A pinch of Tudor seasoning: restoring past repas
T
udor banquets and feasts have recently become all the rage, yet they are a far cry from the true Tudor culinary experience. Genuine Tudor food prepared to authentic period recipes is an unexpected revelation for the palette: surprisingly pleasant, full of historical aroma and the drama of traditional spice mixes which often astounds even the most pre-judgemental food critic or historian. Tudor recipes were aimed at professional cooks but frequently lack crucial information on ingredients, measurements or cooking instructions. In the recovery of these morsels, often buried deep inside stacks of ephemera, and piecing together those fragments to form a coherent, meaningful recipe, the food historian embarks on a journey of analysis, comparison and contextualisation before attempting to draw together a fuller picture. It is this vital process that enables us to understand historical recipes in their original setting. The food historian’s ‘museum repair’ is to reproduce the researched edible version.
Brigitte Webster is a qualified teacher of Food Studies and History. A postgraduate in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia, she has undertaken research for Historic Royal Palaces, has appeared in the TV series Walking Tudor England and is the author of Eating with the Tudors (2023).
Traces: The Archaeology of Small Things
NATIONAL MONUMENTS SERVICE7th ANNUAL ARCHAEOLOGY CONFERENCE
NATIONAL MONUMENTS SERVICE
7th ANNUAL ARCHAEOLOGY CONFERENCE
12 October 2024
The Printworks, Dublin Castle, Dublin.
