Skip to main content
78 results from Shakespeare and Beyond on

Early modern life

View 97 results across all blogs
Much Ado About Stuffing: Recreating an early modern stuffing recipe
cutting open to the turkey and stuffing
Shakespeare and Beyond

Much Ado About Stuffing: Recreating an early modern stuffing recipe

Posted
Author
Elisa Tersigni Jack Bouchard Julia Fine Michael Walkden

Photo credit: Brittany Diliberto, Bee Two Sweet Today, turkey and stuffing are central fare on the holiday table. But turkeys weren’t even known in England until the 1520s, when they were introduced by explorers returning from the Americas. Turkey was…

Not Shakespeare’s cup of tea: Consuming caffeine in early modern England
Pamphlet against coffee
Shakespeare and Beyond

Not Shakespeare’s cup of tea: Consuming caffeine in early modern England

Posted
Author
Elisa Tersigni

In Shakespeare’s plays, we find scenes that take place in taverns and alehouses – but no coffee shops – and characters who drink ale and wine – but not what we now think of as the quintessential English beverage: tea.…

Elizabethan education and Ben Jonson's school days
Hornbook
Shakespeare and Beyond

Elizabethan education and Ben Jonson's school days

Posted
Author
Karen Lyon

See education in Shakespeare’s day through the eyes of Ben Jonson: learning ABCs and the Lord’s Prayer with hornbooks, and drilling Latin grammar endlessly.

"Excrements of the earth": Mushrooms in early modern England
Illustration of mushrooms in a Czech herbal
Shakespeare and Beyond

"Excrements of the earth": Mushrooms in early modern England

Posted
Author
Michael Walkden

Attitudes towards mushrooms in Shakespeare’s England reveal deeply held cultural anxieties about groups perceived as threats to the social fabric.

Savoring the seasons and Lettice Pudsey’s fritters
Fritter on a plate
Shakespeare and Beyond

Savoring the seasons and Lettice Pudsey’s fritters

Posted
Author
Marissa Nicosia

Food is intimately connected to climate and season. It was for Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and it is for us today. Beautiful, local produce is once again available in the northeast now that spring is turning into early summer. In…

Elizabeth I and the Qing Empress Xiaozhuang
Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and Empress Xiaozhuang
Shakespeare and Beyond

Elizabeth I and the Qing Empress Xiaozhuang

Posted
Author
Georgianna Ziegler

Like Elizabeth, Xiaozhuang was a woman with intellectual and political interests, attaining the powerful position of Empress Dowager in Qing China.

Tastes of the Mediterranean: Italian food before Italy
Woodblock print illustrating the proper set up of a kitchen
Shakespeare and Beyond

Tastes of the Mediterranean: Italian food before Italy

Posted
Author
Elisa Tersigni

Italian regions share a culinary history that is rooted in the ingredients, tastes, and techniques that came out of early-modern innovations, explorations, and cultural movements.

A Guide to Ladies: Hannah Woolley's missing book emerges from the archives
A Guide to Ladies by Hannah Woolley
Shakespeare and Beyond

A Guide to Ladies: Hannah Woolley's missing book emerges from the archives

Posted
Author
David B. Goldstein

One of Hannah Woolley’s books has sat hidden in plain sight at the Folger since 1990—included in the Folger online catalog, but missing from an international database that scholars often use to search for early English books. It is the…

Taffety Tarts: How Folger manuscript recipes helped a 17th-century pastry make it into the Oxford English Dictionary
Taffety tarts
Shakespeare and Beyond

Taffety Tarts: How Folger manuscript recipes helped a 17th-century pastry make it into the Oxford English Dictionary

Posted
Author
Mary-Anne Boermans

Food historian and The Great British Baking Show winner Mary-Anne Boermans writes about piecing together 17th-century manuscript recipes for Taffety Tarts.

Seed cake inspired by Thomas Tusser
seed cake
Shakespeare and Beyond

Seed cake inspired by Thomas Tusser

Posted
Author
Marissa Nicosia

See a 17th-century recipe for seed cake inspired by the farmer poet Thomas Tusser. Ingredients include rosewater, caraway seeds, and sherry.

Citrus and sugar: Making marmalade with Hannah Woolley
marmalade
Shakespeare and Beyond

Citrus and sugar: Making marmalade with Hannah Woolley

Posted
Author
Marissa Nicosia

Hannah Woolley’s 17-century recipe for marmalade captures the flavors of exotic citrus with the preservative power of sugar, which had only recently been made widely available to upper- and middle-class British people.

Akara from Africa: Black-eyed pea fritters, inspired by Hercules
akara
Shakespeare and Beyond

Akara from Africa: Black-eyed pea fritters, inspired by Hercules

Posted
Author
Amanda Herbert

Learn more about black-eyed peas’ place in the early modern world and enjoy this akara recipe inspired by Hercules, a chef enslaved by George Washington.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7