Renaissance Food and Drink

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Renaissance
IS FEAR A FACTOR FOR YOU?
ITS ON
?
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Renaissance Food and Drink

• What People Ate During Shakespeares Time

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Bread

• Bread is a staple (biggest part of every meal)
• The bread of the lower classes is made with
  cheaper grains than wheat barley and rye,
• Lower class bread had grit in it.
• The bread of the upper classes was made with a
  higher proportion of wheat, Stale bread was cut
  into squares and used for trenchers -- a surface
  on which to serve the other food and sauces.

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Breakfast

• Not the most important meal of the day
• Usually a piece of bread in wine or ale, and
  maybe a little leftover cold meat pie

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Main Meal of the Day was Lunch

• Large banquets were a sign of nobility
• Meat was also a sign of nobility or for special
  occasions only, so was fruit.
• Shellfish were considered a food for poor people
  (bottom feeder animals)

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Cutlery

• During the Renaissance, cutlery was not widely
  used
• Cutlery was introduced around the time of
  Shakespeares death, but was only used in the
  most wealthy households
• Therefore, people ate with their hands

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Nobles vs. Poor

• Nobles ate large amounts of
• food, eating was celebrated
• Had large meals, servants ate leftovers, then
  went to the poor waiting outside
• Poor ate a lot of stew.

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Drinks

• Water was not safe (sewage and other
  contaminants)
• Mostly drank beer, ale, honey-mead, wine, almond
  milk and buttermilk

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Foods we have that they did not have

• Vanilla
• Chocolate
• Potatoes
• Coffee
• Tea

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Table Manners

• Cant blow nose with fingers
• Cant scratch anatomical part
• Must throw bones on the floor
• A burp at the end of the meal is considered polite

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Are you ready for the Renaissance Fear Factor
Dinner?

• 3 teams of 10
• Rules Different person must try each food
• Points 10 points for a chew and swallow
• 8 points for chewing and swallowing part of it
• 6 points for swallowing without nose held
• 5 points for swallowing with holding nose
• 4 points for sticking it in your mouth
• 2 points for licking
• 0 points for a refusal

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Winners

• Team with the most points at the end wins a prize
• IS FEAR A FACTOR FOR YOU??????

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1st Drink

• Buttermilk! (Because water was not clean)

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Turnip!

• Potatoes have not really been discovered yet (new
  world crop)

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Artichokes

• Actually eaten raw
• Usually Elizabethans thought raw foods gave them
  gas

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Mystery 1??????
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Liver

• Remember that the Elizabethan's didnt waste
  anything

and I ate his liver with some fava beans and a
nice Chianti
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Salted and Pickled Herring

• A way of preserving meat
• Another way was to bury meat at least 3 feet
  underground with salt and spices

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Meat Covered in Sugar

• For some reason, the Elizabethans were obsessed
  with sugar
• Expensive item because they had to import it from
  North America

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Mystery 2
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Escargot!

• England is surrounded by water

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Figs

• Renaissance was obsessed with exotic food,
  especially Greek food (Renaissance was a re-birth
  of Greek and Roman culture)

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Blue Cheese

• Accidentally discovered due to a lack of
  refrigeration
• Gorgonzola
• (the kind you
• are eating) was
• discovered in
• 879.

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Mystery 3
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Horseradish Root

• Raw Horseradish root
• No refrigeration in Renaissance, so needed strong
  spices to cover up the taste of rotten meat
• Also, meat often boiled all day, so spices help
  make up for lack of taste

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VENI, VIDI, VICI

• You came, You saw, You Conquered your RENAISSANCE
  FEAR FACTOR DINNER.
• The barf bags are to your right as you exit the
  classroom.

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Mystery 4
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Cow Tongue

• In the Renaissance meat was rare, so they didnt
  waste
• any part of the
• Animal
• Very fatty and filling