1. Henry VIII’s Banquet Menu

2. First course 100 whole roast pigs with mustard 3,500 spicy roast larks
300 salted saltwater fish

3. 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

4. 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

5. Drinks
Beer
Mead
Spiced wine
Sherry
Cider

6. Sweets and Confections
Cheesecake
Sugared jumbles (knotted biscuits)
Honeyed fruits

7. 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

8. What modern ingredients did they not have?
Chocolate
White bread
Margarine
Not much fruit
Breakfast cereal
Coffee

9. What did they use instead?
Honey
Rye bread
Cheese
Curds
beer

10. 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

11. Where did ingredients come from?
Farms
Market
Wild food like deer

12. 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