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Elizabethan Food and Drink Overview

Elizabethan food presentation was important, especially for nobility, and aimed to have a great visual effect through serving methods, colors, and props like peacock feathers. It was common for unusual dishes like live blackbirds baked in a pie crust to be served to amuse nobility. London markets were well-located for housewives to shop daily for foodstuffs from butchers and shops. Cooking was often done over an open flame using pots, pans, and knives, while baking used pastry trays called "coffins". Convenience foods also existed like biscuits, pastries, and roasted meats sold ready-to-eat. Wine, ale, mead, cider, and flavored beers were common

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130 views2 pages

Elizabethan Food and Drink Overview

Elizabethan food presentation was important, especially for nobility, and aimed to have a great visual effect through serving methods, colors, and props like peacock feathers. It was common for unusual dishes like live blackbirds baked in a pie crust to be served to amuse nobility. London markets were well-located for housewives to shop daily for foodstuffs from butchers and shops. Cooking was often done over an open flame using pots, pans, and knives, while baking used pastry trays called "coffins". Convenience foods also existed like biscuits, pastries, and roasted meats sold ready-to-eat. Wine, ale, mead, cider, and flavored beers were common

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Elizabethan Food and Drink varied according to status and wealth.

In the early Medieval era meat was a


sign of wealth. But as the population rose, this was supported by improving agricultural techniques and
inventions. The Elizabethan era also saw the introductions of different food from the New World.

Elizabethan Food Presentation - the Visual Effect

It was important that Elizabethan Food prepared for the nobility, especially for feasts and banquets had a
great visual effect. Elizabethans enjoyed a a variety of serving methods, colors and various 'props'. Peacocks
were reared for consumption but their feathers were used to decorate cooked foods. Strange and unusual
shapes were used in food presentation. The old English Nursery Rhyme "Sing a song of sixpence' contains
the phrase 'four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie'. It was quite probable that a court jester may well
have suggested to the court cook to bake a pie pastry crust and place this over some live blackbirds to
surprise and amuse the nobility.

Purchasing Elizabethan Food

Generally only freemen of London were allowed to sell in the markets. Countrymen from outside London
had very limited rights. There were markets scattered throughout London; a housewife did not have far to
walk to do her daily food shopping. They were open six days a week, from 6 to 11 in the morning and 1 to 5
in the afternoon. Sunday trading was limited to perishables such as milk, fruit and vegetables, in the early
morning. Bread was strictly controlled, both in quality and price. There were rows of butchers’ stalls within
reach, everywhere. Non-perishables such as the sand used for household cleaning, and sugar planed off a
sugar-loaf in the quantity and quality needed, were sold in shops. Some shops were tiny, only a yard wide.

Elizabethan Food - Cooking Utensils

A large amount of Elizabethan cooking was conducted over an open flame. Useful cooking utensils for this
method of cooking Elizabethan food were pots, pans, kettles, skillets and cauldrons. To prepare the food a
range of knives, ladles, meat forks and scissors were used. Instead of a baking tin, Elizabethan cooks used a
baking tray made of hardened pastry, which was unnervingly called a ‘coffin’. The mortar and pestle were
essential cooking utensils for cooks who used nuts spices in their recipes. Each cook kept a book of their
own recipes.

Elizabethan convenience food?

Did people in the Elizabethan era have convenience food? Yes. Biscuits were invented by the Crusaders.
The 'Ploughman's Lunch' of bread and cheese was a staple diet of Lower-Class workers. Communal ovens
were available in villages for baking. And pastries and pies were sold as was ready cooked roasted meat. A
day out at the London Theatre, or a fair, would bring in a good trade in convenience foods.

Elizabethan drink

Water was not clean in the Middle Ages and people therefore drank wine and ale. The rich drank both and
the poor just drank ale. Honey was used to make a sweet alcoholic drink called mead which was drunk by
all classes. Wine was generally imported although some fruit wines were produced in England. A form of
cider referred to as 'Apple-wine' was also produced. Ales were brewed with malt and water, while beer
contained hops that held a bitter flavor. Other flavors were added to ales and beers such as bayberries,
orris, or long pepper. Consumption of weak, low-alcohol drinks at this time has been estimated at around
one gallon per person per day.

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