An Elizabethan Christmas is something that we today would recognise on the whole, of course some of the traditions varied from ours but they are very similar on balance.
Turkey is a popular meat at Christmas and despite it being introduced to England earlier in the centuary, during an Elizabethan Christmas you would have eaten Duck or Goose for your Christmas meal, both common birds to England, fortunately for Turkeys, it was to be sometime before they had a reason to panic at the onset of winter!
For the Elizabethan Christmas dinner of 1588 everyone was ordered to eat Goose for the Christmas meal by Queen Elizabeth, as a celebration of the recent victory over the Spaniards and their armada.
As we stated in an earlier article on this site,(Elizabethan diet) Peacocks were considered food too and they would often be skinned and roasted then the cooked bird would have its skin, feathers and all, placed back over it. Obviously Peacocks were expensive so this limited the practice.
Another firm favourite for the Elizabethan Christmas meal was wild boar, im sure you have seen films where the boars head is cooked and put on a platter in the middle of a table, this is historically accurate and actually happened, the meat from the head was consumed during the Christmas meal but not yet.
Elizabethan Christmas’s wouldn’t be complete, like today’s, without a Christmas pudding whereas ours are of a sweet confection with raisins and plums within the Elizabethans wasn’t.
A Christmas pudding then was made of meat and spices with a filling ingredient of Oatmeal, to keep it all together the mixture was cooked within the gut of the poor unfortunate Boar we met earlier.
This would then be served with pieces of meat from the Boars head which was on display.
The Elizabethans introduced Brussels Sprouts into the Christmas in the late 1580’s and they have been dreaded ever since.
Archery was the only sport allowed on Christmas day and all others were banned, Archery was promoted as the lower classes were often archers in the army of the period and so to practise at the expense of all else was seen as a good way of building the nations defences.(Swords of the time)
One major plus in favour of an Elizabethan Christmas as opposed to ours was that they had the luxury of not having to listen a nauseating novelty Christmas record being played repeatedly by their kids.
Try Mustard with your Turkey !
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