Henry VIII’s
Banquet Menu
First course
100 whole roast pigs with mustard
 3,500 spicy roast larks
 300 salted saltwater fish
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Second course
1,200 roasted cockatrice (front half of cockerel
sewn onto back half of piglet)
 60 whole roasted swans with cloves
 300 eel pies with garlic purée
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Third course
Venison stew with mead (made with shoulder,
flank and neck)
 Sugared lampreys
 Wild bird pie (contains live birds and small pie)
 Jelly castle
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Drinks
Beer
 Mead
 Spiced wine
 Sherry
 Cider

Sweets and Confections
Cheesecake
 Sugared jumbles (knotted biscuits)
 Honeyed fruits

How is Tudor food different from
modern cooking?
Tudor water was polluted
 Rich Tudors mainly ate meat
 Food was heavily salted to stop it rotting
 Then it was flavoured with spices to disguise
the taste

What modern ingredients did they
not have?
Chocolate
 White bread
 Margarine
 Not much fruit
 Breakfast cereal
 Coffee

What did they use instead?
Honey
 Rye bread
 Cheese
 Curds
 beer

Any curious food customs?
You must not blow on food to cool it
 Rich people used trenchers (large slabs of
bread), instead of plates
 A Tudor feast could last for many hours

Where did ingredients come from?
Farms
 Market
 Wild food like deer

How was Henry VIII’s food different
from a poor person’s?
He ate meat
 A poor person ate vegetables, like turnips
 He ate tons of food
 A poor person would eat only a small
amount
 A poor person would eat the same breakfast
every day (bread or porridge)
 Henry VIII ate lots of different types of meat
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