What was Tudor food like (2024)

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What was food like in Tudor times? ›

Food for a King

Dishes included game, roasted or served in pies, lamb, venison and swan. For banquets, more unusual items, such as conger eel and porpoise could be on the menu. Sweet dishes were often served along with savoury. Only the King was given a fork, with which he ate sweet preserves.

Meat was a large part of Tudor diets. Meats eaten included, deer, pheasant, rabbit, calves, pig, boar, and a range of birds, including chicken. Bread was also eaten with most meals. Wealthier people ate white and wholemeal bread, whilst poorer people ate bread made from rye.

A wealthy Tudor-era meal would begin with a first course of meats and vegetables. During Lent, fish would replace other types of meat, except on “flesh days” where their consumption was permitted. Foods could include meat pies, goose, swan, pork, lamb, or a variety of other foods.

Tudor sailors lived mostly on salted beef, salted fish and ship's biscuits. They had meat four days a week and fish on the other three. We know the crew ate other foods like cheese and butter, but we didn't find any on the Mary Rose.

Wealthier Tudors would also have eaten more expensive meats such as swan, peaco*ck, geese and wild boar. Venison was seen as the most exclusive – hunted in the deer parks of the king and his nobles.

Recipes for Henry VIII included a variety of pies, game, roasted meats, pottages and sweet dishes such as custards, fritters and jellies. Some of his favourite dishes included venison, pies stuffed with oranges (recipe included here) and an early version of beef olives called Aloes (recipe also included here).

Probably a little ale on the side, and perhaps a slice of bread, usually made out of either wheat, rye or oats - or a combination of the three. Apparently, in higher social circles, bacon and eggs were frowned upon and considered the meal of a lowly agricultural worker, rather than a lawyer or courtier.

While we're used to eating sweet desserts today, sugar was very expensive and rare in Tudor England. After gorging on meaty pies and puddings during a feast, wealthy Tudors would eat other types of sweet treats such as honeyed fruits, jelly and gingerbread, along with these cheesy fritters called smartards.

In Tudor times, salad was usually eaten at the start to the meal to 'stir up appetite' as John Gerard the herbalist put it. During the reign of Henry VIII, salads were popularised at court by Catherine of Aragon, who specially employed a Dutch gardener to grow the salad vegetables she had enjoyed back home in Spain.

Henry was tall at over six feet, and in his 20s weighed about 15 stone with a 32″ waist and 39″ chest but by his 50s his waist had increased to 52″ and, by the time of his death in 1547 at the age of 56 years, he is thought to have weighed about 28 stone ( Figure 3).

What food was eaten on ships? ›

Sailors would eat hard tack, a biscuit made from flour, water and salt, and stews thickened with water. In contrast, captains and officers would eat freshly baked bread, meat from live chickens and pigs, and had supplements such as spices, flour, sugar, butter, canned milk and alcohol.

A first course of choice of beef, mutton, veal, swan or goose, capon, conies, fruit, custard and fritters, manchet (the best white bread made up in small loaves) ale and wine. Second course provided lamb or kid, herons or pheasants, co*cks or godwits, chickens, pigeons, larks, tart butter and fritters."

The First Course: Pottage or stewed broth; boiled meat or stewed meat, chickens and bacon, powdered [salted] beef, pies, goose, pig, roasted beef, roasted veal, custard. The Second Course: Roasted lamb, roasted capons, roasted conies [rabbit], chickens, peahens, baked venison, tart.

Supper The final meal, eaten at the end of the working day (between 5 and 8 pm), would be supper. For the common man, this would often be the most elaborate of the day, though 'elaborate' is an inappropriate adjective for the peasant's daily fare.

Spices used included: mace, cloves, saffron, currants, dates, ginger, cinnamon, pepper, box biscuits, caraways, almonds, raisins, rice (also counted as a spice), and prunes (Emmison 1964: 45-46).

Early Modern people had many options for entertainment in the towns and cities of England. Sports were popular with football, wrestling and bowls available alongside blood sports like animal baiting.