Food & Drink in the Elizabethan Era
Food and drinks were different depending on your status, and wealth. “In the early medieval times meat was a sign of wealth.” (Elizabethan Food). What you hunted for food depended on your status. “Only Lords and Nobles were allowed to hunt deer, dear, boar, hares, and rabbits” (The Last Colony). In the Elizabethan Era, most of the meals were cooked using an open flame, by: “spit roasting, being fried, baking, boiling, smoking, and salting.” (Elizabethan food). Salt was used to preserve the meat because they would kill the animals before winter and the meat would have to last when they weren’t eating it. “Peacock feathers were used to decorate the food for the banquets that Royalty had” (Elizabethan Food). Banquets then and now are still the same; they both are made for special occasions and made to look good with special effects. Most food had to be purchased from markets, meat from livestock markets, dairy from large cities, and vegetables from large cities. Many Lords and Nobles had rotten and black teeth, because of their diets and how they snubbed vegetables and only ate sugary foods. “Water was not clean in the middle ages and people therefore drank wine and ale” (Elizabethan Food). Different flavors were added to ales and beer for better tastes. Most of the diets in the Elizabethan times were bread, meat and fish, but biscuits were a convenience food, (used when they were a little hungry and needed a snack). The People from the Elizabethan times usually ate three times a day, just as we do