You have now a broken banquet; but we’ll mend it.
A good digestion to you all: and once more
I shower a welcome on ye; welcome all. . .
Thus in Act I, Scene IV of The Life of King Henry the Eighth does the king, in disguise, crash the party at Cardinal Wolsey’s house. That night was both magical and fateful, foods were served from all over the world, wine and mead flowed and Henry Tudor met Ann Boleyn.
This rarely performed Shakespeare-Fletcher work, Henry VIII opened the season at the Folger this year. We were there as usual and for the first time, so were our children – now old enough to pay attention and enjoy a good performance that doesn’t have to feature talking animals or wizards (however cool they may be). I admit that Henry was a hard sell after Titus Andronicus – which my daughter said “rocked”, but we keep on promising that Comedy of Errors will be better as will Cyrano which round out the Folger’s season this year.
Nevertheless, the play was well mounted and played with unique artistic touches including using the court jester, Will Sommers to enter into the story and to move about – without posing a threat – the machinations of Henry’s court. The scenery was sparse, comprised of a series of metal gates and screens with served to portray the dangerous labyrinth that the courtiers had to traverse. This design also gave the actors chances to appear to eavesdrop on each other’s conversations – crucial to moving the plot along in many cases.
History has to some extent, created a false portrait of Henry. The known excesses of his romantic life – many in the quest for a male heir – have been spun into the portrait of a syphilitic glutton. A slovenly man with a hair-trigger temper and atrocious table manners. Too many of these images of Henry have been handed down to us from Victorian-era writers and personalities who viewed the life of Henry Tudor through their own moral lenses. Contrary to too many of these portrayals, Henry was a studious, learned and thoughtful man who wanted to leave the country a better, stronger place than he found it. He was enamored of More’s Utopia and tried to find elements to apply to his own life – such as educating girls and women in his own household to the same level as men. Erasmus was a frequent visitor to court as was Holbein, and there was an unprecedented promotion of the arts under his reign. He was also, father of the English Navy which only a couple of centuries later became the key to acquiring and maintaining colonies across several continents.
The banquets of Hampton Court and of other Tudor residences are legendary. In these events – often lasting several days – foods from all over the world would be lavishly prepared and presented to the king and his court. Roasted peacocks, boar’s head, venison, capons and fish – the menus were exceedingly rich in meats and sparse on the vegetables – which tended to be used in stuffings, puddings and savory pastries and pies. Fruits were used in desserts as expected, but also often used to flavor meats.
Perusing the Book of Cookrye printed in 1591 but compiling recipes from many years before, one can get an idea of the types of foods that might have been served at some of Henry’s banquets. The influence of the Silk Road can be felt in almost every page of the book – not only as a trade route which brought exotic ingredients to England that were then combined in unique English ways, but also as a conduit for recipes, manners, and ideas. The influence of the Muslim world on the Tudor court also cannot be denied. Nearly identical recipes for some of the dishes persist in Persian, Iranian and Arab kitchens today. From the use of preserved lemons and verjuice to flavor capons and mutton stew with barberries to spinach and cheese pastries and marigold pies. Some recipes include:
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Capon with Lemons
To boyle a Capon larded with Lemons. Take a fair Capon and truss him, boyl him by himselfe in faire water with a little small Oat-meal, then take Mutton Broath, and half a pint of White-wine, a bundle of Herbs, whole Mace, season it with Verjuyce, put Marrow, Dates, season it with Sugar, then take preserved Lemons and cut them like Lard, and with a larding pin, lard in it, then put the capon in a deep dish, thicken your broth with Almonds, and poure it on the Capon.
Some recipes I’ve seen use a sweeter lemon – preserved in white wine and rosewater, with other variations being the use of barberries instead of dates and lots of pepper to season the capon in addition to the mace.
Pudding in a Carret root
Take your Carret root and scrape it fair, then take a fine knife and cut out all the meat that is within the roote, and make it hollow, then make your pudding stuffe of the liver of a gooce or of a Pig, with grated bread, Corance, Cloves and mace, Dates, Pepper, Salt and Sugar, chop your Liver very small, and perboile it ere you chop it, so doon, put it in your hollow root. As for the broth, take mutton broth with corance, carets sliste, salt, whole Mace, sweet Butter, Vergious and grated bread, and so serve it forth upon sippets.
Tarte of Marigoldes
Take marigold floures and perboyle them tender, then strayne them wyth the yolckes of three or foure egges, and swete curdes, or els take three or foure apples, and perboyle wythal and strayne them with swete butter and a lyttle mace and so bake it.
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Western Asian marigold flowers and barberries, Central Asian carrots, dates and figs from the Islamic world and the ubiquitous verjuice – not to mention the spices from Southern Asia and Asia-Pacific – clearly, one of the routes of the Silk Road ended in Tudor England. Also important to the banquets of Henry’s reign, contrary to popular imagery were courtly table manners and behavior. There were strict codes of things to do and not to do that the men and women who attended state affairs were expected to follow. Courtly manners from Venice and Milan were flowing into France and England and shaping a new society. Western Europe in the Early 16th Century was a Europe of the early-to-mid Renaissance that was teeming with new ideas, new art and a new world view.
So in addition to being a gourmand who later suffered from gout, let us also remember Henry for his greater marks upon history. The formation of the Anglican Church and the rejection of Rome after his failure to secure a divorce from Catherine of Aragon set the stage for the later rational and scientific society that emerged in the early 18th Century after the reformation and counterreformation. By making the church subservient to the will of the king, Henry, arguably perhaps, was taking the first step into the modern world. Some might feel that the humanist and renaissance ideals that began prior to Henry’s reign collapsed during the nearly two hundred years of religious wars and strife that followed. But a longer view of history might say that Henry’s actions (and those of other princes and kings seeking to consolidate political and religious power) were necessary for a Europe that was no longer divided into political and spiritual worlds to emerge.
The Folger production of Henry VIII ends with the king beholding the infant Elizabeth and proclaiming that he had never before created anything of such worth as his older daughter, Mary, turns on her heels and silently stalks off stage. Surely life in the Tudor court wasn’t easy and many good men and women unjustly lost their lives during Henry’s reign – some because they couldn’t reconcile their beliefs with the will of the state. Along those lines, what I’d really like now is for someone to bring a production of A Man for All Seasons to DC. (Words by Laura Kelley.)