. Tourists today recall the "English breakfast" of homely "bed and breakfast" establishments of the earlier 20th century. (Now the urban "B &- Bs" are full of the homeless on welfare and the parsimonious "Continental breakfast" of a roll and harsh coffee or tea is all tourists are offered.) The big breakfast was not an Elizabethan feature, and what pubs still offer as a "ploughman's lunch" (bread and cheese, perhaps a pickled onion, with some beer) was more or less like the Elizabethan's midday meal. The one big meal of the day was in the evening, meat being the main ingredient and salad and vegetables being occasional rather than inevitable accompaniments. When offered good food, however, the Englishman was a "good trencherman," cleaning his wooden plate, and for celebrations there was a "groaning board," Fynes Morrison writing that "at feasts for invited friends [the English] are so excessive in the number of dishes, as the table is not thought well-furnished, except they stand one upon another," whether they held roasts or the salad named for Elizabeth's father, "Good King Henry." Of course, in Elizabeth's time the English had plenty of ale and beer, imported wines, but no tea. The little islands off the coast of Europe became in the Renaissance a world sea power. In consequence the newly far-flung trade and exploration brought to England a much more varied diet than England enjoyed in the Middle Ages and such exotic New World foods as potatoes. Now the ideal of a "square" or "meat and potatoes" meal could develop, "solid nourishment" to "stick to the ribs" of vigorous people in a cold and clammy island. The situation of our region, lying near unto the north, doth cause the heat of our stomachs to be of somewhat greater force: therefore our bodies do crave a little more ample nourishment than the inhabitants of the hotter regions are accustomed withal, whose digestive force is not altogether so vehement, because their internal heat is not so strong as ours, which is kept in by the coldness of the air that from time to time (especially in winter) doth environ our bodies.... In number of dishes and change of meat the nobility of England (whose cooks are for the most part musical-headed Frenchmen and strangers) do most exceed, sith there is no day in manner that passeth over their heads wherein they have not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, cony, capon, pig or so many of these as the season yieldeth, but also some portion of the red or fallow deer, beside great variety of fish and wild-fowl, and thereto sundry other delicates wherein the sweet hand of the sea-faring Portingal is not wanting: 51 [3.80.131.164] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:19 GMT) 52 Elizabethan Popular Culture so that for a man to dine with one of them, and to taste of every dish that standeth before him (which few use to do, but each one feedeth upon that meat him best liketh for the time, the beginning of every dish notwithstanding being reserved unto the greatest personage that sitteth at the table, to whom it is drawn up still by the waiters as order requireth, and from whom it descendeth again even to the lower end, whereby each one may taste thereof, is rather to yield unto a conspiracy with a great deal of meat for the speedy suppression of natural health, than the use of a necessary mean to satisfy himself with a competent repast to sustain his body withal. But as this large feeding is not seen in their guests no more is it in their own persons, for sith they have daily much resort unto their tables (and many times unlooked for) and thereto retain great numbers of servants, it is very requisite and expedient for them to be somewhat plentiful in this behalf. The chief part likewise of their daily provision is brought in before them (commonly in silver vessels, if they be of the degree of barons, bishops and upwards) and placed on their tables; whereof, when they have taken what it pleaseth them, the rest is reserved and afterward sent...