Feasting and fasting were very much determined
by the religious calendar, although not entirely: Elizabeth’s government
instituted a fast day on Wednesdays. A proclamation of 1595 claimed that
135,000 head of beef “might be spared in a year in the city of London
by one day’s abstinence in a week”. This rule, widely observed
and enforced, had the double usefulness of encouraging fishing and thus
providing extra ships available for commandeering by the navy.
Poor people ate little meat, subsisting largely on pottage, a thick broth
of vegetables, possibly enlivened with a morsel of bacon and thickened
with oatmeal or some other protein-rich grain. Carrots were purple: the
orange variety only appeared much later. Because the poor ate mostly vegetables,
wealthy folk tended to disdain them an eat much more meat then people
do nowadays.
Authentic meals were appropriately cooked and served. Medieval and Tudor
recipes are interesting to compare with our own: vegetables and fruits
were far more limited than those available to us now, but many more varieties
of meat, fish, and fowl appeared on the table. Raised pies in their enveloping
“coffin” of pastry (not necessarily eaten) were a good way
of preserving the contents in the days before canning and freezing. Modern
taste buds are surprised by the frequent combination of meat, fruit, sugar
and spices which went into such pies. The original mince pie was halfway
between sweet and savoury. In any case the “courses” served
at meals included meats, jellies and sweetmeats together, each person
taking of whatever he wished according to his fancy. Only the banquet
was especially for sweet stuff. Usually served in a special banqueting
house or alfresco pavilion, this is an occasion for our Elizabethan family
to show off their “roundels”. Having consumed the “marchpane
subtiltie” from the plain side of his round, wooden mat, each diner
must turn it over to read and then sing the obscure poem on the reverse
– the “roundelay”.
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