Video Summary - What the Tudors REALLY ate – and why it was healthier than you think

Main ideas, concepts, and lessons

Tudor food was shaped by two big factors:
- Seasonality — what’s available at a given time of year (grains, dairy, eggs, meat, fish, and garden produce).
- Social status — wealthier households had broader options, but even they relied heavily on basic “staples” like bread and porridge.

“Bread” meant many things
- It could include loaves baked in ovens.
- It also included regionally adapted flat breads.
Oatcakes in upland areas
- Oatcakes were common in places like North Wales, Scotland, and the Pennines, where:
  - wheat was harder to grow
  - many households lacked ovens
- How oatcakes were made and stored:
  - Cook an oat mixture/porridge in a pot.
  - Spread it on a bake stone/griddle.
  - Cook both sides.
  - Stand them in a frame to dry for storage.
- Key advantage: oatcakes keep much longer and don’t stale like loaf bread.
No standard bread across Britain
- Different regions used their own barley/rye traditions and blends (e.g., combining loaf-bread and oatcake).

“Porridge” here means cooked in a pot
- It was highly variable.
Even when people say “bread and porridge,” ingredients varied
- The porridge ingredients changed week to week depending on what was in season.
Seasonality extended beyond plants to animal products
- Milk and dairy
  - Seasonal because cows produced milk only during certain months.
  - Typical milk season: March to about October
  - Early fresh milk: suited to butter (butter-making described as spring/early summer).
  - Later summer milk: shifted toward cheese (cheese-making described as starting around June and continuing through the year, reflecting casein availability later).
- Eggs
  - Seasonal because hens laid based on day length/light levels (no artificial light).
- Meat
  - Depended on breeding and farm timing (a farm-based rhythm of what animals could/should be slaughtered).
  - Lamb: associated with Easter (a special/limited seasonal meat).
  - Sheep/mutton: eaten mainly after shearing and when the oldest ewes were selected (wool money first, meat later).
- Fish
  - Availability followed seasonal movement of fish shoals.
Preserved foods existed—but often for scarcity
- Examples included salt cod, pickled herring, and smoked kippers.
- They were especially important in late winter and Lent, when meat was restricted.

Even though staples like bread and pottage appeared repeatedly, the diet varied because:

weekly ingredient lists changed
gardens were relied upon (few/no commercial vegetable shops)
variety was preferred so crops could ripen at different times, helping avoid gaps when one harvest peaked then spoiled

The kitchen era was described as being in transition:

Earlier system: wood-fired cooking
- Large open structures enabled flexible heat zones.
- Pots could be moved/arranged, and wood-fired cooking worked well with pottery.
Later development: increasing coal use
- Coal became more common (starting in/near coal supply areas like London via Newcastle).
- Coal required different technology:
  - You can’t simply place a coal fire directly on the floor; it must be raised for airflow or it smolders.
  - Fire designs included “cheeks” (winding/adjustable parts) to control fire size/heat.
  - The cooking layout changed so pots could be hung rather than set directly on coal.
Likely dietary impact
- The shift is suggested to have reshaped what people ate—for example, old wood-based staples like pottage making way for boiled puddings such as “spotted dick.”

Bread storage with an aired, rodent-proof safe
- Wooden box with slatted ventilation.
- Suspended on ropes to prevent mice/rodents from climbing in.
- Designed to prevent damp/mold while allowing only a small amount of smoke to deter flies (not to heavily smoke the food).
Meat preservation via salting and smoking
- Carcasses were butchered into pieces.
- Pieces were rubbed with salt (sometimes mixed with saltpeter, bay leaves, and/or spices).
- Packed into barrels with salt to keep meat for months.
Flour storage using a flour ark
- Thick wood for controlling humidity/insulation.
- A lid structure repurposed as a trough for dough work.

Butcher the carcass into suitably sized pieces.
Rub pieces thoroughly with salt (optionally with additives such as saltpeter, bay leaves, and/or spices).
Pack the pieces into a barrel with additional salt on top.
Preserve for months.