Elizabethan Food

There's an interesting exhibition at Nantwich Museum at present, celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

You can find out about life in Nantwich in Elizabethan times and also the 1950s.  Today Jan Greenland, dressed up in Elizabethan clothes, prepared a feast, from the time of Elizabeth I.

It was interesting to see and smell (sadly we weren't allowed samples) foods that the well off might have consumed over 500 years ago.


Some items were easily recognisable, others not so.

It amuses me how foods like galangal, which some chefs are just discovering, were widely used by our ancestors.  I'm told the date and spinach fritters are nice:

shown below the roast in the middle of the above picture, email me if you want the recipe.

I'd not heard of the spice Greyns of Paradise (Aframomum melegueta),  which was used to prepare Hypocras.  It's sold today as Guinea Pepper.  Jan suggested they'd sell more of it if they called it Grains of Paradise.  Some say they're an aphrodisiac, in Nigeria they've been used for determining guilt!

By contrast, Angela Graham talked about recipes from the 1950's, the effects of rationing and what a typical family would have eaten during the decade.

A loaf of bread was 1s 6d (7.5p) and tinned peaches were regarded as a luxury!  In the 1950s only 8% of families had a fridge and the childrens' diet with more fibre, vitamins and iron consumed was better than it is today!

Rather depressingly, I recognised everything in the 1950s exhibit.

Sadly no-one seems to make walnut kisses, or rock cakes any more, which means I don't get such a big laugh when I still tell the joke:

"Waiter these buns are like rock"

"Well I told you to take your pick"!

If you're interested in the history of food Nantwich museum has a permanent exhibition on cheese making, and also the 700 year old Nantwich salt ship. 

Web: www.nantwichmuseum.org.uk