In the country, and in moderate families in the metropolis, one and two are the more general hours for dining.
From the Percy household book it may be observed, that several dishes were then in use which have been long banished from our tables; among these may be reckoned cranes, herons, sea-gulls, bitterns and kirlews, and at archbishop Nevill’s feast, porpoises and seals were served up.
After the accession of Henry the seventh to the throne, the nation began to rest from the scenes of war and blood which for several years had subsisted between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and in the next reign the people turned their attention more to trade and the arts of peace, so that we find the mode of living considerably changed, for luxury being ever the attendant of extended commerce, this brought us acquainted with the produce of foreign countries till then unknown in England.
Previously to 1509 the principal vegetables used at the tables of the great were imported from the Netherlands, so that when Catherine, queen of Henry the eighth wanted a sallad, she was obliged to despatch a messenger to Flanders. Asparagus and artichokes were introduced into England about 1578, and cauliflowers somewhat later. Celery was not introduced into England till after 1709, when Marshal Tallard being made prisoner at the battle of Malplaquet, and brought into England, first introduced this plant on the English tables.
There is an article in the Percy household book which says, “That from henceforth there be no herbs bought, seeing that the cooks may have herbs enough in my lord’s gardens.”
Since the introduction of tea into England at the close of the seventeenth century the living of all classes of the people has experienced a total change, but it was not till about 1740 that tea came to be generally used in the country, for previously to that time those who made use of it got it by stealth, each being afraid of being known to be in possession of what was then termed a great luxury.
Waller has a poem addressed to the queen Maria d’Este, wife of James the second in 1683, “On Tea commended by her Majesty,” whereby it seems it was even then a new thing, though Mr. Hanway in his Essay on Tea says that Lord Arlington and Lord Ossory introduced it into England in 1666, and that it was then admired as a new thing. Their ladies introduced it among the women of quality, and its price was then £3 per pound, and continued the same till 1707. In 1715 green tea began to be used, and the practice of drinking tea descended to the middling classes of the people.
In the Tatler (No. 86, Oct. 27, 1709) the author mentions inviting his friends, seemingly as though tea was common, to drink a dish of tea, which they refused, saying they never drank tea in the morning.
The same author observes, that dinner had in his memory, crept by degrees from twelve o’clock to three, and in the Spectator it is said that coffee houses were frequented by shopkeepers from six in the morning, and that the students at law made their appearance in them in their night gowns about eight. A lady who sends her journal to the Spectator represents herself as taking chocolate in bed, and sleeping after it till ten, and drinking her Bohea from that hour till eleven. Her dinner hour was from three to four, and she did not sit up later at a card party than twelve. A citizen out of trade, in the same work, describes himself as rising at eight, dining at two, and going to bed at ten if not kept up at the club he frequented.
The history of Taverns in this country may be traced back to the time of king Henry the fourth, for so ancient is that of the Boar’s Head in East Cheap, London, the rendezvous of prince Henry and his riotous companions. Of little less antiquity is the White Hart without Bishopsgate, which now bears in the front of it, the date of its erection, 1480.