Food in Early Modern England: Phases, Fads, Fashions 1500–1760 9781472599827

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INTRODUCTION

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be boiled before tea could be made in the labourer's home; so it resulted in an entirely new explanation being offered by workmen to their employers whenever they arrived late for work in the morning.' We are not then surprised to read the verdict of Eliza Melroe in 1798, viewing things across a wide canvas, and concluding that the system of living in the last 20 or 30 years had 'almost undergone a total change'. His remark had particular significance in relation to food, for Melroe was a naval man and physician who showed an unusual interest in the details of food preparation. I have come to realize that a similar remark could have been made in every earlier generation.2 So the first part of my book sets food within the context of a changing economic, social, political and religious world. The second part takes a closer look at some individual foods in order to pull together facts that have been scattered in the first part, and gives a sharper outline to the changes that affected the content, quality, quantity and status of each food. Some very different influences were at work, altering, for example, the breads, meats, fruits and cheeses that were eaten. It is instructive to see more clearly how many facets of change impinged in some way on single foodstuffs. It has become a conventional assertion among historians who have not studied food history in any detail to say that our forebears ate a monotonous and boring diet. I hope that my account will put an end to such a mistaken conclusion. Food is universally recognized as one of the main pleasures of life in all cultures: a Chinese proverb tells us that 'for the people, Heaven consists of eating'. Is it conceivable, then, that human beings, resourceful, ingenious, inventive as they are, would have settled for drab monotony all through the ages, when they lived in a countryside overflowing with animals, birds, fish and plants in the greatest variety? Through aeons of time, women have made up the majority of cooks in the world, and I have learned to admire and respect their originality, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. The variety that people enjoyed in the past was different from ours, but that obliges us to see it on their terms. A recent writer on nutrition has told us that human diet once contained 225 different foods, whereas today 90% of our average calorie intake comes from only 18. We surely do not want to boast of that achievement.3 The food regime of the early modern period shows our forebears eating a multitude of plants, animals and birds that we neglect. Among cereals, they ate not just wheat, but rye, barley and oats, and, moreover, differentiated the flavours with such discrimination that separate varieties of the four grains were used for different dishes. We, in contrast, have settled on wheat flour almost alone. Among meats our forebears relished kidneys, livers, cheeks, tripe, noses, bone marrow, as well as the muscle meat of beef cattle, sheep and pigs. Crisply roasted sheep's heads were a special treat. Hardly a bird in the sky was not eaten - quails, plovers, sparrows, cranes, bustards, herons, woodcocks, blackbirds, larks - they were routine food, and many were there in abundance. Tiny birds like wheatears,

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F O O D IN EARLY M O D E R N ENGLAND

to say that no local people, in the fenlands, say, ever ate wildfowl. They almost certainly did. But among people like Boorde, coming from outside the fens, it was not a familiar or acceptable meat. So wildfowl caught his eye when he was abroad in the 1540s, and he noticed it there for its being an acceptable food. The remark would stir a new idea in the minds of many book readers, and it would mature into a fresh attitude in the next generation. Under Dutch influence, wildfowl decoys were introduced into England at the end of the sixteenth century, and it was not long before thousands were caught in a season. Thus we perceive the observations of an Englishman in a foreign land alerting his readers to the commercial potential of a new foodstuff.10 Another new food idea filtered into England when Boorde and others noticed the generous use of butter in the Low Countries and in Low Germany around Cologne. It was evidently unfamiliar to Boorde, and drew from him several comments of surprise. Indeed, it seemed to him that the Dutch ate butter at all times of the day - 'Buttermouth Fleming' was the name for men of Flanders - whereas Boorde preferred to eat butter in moderation, on its own in the morning before other food, or mixed with other foods. This comment on butter was another foretaste of an imminent change in food customs. Butter-eating would grow markedly in England in the next century, initially stimulated by this Low Countries example, but finishing with consequences that would not only change the look of dishes on the table, but would transform dairying into a substantial branch of commercial business." Cheese-eating also drew Boorde's attention. He had already noticed the Welsh liking for toasted cheese, and his comment on this novelty joined the decidedly ambiguous attitude that was common elsewhere to cheese in all its forms. It was generally regarded as the food of the poor or a food to be avoided altogether. Boorde identified five sorts, among which he considered soft cheese to be the best. On curd cheese he was unwilling to pass judgement since it depended on every dairywoman's individual skill with herbs, and he did not know the range; it sounds as if the herbs determined the nourishment. Cheese in general was tolerated by Boorde rather than spurned, but not warmly. Cheese with worms, on the other hand, astonished him. When he encountered it in High Germany, he was astounded to see people's liking for it. 'They will eat maggots as fast as we will eat comfits,' he exclaimed, adding by way of explanation that 'they have a way to breed them (i.e. the maggots) in cheese'. When cheese did become more acceptable in England in the course of our period, the prejudice against cheese with worms persisted.12 Moving southwards on the Continent of Europe, Boorde noted the increasing use of fruit and nuts in the diet: in High (i.e. southern) Germany it was apples and walnuts; in Bohemia it was unnamed fruit and herbs; in Naples, Genoa, southern Spain and Portugal it was the great number and variety, including figs

F O O D IN A Q U I C K E N I N G C O M M E R C I A L W O R L D , 1 6 6 0 - 1 7 0 0

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improvers. His patron was Lord Shaftesbury, a keen farmer who espoused new ventures and had many acquaintances among influential administrators, scientists and policy makers, such as Benjamin Worsley, Henry Slingsby and Robert Boyle. Locke's letters show his practical interest in useful plants and the exchange of seeds, and include many references to the appetizing foods they were intended to supply. They show howfirmlyfarming and gardening were now connected to food choices in the kitchen. While living in Holland, Locke supplied his friend Edward Clarke in England with seeds for a variety of root vegetables from the Low Countries - three kinds of turnips, three kinds of carrots, one of parsnips, one of salsify and two of skirret roots. They were sent with advice on the way to eat the skirret roots - buttered like turnips, or in a salad dressed with oil and vinegar. Locke wrote to Mrs Clarke in January 1684, anticipating a walk with her 'in the turnip grove next summer', promising moreover, when she visited him next, the sight of'new fashions, new housewifery, new cookery'. He was clearly familiar with the notion of fashions in food. Indeed, Locke was consciously helping one food fashion on its way, by sending to Clarke, in October 1686, Muscovy or Russian cabbage seed plus blood-red cabbage seed, this last being regarded in the Low Countries as the most wholesome of all, being a remedy for scurvy. It was either boiled or eaten raw in a salad, and it was handy in winter, since cabbages could be stored in cellars, and be brought into use whenever needed; one simply peeled off leaves as required for one meal and dressed them with oil and vinegar.3 Locke's words suggest that red cabbage was a novelty in England at this time - not totally unknown perhaps to connoisseurs, like botanists, but unfamiliar in London markets, and he lightheartedly envisaged the possibilities of turning red cabbage salad into a fashion. If he had been in England, he said, he would have been tempted himself'to bring it into use under somefinenew name'. Fashions in food had provoked scorn at an earlier period, but contemporaries now accepted the phenomenon without demur. We see another of them in the same letter from Locke to Clarke referring to the importance of drinking spa water. This touched on another vogue of the time that was beginning to produce quite a few treatises. It sent many well-to-do people to socialize at up-and-coming spas around the country, and left its mark in their household accounts: the Duke of Rutland paid out £7 6s. 8d. in 1674 for water to be fetched several times from Quarndon in Derbyshire to Belvoir; and more water came in 1675 from 'the spaw'. Another fad of the age, now in vogue, was for tea drinking, and sure enough we also find in the Duke of Rutland's shopping list in 1670 half a pound of tea costing him 10s., and a tin box in which to keep it cool on journeys. By 1694, tea known as Regal Tea had been invented, and featured in a matter-of-fact way in Ann Blencowe's cookbook. Yet another fashion of the time was created when cocoa beans arrived in the market, and almonds were coated with chocolate. In 1667 they duly arrived at Belvoir for the pleasure of Lord Roos.4

4. A lady of the gentry class, eating alone. Note the bare furnishings in this room.

5. Eating, or rather waiting to eat, in sober but mixed company. The trenchers are in place on the table. Note how warmly clad are the diners, with their hats on.

8. Getting in the water. In towns many people had water near at hand from wells or fountains, or better still had it in the house, but we do not know what proportion of people were so blessed. This is Marcellus Laroon's image of a man crying New River water for sale in a London street.

9. Taking in the eggs. One would normally expect a woman to be delivering her eggs locally. Was this man perhaps a casual trader?

12. When baking bread at home, the women saw things differently. This drawing best portrays the real-life experience of mixing bread dough! Below. 13. Milling flour without a miller near at hand. This is a quern, turned with a handle, in use in Shetland for milling grain, and also malt for beer. In a smaller version the quern was much used for milling mustard seed and other spices. Querns are so common in probate inventories, that it suggests that most at this period were used for milling malt. But in the countryside, not a few country folk must have lived beyond comfortable walking distance to a mill, and sometimes ran short of flour. They will have used a quern, as did others who resented paying dues for using the manorial mill, and were fined in court for the offence.

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NOTES TO PAGES 195-203 Leonard Welsted, esq., was then published by John Nichols in 1787, and 'Apple-Pye' was the first poem in the book. Nichols included information on Welsted's life and family: he became a clerk in ordinary at the Office of Ordnance in the Tower of London. Ellis had another interest in apples, in a particular variety called the parsnip apple, which grew in his neighbourhood. It was sweet enough to require no sugar in cooking, and he offered young trees to customers (Ellis, op. cit., pp. 87-8).

Notes to Chapter 8: Regional and Social Patterns of Diet 1 Ernie (1961), p. 83; Best (1986), p. 8; Bamborough (1959), p. 45; Malpica Cuello (2001), pp. 151-68; Thirsk (1992), p. 24. 2 Bradley (1729a), pp. 21-3. 3 Scot (1576), p. 8, gives evidence of very early hops in Kent. 4 Elder (1985), p. 58; Emmison (1964), p. 95. 5 Gray (1995), passim. The following account of Cornish diet is based on Cornwall RO, probate inventories, glebe terriers, manorial surveys, and Carew (1723), pp. 19ff., Rowse (1941) and Whetter (1991). On fish, see also a rich account in Fox, 2001. 6 For a rare glimpse of goats, see especially Dyer (2004), passim. 7 For the large quantity of oats, see John Dyer's inventory at Probus in June 1667, showing 10 acres wheat, 10 acres barley, 15 acres oats; and a yeoman, Christopher Mynard of Lancells, in 1643 having 6 acres of wheat, 3 acres of barley and 16 acres of oats; oats are also conspicuous in Wyatt (1997); Carew, op. cit., p. 20. 8 Carew, op. cit., p. 19. The fashion for candied eryngo is described in VCH Essex, II, 1907, 371-2, and attributed to an apothecary of Colchester finding the plant on the seashore in Essex, and making it renowned for medical use by 1621. His apprentice was of Dutch refugee origins, and so the idea in Essex may have come from the Netherlands. It is, however, likely that eryngo was candied independently in Cornwall and earlier, for Carew was writing about it in 1602. See also Grieve (1984), pp. 407-9, who believed it was used long before this and was known for its anti-scorbutic virtues. 9 Carew, op. cit., p. 19. 10 Ibid., pp. 24-5. 11 Furnivall(1870),pp. 125-6; Ernie, op. cit., p. 126.By 1795, when barley bread in Cornwall had plainly displaced oatbread, it was said that people preferred barley bread to wheat bread. See Davies (1977), p. 32, footnote. 12 Pounds (1984), pp. 133,138-9. 13 Elder, op. cit., pp. 20-21. 14 Ibid., pp. 27,32,30; Ambler and Watkinson (1987), passim. 15 Elder, op. cit., pp. 36,35,28. 16 Ambler and Watkinson, op. cit., pp. 60,61. 17 Elder, op. cit., pp. 59,60. 18 Ibid., pp. 94,100,57-8. 19 AHEW,V(i), 1984,60-63,69;AHEW, IV (1967),85-9; Russell (1986),pp. 122,138;Thirsk (1984), p. 208.

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NOTES TO PAGES 301-309

171 Coles (1656), Chapter 171;Markham(1613),p. 129; Rowse (1964), p. 282; HMCRutland, IV, 1905, 476; Hart (1633), p. 64; Cooper, op. cit., pp. 163-6; Ruthin, op. cit., p. 8; Grey, op. cit., p. 31; Temple (1903), p. 9; East Sussex RO, Glynde MS, 914; Hitt (1768), Plate IV; Chartres (2004), p. 131. 172 Blencowe (1925), p. 9; Addison, Steele and others, nd., pp. 208-10; Phillips (1821), p. 30; Stapleton (1893), p. 169; Hoskins (1972), p. 494. 173 Cardigan (1951), p. 112; Kidwell (1983), pp. 405,406,413. 174 Information kindly given me by the late Dr Addy; NA, C78/592/13. 175 Blundell, op. cit., p. 202. 176 Houghton (1727-8), IV, p. 440 (27/12/1700), 434 (15/11/1700). 177 CSP Venetian, 1617-19, 319; Anon. (1653), p. 49; Hart, op. cit., p. 59. 178 Plimmer(1935),p.57. 179 Shesgreen (1990), passim; Eden (1928), p. 240; Henrey (1986), p. 232. Drinks 180 Wilson (1973), p. 388; Parkinson (1629), p. 478. 181 Hart (1633), pp. 113,115,109. 182 Ibid., pp. 112,116-7,124,185; Cogan (1584), p. 26; Cornwall RO, Glebe terriers. 183 HMC Rutland IV, 1905, 549,552; T8cC, 405; Scarfe (1995), p. 81. 184 NA.E134,14 Jas.I, Hil. 6. 185 Baskerville (1893), p. 295; typescript of report of Prussian visitors to English farms, 1766, from German archives, in author's possession; Brandon (2003), p. 193; CSPD 1637-8, vol. 390, no. 66; Scarfe (1988), p. 208. See also Sambrook (1996), passim. 186 Best (1986), p. 180; Prussian Report, 1766, p. 150; Harrison, ed. Edelen (1994), pp. 135-9; on porter, an almost black beer, heavily hopped, and left for a long period to ferment, see Wilson, op. cit., p. 386. 187 Wilson, op. cit., pp. 384-5; Scarfe (1995), pp. 223-6. 188 Houghton in Bradley (1727), IV, p. 67; according to Westmacott (1694, p. 22), beans and peas in beer made the beer 'smile at you', making it more volatile and clear; Parkinson (1640), p.472; Harland, II (Chetham XLI) (1856), pp.234, 239-40; Ruthin (1654), pp. 215-16; Mascall (1569), p. 76; BL, Add. MS 37616,410. 189 See, for example, Vaughan, referring in 1600 to 'a wholesome ordinary drink' which became 'a diet drink' when he wrote in 1617. Vaughan (1617), pp. 37,52-3; Houghton, I, 69 (24/11/1693), 90 (20/4/1694) and ff. I thank Dr John Broad for the reference to 'salop'; see also Wilson, op. cit., pp. 214-15. On oats in ale, see Westmacott, op. cit., pp. 22-3, and Houghton, IV, 304 (20/5/1698). 190 Smith, S.D. (2001), p. 245; Phillips (1827), II, pp. 292-310; Hartlib, Ephemerides (1657), 51-51-8; Wilson, op. cit., p. 411; Vaisey (1984), passim. For a bibliography of recent writing on these three new drinks, see Clark (2000), p. 222, fn. 119. 191 Wilson, op. cit., pp. 408-11; Houghton, IV, 443 (17/1/1701), 444 (24/1/1701), 450 (7/3/1701). 192 Wilson, op. cit., p. 405; Phillips (1821), pp. 109-18; Houghton, IV, 458 (2/5/1701). 193 For slightly different details from Houghton's description, and a reference to afirstaccount by Houghton in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, see Smith, op. cit., pp. 245ff.