Daily Life During The Reformation (37 page)

For banquets, pies have been reported measuring as much as
nine feet in circumference with a weight of some 165 pounds. Such a pie would
have used about two bushels of flour and at least 24 pounds of butter. It would
have been stuffed with various animals such as goose, rabbit, pigeon, and fowl,
the latter usually a pheasant or peacock, was often cooked whole and presented
to the guests complete with feathers.

One dish that appeared on the royal table when the guests
were to be especially impressed was a tart filled with live birds. When it was
cut open, they flew out (having been put in just before serving).

When the court went on a hunting expedition, the
accompanying entourage included butchers; fishmongers; sellers of fruit,
vegetables, and wine; and bakers. If the hunt was conducted on meatless days,
fast horsemen would be there to ride to the coast in order to bring back fish
or shellfish for the repast.

In 1553, Elizabeth I of England had Parliament proclaim
that fish was compulsory for Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and during Lent.
This law helped boost the fishing industry and contributed to bringing down the
price of meat.

One popular dessert was trifle, enjoyed both at home or out
on a picnic by families of all classes and means.

TRIFLE

Take a pint of the best and thickest cream, and set it on
the fire in a clean skillet, and put into it sugar, cinnamon, and a nutmeg cut
into four quarters, and so boil it well: then put it into the dish you intend
to serve it in, and let it stand to cool till it be no more than lukewarm: then
put in a spoonful of the best earning [rennet], and stir it well about, and so
let it stand till it be cold, and then strew sugar upon it, and so serve it up,
and this you may serve either in a dish, glass, or on another plate.

Lower Classes

People of lower social standing including merchants,
artisans, and professionals, used pewter plates and dishes instead of gold and
silver. Often children served the food and generally attended to the table. In
the poorer sections of cities, laborers, street cleaners, water carriers, and
those in other menial jobs used wooden plates and bowls.

In some areas, peasants ate nothing before they started
work at sunrise and only a snack later, which had to last them until supper.
They usually produced their own food. Bees supplied honey used for sweetening
instead of sugar; meat was cured and salted; and bread and beer, staples of the
diet, were made at home. Herbs were used in the kitchens of both rich and poor.
The busy farmer’s’ wife made pickles and jams and preserved vegetables grown on
their plot. If permitted by the landlord, her husband hunted and fished to
supplement their diet.

The best produce was sold at local markets, and the family
took what was left. Itinerant merchants brought various seasonings for sale, as
well as news of the world outside the village.

The Poor

The diet of the poor was monotonous, and the peasants were
constantly undernourished. Bread, cheese, and onions sufficed in the morning;
and for their one cooked meal per day, they stirred grain in with boiling
water, cooked it slowly until the grain softened, and then added boiled roots
and vegetables to make pottage that was scooped up by coarse bread made of
barley or rye. A little meat or a slice of bacon would be a luxury.

Peasants’ food included eggs, milk, and home-grown
vegetables such as leeks, cabbage, turnips, peas, beans, and garlic. Herbs were
widely used for everything.

There are many different recipes for pottage; but most seem
to be variations on the theme of broth made of vegetables and herbs augmented
with meat. One of these is given below:

POTTAGE (after Gervase Markham)

Take some meat bones or a strip
of bacon, wash and boil well, skimming off any fat that comes to the top.

When cooked, strain and put the
meat aside.

Using the same broth, add a
couple of handfuls of cereal such as oats, barley or rye, along with some
sliced onions, lettuce, carrots, turnips, spinach, cauliflower or cabbage.

Return the meat to the pot and
add parsley, rosemary, a pinch of mace and ½ teaspoonful of sugar.

Boil all together, then cover
and simmer about ¾ hour or until done. Taste to adjust the seasonings.

Put a slice of bread in the
bottom of a soup dish and cover with pottage.

SCOTLAND

The Englishman, Fynes Moryson, whose travels took him to
Scotland in April 1598, discussed the Scottish diet, noting that they ate a lot
of kale and cabbage but not much fresh meat. When they ate mutton and geese, it
was salted (which Fynes hated), and beef, venison, grouse, and fish, mostly
salmon, were restricted to the wealthy. Porridge, stovies (a potato and meat stew),
and various cheeses were consumed by almost everyone.

They drank pure wine, although at banquets comfits
(sweetmeats made of fruit, roots or seeds, and preserved in sugar) were added.
Wine was also taken by the wealthy in the morning and during the day. Brewed
ale was a favorite drink.

Fynes attended a dinner at the house of a knight whose
servants brought meat to the table set with plates of broth in which the meat
was soaked. Those sitting at the main table, however, had chicken with prunes
instead. He did’ not think much of the cooking.

GERMANY

The free cities had a year’s supply of victuals put away in
the public houses to feed people in case the city was besieged. Moryson found
the diet of the Germans to be simple and modest, apart from their heavy drinking.
They were content with a morsel of meat and bread, preferring their own
produce, and little was imported.

Commonly served at the table was sour cabbage (crawt) and
beer boiled with bread (swoope). In upper Germany, veal and beef were served in
small quantities, but in lower Germany the meal contained bacon and large dried
savory puddings. In addition, dried fish, dried apples, and pears prepared with
a cinnamon and butter sauce were popular. The Germans used many sauces, and one
that particularly appealed to Moryson was made from cherries, served with
roasted meat. In Saxony, he experienced a meal consisting of an entire calf’s
head complete with teeth. He said it looked like the head of a monster.
Nevertheless, he enjoyed it because of the sauces accompanying it.

The Germans ate little cheese or butter, and Moryson
mentions only one cheese he found palatable that was made from goats’ milk.
Another was prepared with a round hole into which was poured some wine. It was
eaten when it was sufficiently moldy along with the maggots as “dainty
morsels.” Cheeses were strong and salty to stimulate the need for drink.

Breakfast was seldom eaten at the inns except by those
setting out on journeys who would generally take a little ginger bread and
aquavit. Moryson tells us that Germans never left the table until everything
was consumed no matter how long it took, and the worst complaint that could be
made was that there was not enough to eat. Some cities passed laws that guests
could not sit more than five hours at the table.

Invited to a wedding feast in the house of an important
citizen of Leipzig, Moryson described the supper more or less as follows:
first, he was served hot and cold roast beef with a sauce made from sugar and
sweet wine. This was followed by fried carp, then roasted mutton, then dried
pears prepared with butter and cinnamon. Next came broiled salmon and herrings
and finally a kind of bread-like English fritters with a little cheese. Bread,
sprinkled with salt and pepper was provided to promote thirst. Barrels of wine
were steadily consumed throughout the meal, and once it was finally finished,
the drinking went on until no one could stand. Moryson seemed impressed with
German drinking habits as he mentions them again and again. He tells us, for
example, in Saxony, in the evening, men reeled from one side of the street to
the other, stumbled and fell in the dirt, jostled every post, pillar, and
person while trying to walk, and the gates of the city seemed too narrow for
them to pass through. Yet it was no shame to be so drunk, nor to urinate under
the table at the inn or in bed. It was not uncommon to fall out of the saddle
when trying to ride under the influence of too much wine or beer.

A
German Baptismal Feast

On special occasions, in a German city such as Nurnberg, it
was customary to invite family and friends for a prodigious feast. On December
10, 1549, for example, at the baptism of Paul Behaim II, 36 pints of mead, 48
pastries, 10 pints of new wine, and 7 of superior dark red wine were served
along with more pastries and dates; three days later, two tables of guests were
served 17 boiled and salted fish, a rabbit, 2 chickens, 24 geese, 2 ducks, 2
doves, bacon, 2 capons, white bread, fruit, 7 pints of new wine and 7 of
year-old wine. Six weeks after the birth, neighbors and laborers were sent
gifts that included pork, venison, other wild game, lard cake, wine, and (for
some) expensive Westphalian ham. The reason for this last benificence was to
proclaim that the mother had now recovered and returned to administration of
the household.

La Cocina Pobre (“The Poor
Kitchen”). Pieter van der Heyden, 1563.

La Cocina Rica (“The Rich
Kitchen”). Pieter van der Heyden, 1563.

THE NETHERLANDS

For a main meal, sliced artichokes, beans, cabbage,
cauliflower, carrots, onions, peas, and other vegetables, along with stale
bread were made into a stew or hodgpodge. When the pig was killed in the
autumn, the meat was sold or salted, and some was made into sausages. Mustard
was a favorite sauce eaten with sausages and tripe. Wealthy people ate wild
fowl and venison, others consumed fish, a staple food, purchased in the market
or from a fishmonger making the rounds of the neighborhood. Fresh fish was not
always as fresh as claimed, but the housewife could usually find dried cod and
smoked herring or mussels. Bread, butter, and cheese were eaten by everyone,
and specialties included mushrooms, frogs’ legs, and oysters.

Breakfast was generally not eaten except by children who
might devour a piece of bread before going to school or work. The bakers’
antiquated ovens were unreliable, and bread was not always ready at a given
hour; only when the baker blew his horn, was fresh bread ready to be bought.
When buying bread, a cloth was taken to carry it, and before cutting it, the
wife would make the sign of the cross and then carve one into the loaf.

Gentleman’s bread was white, made of wheat; this was also
the bread given to someone about to be executed. The less well-off ate black
bread, made from rye. In the country, people made their own rye bread adding
salt, pork fat, raw onions, and cheese to improve the taste.

Small birds were often caught by placing a board, raised at
one end by a stick, under which a few seeds were sprinkled. The stick was
attached to the house by a string, and the birds were trapped when the string
was pulled and the board crashed down on them. In addition, pots hung from the
gutter of the roof for nesting birds, generally starlings, and when the young
birds were nearly ready to leave the nest, they were gathered up and cooked.