Early Modern Food Culture in Great Britain 16th-17th Century - Essay Example

Early Modern Food Culture in England and Great Britain Introduction Nowadays, when varieties of food from roughly all parts of the world are wholly accessible in stores, it seems normal to imaging that the food and nutrition of Shakespeare and his colleagues, constitute mainly of what may be collected or obtained in local forests and fields, was scarce and relatively dry (Colquhoun 2007). Nonetheless, as shown by Joan Thirsk (2007), English people in the sixteenth century were aware of a broad array of foods and flavourings and had firm views about the quality and taste of what they consumed. The domestic realm of people who prepared food devoured by the fellow people of Shakespeare is illustrated most clearly in the volume ‘receipt books’ (Caton 1999, 6) they produced. This work presents recipes for “stew[ing] a calves head”, “pease pottage”, “a staple of the average person’s diet”, or cooking a “gooseberry foole” (Caton 1999, 6), documented by men and women who prepared these provisions five centuries ago. In 1610, Sarah Longe assembled her Receipt Booke. According to Heidi Brayman Hackel, Longe was “one of the respectable middling sort, the wife perhaps of a successful tradesman or a member of the lesser gentry” (Brown 2009, 30). She documented a procedure for wafers that were relished by King James and his Queen; however, it is a different wafer recipe in her work that shows the considerable dissimilarities between her kitchen and present-day kitchens (Brown 2009). She starts on, “Take halfe a pound of sugar, as much flower” (Schoonover 1998, 111). Then, when a few servings of rosewater and eleven eggs have been added: “Beate it 2 hours...; bake it an hour...; then you must dry it againe in the Sun or Oven” (Glasse 1983, 116). A different procedure for baking a cake starts on, “Take halfe a bushel of fflower, 8 pound of Currence, and 5 pounds of butter...” (Caton 1999, 100). Entertaining visitors and providing for her family were challenging duties for Longe. Receipt Booke is one of various such works in the Folger compendium that shows the assortment to be seen in the food culture of early modern England (Caton 1999). This essay will discuss the food culture of early modern England, specifically sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Food preparation and consumption will be discussed in a wide-ranging perspective, from its roots in usual and substitute crops through innovation in agriculture, market transportation, and household delivery to its presentation on the table in traditional and modern foods and drinks. Bread, pottage, and ale made up the daily basic diet for majority of the population. Flavours in flours and breads differed from one region of the country to another and, usually, in relation to one’s livelihood (Thirsk 2007). Fruit cocktails suggested by Thomas Tryon (1691) for the destitute in his A New Art of Brewing illustrate how one kind of available food may give healthy infusions. Printed Lenten menus generally show what vegetable victuals and dairy products enhanced the usual bread and sauce (Oxford 1913). Flavourings were used to produce the sweet/spicy taste in most dishes. Formerly Arabian, these spices were introduced to Europe in the thirteenth century by travelling Crusaders. English cooking mixed the tastes of imported spices such as pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sour binders and cloves with herbs or mixtures like vinegar or verjuice (Oxford 1913), a ‘liquid from pressed unripe apples or grapes’ (Caton 1999, 10). Flavourings were imported from Malaysia, specifically in Spice Islands, by Venetian and Portuguese traders. Foreign foodstuffs brought into London in the sixteenth century comprised precious quantities of French wines, sugar, cinnamon, dates, currants, ginger, nutmeg, figs, pepper, and marmalade (Mason 2004). Treats such as sugar originally emerged in western cuisine as remedies, and sugar was prized for its believed nutritional gains into the eighteenth century (Mason 2004). The spicy, sweet cookery that defined European food in the medieval period was gradually replaced by one of sour and salty tastes. One large-scale change for the nobilities during the seventeenth century was the introduction of more fruits and fresh vegetables to their daily diets (Colquhoun 2007). Publications portraying new findings encouraged English farmers and gardeners to try what William Harrison referred to as “roots from Spain, Portingale, and the Indies” (Harrison 1995, 129). Newly discovered root crops such as turnips and carrots were being harvested for daily consumption (Colquhoun 2007). William Lawson’s (1618) A New Orchard and Garden and related gardening handbooks recommend appropriate care for unusual plants such as melons, asparagus, and strawberries (Hazlitt 2006). Tastes transformed from the medieval spicy/sweet aroma to the salty/sour one well-known to modern customers, as in John Evelyn’s (1699) salad manual entitled Acetaria (Oxford 1913). The multitudes of fruit conserves and jams found in the recipe book of Sarah Longe (1610) substantiate the increasing availability of gooseberries, quinces, damsons, apricots, cherries, and raspberries (Schoonover 1998). The processes of feeding an early modern family unit involve food preparation methods and marketing. The drawings of London markets by Hugh Alley in 1598 portray herbwives and cultivators from London, Surrey, Essex, Kent, and Middlesex, each vending specific foodstuffs (Oxford 1913). The account log retained for a London family unit from 1612 to 1614 registers what the keeper paid to maintain the household’s pantry, buttery, and cellar (Sim 1998). Even though Thomas Betts (1658) gave a manor with a small number of fancy products worth seventy-eight pounds, it is safe to assume that his banquets included roasted meats, boiled stuffs, and fowl, and complicated cuisines boiled in his two casseroles (Sim 1998). Susanna Packe’s instructions for brackish eels, one of numerous preserving manuals in manuscript and printed cuisine volumes, demonstrate the preservation of foods for the winter (Caton 1999). Influence from France is observed in many recipes such as the simmered capon in white pottage by Mary Hooke which has a French roûx or binder prepared with flour. Mainly prominent was The French Cook by La Varenne, interpreted for English readers (Caton 1999). Sarah Longe’s Receipt Booke Sarah Longe is considered one of the several early modern females who appeared from the historical account due to a single remarkable manuscript. Her recipe book presents a foretaste of her household realm, as it shows her resources and her skills in provisioning a household (Schoonover 1998). This manuscript indicates the array of responsibilities and tasks usual of housewives in the early seventeenth century and it bears witness to one of the functions of literacy in non-aristocratic women’s lives (Nichols 2007). Sarah Longe’s distinction as a ‘Mistress’ rather than a ‘Lady’ makes her as one of the highly regarded women, the wife possibly of a member of the lower class or a rich merchant (Nichols 2007). While she appears not to have been an aristocrat, she had remarkable relations with members of the upper class to incorporate in her book a medicine “approved by La[dy] Parsons” (Caton 1999, 99) and a method for wafers that “King James, and his Queene have eaten with much liking” (Nichols 2007, 104). Moreover, similar to her use of the dignified title ‘Mistress’ to define her own identity, the addition of gold leaf as a particular recipe’s ingredient indicates that she runs a well-endowed household (Schoonover 1998). As the household’s mistress, Sarah would have been in charge of bearing, raising, and nurturing her children, managing her servants, possibly training the female helpers, caring for the ill, and producing and supervising the food and clothing production for the household (Sim 1998). Therefore, her recipe book would have functioned as a manual and account of her supervision of the kitchen, garden, and distillery (Caton 1999). In the book’s index, Longe classifies her recipes into three groups: “Preserves & Conserves,” “Cokery,” and “Phisike & Chirurgery” (Caton 1999, 99). Distinct in the index, the medicinal and culinary procedures are fused in the book itself. Astonishing though it may be to readers, this fusion of medicine and recipe arises during the period in written household manuals and in other manuscript copies of women (Nichols 2007). The well-known guide English Huswife by Gervase Markham (1615), for instance, fuses medicinal solutions and household recipes under the category of “all worthy knowledges which doe belong to [the housewife’s] vocation” (Markham 1994, xxviii); whilst less capable than the expert ‘Practitioner’, the remarkable housewife of Markham should be equipped to treat “those ordinary sicknesses which daily perturbe” (Wall 2002, 35) her family members. Lady Margaret Hoby, a contemporary of Longe, narrated in her journal numerous instances of caring for the ill, dressing wounds, preparing medications, even carrying out investigative surgery (Nichols 2007). Although Longe does not illustrate in her manuscript the ability in “Phisike & Chirurgery” that was performed by Hoby in her journal, she nonetheless documents an array of medications for flatulence, coughs, headaches, all of which evidently fell under the realm of housewives (Sim 1998). These medications are the most completely catalogued, and hence possibly the most discussed, entries in her manuscript (Sim 1998). Among the numerous abilities shown in Receipt Booke is Longe’s skill, literacy, specifically, to write and apply this volume of household management. Early modern England’s literacy rates have proven extremely complicated to measure (Schoonover 1998): existing literature offers conflicting measurements of the literacy of the population, and quantitative investigations of historians confuse the selection of partial literacies prevalent in the era. The most inclusive research available, which is founded on the existence of marks or autographs on official texts, attributes to female ‘substantial illiteracy’ (Wall 2002, 61) due to the fact that hardly any women signed on official certificate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For the 1600’s initial decades, when Longe perhaps created her recipe book, “female signature illiteracy was 91% in London and 94% in Norfolk and Suffolk” (Caton 1999, 101). Rates of signature literacy, nevertheless, highly underrated the number of individuals who could read. Due to the fact that, in early modern England, the reading and writing skills were taught independently (Wall 2002); accordingly, many people must have been capable of reading but not writing. Therefore, other household members of Sarah Longe may have been capable of using her recipe book, although they could not write themselves (Nichols 2007). Specifically, women are prone to have been moderately literate because schools frequently allowed reading, but not writing, from the sets of courses for girls (Wall 2002). In her capability of both reading and writing, Longe was possibly uncommon in mainstream female population; she could have acquired her literacy from the advantages of her social status, from the eagerness of a parent, or from her own brilliance, inquisitiveness and attentiveness (Wall 2002). The surfacing of the Receipt Booke additionally proposes that Longe possessed other manuscripts: the liberal borders and the nonexistence of other marks in the volume may convince readers that Longe had possession of other documents on which to practice her penmanship, write accounts, or chronicle important events (Caton 1999). Receipt Brooke falls under domestic literature that, similar to women’s letters, journals, and other household guides, show not merely women’s responsibilities within the domestic unit but also their involvement in their communities (Schoonover 1998). Whether Longe transcribed recipes from chats or duplicated recipes from books written by other women, her literacy linked her distillery and her kitchen to those of Mr. Triplett, Mr. Aires, and Lady Parsons, whilst her wafers connected her table to the Queen and King’s (Caton 1999). Early Modern Food Culture in England from the Perspectives of Different Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century English Authors Healths improvement; or rules comprizing and discovering the nature, method, and manner of preparing all sorts of food used in this nation (Hazlitt 2006, 39). According to Thomas Moffett (1553-1604), diet is a systematic choice of sustenance “for the preservation recovery or continuance of the health of mankind” (Caton 1999, 29). Moffett, in several chapters, categorises all foods into five classifications: a variety of breads; fruits of field, garden, and orchard; fresh- and sea-water fish; dairy products, such as eggs, curds, blood, and whey; meats of birds and beasts (Hazlitt 2006). Flavourings, such as spice, sugar, and salt, sauces, and ultimately, the way, sequence, and time of eating wrap up his book. Proper food and medicine preparation considered not just the humour of individual patients, but also that of her groceries (Brown 2009). Producing herbs and vegetables relied on the positions of heavenly bodies, particular the sun, stars, and moon, as herbal comedies differed depending on what time of the day the greens were harvested (Colquhoun 2007). Claiming that a healthy diet makes life longer, Moffett suggests particular diets for young people, the able-bodied, and the gravely ill. A treatise of cleanness in meats and drinks: of the preparation of food, and the excellency of good airs, and the benefits of clean sweet beds. Also of the generation of bugs, and their cure, to which is added, a short discourse of the pain in the teeth, shewing from what cause it does chiefly proceed, and also how to prevent it (Caton 1999, 29). With Thomas Tryon’s (1634-1703) discussion of the ache in the teeth, he aims to inform his audiences about the essence of “continual cleansing and washing” (Caton 1999, 29). Sketching tooth decay and gum disease to “the continual eating of Flesh, and of fat, sweet things... which do not only obstruct the stomach, but fur and foul the mouth,” (Caton 1999, 29) he claims that rapid digestion puts off corruption of gums and teeth. Emphases about dental care match previous sections on food preparation. Tryon particularly advises (Caton 1999, 29): ... every Morning to wash your Mouth with at least ten or twelve Mouthfuls of pure Water, cold from the Spring or River, and so again after Dinner and Supper, swallowing down a Mouthful of Water after each Washing: For there is no sort of Liquor in the World so pure and clean as water... He commends husbandmen and shepherds for their familiarity and understanding of nature. His faith in a temperate, vegetable-oriented diet and in alcohol moderation shows his Anabaptist temperance and arises all over his health books (Thirsk 2007). Medicaments for the Poor; or, physick for the common people, containing excellent remedies for most common diseases incident to man’s body; made of such things as are common to be had in almost every country in the world; and are made with a little art, and final charge (Caton 1999, 30). Jean Prevost (1585-1631) catalogues the kinds and extents of migration, each in relation to the treated body part (Oxford 1913). As all provisions, raw or cooked, matched up to one of the four illnesses, melancholy, choler, blood, or phlegm, so did remedies given to the elements of the body. Cordials, medicaments, purges, clysters, and other medications for illnesses mixed garden plants, flowers, or herbs with sugar, oil, and flower juices (Oxford 1913). Comparable to sugar, vegetables were viewed as an exotic specialty and originally became prominent to myriads of people as remedies. A plant in the cabbage family, colewort was a crop bought from The Netherlands and was originally regarded nutritious food for the destitute due to their food benefit (Woolgar, Serjeantson & Waldron 2006). Among the vegetables or herbs believed to “loosen the belly in a flegmatick case,” (General Books 2009, 555) colewort was provided as pottage, juice, or simmered with salt and oil. Other medications incorporated lentil broth or chick pea, oat meal in porridge, dry figs marinated in wine or milk, the broth of salt fish, new walnuts, bran bread, and “the decoction of sweet cods (peas)” (Caton 1999, 30). Such remedies were frequently provided as breakfast. Others, such as broiled capers, were consumed as flavouring for another dish or in sour ‘sallets’ (Caton 1999). The purpose of Culpeper is “not to give over, until I have published in English whatsoever shall be necessary to make and Industrious, Diligent, Rational Man a knowing Physician” (Hill 1991, 164). He explains how remedies can be produced simply from natural ingredients to set aside resources, or for immediate respite while travelling (Hill 1991). In majority of recipe books, a wide array of formulas for main courses, such as sallets, pies, ‘fritterstuffe’, dinner cuisines, such as snow, marchpanes, ‘sugar-workers’, and remedies, such as salves to lessen pains, distilled waters to clean cuts emerged side by side (Caton 1999, 30). Additionally included may be formulas for medicines mixed from flowers and fruits for the cure of more acute illnesses such as kidney stones, ruptures, consumptions, and ulcers. Each properties of a plant as syrup, a paste, oil, powder, or conserve would be explained (Hill 1991). For instance, violet oil helped to alleviate a melancholy disease. The formula for violet syrup integrated in this volume requires nineteen ounces of crushed violets simmered in sugar; when chilled and melted in almond milk, it cured soreness in children (Oxford 1913). Ann, like numerous housewives, acquired her food preparation manual from Mary Granville (1646-1669), her mother, perhaps as a gift for her marriage. The Granville family resided in Malaga and Cadiz, Spain, in the seventeenth century (Wall 2002); hence a large number of their recipes are linked to a specific place or influence. The combination of food preparation and medicines reveals the role of the wife as the caregiver of the family and her duty for the preparation of ointments, distilled waters, and other remedies (Gutierrez 2003). Bread and Ale Bread was the diets’ mainstay of most people, whether minced into sippets and included into a pottage or a fricassee, applied as a thickener, or consumed with most other provisions (Thirsk 2007). Numerous flours were familiar to Shakespeare and his colleagues: barley, rye, wheat and rye (Thirsk 2007). William Harrison documented several exotic flours that had been applied in periods of starvation: lentils, oats, beans, acorns, and peas. Manchet bread was described white and was consumed by the upper class (Harrison 1994). Two kinds of brown bread and ‘wheaten’ were more usual table food for “servants... and the inferior kind of people to feed on” (Harrison 1994, 134). Harrison (1994) states that northern farmers were unaware of winter barley and summer wheat, both of which were known provisions in Essex. The edict identified the kinds of bread that could be produced: horsebread, or bran and bean flour bread meant for horses; wheaten, white, household bread, or brown bread; and simnel bread, or bread initially simmered then baked (Hazlitt 2006). The least allowable weights for breads were established with the intention of preventing spoiling of flour or taking away of dough from the unbaked bread (Hazlitt 2006). Baking of spice ‘biskets’, buns, and breads, was only permitted for Christmas, Good Friday, and funerals. Breads of foreign bakers were expected to weigh roughly two ounces more than those of open bakers (Mason 2004). In order to further regulate production, the edict obliged that all bakers mark their breads with a seal (Glasse 1983). The cookbook of John Murrell (1630) comprises “a Bill of Fare fishdayes, Fasting-dayes, Ember-weekes, or Lent, all set forth according to the new English and French fashions” (Oxford 1913, 17). Offered to the daughter of Lord Mayor of London, Martha Hayes, the book of Murrell was published originally in 1621 (Caton 1999). His certified journeys in The Netherlands, Italy, and France may have encouraged him to make public “by reason of the general ignorance of most men in the practise of catering” (Caton 1999, 36). The Lenten menu includes several of the foods more frequently seen in the diet of a yeoman, as proposed by Joan Thirsk. The “boyld sallett of herbes [vegetables] or of carrets,” “buttered parsnips,” “tarte of spinnage or carretts,” and “the buttered eggs” (Caton 1999, 36) bear a resemblance to the diet that Harrison (1994) attributed to the destitute in 1577. Roots, such as carrots, grown in Yarmouth to originally feed the destitute were sold abroad from the Norwich region to London. Shipments may be as bulky as thirty tons (Hill 1991). Agricultural guidebooks, such as Tryon’s, frequently introduced new crops as a process for giving food or employment for the destitute (Woolgar et al. 2006). Then, Tryon tenders “a good and profitable way for the Poor, and wholsom for the Rich, to make Cherry-wine, or Drink of Gooseberies, Currans, Apricocks and Plums, being easie and wholsome, pleasant and cheap” (Caton 1999, 36). Tryon presents two recipes, assuming that by applying one’s cherries, it will cost “very little more than ordinary Beer, and be much stronger” (Dillon 2004, 58). Myriads of the cookery formulas in the collection of Penelope Patrick (1646) have their influences documented, such as the pease sauce “from the Cook in Suffolk-Street” (Caton 1999, 36). The recipes of Patrick reveal her knowledge with new cooking methods in France. The pease sauce, gelled with ‘gelly broth’ is seasoned with sorrel and clove-studded bacon, little mint, and spinach (Oxford 1913). Fricassees require baking and frying. The term originates from the French frire, to break, casser, and to fry. Small portions of meat were sautéed, and then boiled in broth with flavourings (Colquhoun 2007). The broth was solidified and dished up over sippets. Elizabeth Fowler’s (1684) “ffrigasy of rabbet or chickin” (Colquhoun 2007, 168) seasoned with herbs demonstrates the change away from well seasoned dishes that was being cooked in nobility kitchens by the 1680s. The regularity of meat consumption apparently all over England brought about much remark among foreign tourists prior to 1700 (Woolgar et al. 2006). As market and farm areas concentrated on their products in the 1600s, numerous urban residents and upper class encountered a more diverse diet that included plentiful dairy products, fish, meat, wine, and beer (Colquhoun 2007). John Archer’s (1660-1684) purpose was to avert “the great damage that comes upon the most people daily by not knowing... thereby many dig their Graves with their Teeth...” (Caton 1999, 37). Every section in his guidebook discusses a different element of diet, its uses, humour, and tastes. The puffed rice that Archer depicts are flours: rye, barley, and wheat. Recipes contain a barley soup that nourishes the ill (Oxford 1913). Rice simmered in milk produces a sweet like pudding which “increaseth seed” (Caton 1999, 37). He identifies tobacco as “a new hot bath” (Caton 1999, 37) that leads to a lessened food craving. Archer, a general practitioner, did not have a famous supporter and only produced one manuscript. His effort shares a concern with growing fertility with that of majority of his more successful colleagues (Thirsk 2007). Conclusions The objectives of this paper are (1) to provide a comprehensive description of food variety in early modern England and in so doing contradict the notion that earlier diet were dull; (2) to show class and local differences in foods consumed; and (3) to provide sixteenth- and seventeenth-century food trends in England and ongoing adjustments to the diet of English people. This paper maintains that the diet of England was far from dull even at the start of the era in question, but it also provides a vivid narrative of England’s steady barrage of newly-discovered foods. This change took place rather abruptly in London and other hectic areas and far more gradually in country, inner areas, but the ongoing arrival of new provisions increased extensively. Merchant’s importation of overseas foodstuffs is merely portion of the story: tourists also brought uncommon eating practices to England, like the Italian style of flavouring salad leaves with vinegar and olive oil (Mason 2004). Several new patterns utilised current resources. For instance, cheese and butter were not commonly consumed in England until tourists identified their universality in the Low Countries and Germany (Hazlitt 2006). Farming and gardening became a trend in upper class societies in the sixteenth century, resulting in the fostering of domestic and foreign vegetables and fruits such as sweet cherries, cucumbers, radishes, and strawberries (Thirsk 2007). These developments were most evident in London and among the aristocrats, but there are proofs of a steady spread out to the rural regions and down to the poor (Thirsk 2007). Apart from the arrival of new foods, this paper emphasises other trends that altered the diet of England. Recurrent phases of meagre harvests from the latter part of the sixteenth century encouraged a persistent hunt for scarce foods, ultimately prompting the planting of the potato, whilst the English Civil War urged on dairy products following the indispensability of cheese and butter as foods for the soldiers (Gutierrez 2003). New preserving techniques considerably enhanced the capability of preserving foods, and the introduction of chimneys to homes altered the manner it was prepared. Furthermore, commercialisation started to change methods of animal husbandry and gardening (Gutierrez 2003): dependence of London food monger on stall-crushed animals and winter garden vegetables attracted disapprovals in the eighteenth century, indicative of comparable objections nowadays (Colquhoun 2007). Food in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England is an important subject. However, sometimes one may become confused in a torrent of information about the subject, but there are scholars who presented sufficient stories to sustain the progress of the narrative. Among their most useful topics is their suggestion of a lost domain of flavour. Barberries, rye pastry, intensely flavoured salad leaves, and purified herbal essences are among the previously common aromas that have passed by (Thirsk 2007), and a sense of longing for these lost foods encompasses scholarship. The scarcity of sources on poor and countryside people compels scholars to dedicate the largest room to food developments in Great Britain and among the upper class, but they acknowledge this dilemma and counteract it with information about the practices of commonplace people whenever likely. Furthermore, historians of medicine may want to witness the connection between medicine and food unearthed a little more. Finally, recipe books in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England were remarkable and quite informative, and they reliably show that the early modern diet of England was utterly varied and rich. References Brown, Peter, ed. A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Caton, Mary Anne, ed. Fooles and Fricassees: Food in Shakespeares England. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1999. Colquhoun, Kate. Taste: The Story of Britain through Its Cooking. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2007. Dillon, Patrick. Gin: The Much Lamented Death of Madam Geneva the Eighteenth Century Gin Craze. Boston: Justin, Charles & Co., 2004. General Books. British Farmers Magazine, Exclusively Devoted to Agriculture and Rural Affairs. UK: General Books, 2009. Glasse, Hannah. Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. New York: Prospect Books, 1983. Gutierrez, Nancy. Shall She Famish Then?: Female Food Refusal in Early Modern England. England: Ashgate Publishing , 2003. 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