MilkShakespeare

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.

(Twelfth Night - Act 1, Scene 1)

Although Shakespeare is probably most well known for the plays he produced, this blog will attempt to write about food in the style and meter of his sonnets. In order to better understand both, some background knowledge is necessary.

First of all, let's take a look at the meter of a typical Shakespearean sonnet:

"Shakespeare’s sonnets are written predominantly in a meter called iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme in which each sonnet line consists of ten syllables. The syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet. An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. An example of an iamb would be good BYE. 

A line of iambic pentameter flows like this:

baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM / baBOOM.

Here are some examples from the sonnets:

When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME (Sonnet 12)
When IN / dis GRACE / with FOR / tune AND / men’s EYES
I ALL / a LONE / be WEEP / my OUT/ cast STATE (Sonnet 29)
Shall I / com PARE/ thee TO / a SUM / mer’s DAY?
Thou ART / more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per ATE (Sonnet 18)

Shakespeare’s plays are also written primarily in iambic pentameter, but the lines are unrhymed and not grouped into stanzas. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse. It should be noted that there are also many prose passages in Shakespeare’s plays and some lines of trochaic tetrameter, such as the Witches' speeches in Macbeth." (http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html)

"There are fourteen lines in a Shakespearean sonnet. The first twelve lines are divided into three quatrains with four lines each. In the three quatrains the poet establishes a theme or problem and then resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet. The rhyme scheme of the quatrains is abab cdcd efef. The couplet has the rhyme scheme gg. This sonnet structure is commonly called the English sonnet or the Shakespearean sonnet, to distinguish it from the Italian Petrarchan sonnet form which has two parts: a rhyming octave (abbaabba) and a rhyming sestet (cdcdcd). The Petrarchan sonnet style was extremely popular with Elizabethan sonneteers, much to Shakespeare's disdain (he mocks the conventional and excessive Petrarchan style in Sonnet 130)." (http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html)

So far, we know how the Shakespearean sonnet works, but we still know nothing about what food people eat in Shakespeare's own time. Let's discover it together. To provide a didactic approach to understand what people ate that time, it is better to organize the information into a Q&A session:

"What do they eat and why? 


The main parts of the basic diet in the Elizabethan England time were bread, meat and fish. Bread was the most important component of the diet during the Elizabethan era. The Upper Classes ate bread loaf made of wheat flour. The Lower Classes ate rye and barley bread. The meats included venison, beef, pork, veal, goat, lamb, rabbit, hare, mutton, swans, herons and poultry. Only Lords and Nobles were allowed to hunt deer, boar, hares and rabbits. The range of fish included herring, salmon, eel, whiting, plaice, cod, trout and pike. Shell fish included crab, oysters, mussels and cockles are also available. Only the Upper Classes benefited from this vast range of food. They also enjoyed various spices imported from abroad.
 The dairy products produced in the Elizabethan era included milk, cream, butter and cheese. Milk was used as an Elizabethan beverage and cream, curds, whey, butter and cheese was a by-product of this basic commodity. Hard cheeses were made from skimmed mild, soft cheeses were made from whole milk. All of these dairy products were deemed inferior foods and therefore only to be eaten by the poor.
Vegetables which came from the ground were only are considered fit for the poor. Only vegetables such as rape, onions, garlic and leeks graced a Noble's table.

How did they eat? 

The main Cooking Methods used were Spit roasting, Baking, Boiling, Smoking, Salting, Fried.

Did they use Cooking Utensils? 

Useful cooking utensils for this method of cooking Elizabethan food were pots, pans, kettles, skillets and cauldrons. To prepare the food a range of knives, ladles, meat forks and scissors were used. Instead of a baking tin, Elizabethan cooks used a baking tray made of hardened pastry.

How did they preserve foods? 

Animals were slaughtered in the autumn and preserved in salt. Pickling, desiccation and smoking were also found in old Elizabethan recipes" (http://www.papercamp.com/essay/64080/Food-In-Shakespeare-s-Time)


Now we know what people ate that time. You may raise the question: Was Shakespeare into describing and/or writing about food? Let's have a look at a number of quotations:

"

1. Twelfth Night: Act 2, Scene 3

Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?

2. Othello: Act 2, Scene 3

Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.

3. Henry V: Act 1, Scene 3

I would give all my fame for a pot of ale.

4. As You Like It: Act 3, Scene 2

Truly, thou art damned like an ill roasted egg, all on one saide.

5. The Merry Wives Of Windsor: Act 1, Scene 1

Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five senses.

6. Antony and Cleopatra: Act 2, Scene 1

Eight wild boars roasted whole at breakfast, but twelve persons there.

7. Romeo and Juliet: Act 4, Scene 2

Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.

8. Twelfth Night: Act 1, Scene 3

I ama great eater of beefd and I believe that does harm to my wit.

9. Henry IV Part 1: Act 2, Scene 1

He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his.

10. Macbeth: Act 2, Scene 3

Drink sir, is a great provoker of three things….nose painting, sleep and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire but takes away the performance." (http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/shakespeare-food-drink/)

A further list of food can be found here.


Now, let's imagine that William Shakespeare (a.k.a. Billy Shakes) wrote a poem about becoming a poet to be able to afford quality food in a sonnet:

Thee may not know what we that time did eat,

 but less thee know the more you want to learn.

At home we ate more rye than we did meat,

I got up'set by this and meat I yearned.

I told my wife this can't on go for long,

she told me: "we can't afford, it be stale.

The rich is who can have the good ol' chop,

if you want lunch, start work and not drink ale."

So mad I was by this I shan't say more,

I grabbed my pen and started to write songs.

In years I made the right amount of dough

to save up enough money to buy chops.

Be this my tale on why to be a bard,

if you were poor, to dine you should discard. 

Sources:

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html
http://www.papercamp.com/essay/64080/Food-In-Shakespeare-s-Time
http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/shakespeare-food-drink/
http://www.soupsong.com/ibard.html
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090323173031AAWieJV
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_food_did_people_eat_in_Shakespeare%27s_times
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/suic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?zid=4b40b620757f8266044096ebf78f3c84&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE|EJ2115601803&userGroupName=clov94514&jsid=fcef9ac6a09098cc3ccb0247b72b9594