How did Anglo-Saxons cook?

Food would largely have been boiled or roasted over an open fire: in the summer months, cooking would have taken place outside over an open fire, whereas in the winter, people would pack into smoky rooms to keep warm and cook over fires inside. Clay ovens were used for bread-baking and occasionally an early version of a skillet would have been perched over an open fire to fry things.

A replica of an Anglo Saxon house at West Stow. Houses were largely made of wood, so cooking inside over an open fire could be potentially fatal.

Image Credit: Midnightblueowl / CC

People would have eaten with a knife and potentially spoon – hygiene was poor, and eating was much more visceral and messy than it is today. War and disease were all potentially fatal threats to food production and growth in Anglo-Saxon England, and periods of extreme hunger were not unusual, particularly for the poorest in society.

What animals did the Anglo-Saxons eat?

Pigs were plentiful and the only animal the Anglo-Saxons used solely for eating. As they produce large groups of offspring who mature quickly, these animals were the most efficient form of meat production.

Anglo-Saxons also ate beef, chicken, mutton and goat from time to time. Beef was usually reserved for the richer tables and many herds of cattle were looked after predominantly for their milk, a very useful resource, and their hides would have been turned into leather. The Saxons also preserved goats for their milk production, while they kept chickens for their eggs and sheep for their wool. These animals were usually only slaughtered when they became lame, unproductive, old or for special occasions.

Wealthy Anglo Saxons also ate game, including deer, wild boar and wild birds. Hunting for sport – or for food – wasn’t common practice, but the elites would have done so from time to time.

A 1908 illustration of Beowulf at a banquet.

Image Credit: Public Domain

Fish

Fish was consumed by many, particularly those who lived by the sea. Shellfish too, like oysters, cockles, eel, lobster and crab were eaten. Fish were a valuable commodity as they could be smoked or salted and stored for winter when other food was scarce. Salted fish was thought to have been imported from Scandinavia.

Vegetables in early medieval England

Salt was mined in Worcestershire and the Anglo-Saxons used it both for preserving food and for flavouring blander dishes like stew. Vegetables including onions, garlic, cabbage, turnips, mushrooms, beetroot, parsnips, carrots (which were white or purple at the time), peas and beans formed the basis of many Anglo-Saxons’ diets. It’s unclear how much was cultivated and how much was foraged from wild.

Vegetables were also used to flavour meals as at that time the Saxons used herbs solely for medicinal purposes. Spices like pepper, coriander, cinnamon and ginger were used very occasionally in wealthy households, but most Anglo-Saxons would not have ever tasted these spices.

Fruit eaten by the Anglo-Saxons

Fruit was relatively plentiful in the summer. Cherries, berries of all kinds, apples, pears and plums were eaten by many, cooked with, and were often made into alcohol.

The only other sweet food available was honey and bee hives were cultivated in many towns and villages. Honey was also turned into an alcoholic drink, mead, which was also known as honey wine and would have been drunk at banquets and feasts as well as in more everyday settings.

Grain

Barley – and later wheat – were staples of the Anglo-Saxon diet. They would have been dried and milled into flour: bread was served with almost every meal and remained a core part of diets in England until the arrival and subsequent cultivation of the potato in the 16th century. Barley was also used to make pottage (known as briw to the Anglo-Saxons), which was a thick stew of grains boiled with vegetables like peas or beans that featured heavily in the diets of ordinary people.

Barley was also fermented to brew ale, which was drunk by people of all ages and classes – it was more commonly drunk than water.

What did the Anglo-Saxons drink?

Ale in different variations was the drink of choice for most of the population. Water in many places, particularly river water, was often polluted as most used rivers for waste disposal. For both adults and children therefore, ale was their main source of hydration. Children were given weak, diluted ale and, if they lived in the right place, spring water. Cider was also made in the autumn and consumed by a large proportion of the population.

In the richer and safer kingdoms like Wessex, food was usually available. Still, this was a period of continual warfare and the winter months were harsh – especially for those not under the protection of a lord. If a harvest failed, food wasn’t stored properly, or a marauding army burnt the crops and stole the livestock, then for many surviving the winter became a challenge.

For those Tudors who could afford it, there was nothing like a good banquet to show off your wealth and social status. From interesting ingredients to intricately designed sugarcraft, banquets became a key social event, and Tudor monarchs notoriously indulged in some of the finest dishes and delicacies available.

Not Just The Tudors presenter Professor Suzannah Lipscomb discussed these banquets and how the arrival of sugar changed Tudor habits with historian Brigitte Webster. Here we take a look at what ordinary people ate and drank, and indeed what was served at these bountiful banquets.

What did the everyday Tudor eat?

Meat: The Tudors (especially the rich) ate a much wider variety and amount of meat than we do today, including calves, pigs, rabbit, badger, beaver and ox. Birds were also eaten including chicken, pheasant, pigeons, partridge, blackbirds, duck, sparrows, heron, crane and woodcock.

Wealthier Tudors would also have eaten more expensive meats such as swan, peacock, geese and wild boar. Venison was seen as the most exclusive – hunted in the deer parks of the king and his nobles.

Most peasants had small plots of land to keep chickens and pigs. Animals were generally slaughtered just before being eaten to ensure freshness (there were no fridges), and game often hung in a cold room for several days to improve flavour. Before Winter, animals were slaughtered (traditionally on Martinmas, 11 November), with meat smoked, dried or salted for preservation. Smoked bacon was the most common meat of the poor.

Fish: Meat was forbidden on a Friday and during Lent for religious reasons, and replaced with fish such as dried cod or salted herring. Those living near rivers, lakes and the sea had easier access to fresh fish – common freshwater fish consumed included eels, pike, perch, trout, sturgeon, roach, and salmon.

Herbs: Herbs were used for flavour, with wealthy Tudors commonly keeping a separate herb garden to grow what they needed.

Tudor-style kitchen in Tudor House, Southampton

Image Credit: Ethan Doyle White / CC

Bread and cheese: Bread was a staple of the Tudor diet, eaten by everyone at most meals. Wealthier Tudors ate bread made of wholemeal flour (‘ravel’ or ‘yeoman’s bread’) and aristocratic households ate ‘manchet‘, particularly during banquets. The cheapest bread (‘Carter’s bread’) was a mixture of rye and wheat – and occasionally ground acorns.

Fruit/vegetables: The Tudors ate more fresh fruit, vegetables and salad than is commonly thought. Surviving account books tended to emphasise meat purchases as vegetables were home-grown, and sometimes seen more as a food of the poor.

Fruit and vegetables were locally grown and generally eaten in season, soon after being picked. They included apples, pears, plums, cherries, strawberries, onions, cabbage, beans, peas and carrots. Some fruit was preserved in syrup, including seville oranges imported from Portugal.

Towards the end of the Tudor period during Elizabeth I’s reign, new vegetables including sweet potatoes, beans, peppers, tomatoes and maize were brought over from the Americas.

Esau and the mess of pottage, by Jan Victors 1653 – showing pottage to still be a staple dish

Image Credit: Public Domain

Pottage: 

Whilst we often think of great feasts in Tudor times, growing income inequality in the 16th century removed some sources of food and shelter for the poor (from landed gentry enclosing land to graze sheep and evicting farm labourers, to the dissolution of the monasteries).

Pottage was consequently a common staple daily diet for the poor. This was essentially a cabbage and herb-flavoured soup, with some barley or oats and occasionally bacon, served with coarse bread (sometimes peas, milk and egg-yolks were added). The rich ate pottage too, though theirs would have also contained almonds, saffron, ginger, and a dash of wine.

Beer/wine: Water was considered unhealthy and was often unfit for drinking, being contaminated with sewage. Thus everyone drank ale (including children), which was often brewed without hops so wasn’t particularly alcoholic. The rich also drank wine – under Henry VII, French wines were imported in greater quantities, yet only affordable for aristocrats.

The wider availability of sugar

Initially Tudors used honey as a sweetener as sugar was expensive to import, until an increase in its quantity and thus a more affordable price transformed diets.

Along with herbs, sugar was seen as medicinal, with people encouraged to eat sugar for its warming qualities and for ailments like colds. It’s therefore no coincidence that after the 15th century, dental health deteriorated.

Whilst initially women were deemed responsible for looking after their family’s health, towards the end of the 16th century health became medicalised (contributing to notions of ‘witches’ – often older women who had grown-up concocting medicinal remedies from sugar and herbs).

Despite its later ubiquity, medieval cooks used sugar in very small quantities – more as a seasoning to intensify sweet spices and to moderate the heat of hot spices. Thus, few dishes tasted perceptibly sweet.

Sumptuary Laws

Efforts were made to enshrine the distinctions between the classes in ‘sumptuary’ laws, which controlled what people ate according to their position. Failure to obey could earn you a fine for trying to ‘ape your betters’.

The Sumptuary Law of 31 May 1517 dictated the number of dishes that could be served per meal depending on rank (for example a cardinal could serve 9 dishes, while dukes, bishops and earls could serve 7). However, hosts could serve the number of dishes and food appropriate to the highest-ranking guest to prevent higher ranks feeling deprived when out for dinner.

Rise of the banquet

Al fresco dining originates from banqueting food. The word banquet is French, but originates from the Italian banchetto (meaning bench or table), first documented in England 1483, and again referenced in 1530 in relation to sweetmeats.

After a multiple course feast, the last ‘banquet’ course was a more special course of the feast, designed to be eaten elsewhere and indicate that guests should soon prepare to leave. Although banquets were customary following important dinners, they were far more lavish than desserts and seen as a repast of sugared medicines.

Banqueting food was essentially finger-food, usually served cold and prepared in advance. Sweet spiced wine (hippocras) and wafers (for the highest ranks) were often served to standing guests whilst staff cleared tables.

Cold and draughty great halls led to the nobility seeking smaller, warmer and more comfortable and inviting rooms to consume the last course of their feast in. Changing room provided guests with more privacy – generally staff kept out of the new room and as there was no strict seating order, the banquet developed as a social event. This was politically important in Tudor times where guests could speak out of earshot and initiate more intimate conversations.

Tudor banqueting food

The Tudor court was a place of lavish feasts. (King Henry VIII’s waistline is known to have expanded from 32 inches at age 30, to 54 inches at age 55!) The Tudor elite enjoyed a wider range of foods than English people in the mid-20th century, including lamb, early recipes for macaroni and cheese, and chickpeas with garlic. Guests were plied with the most exotic dishes, made from the most expensive ingredients and displayed in the most outrageous way.

Favourite recipes of Henry VIII included globe artichokes; Catherine of Aragon was said to enjoy seal and porpoise; Jane Seymour is documented as having a weakness for Cornish pasties and cherries, whilst Mary I was particularly fond of pears.

Tudor period food in preparation, at Sulgrave Manor, England.

Image Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

Banquet food features in very early Tudor cookery books. The banquet was a distinctive Tudor social institution that began at the highest level at the royal court, but filtered down to a new fashion that wealthy households wanted to copy.

Serving sugar and spices also served as an important way of showing off your wealth, influence and power – and to highlight an awareness of nutrition, with these ingredients seen as healthy at the time. Typical dishes included comfits, sweetmeats, or sugar-coated seeds and nuts, anise, carraway, fennel, corriander, almonds or angelic/ginger root.

Banqueting food was believed to boost wellbeing, facilitate digestion and act as an aphrodisiac, enhancing its reputation as a romantic feast. It also required great knowledge and skills, contributing to its aura of exclusivity. Recipes were often secret, with hosts happily preparing the treats themselves instead of servants.

The Tudor form of marzipan (marchpane) and small sugar-work sculptures also became a key and fashionable part of the banquet dessert. Initially intended to be eaten, these ended up being predominantly to show-off (designs presented to Elizabeth I included sculptures of St Paul’s Cathedral, castles, animals or chessboards to make a striking focal point).

Foods of the Tudor period with Marchpane cake (heartshape decorations)

Image Credit: Christopher Jones / Alamy Stock Photo

Wet and dry suckets (essentially sugar and fruit-based) were also a key sweet treat, some vaguely similar to present-day marmalade. This was made of a quince paste from Portugal, boiled down with lots of sugar until solid, then poured into moulds. In 1495 imports of this form of ‘marmalade’ started to attract special custom duties, highlighting it’s proliferance. Wet suckets such as this (and pears roasted in red wine) were so popular that a specialised sucket fork was made to eat them with, with fork tines at one end and a spoon at the other.

Candied fruits were also popular, including orange sucade – a dry sucket made from seville orange peel. This was submerged in water multiple times over several days to withdraw the bitterness, then boiled in lots of sugar to thicken and sweeten, then dried.

Tudor period food – candied fruit

Image Credit: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

How did the Tudors eat?

The Tudors predominantly used spoons, knives and their fingers to eat. As eating was communal, having clean hands was important, and strict etiquette rules attempted to prevent anyone touching food that would be eaten by someone else.

Everyone brought their own knife and spoon to a meal (giving rise to the custom of giving a spoon as a christening gift). Although forks were used to serve, cook and carve (and started to be used at the end of the 1500s), they were largely looked down upon – considered a fancy, foreign notion. It wasn’t until the 18th century they became ubiquitous in England.

Health

Estimates suggest the Tudor nobility’s diet was 80% protein, with many feasts consisting of several thousand calories more than we would eat today. However the Tudors – including the nobility – required more calories than we do due to the phyiscal requirements of their lives, from cold houses, travel on foot or horseback, hunting, dancing, archery or hard labour or domestic work.

Nevertheless, the new Tudor appetite for sugar as a foodstuff might not have been the best health plan for their teeth, or arteries…

The desire to ensure a reliable food supply drove German and Japanese aggression. Meanwhile, the prolonged conflict spotlighted the monumental challenges of feeding the nearly two billion mobilised people, alongside the millions more who worked in agriculture, in vital industries and on transport ships, or otherwise contributed in other ways to the war effort.

The responses of the warring countries differed, but potatoes were a central feature of national food policies and individual survival techniques.

Britain

The British government promoted potatoes as a way of reducing reliance on food imports while also improving the nation’s overall health. Since ‘war demands better physique and health than peace’, officials were convinced of the need to effect fundamental changes in the nation’s eating habits.

Eating properly was an individual obligation and a national necessity. In place of white bread and fresh meat fed on imported grains, the government encouraged a diet based around a greatly increased consumption of potatoes, and wholegrain bread made with home-grown wheat.

All households were urged to keep rabbits, raise chickens and, especially, grow potatoes, which were promoted as an excellent source of energy and vitamin C, suited to British agricultural conditions and the capabilities of the home-gardener.

The Ministry of Food’s Potato Division was extremely successful in its efforts to increase production. By the end of the war acreage devoted to potatoes had doubled from 1939. Such as the success that individual consumption struggled to keep pace. 

‘Potato Pete’, one of the most popular characters in Britain’s ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign during the Second World War. (Credit: IWM)

The Soviet Union

When the Soviet Union entered the war in 1941 it faced enormous impediments to its efforts to feed itself. Agricultural production was in disarray as a result of Stalin’s programme of collectivisation, which had caused the devastating 1933 Ukrainian famine, in which as many as seven million people died.

Wartime mobilisation deprived the countryside of some nineteen million agricultural labourers at a moment when more, rather than less, food was needed. Consequently, by 1942 both the grain and potato harvests fell to a third of their pre-war volume. Soldiers and civilians were constantly hungry, despite rationing. When German troops captured key agricultural zones in the Ukraine, the situation worsened further.

At least three million Soviets—probably many more—starved to death during the war. Soviet officials responded by urging everyone to plant potatoes.

From the 19th century bread and potatoes had formed the backbone of the popular diet, and unlike grain, potatoes are relatively easy to cultivate on small pieces of ground. During the war, newspapers dispensed horticultural advice and factory administrators endeavoured to provide workers with allotments.

By 1943, Moscow ‘floated in a green sea of potato plants’. In 1944, such auxiliary farms produced over 2.6 million tons of potatoes and other vegetables, enough to ensure an additional 250 calories per day for workers lucky enough to have access to them. These efforts provided an essential source of food for perhaps 25 million people. 

Germany

The National Socialists likewise pushed potatoes. Nazi political philosophy viewed the health of the German state as virtually identical to the health of individual Germans. Citizens had a civic obligation to look after themselves; ‘health as a duty’ became an official party slogan in 1939.

Wartime rationing was designed to nurture proper Germans by denying food to the unwanted sections of the population. Jews in occupied territories were entitled to 420 calories a day, with predictable results. German workers undertaking heavy labour were allocated ten times this amount. 

Rationing was also intended to increase Germany’s ‘nutritional freedom’ by reducing its reliance on imports. Haunted by memories of hunger and civil unrest during the First World War, the Nazis were determined not to repeat the unsuccessful food policies of earlier governments.

From 1933 they campaigned with some success to make Germany self-sufficient in key foodstuffs; by 1939 nearly all sugar, meat, grain and potatoes were produced domestically. This last achievement was particularly important since, as Nazi propagandists insisted, Germans were ‘the people of the potato’.

The potato was the object of intense promotion in Nazi Germany. Countless radio broadcasts, magazines and training courses dispensed information on the multitude of ways in which this ‘nutritious, filling and at the same time cheap’ vegetable could be prepared. Over the course of the war, annual consumption more than doubled, from 12 million to 32 million tons. 

Berlin girls of the League of German Girls aiding agriculture, 1939 (Credit: Bundesarchiv)

But, because of the close relationship Nazis perceived between people and potatoes, their aim wasn’t simply to increase consumption. They wanted the potatoes themselves to become more German. The state invested heavily in plant-breeding programmes to produce robust, locally-adapted varieties resistant to potato wart, late blight, and other diseases. This resulted in the Imperial List of Approved Varieties.

By 1941, the sale or cultivation of potatoes not featuring on the List was banned. While in the 1910s German farmers were growing some 1,500 different varieties of potato, by 1941 they were permitted to cultivate a mere 74. Just as the Nazis stipulated which peoples and races could inhabit German soil, so they also specified which species of potatoes were permitted to grow.

German food policy, and its attitude towards potatoes, reflected the broader aims of Nazi ideology. 

The taste of the war

With or without top-down encouragement people around the globe turned to potatoes to keep body and soul together during the Second World War.

Soviet peasants, almost entirely reliant on foods they grew themselves, more than doubled their potato consumption. ‘They ate potatoes for breakfast, for lunch and for tea; they ate them all ways—baked, fried, in potato cakes, in soup, but most often simply boiled’, recalled one observer.

The family of Giovanni Tassoni, poor labourers living in the countryside outside Rome, devoted their entire garden to potatoes after the occupying German military began requisitioning food in 1943.

Jews starving in the Warsaw ghetto crept into the city’s hinterland the hope of digging up a few potatoes that they might smuggle back to feed their relatives.

Home-grown, frozen, dehydrated, rotten, mashed, boiled, stolen, rationed, potatoes were the food, and truly the taste, of the war, as Collingham put it. 

The origins of potato consumption

Potatoes have played an increasingly important role in warfare since they first burst onto the global scene in the sixteenth century.

The tuber originates in the Americas; scientists designate the Andes as its ‘cradle area’. It has long served as an essential food resource for ordinary people there. Potatoes also fuelled military expansion across South America by the ambitious Inca Empire in the fifteenth century. Inca soldiers sustained themselves with a version of Smash (called chuño) as they battled their way through Bolivia, Ecuador and elsewhere. 

After the European invasion of the Americas started in 1492 with Columbus, the potato spread everywhere. Ordinary people appreciated the tuber’s superlative ability to convert sunlight and soil into sustenance, and they began to be grown in many parts of the world.

In Flanders, they were being raised in such quantities that during the Nine Years War (1688-97) soldiers were able to sustain themselves ‘most plenteously’ with potatoes they pillaged from local fields.

The global warfare of the 18th century saw potatoes taking on an ever–more important role in feeding the military. ‘Purtaters for Sup’ was how a New England ship carpenter during the Seven Years’ War (1756-63) ‘Con Clued the Day’, according to his diary.

Soldiers fighting on both sides of the American Revolution ate them weekly in their rations. In the wake of the French Revolution, soup kitchens peddling potato soup were set up across Western Europe to stave off radicalism with potatoes. Supporters hoped that charity soups would convince the hungry poor of the beneficent intentions of elite-run governments, and discourage them from imitating French radicals.

These efforts were not always appreciated by their intended beneficiaries. ‘Damn your Red herrings, Potatoes and you and all that have any thing to do with it’, warned an anonymous circulating in Wakefield in 1800.

Potatoes in the First World War

By the outbreak of the First World War, potatoes were well-established in diets in many parts of the world, so it is not surprising that governments responded to the conflict by encouraging potatoes, just as they would a few decades later.

The fragile nutritional health of recruits was believed to undermine military strength. One official from Bradford commented that ‘under and improper feeding’ meant that forty per cent of the volunteers fighting in the Boer War were so puny that they were ‘not good enough to be shot at’.

There was widespread agreement that government action was required to coordinate food supplies and improve public health. The UK created the Ministry of Food Control in 1916; Austria-Hungary established a Joint Food Committee, and the United States founded the Fuel and Food Administration on its entry to the war. Imperial Germany acquired the War Food Office, the War Wheat Corporation and, of course, the Imperial Potato Office.

In Germany, potatoes were the first food subjected to a price ceiling, and one official contended in 1915 that ‘the potato question is the most important, the most burning, since the potato plays such as important role for the poorer population’. The state also required that bakers use an increasing percentage of potato in their bread. The resultant loaf was known as K-Brot, with the K standing for both Krieg (war) and Kartoffel (potato). 

In all countries pro-war propaganda tried to encouraged greater potato production and consumption. In Britain, farmers were issued with Cultivation Orders which stipulated the acreage of wheat and potatoes they were required to grow. From 1917 the British state purchased the entire annual potato harvest to sell at set prices.

The US government hoped that increased domestic potato consumption would compensate for the export of 20 million bushels of wheat destined for allies in Europe. Potatoes accordingly featured regularly in flourless ‘victory recipes’ distributed by the US Food Administration.

‘Eat potatoes with their starch, help the fighters on their march. Each baked potato that you eat will help to fill the ships with wheat. Eat potatoes, save the wheat, drive the Kaiser to defeat’, urged the authors of one wartime cookery book.

Potatoes in Iowa become “the Newest Fighting Corps” on the Domestic Front, c. 1917 – c. 1918. (Credit: National Archives at Kansas)

Across Europe these wartime experiences helped redefine the relationship between food, the population and the state, as civilians became increasingly articulate in their expectation that the state should help ensure they had access to sufficient food.

In Germany, the shortage of potatoes, bread, butter and meat reduced public support for the war, and ultimately helped bring down the government, which collapsed in November 1918.

Potatoes and the present

Today, the fight against Covid-19 is often cast in military terms: politicians talk about defeating the virus and employ a range of militaristic metaphors.

But in this crisis, potatoes are as much victim as saviour. In the US prices fell by as much as fifty percent in the first month of lockdown, as the closure of restaurants halted demand. In Belgium, 750,000 tons of commercially-grown potatoes languished with no clear destination.

At the same time, ordinary people everywhere have been turning to potatoes as a source of solace and sustenance. ‘When life gives you quarantine, plant potatoes’, read a headline in the New York Times reporting on efforts to establish community gardens in New England.

Warfare may not be the most helpful way to think about the global pandemic, but potatoes perhaps offer one small way to help nourish the human connections that give strength and meaning to our lives. 

Professor Rebecca Earle, historian of food, and of the cultural history of Spanish America and early modern Europe, teaches at the University of Warwick. Growing from an interest in the cultural significance of food, her latest project is a global history of the potato, ‘Feeding the People: Politics of the Potato’ was published by Cambridge University Press in June 2020.

As in most feudal societies, Vikings farmed their land, growing crops and raising animals to provide for their family. Though their farms were generally small, it is thought that most Viking families would have eaten pretty well, though the seasonality of their diets may have meant that times of plenty were counterbalanced by periods of relative scarcity.

The Viking diet would inevitably vary quite a bit depending on factors like location. Naturally, coastal settlements would have eaten more fish while those with access to woodland were doubtless more likely to hunt for wild game.

How many meals did Vikings eat a day?

The Vikings ate twice a day. Their day meal, or dagmal, was effectively breakfast, served about an hour after rising. Nattmal was served in the evening at the end of the working day.

At night, the Vikings would have typically dined on stewed meat or fish with vegetables and perhaps some dried fruit and honey – all washed down with ale or mead, a strong alcoholic drink made using honey, which was the only sweetener know to the Vikings.

Hedeby Viking Museum, Germany.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Dagmal would have most likely been composed of leftovers from the previous night’s stew, with bread and fruit or porridge and dried fruit.

Feasts occurred throughout the year to celebrate seasonal and religious festivals like Jól (an old Norse winter celebration), or Mabon (the autumn equinox), as well as celebratory events like weddings and births.

Though the size and splendour of feasts would depend on the wealth of the host, the Vikings generally didn’t hold back on such occasions. Roasted and boiled meats and rich stews accompanied by buttered root vegetables and sweet fruits would have been typical fare. Ale and mead would also have been in generous supply along with fruit wine if the host was wealthy enough to offer it.

Meat

Meat was widely available at all levels of society. Farmed animals would have included cows, horses, oxen, goats, pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks, of which pigs were likely the most common. Animals were slaughtered in November, so it wasn’t necessary to feed them over winter, then preserved.

Game animals included hares, boars, wild birds, squirrels and deer, while especially northern settlements in places like Greenland ate seal, caribou and even polar bear.

Fish

Fermented shark is still eaten in Iceland today. Credit: Chris 73 / Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Photo by Diego Delso via Wikimedia Commons

The Vikings enjoyed a wide variety of fish – both freshwater, such as salmon, trout and eels, and saltwater, like herring, shellfish and cod. They also preserved fish using a number of techniques, including smoking, salting, drying and pickling, and were even known to ferment fish in whey.

Eggs

The Vikings not only ate eggs from domestic animals like chickens, ducks and geese, but they also enjoyed wild eggs. They considered gulls’ eggs, which were collected from clifftops, a particular delicacy.

Crops

The northern climate was best suited to growing barley, rye and oats, which would be used to make numerous staples, including beer, bread, stews and porridge.

The day-to-day bread of choice was a simple flatbread. But the Vikings were resourceful bakers and made a wide variety of breads, utilising wild yeasts and raising agents such as buttermilk and sour milk. Sourdough-style bread was created by leaving flour and water starters to ferment.

Fruit and nuts

Fruit was widely enjoyed thanks to apple orchards and numerous fruit trees, including cherry and pear. Wild berries, including sloe berries, lingon berries, strawberries, bilberries and cloudberries, also played an important part in the Viking diet. Hazelnuts grew wild and were often eaten.

Dairy

The Vikings kept dairy cows and enjoyed drinking milk, buttermilk and whey as well as making cheese, curds and butter.

The evidence

The most tangible evidence of the Roman diet is food and human waste excavated by archaeologists. The cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii (destroyed in the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius) have left sewers and rubbish heaps packed with digested dietary evidence.

Rome’s rich literary and visual culture can also provide clues. Petronius’ over-the-top Satyricon (late 1st century) is probably the inspiration for our imagined decadent banquet. Poets like Horace (65 – 8 BC) and Juvenal (1st – 2nd century) leave clues.

A 10 volume cookbook, Apicius’ De re coquinaria (4th – 5th centuries AD) survives and Pliny the Elder’s great Natural History (c77 AD) is a fine source on edible plants.

The daily Roman cuisine

For the ordinary Roman, their diet started with, ientaculum – breakfast, this was served at day break. A small lunch, prandium, was eaten at around 11am. The cena was the main meal of the day. They may have eaten a late supper called vesperna.

Richer citizens in time, freed from the rhythms of manual labour, ate a bigger cena from late afternoon, abandoning the final supper.

The cena could be a grand social affair lasting several hours. It would be eaten in the triclinium, the dining room, at low tables with couches on three sides. The fourth side was always left open to allow servants to serve the dishes.

Diners were seated to reflect their status. The triclinium would be richly decorated, it was a place to show off wealth and status. Some homes had a second smaller dining room for less important meals and family meals were taken in a plainer oikos.

Still life with eggs, birds and bronze dishes, from the House of Julia Felix, Pompeii

Image Credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Roman diet

The Mediterranean diet is recognised today as one of the healthiest in the world. Much of the Roman diet, at least the privileged Roman diet, would be familiar to a modern Italian.

They ate meat, fish, vegetables, eggs, cheese, grains (also as bread) and legumes.

Meat included animals like dormice (an expensive delicacy), hare, snails and boar. Smaller birds like thrushes were eaten as well as chickens and pheasants. Beef was not popular with the Romans and any farmed meat was a luxury, game was much more common. Meat was usually boiled or fried – ovens were rare.

A type of clam called telline that is still popular in Italy today was a common part of a rich seafood mix that included oysters (often farmed), octopus and most sea fish.

The Romans grew beans, olives, peas, salads, onions, and brassicas (cabbage was considered particularly healthy, good for digestion and curing hangovers) for the table. Dried peas were a mainstay of poorer diets. As the empire expanded new fruits and vegetables were added to the menu. The Romans had no aubergines, peppers, courgettes, green beans, or tomatoes, staples of modern Italian cooking.

A boy holding a platter of fruits and what may be a bucket of crabs, in a kitchen with fish and squid, on the June panel from a mosaic depicting the months (3rd century)

Image Credit: I, Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Fruit was also grown or harvested from wild trees and often preserved for out-of-season eating. Apples, pears, grapes, quince and pomegranate were common. Cherries, oranges, dates, lemons and oranges were exotic imports. Honey was the only sweetener.

Eggs seem to have been available to all classes, but larger goose eggs were a luxury.

Bread was made from spelt, corn (sometimes a state dole for citizens) or emmer. The lack of ovens meant it had to be made professionally, which may explain why the poor took their grains in porridges.

The Romans were cheese-making pioneers, producing both hard and soft cheeses. Soldiers’ rations included cheese and it was important enough for Emperor Diocletian (284 – 305 AD) to pass laws fixing its price. Pliny the Elder wrote on its medicinal properties.

Most of these were the foods of the wealthy. The poor and slaves are generally thought to have relied on a staple porridge. Bones analysed in 2013 revealed poor Romans ate large amounts of millet, now largely an animal feed. Barley or emmer (farro) was also used.

This porridge, or puls, would be livened up with what fruit, vegetables or meats that could be afforded.

Dining out was generally for the lower classes, and recent research in Pompeii has shown they did eat meat from restaurants, including giraffe.

Fish sauce

All classes had access to at least some of Rome’s key ingredients, garum, liquamen and allec, the fermented fish sauces.

The sauces were made from fish guts and small fish, which were salted and left in the sun. The resulting gunk was filtered. Garum was the best quality paste, what passed through the filters was liquamen. The sludge left at the bottom of the sieve was a third variety, allec, destined for the plates of slaves and the really poor.

Herbs would be added to local or even family recipes.

These highly nutritious sauces were used widely and garum production was a big business – Pompeii was a garum town. Soldiers drank it in solution. The poor poured it into their porridge. The rich used it in almost every recipe – it might be compared to Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce or far-eastern fish sauces today – from the savoury to the sweet.

The history of the baguette is equally fascinating, and has long been associated as a veritable symbol of the French people and their struggle for liberté, égalité, fraternité. The origin of the baguette, however, shrouded in myth and mystery.

So where did it come from?

Bread has always been popular in France

Until around 1800, French peasants – who made up the vast majority of the population – ate bread made from wheat, rye or buckwheat. Fillers such as sawdust, hay, dirt and even dung were used to make the bread go further.

Bread was a diet staple, since it made up the majority of a peasant’s daily intake. An adult could eat as much as two or three pounds of bread a day. Since bread was such a staple, grain riots as a result of shortages or price hikes were extremely common right up until the French Revolution, and sometimes included entire regions.

It may have been invented by an Austrian

Nobody is entirely sure who invented the modern-day baguette. However, it has been suggested that the man who invented the croissant, a Viennese officer-turned-baker named August Zang, who also introduced the city to pain viennois and the croissant.

It is said that Zang facilitated the invention of the baguette by installing France’s first steam oven in Paris in 1839. The steam oven made it possible to bake loaves with a crisp crust and fluffy centre, because the steam allowed the crust to expand.

There are many myths associated with its invention

One legend has it that the baguette’s invention was orchestrated by Napoleon Bonaparte, who decreed that bread should be made in long, thin sticks to best fit in soldiers’ pockets.

Napoléon in his coronation robes by François Gérard, c. 1805

Image Credit: François Gérard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Another popular myth states that when work began on the Paris Metro in 1898, labourers were brought from across France to work on the project. However, owing to violent arguments between the different groups of men, bakers were asked to create a bread that could be torn, rather than cut, so that knives – and their potential for violence – could be outlawed.

In the 1920s, a law was passed that forbade bakers from doing any work before 4am. Since the long, thin baguette was the only bread that bakers could prepare in time for breakfast, it became increasingly popular.

They were originally up to 6 foot long

Wide loaves were eaten in France since the time of Louis XIV, and long, thin ones were consumed since the mid-18th century. The increasing availability of cheap wheat from the 19th century onwards meant that white bread was no longer exclusively reserved for the rich. As a result, some long breads were up to six feet long.

Though long, thin breads had been around before, they were only referred to as baguettes from 1920 onwards. The word derives from the Latin ‘baculum‘, which evolved into ‘baccheto‘ in Italian, meaning ‘staff’ or ‘stick’.

The French Revolution was possibly intensified by the baguette

The riots that resulted in the fall of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, which thus contributed to the beginning of the French Revolution, started as a search for both arms and grains. Parisian peasants correctly suspected that grain had been hoarded in anticipation of higher prices, so took to the streets in protest.

Storming of the Bastille

Image Credit: Unidentified painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It was claimed that peasants further rioted at the sight of nobility eating long white bread sticks, much like baguettes, while they starved. As a result, anxieties around grain were quickly reflected in the new government’s behaviour, since they were quick to respond to accusations of price hiking or grain hoarding. In essence, demand for bread intensified the already radical revolution.

In 1793, the post-Revolution government decreed: ‘Richness and poverty must both disappear from the government of equality. There will no longer be a bread of wheat for the rich and a bread of bran for the poor. All bakers will be held, under the penalty of imprisonment, to make only one type of bread: The Bread of Equality.’

There are laws about how they should appear and be made

In the decades after the baguette was invented, wheat became cheaper and baguettes became a common sight. Owing to their sometimes extraordinary length, a law in 1920 decreed that baguettes should weigh a minimum of 80g and a maximum length of 40cm.

The baguette is traditionally made with a light, yeasty dough which is kneaded and folded, then has the surface slashed before being baked in an oven with baguette-shaped moulds. In addition, baguettes can only be made with flour, salt, water and yeast, and must be between 65cm and 1 metre long. In addition, it must be baked on the premises where it is sold.

Today, baguette-inspired breads such as a thinner, tube-shaped loaf called the flûte and an even thinner version called a ficelle are popular, while a shorter, stubbier version of the baguette is known as the baton.

Today, tea is enjoyed worldwide. The British are particularly renowned for their love of the stuff, and drink 100 million cups a day, which adds up to nearly 36 billion a year. However, the trade of tea between Britain and China has a long and rocky history, with the countries going so far as waging the Opium Wars at least in part over the sale of the commodity.

From its origins in China to its rocky journey to the West, here’s the history of tea.

The origins of tea are steeped in legend

Legend has it that tea was first discovered by the legendary Chinese emperor and herbalist Shennong in 2737 BC. He reportedly liked his drinking water to be boiled before he drank it. One day, he and his retinue stopped to rest while travelling. A servant boiled water for him to drink, and a dead leaf from a wild tea bush fell into the water.

Shennong drank it and enjoyed the flavour, stating that he felt as if the liquid was investigating every part of his body. As a result, he named the brew ‘ch’a’, a Chinese character meaning to check or investigate. Thus, tea came into being.

It was originally used in limited quantity

A Ming dynasty painting by artist Wen Zhengming illustrating scholars greeting in a tea party, 1518.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Before tea was enjoyed as a widespread beverage, tea was used medicinally by the elite as early as the Han dynasty (206-220 AD). Chinese Buddhist monks were some of the first to develop tea drinking into a habit, since its caffeine content helped them concentrate during long hours of prayer and meditation.

Indeed, much of what we know about early Chinese tea culture is from The Classic of Tea, written in around 760 AD by Lu Yu, an orphan who grew up cultivating and drinking tea in a Buddhist monastery. The book describes early Tang dynasty culture and explains how to grow and prepare tea.

Widespread tea consumption appeared during the Tang dynasty

From the 4th to the 8th century, tea became hugely popular throughout China. No longer merely used for medicinal properties, tea became valued as an everyday refreshment. Tea plantations appeared throughout China, tea merchants became wealthy, and expensive and delicate tea wares became a mark of wealth and status.

When Lu Yu wrote The Classic of Tea, it was normal for tea leaves to be compressed into tea bricks, which were sometimes used as a form of currency. Much like matcha tea today, when it was time to drink the tea, it was ground into a powder and mixed with water to create a frothy beverage.

Most tea bricks ‘Zhuan Cha’ are from Southern Yunnan in China, and parts of Sichuan Province. Tea bricks are made primarily from the broad leaf ‘Dayeh’ Camellia Assamica tea plant. Tea leaves have been packed in wooden moulds and pressed into block form. This tea is a one pound brick which is scored on the back and can be broken into smaller pieces.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Tea became widely consumed and highly prized. It was even specified that owing to their purity, only young women were permitted to handle the tea leaves. In addition, they were not allowed to eat garlic, onions or strong spices, lest the odour contaminate the precious leaves.

Tea varieties and production methods evolved

During the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 AD), an imperial decree saw tea bricks replaced with loose leaf tea as a way of making life easier for farmers since traditional tea-brick making was labour intensive.

Up to the mid-17th century, green tea was the only form of tea in China. As foreign trade increased, Chinese tea manufacturers realised that tea leaves could be preserved via a special fermentation process. The resultant black tea both retained its flavour and aroma longer than delicate green tea, and was much better-preserved over a long distance.

Britain became obsessed with tea in the 17th century

The Portuguese and Dutch introduced tea into Europe in 1610, where it caught on as a popular drink. The British, however, were initially suspicious of continental trends. When King Charles II married the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza in 1662, her dowry included a chest of fine Chinese tea. She began serving the tea to her aristocratic friends at court, and it finally caught on as a fashionable beverage.

Urns used to store tea and sold by merchants to customers. Also shown to the left is a basket for harvesting tea.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Chinese empire tightly controlled the preparation and cultivation of tea, which remained highly expensive and the preserve of the upper classes. A status symbol, people commissioned paintings of themselves drinking tea. The British East India Company made their first tea order of 100lbs of Chinese tea in 1664.

Punitive taxation from 1689 almost led to the death of the trade, but also created a black market boom. Criminal gangs smuggled some 7 million lbs of tea into Britain annually, compared to a legal import of 5 million lbs. This meant that tea could be drunk by the middle and even lower classes, rather than just by the rich. It exploded in popularity and was consumed across the country in tea houses and at home.

Tea contributed to the Opium Wars

As British tea consumption grew, Britain’s exports couldn’t keep up with their demand for tea imports. China would only accept silver in exchange for tea, which proved difficult for the British. Britain came up with an illegal solution: they grew opium in their colony of India, had China exchange it with India in exchange for silver, then traded the same silver back with China in exchange for tea, which was imported into Britain.

China tried to ban opium, and in 1839, Britain declared war on China. China responded by placing an embargo on all exports of tea. The resultant 21 years of conflict, known as the Opium Wars (1839-1860), ended in Chinese defeat and led to a greatly expanded Western influence in China, a weakening of the Chinese dynastic system and paved the way for future rebellions and uprisings in the country.

One of the most damaging events of the Opium Wars was the theft of Chinese tea plants and tea-making and processing methods in 1848 by Scottish botanist and traveller Robert Fortune. Fortune, who disguised himself as a Chinese tea merchant as a way of buying plants and obtaining information, cultivated enormous tea-making farms in India. By 1888, Britain’s resultant tea imports from India outstripped China for the first time in history.

Over the next century, the explosive popularity of tea was cemented around the world, and China eventually regained its status as the world’s leading tea exporter.

The Chinese are the biggest tea-drinkers in the world

Today, the Chinese remain the biggest tea-drinkers in the world, consuming 1.6 billion pounds of tea leaves a year. ‘Tea’ is used as a catch-all term for many different brews in the West. However, the word only really applies to beverages made from the leaves of the original camellia sinensis plant that first fell into the emperor’s hot water. One strain of tea called the tieguanyin can be traced back to a single plant discovered in the Fujian province.

Old men chatting and drinking tea in a old traditional Sichuan teahouse in Chengdu, China.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Drinking tea is an art. Chinese tea can be classified into six distinctive categories: white, green, yellow, oolong, black and post-fermented. In China, tea bags are uncommon: instead, loose leaf tea is steeped in hot water.

Today, China produces thousands of types of tea. From its humble beginnings as an unknown leaf blown into a pot of boiling water to the explosive popularity of 21st-century bubble tea, tea has changed the course of history and remains a staple in households around the world.

Since it was easier to grow crops than hunt, the Aztec diet was primarily plant-based and focused on a few major foods. Maize, beans, salt and chilli peppers were the constants of Aztec cuisine, providing the average Aztec with a well-rounded diet without major deficiencies in vitamins and minerals.

Daily meals

Most Aztecs ate twice a day: the first after a few hours of morning work, and the second during the hottest hour of the day: at around 3 o’clock.

Aztec men sharing a meal

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Breakfast would usually be a maize porridge with chillies or honey, or tortillas, beans and sauce. In the afternoon, the main meal would consist of tamales, beans, tortillas, and a casserole of squash and tomatoes.

Feasts

Banquets and feasts, as well as the ceremony surrounding them, played a key role in Aztec culture. Feasts were determined by the religious calendar, and were used as a display of material wealth. They featured singing, dancing, storytelling, incense burning, offerings, tobacco, flowers, and gift-giving.

Festivities would begin at midnight. Some attendees would drink chocolate and consume hallucinogenic mushrooms so that they could describe their experiences and visions to the other guests.

Before eating, each guest would drop some food on the ground as an offering to the god Tlaltecuhtli.

Fasting

In all aspects of life, the Aztecs stressed frugality, simplicity and moderation. All members of Aztec society engaged in fasting to some extent. The main purpose of an Aztec fast was to abstain from salt and chillis. There were no regular exceptions from the fast.

Once every 52 years during the New Fire ceremony, some priests would fast for an entire year. Commoners also engaged in fasting, but less rigorously.

Food preparation

Aztec women were responsible for cooking, as for almost all domestic duties. Not using oils or fats, the main method of food preparation was boiling, grilling or steaming in two-handled clay pots or jars called xoctli.

Staple foods

The most common Aztec foods were tortillas, tamales, casseroles and the sauces that went with them – the Aztecs loved their sauces.

Maize, beans and squash were the three staple foods, to which nopales and tomatoes were usually added. Chilli and salt were ubiquitous.

The Aztec diet was dominated by fruit and vegetables, but at times also included domesticated animals such as dogs, turkeys, ducks and honey bees.

Maize

Aztec woman blowing on maize before putting it into the cooking pot

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The most important Aztec staple was maize, a crop held in such high regard that it played a central part in Aztec mythology. To some of the first Europeans, the Aztecs described it as “precious, our flesh, our bones”.

Maize came in varieties of colour, texture, size and quality, and was eaten as corn tortillas, tamales or ātōlli, maize gruel. Maize was broken down by nixtamalization: dry maize grain would be soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater.

This process would release the outer hull of the grain, and make a maize easier to grind. It transformed the maize from simple carbohydrates to a nutritional package of calcium, iron, copper and zinc.

Beans

Another important staple in the Aztec diet, beans served as a good source of protein. They were served at every meal. The beans would be soaked in water for several hours and then boiled until they were soft. They would sometimes be mixed with other vegetables to make a soup or stew.

Fruit and vegetables

The most important fruit and vegetables were chilli peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, onions and avocados. Squash was also extremely popular, including courgettes and pumpkins. The seeds were eaten fresh, dried or roasted.

Red and green tomatoes were often mixed with chilli in sauces or as filling for tamales. The Aztecs also ate various mushrooms and funghi, including the parasitic corn smut which grows on ears of corn. The main fruits consumed were guavas, papayas, custard apples, zapotes, mamey and chirimoyas.

Meat and fish

Illustration of an Aztec feast

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Aztec diet was mostly dominated by fruit and vegetables, however they did eat a variety of fish and wild game. Rabbits, birds, frogs, tadpoles, salamanders, green iguanas, pocket gophers and insects (and their eggs and larvae) all served as valuable food sources.

The Aztecs also ate domesticated turkeys, duck and dogs, and at times larger wild animals such as deer. These, however, were eaten only on rare occasions.

Spices

A wide range of herbs and spices were available to the Aztecs, who loved seasonings and sauces.

Chilli peppers, which came in a variety of species, were often dried and ground up for storage and use in cooking.

The Aztec cuisine featured a significant number of flavours, including sweet, fruity, earthy, smoky and fiery hot.

Drink

An illustration depicting elderly Aztecs smoking and drinking pulque

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The most common Aztec drinks were ātōle, and pulque – a fermented juice of maguey (the century plant) which was the main drink of commoners. The rich made a point to not drink pulque.

Ātōle accounted for a considerable amount of the daily calorie intake. Made up of 8 parts water and 6 parts maize with lime, the mixture would be cooked until softened and thickened.

Alcohol

Alcoholic drinks were made from fermented maize, honey, cacti, pineapple and other plants and fruits. Drinking was tolerated, even for children, however becoming drunk was absolutely not acceptable. The penalties could be severe, even more so for the elite.

A commoner would be punished by having their house destroyed and sent off to live in a field like an animal. A noble could be executed for drinking too much alcohol for their first transgression.

Cacao

The cocoa bean was highly treasured and of high symbolic value in the Aztec Empire. In some cases, it was used as a currency. Cacao was a rare luxury, favoured by rulers, warriors and nobles. It was most commonly drunk as cacahuatl (“cacao water”), flavoured with chilli peppers, honey, vanilla and spices and herbs.

Although cocoa was introduced to Europe in the early 16th century by Christopher Columbus, it was not until Hernan Cortes substituted sugar for spices that it became a commercial success. The word “chocolate” comes from the Aztec word, chocolatl.

Cannibalism

A scene depicting ritualistic cannibalism

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Cannibalism was deeply connected to Aztec mythology. Aztec gods and goddesses needed to consume the sacrificed flesh and blood of humans in order to sustain themselves – and the world.

Since human flesh was seen as the food of the gods, ritual cannibalism had a sacred meaning, bringing the consumer closer to the deities.

Victims, often prisoners of war, would be sacrificed in public on top of pyramids and temples by having their hearts cut out. Their bodies would then be thrown to the ground where they were dismembered.

The pieces were then distributed to the elite, and consumed in the forms of stews flavoured with salt and eaten with corn tortillas – but without chilli.

American readers might be familiar with the Earl of Sandwich as a popular restaurant franchise, suggesting a marketing creation akin to the entirely fictitious Burger King. But the Earl of Sandwich was, and continues to be, a very real man. Indeed, the incumbent owner of the title, the 11th Earl of Sandwich, is listed as one of the founders of the aforementioned American restaurant franchise.

Here’s the story of the Earl of Sandwich, the man who lent his name to an iconic food.

Handheld gambling fuel

It’s good to see that the eponymous Sandwich clan are still involved in the sarnie game 260 years after their bready legacy was supposedly established. John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, was an esteemed statesman who held various military and political offices in the second half of the 18th century, including Postmaster General, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Secretary of State for the Northern Department. But, for all his undoubtedly impressive professional achievements, his purported standing as the inventor of the sandwich surely stands apart as the Earl’s greatest legacy.

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich

Image Credit: Thomas Gainsborough, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The story goes like so: the 4th Earl was a keen gambler who often engaged in marathon sessions at the gaming table. One night, during an especially long sitting, he became so engrossed that he couldn’t bear to drag himself away to eat; his servant would have to bring food to him. But the gambling table was no place for refined Georgian table settings – Sandwich sought quick handheld sustenance that wouldn’t distract him from the action.

In that moment the Earl of Sandwich had a brainwave and called on his servant to bring him two slices of bread with a slice of beef in between. It was a solution that would allow him to eat with one hand while holding his cards with the other. The game could continue with barely a stoppage and the cards would remain pleasingly untainted by grease.

The Earl’s innovative handheld dining solution would almost certainly have been regarded as a bracingly gauche display in Georgian high society, but his gambling buddies were apparently impressed enough to follow his lead and request “the same as Sandwich”.

A culinary phenomenon is born

Whether or not this version of the sandwich origin story is apocryphal, it’s hard to refute the fact that the sandwich was named after the 4th Earl. Indeed, it seems that the name caught on quickly. The French writer Pierre-Jean Grosley noted an emergent trend in his 1772 book A Tour to London; Or New Observations on England and its Inhabitants:

“A minister of state passed four and twenty hours at a public gaming-table, so absorpt in play, that, during the whole time, he had no subsistence but a bit of beef, between two slices of toasted bread, which he eat (sic) without ever quitting the game. This new dish grew highly in vogue, during my residence in London: it was called by the name of the minister, who invented it.”

Maids making sandwiches for night shift workmen at Consolidated Aircrafts

Image Credit: US Library of Congress

A decade earlier, in 1762 – the same year that Sandwich is said to have made his culinary breakthrough – the historian Edward Gibbon described a rapidly burgeoning gastronomic phenomenon in his diary: “Twenty or thirty, perhaps, of the first men in the kingdom, in point of fashion and fortune, supping at little tables covered with a napkin, in the middle of a coffee-room, upon a bit of cold meat, or a Sandwich, and drinking a glass of punch.”

What is a sandwich?

It seems safe to say that the 4th Earl of Sandwich popularised the finger food item that bears his name, but that isn’t necessarily the same as inventing it. A specific modern understanding of the sandwich could be said to have originated in the 18th century, tallying with the Earl of Sandwich’s purported standing as its inventor, but a looser definition of the sandwich can be traced back far further.

Flatbreads were used to wrap other foodstuffs in numerous ancient cultures, while ‘trenchers’ – thick slabs of coarse, typically stale bread – were used as plates in medieval Europe. A particularly close precursor to the sandwich, as it was popularised by gambling English aristocrats, is described by the naturalist John Ray during a visit to the Netherlands in the 17th century. He observed beef hanging from the rafters of taverns “which they cut into thin slices and eat with bread and butter laying the slices upon the butter”.

Ultimately, it seems churlish to deny the Earl of Sandwich his celebrated invention by introducing other configurations of bread-based finger food. Surely sandwiches are distinct from flatbread wraps or a single slice of bread used as a vehicle for meats (what later became known as the open-faced sandwich), if only by virtue of a second bread slice that encloses the filling.

A man tips his hat as he accepts a sandwich from a woman’s hand during the Great Depression

Image Credit: Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com

Whoever invented the sandwich, it emerged as a hugely popular food product in the 19th century. As cities across Europe became increasingly industrialised, the demand for portable, cheap, quick-to-consume handheld food took off. A few decades after a wealthy Earl devised it as a means to sustain oneself without disturbing a finely balanced game of cribbage, the sandwich became a staple meal for a workforce that no longer had time to sit and eat.

For its association with the exclusive college and name suggesting disorder and dysfunction, the dessert has also been served up by political commentators reaching for a metaphor to describe the British Conservative Party and the power feuds within.

Here’s a short history of the Eton mess.

Eton College, Eton, Berkshire, England, UK

Image Credit: Shutterstock

The origins of Eton mess

In 1896, the historian Arthur Beavan reported that an Eton mess was served to a royal garden party three years earlier. In attendance were Queen Victoria, her grandson Prince George and his betrothed Princess Mary of Teck. His reference to “Eton Mess aux Fraises” is among the earliest written references to the dessert.

Eton mess isn’t a singular dish. A Lancing mess is basically the same thing, but with bananas, and is served at Lancing College in Sussex. Meanwhile, Cambridge University’s Clare College professes its own Clare College Mush, claimed by Sara Paston-Williams, author of Traditional Puddings, to be “the original recipe for this traditional pudding”.

However, it’s with Eton College that the dessert is linked. The sweet’s unspectacular ingredients — strawberries, cream and meringue — aren’t what elevates it to distinction, rather its association with the elite school founded by King Henry VI in 1440.

While the word ‘mess’ may refer to the messy appearance of the dish, it might alternatively refer to a mixture of ingredients or a mixture of people eating together.

In any case, by the 1920s, a writer in The Times welcomed alternatives to “countless varieties of compôte and derivatives of the famous Eton mess.” In the 1930s, Eton mess was served at the school’s tuck shop. According to its entry in the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, this variation of the Eton mess was served with strawberries or bananas, and with ice cream or cream. It was also served at the nearby Royal Ascot race meeting in 1935.

A dropped pavlova

Its history before royalty tucked into broken up meringue and summer berries in 1893 is obscure. But clearly, the Eton mess had become a dessert with currency in the early 20th century.

Despite this, variations of a popular tale situate its origins during a picnic or cricket match which took place at Eton College in the 1920s, though possibly earlier. At the event, a pavlova topped with cream and strawberries supposedly had a run-in with an excited dog. The result was a squashed and upturned dessert, though one which the cricketers were happy to eat.

This origin story may be more fanciful than factual. But Eton mess is traditionally served at the annual cricket match between Eton and Harrow. It’s also served on the birthday of King George III at the school, in memory of the king’s relationship with Eton.

Hard to stomach

When presented with an opportunity to criticise the British Conservative Party and its internal political contests, pundits and activists have at times reached for the iconic dessert as an analogy. The imagery is used because of the association between Conservative politicians and the cloistered boarding houses of Eton, particularly during the ministries of David Cameron between 2010 and 2018.

In May 2022, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver resurrected the quip when he used the dish as an analogy for the British government’s repackaged obesity strategy, parts of which were deferred due to the cost of living crisis which began in late 2021.

The chef and campaigner staged a protest outside the Prime Minister’s office at No 10 Downing Street, where he wielded an Eton mess and told a BBC reporter that it was “symbolic of privilege, and it was symbolic of the pavlova that got dropped, that got scraped up, and put in a bowl and got turned into an Eton mess.” He described the government’s u-turn as “like that dropped pavlova”.

Oliver followed in the footsteps of Baroness Warsi, who in 2014 promoted a mocked-up front page on live television about No 10’s “Eton Mess”. This followed education secretary Michael Gove’s description of the number of Old Etonians in Cameron’s cabinet as “ridiculous”.

The wearisome quips may be hard to stomach, but the Eton mess itself, a simple, sweet and textured combination of meringue, cream and strawberries, is sure to remain a perennial favourite.