Fruit and vegetables could only be eaten when they were in season.

The Tudors could keep animals they used for food alive so meat was available all year round.

Meat was roasted, boiled or made into pies. Fish was baked, fried, grilled or

boiled.

Bread was always served with a meal.

There was no fresh drinking water so ale was drunk with a meal. The very rich may have wine.

Tudor food was served in a sauce flavoured with herbs and spices.

The Catholic religion of the Early Tudors meant that they could not eat meat on a Friday.

Three-quarters of the Tudor diet was made up of meat –  oxen, deer, calves, pigs or wild boar. They also ate a lot of chicken and

other birds – pigeons, sparrows and peacocks.

Potatoes were not introduced to the the UK until Elizabeth’s reign and then would only have been available to the rich.

Tudor people were keen on spices. Most of the food was heavily salted to stop it going bad so spices helped

disguise the salty taste! And also rotten meat!

Many dishes were more for show than eating. A peacock would be skinned, roasted, then put back in its skin for serving!

A ‘cockatrice’ would be made by sewing the front half of a cockerel onto the back half of a baby pig before roasting.

The kinds of herbs grown for flavouring sauces and meat included borage, sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley and chives.

Most of the fruit was cooked as doctors thought that raw food caused illness.

Vegetables were not eaten to accompany meat as nowadays.They might be used by the farmer's wife to make pottage.