The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1877-11-08
FOOD AND DRINK IN QUEEN
BESSS TIME.
Edinburgh Reyiew.l

in sweets and kickshaws, that the English
table ofthe sixteenth century abounded.
Gentlemen and merchants had five or six
dishes followed by jellies, marchpaine
tarts and CONNECTIONS. "Of the potato
and such venerous roots as are brought
out of Spain, Portugal and the Indies
to furnish up our Blankets Harrison, in
his description, forbears to speak OF
tea and coffee he is quite silent, though
he has something to say Of tobacco, the
use of which was spreading rapidly, so
that a few years later Hentzner, the Ger>
man traveller, could say, "the English
are constantly smoking tobacco" We
have only to reflect what life in England
would be without tea, coffee and potatoes
to be convinced how entirely different
life in Elizabeth's days was from ours.
1t is, however, with something like an
inward pang that we record the fact that
Is 200 tons of home grown wine were
made in England in Harrison's time; but
we remember the GrHn6eygsr still made
near Berlin, and pass on holding our
diaphragms. That the English drank
quantities of foreign wines is plain from
the fact that thirty kinds of strong and
ffty~six Of light wines were to be had in
London. The strongest were best liked,
and the strongest was called, Harrison
tells us, Theologicum, answering to the
Priest" of Madeira, and the Pfaffen vein
of the Germans. The merit ofsuch wine
was that it was both strong and genuine,
for as Harrison tells, "the merchant
thought his soule should have gone
streightwaie to the devil if he should have
served them-the priests with other
than the best" 1t is to be considered
whether a great part of the loss of nhu>
ence of the English clergy at the present
day may not be ascribed to the abandon
ment of orthodox theological port,
AS for the lower classes, they made
good cheer wherever they could get it,
and though their daily fare was hard,
they had frequent opportunities of feast
ing and carousing at bird ales and drink
ing on other occasions, each guest bring
ing dish, and the good man of the
house where the feasts were held only
finding drink and house room. The
workingmen in town always ate butchers
meat, and though they were frugal in
the country they saw fresh meat far more
often than the modern laborer On
such festive occasions, though their talk
was coarse, they had one merit in which
the modern workman as rule has no
share they we're very much ashamed at
being overtaken by drink, or 'cupshotten'
as Harrison calls it.
AS to bread the rich ate wheaton bread
and the poor bread made of rye or bar
ley, and in times of scarcity of beans, oats
or even acorns; nay, says Harrison, they
ate these even in times of plenty, for
though never has there been so much
land eared"--that is tilled-'never has
corn been so dear. So that without a
famine the old proverb has been verified
that hunger setteth his first foot into the
horse manger.' Ifthe world last awhile
at this rate wheat and rye will be no
grain for poor men to feed on, and some
cattapillers there are'-that is to say, the
dodgers or two legged catterplllers, the
middlemen who bought up corn and re-
grated bread-"that can sale so much
already
All this food was,noJ digested without
drink. We have seen that the rich drank
wine, butin Harrisons England the drink
of the common man was beer made oi
barley, water and hops. Those were not
the days of great brewers, nor was there
any excisemen to stand in the way Of
private brewing English home brewed'
was then the national beverage, and
Harrison not only gives us an excellent
receipt for making beer as yellow as
gold, but tells us how his thrifty wife
brewed him two hundred gallons of beer
for twenty shillings. In our daysit would
seem strange of country clergyman on
poor preferment not only brewed but
consumed two hundred gallons of beer
in year; and this glimpse out of Harris
sons daily life is perhaps as good proof
as any to be found in his book oil the
liberal way in which all classes lived in
the days of EIiz lbeth, But it must be
remembered that in that age it was beer
for breakfast, when there was any break
fasts, beer for dinner and beer for sup
per. The tap of the beer barrel must
have been forever running at time
when there was no water drinkers and
no temperance societies, and when there
was no substitutes except milk for
malt liquors. such as we possess in
tea and coffee, not to mention our arated
waters, .