Food history is a very complex topic. Food has influenced significantly population growth and urban expansion, it divided the royalty and peasantry and broadened the horizons of commerce and social interaction. It has always played a very important role in relations between ethnic groups, especially in the social gathering of people of distinct background, such as the banquets, that were quite common in Elizabethan days.
What kind of food people ate at a time or places depended upon their cultural heritage, where they live (city or countryside) and how wealthy they are. This was undoubtedly true of the folks living in Shakespeare's Britain. Back then, just like now, it was almost impossible to relay what people ate at any one given meal. With numerous recipes and dishes to select according to season, year, location and circumstance. However, we can be sure which foods were commonly available in England in those days through written Elizabethan recipes handed down through the generations.
Food and drink were an important part of life in Elizabethan times. Pretty much like today, people on the whole had three main meals per day, breakfast (Elizabethan Marmalades) was the first and most important meal of their day. The people of this time ate a variety of different foods and had many creative ways of preparing them, which they have described in different Elizabethan recipes quite often the foods they ate are or would now be considered beyond the pale, Elizabethans had a recipe for Hedgehogs for example. The people also had distinct table manners.
People of the Elizabethan time did not use the utensils that we have now frequently they thought that using their hands to scoop out the food was much more effective. This was the reason why several table manner books were written at this time. Certainly nobody wanted to eat after his or her neighbor scratched himself and then scooped food out with that same hand. Whether one was a member of the high or low class, manners were the same for everyday life and consider very important by all.
Elizabethan Recipes exist that show people of the Elizabethan Period cooked with a wide variety of produce that would be unheard of in restaurants nowadays. English people were very visual about their food they loved strange shapes and particularly enjoyed dishes of strange colours. Unusual dishes included such treats as small birds in a pie, roast peacock, hedgehogs or swans. Elizabethan recipes exist that show they ate such dishes as swan and peacock, they were also used as a centerpiece decoration among the royalty.
Elizabethan recipes were written and worded quite differently from what we see today. Cooking the meals that are described in the original recipes sounds easy, but it is not. Even if one is so lucky as to have access to ancient roasting pits and fireless cookers it is not easy to follow the instructions in the recipes. Exactly what is meant by a "hot oven?". This is complicated stuff. Hot ovens and smoked hams were a matter of experience and personal taste (try an authentic mustard). Truth is that many Elizabethan recipes were not much more than shopping lists with cursory preparation notes. Detailed instructions were not considered necessary, because it was assumed that whoever cooked the food already knew the basics.
There is no single place to obtain all of the historic conversions necessary to interpret and recreate original Elizabethan recipes in the kitchen. This does not mean this task is impossible. However, the food we buy today is different from the food they used back then, so the same taste could never be achieved.
We do have recipes all converted for you try so click Elizabethan food recipes