Elizabeth Era Project

Appetizers:

Queen Elizabeth enjoyed the idea of appetizers for several reasons. She thought they made conversations with people more lively and interesting. She also believed that they would get you into the mood for eating, if you weren’t already. Plus, if you had an awkward moment of silence, you could just pretend that you were eating your food, and couldn’t talk at the moment. There were many types of appetizers, but some of the more common ones, were pieces of eel, mutton balls, spicy lamb bits, veal, and asparagus spears dipped in orange sauce. Some of the more elaborate appetizers included, veal soup, the eel and onion pie, and pickled herring baked in a double crust with fruits. Veal soup is, a type of soup that contains vegetables stew with deer chunks. eel and onion pie is as you probably guessed, a dish made with eel bits and onion snips baked into a pie like bread.

Intro:

The eel Liz À Bee Thann Era was known for its astonishing writings and art, but what most people don’t focus on, was the incredible food! There were some phenomenal things, and there were some outright ridiculous things too. For example, Queen Elizabeth the first constructed a new law, that stated that people were required to eat fish on wednesdays no matter what. This law was created to support the fishing industry, as that was one of their largest trade. If you didn’t comply, then you were punished, usually in the form of torture.

Helen, can you find pictures for the project please???

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Main Course:

During the Elizabethan era the main courses almost always consisted of meat that has been either roasted, baked, or fried. Other than that the food people ate was mostly dependent on their social class. For breakfast the lower classes would eat eggs, cold meat, and cheese. The other meals would consist of stew and white meats including chicken, fish and rabbits and a mix of cooked vegetables. A popular dish was pigeon pie, that was made with pigeon meat, onions, mushrooms, and carrots. The upper class would eat expensive meat such as lamb, bacon, veal and even peacock. along with a variety of seafood such as eel, sturgeon, and a variety of shellfish. They also ate fruit such as apples, raspberries, and peaches which they almost never ate raw and usually in a pastry or tart. Even with their large variety of food the upper class rarely ate vegetables so the lower class actually had a healthier diet. One of the upper classes popular meals is roasted goose with apple gravy, the goose is stuffed with onions, bread crumbs, potatoes, and parsley. Then they covered the goose with sugary apple sauce. Another very common meal was stewed beef which was beef stewed with cabbage, onions, a half pint of white-wine sugar, and a cheese sauce.

Desserts:

Queen Elizabeth was very, VERY fond of sweets! When scientists found her body, they discovered that she had a multitude of decayed, yellow and removed teeth. She apparently had an abnormally long face, with fair but wrinkled skin. Her eyes were very small and black, and she wore a wig because most of her hair had fallen out. The british thought rubbing sugar on your teeth would clean them, which was definitely not the case, seeing as most Britishers had decayed teeth!

There were many types of deserts. Many of them are still loved to this day. One of the common ones is Shrewsbury Cake, also known as shrewsbury biscuit. It’s named after a town in England called Shrewsbury. It consists of sugar, butter, flour, eggs, and finally lemon zest.

Another type of dessert is Gooseberry Fool. It’s a combination of cream and fruit, specifically gooseberries. It was served with a biscuit, or sweetbread, and occasionally served with a variety of other fruits as well.

Banbury cake was a currant filled pastry cake that was circular in shape. Besides the filling in the cake, it also contained, a mixture of peels, rum, rose water, sugar, and a few other spices such as nutmeg and cinnamon.

Snow cream was basically the Elizabethan’s way of saying ice cream, it was a desert that consisted of cream, rose water, and sugar. People “whipped” it until it became stiff like ice cream.

Strawberry tart was a desert that included a tart with mashed strawberries, sugar, buttered strawberries on top of the tart, and a variety of spices such as nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger. Sometimes people would put red wine or other types of alcohol.

Those are just a few of the hundreds of deserts that the people from the Elizabethan era ate!

Drinks:

During the Elizabethan era water wasn’t considered clean so instead they drank ale. The children would also drink ale, but it would be extremely watered down, so it was pretty much impossible to get drunk on ale. Only the rich upper class was able to have drinks such as wine, beer, and buttered beer which was a watered down version of beer with liquid butter and cream, that was drunk on holidays.

Conclusion:

As you can see, people from the Elizabethan era LOVED their sugar and their meat!