The Opelousas courier., 1884-11-22
Old Time Food.

Some of the dishes of the Erizabethiaa
period are curious enough. Sea-gulls
were eaten; there was picked goose,
with cloves and ginger; soused turkey,
boiled in white wine and vinegar, and
soaked for a month; "pear puddings,'
containing no pears, but made of cold
fowl or turkey chopped up with -four,
e%urrants, eggs, cream, ETC., and then fash,
toned into the form of pears and baked.
The stalks of tulips cooked like peas,
omelets of mallow stalks, hartshorn
jelly, pippins preserved in jelly, apple
syrup, ounce cheese, C ndied fruits. were
among the delicacies of the age. Still a
large number of dishes were prepared
just as they are to-day. Thus we read Of
broths and pottages, marrow buildings,
black and white buildings, fricassees Of
veal, stewed beef, Scotch collops, chicken
salard, roast cartridges, custards, cream
and cheese cakes, mince pies, whipped
creams and Syllabus, which were pre-
cisely in Elizabethian what they are in
Victorian days.
In regard to meat, oxen and sheep
were not uncommonly boiled entire, but
when this was the case they were di-
vided into joints before leaving the
kitchen.
Viands were also not uncommonly
served in "coffyn cotes." as they were
somewhat unpleasantly called, the coffin
being of pie crust. Game was often
coffined, so was fish, including dolphins
and porpoises.
While our ancestors reveled in fish,
flesh aud fowl, tn ere was a marked alb.
sence of vegetables.
Toward the termination of great feasts
| spices were handed round with the wine,
and the spice plate was often richly en-
graved or enameled. At the same time
the drageoirs or comft boxes, full Of
perfumed confectionery, were passed
| about.
The. waferers or confectioners, who
were often Italians or Frenchmen, held
an honored place in the household, for
they were veritable artists and were al
ways exerting their brains to devise some
new 'ssubtlty." These ''subtilties' had
often some hidden meaning, not only
compliments but even sly rebukes to here
tics and politicians were conveyed In
these sugared emblems.n
The liquid refreshments of Elizabeth's
time were many and varied, for beside
claret, sack, many kinds of beer, small
and strong, there were the honey drinks,
metheglin and meath, or mead, cider,
hydromel and strawberry and cherry
wine, and %gillyfower sIrup with sack.
Of the metheglins and meads there were
many varieties. strong, medium and
weak, highly favored or perfumed.
Hops, rosemary, thyme, s%weetbriar, bays,
water-cresses, pennyroyal, marshmallow,
l%iverwort, NORWOOD, wild angelica,
saxifrage, strawberries and violet leaves
are only a few of the favoring substances
added to the honey and water.
One of the most extraordinary drinks
CT the day was that described by Sir
Kenelm Digby under the name of Sock
Ale" This is the recipe: "Take eight
gallons of Ale, take a Cock and boil him
well; then take four pounds of raisins oil
the Sun we'll stoned, two or three nut
megs, three or four flakes of mace, half a
pound of dates; beat them all in a NOR.
far and put to them two quarts of the
best sack; and when. the Ale hath done
working put these in and stop it close
six or sever days, and then bottle it, and
a month after you may drink it." OuI
forefatheIB of the period under review
took strong ale with their breakfast the
queen herself often brea5fasted On Drawn
and ale, for as yet neither tea nor cotfee
was known in the country. What an in
| duence on home life has been wrought
by the Introduction of those simple bev-
eragesl