Rule #6: Eat, carve, fold

Fine dining in Tudor England meant free-flowing wine, hierarchical seating charts, countless plates and courses, and jaw-dropping spectacle. It also meant borrowing, stealing, or importing delicacies from overseas and copying Italian and French styles of fine dining. A visit by the queen and her entourage required a feast that showcased your access to the best tableware, foods and spices, cooks, and other specialized staff. You might even engage in a bit of magic and showmanship, parading your showstopping dishes to the table with accompanying dancers, jugglers, and musicians.

Fold napkins like the Italians

Power players put a lot of thought into creating impressive table settings. Starched linen was not only for ruffs but also for napkins spectacularly folded in the shape of birds, boats, fish, castles, and houses—all of which could accompany your impressive silver and gold plates, bowls, and saltcellars.

Airborne meat carving

If you were hosting a feast, you were expected to flex your carvery skills in front of your high-powered guests. An expert carver trained in the Italian method could transform this mundane task into a virtuoso airborne performance, with the meat held in the air with a long fork. Il trinciante is the most famous carving manual of the late sixteenth century. The author illustrates various cuts of turkey and peacock and some useful carving tools.

Send your cook to Paris for training

In this letter, Leicester, the queen’s favorite courtier (Rule 13), asks a friend in Paris to send him a French gardener and a “good young cook,” along with the best seeds for herbs, salads, rare flowers, cauliflower, asparagus, and radishes. He also asks him to place a young Englishman with a French cook in a noble household for one to two years to train him in French cuisine.

Take advantage of the free lunches

Star Chamber judges—a group that included the queen’s top advisors—ate together twice a week when court was in session. This document lists the expenses and attendees for eight lavish midday meals in 1591. Each meal was equal in cost to nearly two years of wages for a skilled tradesman. The Court of Star Chamber dealt with private disputes and high-level corruption.