Poor Elizabethans subsisted primarily on bread, fish, cheese and ale, while the rich enjoyed meat like lamb, beef and pork as well as vegetables, fruits, and game. Meals for the wealthy featured extravagant presentations of food intended for visual delight, sometimes including living birds concealed in pastries. Desserts were also elaborate, made from ingredients like sugar, pastry and marzipan. Food was obtained from local markets selling meat, produce and other goods, as agriculture and inventions expanded to support the growing population. Drink for all but the wealthy consisted of ale, as water was often contaminated and caused illness, while the rich favored wine in addition to ale.

1. Elizabethan food by Manu Baumann

2. Overview: Elizabethan daily meals for poor and rich people Availability of food Elizabethan drink

3. Elizabethan daily meals for poor and rich people Poor people‘s daily food consisted of bread, fish, cheese and ale Rich people ate well: -> all kinds of meat: (roasted or boiled) lamb, beef, mutton, pork, bacon, veal, rabbit, hare, fowl like peacock, swan, blackbird, pigeon, freshwater and sea fish Vegetables: turnips, parnsnips, carrots, onions, leeks, garlic, radishes Fruits: apples, pears, plums, woodland strawberries

4. It was important, that food, prepared for feasts and banquets, had a great visual effect Peacocks were prepared and used to eat and their feathers were used to decorate other food Sometimes a pie pastry crust was placed over some living blackbirds to surprise and amuse the nobility at the table

5. The Tudors also liked splendid desserts like pastries, tarts, cakes and fruits All kinds of specialities were made out of sugar and marzipan

6. Availability of food Generally food was available on small markets and on stairs: meat at livestock markets, fruit and vegetable markets and so on. In this time the population rose, so the agriculture techniques and inventions grew Fruit trees and bee hives were then cultivated more

7. Elizabethen drink We should imagine that in those times (17th century) the water was not clean, people who drank water, fell ill with worms, cholera and many other diseases Therefore rich people in the middle ages drank wine and ale, the poor just drank ale, also the children Some fruit wines were produced in England

8. Thank you for listening Any questions?