During the Elizabethan times the water was not very clean, and so people drank ales and wines. Apparently during a day one person would drink a gallon of ale. The upper class people would drink wines and ales, whereas the poor would just drink ale.

During this period of time, new foods were being brought over to England such as peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, paprika and chilli. If you used spices in your foods this was a sign of wealth and good social status. Oriental spices were very profitable for traders. The meat was preserved by salt, so the spices were used to disguise the strong taste of salt in the cooking.

Any imported food were expensive, and so not used or bought by the lower class. Sugar was very expensive and so only usually used by the upper class, honey was cheaper as it was produced in England so this was used by the lower class people.

*Will add more as I research this more*

*looks forward to reading it*

I haven't been looking into this much, as I'm not working on the book at present. However, Swan and Rabbit were amongst the cooked meats that were eaten back then, whereas these days they are not meats that you would normally find cooked in the home etc.

Cheese was only eaten by poor people, as it was viewed as low quality food.

Vegetables dug up from the ground (other than leeks, onions and garlic) would never be served at a nobles table, or in a rich persons house as it was viewed as peasants food.

How odd, swan? It's funny, because in a Little House on the Prairie book Pa shot a swan by accident, and was sorry about it. I don't think they ate it. I never thought much about the difference between old fashioned foods in America as opposed to in England. Though the time difference was pretty big.... Maybe in the Elizabethan era the American colonists ate swans too.

And it is so odd that ground vegetables and cheese were seen as peasants food.

I remember reading that St Nicholas would give spiced cookies and such to the poor, because the spices were not something they would ever be able to afford to eat themselves.

I know, we can't even get my little sister to eat duck. I think swans are so beautiful, it would be sad to kill one. Funny how they didn't seem to care as much about those things in the olden days. I know, it's very strange when you compare the cultural differences between America and England.