So What aboUt ChrIstmAs dAy�
ReCiPe aLeRt! TrY ThIs!
Imagine you’ re celebrating Christmas at a royal palace circa 1512. What would you have to look forward to? What would you want to avoid? The answers might
surprise you. Get ready for a timetravelling ADVENTure. There are no sprouts in sight!
TalKing of adveNt …
In Tudor England, advent( the 40-day
period leading up to Christmas) was a time of preparation for the feasts and celebrations to come. During this period, the Catholic Church forbade meat,
cheese, milk and eggs, so people’ s diets
were restricted to vegetable pottages( stews), cereals, beans and fish.
People with money had lots of fish to choose from, but ordinary people had to settle for rock-hard so-called stockfish, which required a hammer to make them soft enough to eat!
Feasting started on 25 December and went on for 12 days with the great finale on Twelfth Night, the eve before Epiphany on 6 January.
So What aboUt ChrIstmAs dAy�
Although not quite as significant as it is today, after 40 days of fasting, Christmas Day would have been received with relief, and rewarded with lots of meat, poultry and sweet treats( if you could afford sugar).
On this day, the wealthy mostly entertained family and social equals, but it was also considered a day of generosity, when the lord of the manor was expected to throw a feast for his neighbours, tenants and labourers.
So the rich people fed their poorer neighbours? Ed
Well, yes and no. Tenants were expected to bring gifts in the form of farm produce, so basically they supplied the food. Oh!
From the account books of the noble Willoughby family in Warwickshire, we know that poultry, eggs, cheese, fruit and pies were standard‘ food gifts’ for such special occasions, also providing us with a rare glimpse into what commoners ate for Christmas. We can assume that, in reality, few landlords remembered their social duties. They had to be reminded by people like Thomas Tusser, who wrote a manual on farming in 1557, re-enforcing the duty of the wealthier to extend their hospitality to the poor to lessen their hardship during this time:
ReCiPe aLeRt! TrY ThIs!
In Tudor England, mince pies were large meat pies with rich spices, expensive dried fruit, egg yolks, fresh wardens( pears) and veal or mutton mince. Would you like to make a historically accurate and authentic Tudor mince pie? Then head over to the AQUILA website and get cooking!
AWESOME
ACTIVITIES ALERT
SCAN ME
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