No feast for a king
Posted by Chewy on Monday, March 10th, 2008
I spent a weekend watching the entire first season of Showtime’s “The Tudors”. It’s about the early days of King Henry VII and watches like Melrose Place, except with more graphic sex scenes. They put a lot of money into the beautiful costumes and CGIs of castles, but my only complaint is that they put no research and no money into the food. The king’s feasts usually include lots of bunches of grapes, some citrus fruits, pomegranates and figs. Where are all the thirty course banquets with four foot tall swans made out of pastry crust and decorated with real feathers? I found this information about food in The Tudor period online:
“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 and sparrows. Peacocks may have been eaten by the very rich.
Meat was roasted, boiled or made into pies. Fish was baked, fried, grilled or boiled.
Tudor food was served in a sauce flavoured with herbs and spices.
Bread was always served with a meal.”
Where’s the beef, Showtime? Can’t you hire some art school intern with a laptop and some Fimo clay?
“The Tudors” on Showtime. First season available on On Demand or on Netflix. Second season starts soon.
Sexual content: A
Betrayel content: A
Food content: F-
Throw a food nerd a bone.
Categories: 
Discussion: 
heh, check these guys out http://tudorcook.blogspot.com/. Cooking at Hampton Court, using period recipes and methods. Maybe these guys can give Showtime some hints?
Comment written by Jen on 5:26 pm on the 10th of March, 2008
This is a little more recent than you’re probably looking for, but still, they should have hired these guys: http://www.historicfood.com/galleries.htm
Comment written by Michele on 1:54 pm on the 11th of March, 2008
That is totally awesome!
Comment written by Chewy on 10:46 pm on the 11th of March, 2008
Hi Chewy,
My name is Shannon and I’m the editorial assistant at Foodbuzz.com. Following up on a recent email invitation to be a part of our newly launched Foodbuzz Featured Publisher program, I just want to reiterate that I am very impressed with the quality of your posts. I would love to send you more details about the program, so if you are interested, please email me at Shannon@foodbuzz.com.
Cheers!
Shannon Eliot
Editorial Assistant, Foodbuzz.com
shannon@foodbuzz.com
Comment written by Shannon on 1:27 pm on the 13th of March, 2008
Yep, so true. Basically during that time all they ate is meat. But watching someing eat fruit is much more “sexy”.
What is more sexy? Someone plucking grape or fig into their mouth? Or, someone chewing on a turkey leg (actually, during this time period they ate a lot of deer, squirrels, and rabbits, too) F
Comment written by kmcgra on 7:44 pm on the 19th of March, 2008
You make a good point. But for me, there is enough boobies and dry humping in that show - they don’t need to allude to sex with eating the crap out of a juicy pear. Plus, watching on someone gnawing on a turkey leg would just be totally awesome!
Comment written by Chewy on 12:35 am on the 20th of March, 2008