“Such herbes, fruits, and roots also as grow yeerlie out of the ground, of seed, have been verie plentifull in this land, in the time of the first Edward, and after his daies; but in processe of time they grew also to be neglected, so that from Henrie the fourth till the latter end of Henrie the seventh, and beginning of Henrie the eight, there was little or no use of them in England, but they remained either unknowne, or supposed as food more meet for hogs and savage beasts to feed upon than mankind. Whereas in my time their use is not onlie resumed among the poore commons, I mean of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, skirets, parsneps, carrets, cabbages, nauewes, turneps, and all kinds of salad herbs, but also fed upon as deintie dishes at the tables of delicate merchants, gentlemen, and the nobilitie, who make their provision yearlie for new seeds out of strange countries, from whence they have them aboundantlie.” (Holinshed’s Chronicles.)
The Flemings commenced the first market-gardens. Lettuce was served as a separate dish, and eaten at supper before meat. Capers were usually eaten boiled with oil and vinegar, as a salad. Eschalots were used to smear the plate before putting meat on it. Carrots had been introduced by the Flemings. Rhubarb, then called Patience, came from China about 1573. The common people ate turnip-leaves as a salad, and roasted the root in wood-ashes. Watercress was believed to restore the bloom to young ladies’ cheeks.
They used mustard and horse-radish; they took anchovies with wine; they took olives with wine; they had boiled oysters; boiled radishes, artichokes raw or boiled; they poured honey or spread sugar over their beef and mutton; they served pork in many ways, but if roasted, then with green sauce of sorrel; salmon they stuck with cloves; they ate porpoises; turkeys were roasted with cloves; peacocks they roasted while they were still under a year old; pigeons they stuffed with sour grapes or unripe gooseberries; rabbits were cheap and plentiful; pies of all kinds were very popular. They made salad out of barberries in pickle or with lettuces as in modern fashion. In the ordinaries and taverns there were no wine-glasses: people drank out of green pots made of white clay. They took supper at six; this was a smaller meal than dinner, but yet a plentiful meal. In a word, the Elizabethan Englishman lived much as the modern Frenchman lives: he took two meals a day and no more. In the principal ordinaries and inns musicians attended; even in the cheaper ones a viol de gamba was kept for everybody who could play; men dined for choice at the ordinary, which was a great deal cheaper than the tavern; it was not customary for the ladies to appear at taverns. An inn was known by its painted lattice; all kinds of wine could be had at most taverns, but foreign wines were sold to the general public by apothecaries. Waiters wore aprons. In private houses, but not at ordinaries and taverns, the silver fork had been introduced.
“The laudable use of forks,
Brought into custom here, as they are in Italy,
To th’ sparing o’ napkins.”
And in Ben Jonson’s Volpone,
“Then must you learn the use
And handling of your silver fork at meals.”
I have found inventories of household goods as late as the end of the seventeenth century without any mention of forks. I am inclined, therefore, to believe that they came into use very slowly, and that the old fashion of eating with a knife, fingers, and bread, lasted in country houses at least until the end of the seventeenth century. It is a survival of the old manner of eating which makes the lower class “eat with their knives.” Let me add that in my own recollection the practice has almost entirely disappeared. Forty years ago one could not take dinner at a tavern or an eating-house without seeing some of the company helping themselves with their knives.