Tudor Feast At Christmas

this is Hatton Hall an ancient monument from a vanished age here in Derbyshire speak district this extraordinary manor house is trapped in time exactly how it used to be during the reign of Elizabeth the first in the year 1590 today a remarkable project is about to take place we go without the use of modern conveniences a group of historians and archaeologists will prepare a Tudor feast as it would have been over 400 years ago utterly stunning Jeter version of Arne they'll wear clothes from the period source food from the land c-spot old and use recipes from the era five others now that's a little more unusual they'll be turning the clock back to rediscover a way of life from an age gone by standing on a 3,000 acre estate in the Peak District and uninhabited for over three centuries Patton Hall has survived Wars changing fashions and family misfortunes now a group of experts will breathe new life into the heart of the house they'll step back in time to recreate a tudor feast using only the resources available in 1590 the year the house was completed this was a time of huge social change when new worlds were discovered and new tastes were emerging this was England working out where it is what it wants to do what its place in the world is going to be it has a choice it's broken away from Rome and the rest of Europe it's time to go for it and it does on every sense the architecture that art and the food the sudden exploration of the world finding out what's out there and bringing all that produce back it must have been an exciting time to live mark Melton Vil runs the historic royal kitchens at Hampton Court where he regularly cooks using old Tudor recipes this is quite a challenge we've got a tantalizing glimpse of what we think we should do you've got the most ambiguous of recipes to work from you have a cookery system which works on fire so count earth can they tell you how long to put it in the oven for these ovens are stone so no one gives you any timings for the oven for the roasting for the boiling they'll just say cook until done so at every recipe we're going to use there's probably 20 ways of doing it with none of today's labor-saving devices the team will need all their knowledge and skills to cook food from the period using only surviving recipes pick up daughters feathers in such salt that when it is enough it shall seem to be alive Ruth Goodman is an historian specializing in the domestic practices of the period we're going to be trying to do both the centerpieces all the sort of visual pretty-pretty things on the table and also a variety of dishes and the sauces and flavors and we're also going to try and serve it in a two dawei archaeologists hue Beamish alex Langlands and peter Ginn nicknamed Fonz will supply much of the labor in the kitchen to deface have bought her Latin stuff whenever you'd walk around this place oh yeah yeah I've seen on the the cuesta board head on the quest for the family yeah yeah peacocks and bought so everywhere isn't it so so we got a boar and a peacock definite it's got to be posh expensive exotic ingredients time-consuming things everything that makes the diners realize that this is the last week turning theory into practice over the next three days our team will cook peacock wild boar venison and an array of salads and elaborate sweet dishes as they attempt to recreate an authentic Tudor feast the team's first task is to bring the kitchen back into full working order for the first time in over three centuries at Hattin Hall as many as three wood fires would have been in regular use Fonz and Hugh are attempting to relight the copper copper is this so called because it's a large copper dish that contains water it's used for boiling water so you put your water on top your fire underneath you put a lid on top you let it boil and hopefully within a short space time you have hot water right can I go with a flint and steel now Flint steel strike two goop the two together you get sparks okay bit like the mutton water very much like it was a gas no guess however I have a piece of char cloth piece of fine linen cloth that's almost baked really really dry right so hopefully it will take a spark quite easily from the flute happy with a theory I am happy with you it's not as easy it looks unfortunate not like most chores in the kitchen lighting the fires was a slow and painstaking job yeah okay right you've got it mm-hmm just going to place in size bit of toe hey what's going isn't it yeah that's it just keep blowing really really gently working in the kitchens at Haddon Hall was a privileged position here the cooks were almost all-male men's wages were higher so affluent households employed them as a status symbol women were often given the more menial tasks household this size uses most enormous amount of water I mean all your cooking moratoria washing water your drinking water or washing up water it's all got to be collected by bucket and yolk when the oak does help because it sort of spreads the weight onto your spine rather than hanging off your arms and it's sort of like it's banging against your legs few houses had the luxury of piped water the hall had to rely on both its natural resources and hard physical labor much of the women's work this time is really really physical you know it's not if you were some say little thing oh it's don't delicate you wouldn't last five minutes you had to be physically strong if you weren't you couldn't get work you know you'll go hungry and when people hired servants they they looked at their physique to see that they were tough they must have there must have been pretty darn tough actually when you start doing this work you know it's absolutely exhausting water it's pretty heavy stuff in the kitchen Farms and Hugh have brought the copper fire up to heat good he exists oh yes this is a very exciting moment for us because this is the first time in over 300 years with these files have been lit we're looking forward to seeing how they do you have to get this under here quite soon for you and me I think so good job there look water stick something I suppose wait for that to boil and I can do my chair scene not gonna take long is it not you the kitchen at Hatton Hall was once the engine room of the entire house here a butchery provided a constant supply of expensive meats and game an adjoining bake house produced fresh bread and pies for the table and highly skilled confectioner's made elaborate sweet dishes with exotic ingredients this was a food production line designed for the sole purpose of large-scale catering alex has been kneading dough all morning sure I forgot needing that for you a little bit about arrests these take over looking good just watching hope I never need wear makeup so naturally it's incredibly good for you the outside of course is the smell of hot bread I usually smell yeast in there yeah now the next bit once we've forgiveness a good stretch you've got the groove of moving yeah you want to stick it in a pole coughing the top put it on my wall I put it next to the fire yeah that'll do that'd be fine what we could do that if we were playing extremely ancient is stick it outside on the lavatory why don't they do that apples have got natural yeast on the skin tame exciter and if you put dough underneath the tree it rises up quicker that's even if you put in yeast in yourself so this is this is not just kind of like an old wives tale no no it work backed up by science yeah but it's also it would've been otherwise by Tudor times that's very very ancient well I've got burials used in here that's gonna make it light up lovely right only if we're really lucky look we get Rockland doesn't run about this gameis how's it feeling I starting to push back now feel it look less like a pastry when you start eating becoming like if I don't do I start - don't a spring back is rising up itself already I'm gonna talk about another gun you'll feel it's pushing back all right yeah yeah I'm with you so it's bolt on and I need to get to make the other day another two of these that should stop the water in the copper is a boiling point for the first time in over 300 years it is ready to be used for the feast honoring some jelly and I'm more used to going to a supermarket buying really in a packet it's for this I've actually got extract Nigella tea gelatine is contained in the skin in the bone and the gristle of a pig's Trotter and also get it out boil it for eight hours so I'm just gonna pop these in Ruth is busy in the still room a private area of the kitchen where all the work that involved cooking with sugar took place sugar in the 1590s was sixteen to twenty times the price of beef so if you sort of go to the butchers and think how much a pound of good beef is you know and sort of scale it up you sort of find yourself thinking hmm a modern bag of sugar that's about three hundred quid ah the kitchen staff were rarely trusted with the task of preparing the sweet dishes the work in here was actually done by ladies of the house it might be the wife it might be the lady of the house or it might be her sister or other female relatives if you allowed a servant in here it would be under close supervision following a surviving recipe from the period Ruth is attempting to make a marchpane an iced and gilded marzipan cake that only the very richest households could afford how to make a good marchpane first take a pound of long small almonds blanch them in cold water and then take her cloth and dry them as dry as you can and then it says that I have to stab them small in a mortar they then goes on to say that having reduced my almonds to ground almond powder I've got to add in sugar that I've already ground Oh got the labor I can't tell you how long it's taken me I I've done one batch here in the bulb I was about an hour and a half of pounding I've got about three times that much to go I'm almost second heart my arms are killing me so I think to be honest I'm like caught in some labor from the boys hell Alex yeah coz I'll give you a hand Jim will help you in Oh just do it Cummins and sugar for me good I'm just pounding this yet okay so just going to grind it right down yeah yeah yeah start your on your powder yeah like this one look that's a lot of flour yeah that's the point it's like you know you just leave yes a lot of manpower these sweets that's just a woman power yeah in aren't like it's some self gonna be it forever posting large feasts was a regular occurrence in the great households of Tudor England at Hattin Hall over 70 servants lived and worked on the estate most were employed to provide the kitchen with a constant supply of fresh produce and meat released from his kitchen duties Alex has joined funds to track down one of the centerpieces for the feast they've met up with Anthony salt who's reintroduced wild boar to his Derbyshire farm against his taken as a while we'll be trapped them down for the doing of barely feeding I think the feeling in a little bit of legal aid at where my well we were safe nice distance here I think we are at a safe enough distance yes they do have a very keen sense of smell right but their eyesight isn't too great right right but obviously we're downwind so were they've not smelters yet otherwise they'd be on the room right the hunting of wild boar was a favorite pastime of the landed gentry their razor-sharp tusks and powerful jaws made them a formidable prey probably the dangerous only yes they can be very ferocious one corner to mean you've got to remember they're not like a domestic pig they're a wild animal by the 16th century the indigenous species of wild boar in England had all but died out like today wild boar herds had to be imported from the continent I think basically was down to the amount of damage they did on the land right to crop some fields you know can do a tremendous amount and damaging one evening landowners really persecuted them and forced them to extinction of course you've got the depletion of their natural habitat as well the forests being used for charcoal burning and of course for ship burning as well in the Navy at the 16th century that's right there'd be less and less places for them to sort of hide out in sort of Osbourne meat tastes like it's got its own distinct gamey flavor it's a lot stronger than commercial pork and it's very similar texture to beef really you know this also a lot redder darker meat than the supermarket pork today wild boar meat is back in fashion Antony has agreed to part with one of his stock boars for the feast at Haddon Hall I've ground all the sugar down and all the almonds and I've beaten the two together with just a little tiny spot of rosewater like it told me to the book and I now have much pain perhaps you might know it as marzipan all that work anyway you can see I've got a great big lumps of it and now I've got to start molding it into the shape so clear myself a space what a plan to do is a sort of big circle flat cake so that they deep I hope if I've got enough marzipan and I've got ice it and hopefully giggled it and there's a little tree II come out the center and this is something I've seen described in period recipes let's see how I get old sound just so I think I'm just going to start by putting on and seeing that I've got the thickness and how big I'm going to be able to make it the pigs trotters have been boiling in the copper for the last eight hours and fauns and mark are now able to start the arduous process of making their jellies the moment is a bit like soup we want to clear it so we're gonna have to sit over and over again to get more and more particles out of water and then hopefully left with a very jealousy rich water which one left to cool should sit on like a jelly I'm gonna make a nice thing out of sugar and egg white which I've sort of just beaten up a bit together I'm gonna mix them onto something fairly wet and then I'm going to paint it on with a feather while Ruth continues the delicate task of icing the marchpane in the kitchens game Lada Alex's skinning a deer in preparation for the feast he's being helped by local butcher Michael shirt it's what we're doing here is the legging there Michael yes what you have to do is leg the animal and then hang it up like four inches so you can remove the skin and one clean piece because apart from the meat which is a valuable part of the Kirkus the also used to cure the skin and make a deer skin rug out of it right so no part of the deer would be wasted not at all up off in the hooves moon no no they didn't even probably well not make glue out the part of the line in the 16th century few meats were as prized as venison if you were invited to the Lord's Man and the Lord was serving up venison in the table he's trying to tell you that he's powerful you know he's rich he's wealthy he's high at the social order and of course he can hunt as well which is a privilege that was only extended to the very very upper classes Wow and he trusts him and used it right away so there we go minute we've already taken out the lean thighs and waiver I thought they'd pour garlic in by the way which daily intestine and also take this which is the clock right is that the limb pipe here and then the lungs right heart and the liver so these are these are the umbels are the other humbles that's correct yes where it's they used to give to the the president's people lower down there on the scale so people lower down the social order would get to eat the humble was it and that's the where the the phrase to eat humble pie guts right to be humble know I've liked it this to the next process we're just going to pull the skin straight down here quite swiftly and leave the carcass B&O we have a nice clean skin I'd be hard to get over that I better get on that yeah pull it down well that's basically it just need to debone it now and it's ready for the spit right in the main kitchen fons and Mark are still straining the gelatine even make the jellies awkward isn't it yeah and that's the whole point because not all the foods expensive because of where it's come from some of its expensive because the labor involved so it might only be big stoppers for man's food but - baby - you mean I gotta do this for hours just so they can get plated jelly hence while doing it for a fee silk is public in its day Patton Hall was one of the grandest houses in the country reflecting both the wealth and extravagance of the Tudor upper classes to understand more about its culinary past Ruth has met up with local historian Mary Lloyd in the halls magnificent long gallery oh isn't that that's the Boar's Head isn't it that isn't that the Manas family well it's just the ball but it's the Vernon family who built the house oh right those are people that's not lovely I've never been allowed in here would I I mean you know 400 years ago I won't let anyone near the place Sir John manners and his family were living at Haddon Hall in 1590 the family still owned the house today we have some of the original orders for food so these are these are food lists yeah I'm here yes off about the date we're doing yeah oh yeah let's see so John manners oh well that pretty much dates it doesn't it yeah 3 doesn't chicken 11 doesn't pigeons nice load three barrels of oil a passive voice did I suppose they were cheap in those days weren't they five utters now that's a little more unusual just by the sheer quantities you know they've got to be some special event and they John Manas his father-in-law said George Verne and he was quite a one for throwing feasts because he was known as the king of the people's noses batalla so he was probably known for giving banquets or at the center yeah the great feasts at Haddon Hall were famous a portrait from the period depicts the Christmas revelries in the Great Hall according to legend it was during a feast that Dorothy Vernon younger daughter of Sir George eloped to marry John manners their children became the dukes of Rutland there's this sort of tradition in this house of large scale Entertainment comes fantastic it's the end of the Working Day for the team time to take some well-earned rest and for the workers at Hattin hall it's a chance to eat a dinner of humble pie just the humble humble poppy brain cutter gone Alec Star Wars office and we get--we stunningly good good rosemary final hmm /i there's a lot that around the team are settling into their new roles but they still have a lot of work ahead of them we've got to enter today and everything we plan to do this dog he's done yeah howdy milk how to jolly come along anyway yeah yeah good usually confident he didn't seem so confident I'm eternally confident a new day at Haddon Hall and the team must start by gathering together more ingredients for the feast kitchen staff relied on the estate itself for all the fresh produce they needed Ruth is raiding the halls herb garden her garden would have been absolutely central to a great estate it's not only for food and because that's very important to have fun and interesting food you also need your herb garden for things like the insecticides that keep your house clean of pests things that keep smell at bay for cleaning agents it's a pretty huge list and without it it's quite hard to see how a Tudor house hole function an enormous variety of different herbs and plants were used in a Tudor kitchen much of their food was preserved with salt so powerful flavorings were needed to disguise the taste but herbs also had other valuable properties of course these plants were eaten not just for their flavor although that's important but also for their medicinal properties the theory of how the body worked in the period said that everything had to be in balance and there was four basic humors blood phlegm yellow bile and blackboard you had to have this perfect balance that's what health taught but each of us individually all had a different balance and men are different from women and young are different from old and people with different colouring are different from each others so I'm ginger that means I have a lot of the yellow bile the the hot dry Collard choleric by nature and therefore hot-tempered I would need to make sure that I didn't eat too many hot dry foods so not much mustard or pepper or horseradish but lots and lots of cool food so I should be eating the Angelica along with lettuce and celery and things like that which were considered to be cooling and calming would make me a nicer personal round to cook the large number of dishes they're planning for the feast the team will use a huge amount of fuel they need to restock their wood stores you think of all the many fires they've got over at Hattin Hall back in the 16th century they would have used an enormous amount of wood I think you've got fires for cooking fires for heating fires for but keep boiling water as well I mean basically got fires running pretty much every day of the year on the other side of the estate fons has come down to the river with local angler Richard Ward to try his luck at a spot of fishing he really must stay hidden there using a rod and line similar to that used by anglers in the 16th century this this is pretty typical of a slightly upmarket rod that the childers would have used they've been around for at least a hundred years and the the butt section that I'm using here is made of Hazel yeah and it has a slice taken out of it up here at the top of angular and then I've got a section here of blackthorn which is very springy resilient Ward which should be fastened together and I've got linen thread which is wax with beeswax and that holds it very tightly there's no glue in there it can move about expand or whatever first of all there's a very heavy horsehair fishing line here this is 21 hairs that's three bunches of seven twisted to make a little rope and then then then there's another base and it's not it together with it the knot that still used today by anglers it's called a water knot but they knew what they were doing now these guys because you know it was important today that they succeeded because it was part of going shopping it was getting at some grub you know they didn't go to the shops after had to get them ourselves just the river wye running through Hatton halls estate not only supplied the kitchen with fresh water but also a constant supply of fresh brown trout the brown trouts natural environment has been slowly eroded by man's used to the waterways in it so we're very lucky here at Haddon Hall to actually have a river that runs pass that has got brown trout in it but I'm not so sure if we're gonna be so lucky to catch a source one we will but probably not here I think you've scared away the fish that we're just but they'll not have gone far but they just won't eat I mean use the undies if you were frightened would you if something is threatening some nasty Spaniard with a witness order that you thrown could be it'll be ready to eat a pork pie when you but I'm always ready to be apple pie so to be a nicer form they're all over there by not getting yep Angliss through the ages have learnt to their cost then what's not like the fish semen well sure we'll try a little bit of river yes where we've not frightened that the fish is that's a lot to write them at the next month you these are strawberries wild strawberries and these are the only sorta strawberries that teeters had that the modern great big fat things they're a hybrid between these and something that's found in America but whenever you see strawberries just these little tiny little things they're really lovely though they're so sweet I've seen accounts of gentlemen in London and they've kept sort of household accounts and it says for their dinner that they had a pint of strawberries and a chicken which would be pretty damn gorgeous when we think up many you'd need one hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of them wouldn't it if you must ever go in is you'd find it's mushy okay just hold there yeah and the trick is not to put lots of power on the forward cast it's just if anything is you've got any power on it's a little bit on the back cast and then just ease it forward okay funk it further that's the name sit spot Oh just need a fish now yes part of it Charles cotton who ancient Darvish your angler used to say that any man who couldn't wander a 16 inch trout on two hares was not fit to call him stuff an angler so unfit I'm afraid I just find this this stuff so amazingly frail it's for feast like ours we really used a brown trout they'd evolved around turn around and you have used all methods to catch them they've got traps in the river that have been people look but dawn with dreads and worms oh you know if it was an important feast you know nobility or royalty or visiting they were good right really do gone get it and there wouldn't be there's no sporting aspect to it it's all it would have been get the gettin caught we don't seem to doing very well do we now let's hope that all the rest of the state workers of court plenty of trout because we're not doing very well at all but after get the traps out this as Alex returns to the hall with a new supply of and kindling in the kitchen the rest of the team are getting ready for an afternoon of baking Ruth is attempting to fire the kitchens 400 year old bread ovens the oven itself is just a sort of stone cave or maybe a brick cave it has to be a very specific shape to make this fire move in the right way so that it heats evenly and then it's the hot stones of the cave that did the cooking for you so at the moment we've just got a little fire happening in the middle and the flames are going straight up that's a baby fire just started as the fire develops we're looking to move the flame around the shape and what we'll end up in a bit it's starting to get a plume so it's go up straight and it'll hit the roof spread and start to come down the side heating the side like a mushroom cloud sort of thing and then later looking it's going to come in sort up a base and then curl the way around and back up so what I'm aiming at is a very particular shape and color and form the flame to tell me that the oven is heating properly um it's pretty accurate but like so many things it requires skill bit more skill than just turning a knob anyway Maude what happened that hasn't been in regular use this is working superb well I wonder who the last person to use this was somebody was probably only too glad to see the back of it I should imagine a huge amount of work the ovens are proving to be more successful than Richard and fauns who have yet to catch a single trout it's all fish caught color the day you like ya get into serious trouble the Lord's favor darling now look we'll also waste that what's that this is this is sheep and it's where they've rubbed it off and it looks like a bit of lamb's wool but we're just muscle way so that makes good dubbing what's best for the bodies of the fly I can't go deeper in our dubbing bag ready for see what we want the tysyna for flies yeah pick anything up like that anything that's that you know fur if you find black sheep's wool even a mouse the third can be yours for making flies bodies of it oh I'll keep my eyes peeled yes I wish they'd invented tea into the time hey that fish is still rising here with the ovens warming Ruth is finally ready to start preparing the centerpiece for the Lord's table the tutor upper classes love to dazzle their guests with great visual displays and few dishes were more spectacular than the peacock pie doesn't look ugly beautiful no no he hasn't even started dragging his terra firma so they're perfect right right Oxnard with you're not even a nice couple man gorgeous it looks yeah is extremely fresh right so is it me skinny nose ears hello in Tudor England people's poultry arts contained a huge variety of poultry not just chickens but also ducks and geese and peacocks and swans were all sort of farmed in essence for the table we don't really seem to do that anymore I'm not really quite sure why I can't think of why we don't I mean he cuts a perfectly nice bird to eat but for some reason people think they should only be looked at in these days but you have to think is just a pretty chick in there really yeah it has to be all playing well now chickens are pretty - I'm trying to take the skin off in one complete piece so that we can then reuse the skin because the skin is going to go to Table two it's going to be part of a big physical display and obviously we're going to eat the bird himself which hopefully should be very nice I almost say in the books all the books I've ever read tried to claim that peacock is disgusting and yet the two times I've done it before watched and I thought it was lovely the diet of the landed gentry differed greatly from that of the lower classes poultry of any kind was considered a luxury even chicken was seldom eaten hello class is very rare at poultry chicken with an expensive meat simply because it's so much more valuable alive as an egg layer chicken only became a cheap meat from the last quarter of the 20th century when we introduced battery farming before that all poultry was expensive made while Ruth continues the delicate art of skinning the peacock mark has been given the task of making a spice mix for the pie ingredients that were only available in the wealthiest households the whole point to these spices that go into this pie are money everything we're doing about this meal is to show off you're in a big house you've got fantastic room antastic equipment fantastic food it's got a cost cost cost things that other people can't have they've come from all over the world it's also difficult to tell you know people say how much is that worth and you give a few pence and it doesn't sound anything because we don't use the same money of them but cinnamon is a good indication that's just a cinnamon stick we all buy it at Christmas sometimes put a bit on a bit of custard think nothing of it leaving the back of the cupboard nearly 500 years ago if I could afford to buy three ships put a crew on board send it all the way down to the Spice Islands fill them up with cinnamon if one of those ships makes it back three years later we've made enough profit to pay for everything to pay for the losses to keep ourselves in good living for many years so it is worth a fortune I'm nearly nearly done here and it's gone quite well actually he was warm and that makes a lot of difference trying to skin something with so much plumage and in such condition is a bit of a challenge it must be said so I can't spoil something as gorgeous as this candy right last little bit here meat Oh peacock oh look at that that's kind of amazing on table isn't it absolutely fantastic I'm really pleased with that with the skinning of the peacock complete the rest of the team can now prepare the filling for the pine just chopping up the beef suet and this is going up a peacock pie a ruse that I've got to dice this up really small we're going to mix it in with all the meat and the dried fruits as well just to keep up high nice and moist nice and subtle tiny bit of something that none of us think about the nutmeg nutmeg was the new spice for the late shooters we're told the entire estates were lost over Petrelli nutmegs when the bottom fell out and nutmeg market almost later someone else who has the first dreams to this house is going to give me meager amounts of each one as that they are that's enough your peacock pie because otherwise I'm gonna pick up this nutmeg I'm going to be off down the drive and live that live like a king forever so you need to take these away from me quite quickly look yeah hello that's nice we have enough of it yeah I'm really really really full and solid yeah they're gonna be any gaps in this a momentary respite for the team while the bread ovens are still heating allows Ruth to begin applying the finishing touches to her marchpane she's gilding its edges with gold leaf this is real gold and therefore cost a blinking fortune and always did and that's the point it's real conspicuous consumption you can't do this with fake gold because fake gold would make you kill if you get it as real gold is inert goes in one end straight through out the other end and does no harm on the way so you can eat real gold but gold is always being the price of gold and I suppose whoever was doing it at any day in history must have felt the pressure but perhaps they had a bit more brightness or denial in the period they actually just took a small lump of gold and some poor bloke just hit it with hammers on a cushion until they got it down to this really really really fine sheet I mean the skill involved in eating something so that you don't break it and go through it I just beca's believe I'm having trouble picking it up without breaking it you know but I think my real worry is that we won't get the finish you know the the final quality of presentation that they would have had in a period I have a feeling that we might end up something a little bit rustic as Ruth contemplates the team's progress a critical moment is arrived in the bake house now the hot cop the ovens now the temperature stone is hot enough hook the thread with the ovens up to temperature the team have just seconds to get all the bread and pies in before the stones begin to cool and the dough that first moment when you take the fire art you get the bread in has to happen really really fast because obviously when you're taking the fire out the doors are open your oven is beginning to cool down oh the bread and pies will bake in the ovens overnight a simple dough mixture is used to seal the doors and prevent the heat from escaping now we can relax now we can take a time get rid of the ashes and then seal up the doors during karma the day of the feast has arrived and our team are up at dawn preparing for a long day of cooking ahead for the first job in the morning is to get this fire lit five o'clock servants people like funds and myself for up getting together our tinder and some nice little bits of kindling get this thing lit so that we can get it up to heat as soon as possible because we've got so much to cook today and we going to cook in so many different ways so someone's always going to be on hand in this fire tending it making sure it's up to heat Ruth's first task of the morning is to apply the finishing touches to her pecan pie got pie out of heaven thank nicely more right all I've got to do now set skin on top of it you know it Ruth's recipe for the dish describes how the pie should be covered with the skin of the peacock using a wireframe as if the bird was still alive on the table more than grape looks utterly stunning along with the centerpieces the team are also cooking a huge array of different meat salads and sweets in a wealthy household both quality and quantity layered the heart of a successful feast we've got Gammons to go in we even thought about some chickens at the last minute we've got venison to spit roast we've got wild boar to spit roast we've got the peacock pie to sort out we've got more bread rolls to do we've got all the sweets to do we got toasts to do I mean toast for 40 people is the last thing I need we're producing so much food when you look at this Musial we think we can't eat all that and that's not that that's the whole point you're not supposed to be able to eat it all what you're doing is giving your guests a choice eating today a lot of people don't choose what they they just don't get very much and it was certainly that case in Tudor England most people ate very little and didn't get any choice at all so when you sit down at this meal it's everything out in front of you what do you want no tantalize your taste buds difference the chicken the venison the salads they artichokes the pies or do you just want gamma nobody minds what you eat but you've been given choice it's like having a literate and men you live in front of you on the table as most of the dishes have to be cooked from fresh the scale of the task is beginning to dawn on farms I don't think I've ever cooked so many different dishes at one time for so many people so there's a bit of trepidation wondering whether it's all and come together all gonna be right for the feast this what started off as a really simple salad they became one of those ideas this came out of that first idea what was their crest like and we're talking about let's put a ball on the table look for a thief up on the table and the names let's make a salad like the crest well that's easily said it's going to taste like egg salad we're going to spit roast our venison on our boar so we're going to Bank up the fire behind and that will that will grill the meat but also we've got fry on it we've also got a boil on it so we can alter the shape of our fire to our cooking needs to spit roast all the meats in time for the feast Alex and fauns must get the main fire up to temperature as soon as possible looking good isn't it well it's there but we're just going to you know load it up with wood now that's it just fill that place with fire yeah loads of vegetables to blanch carriages to blanch ready kale salads and we got the meats we've got to get the meat on the spit yep yep that's going to be done with you now and people would think one of the big things I've learned so far from this experience is the amount of preparation work that goes into every dish like today ingredients are all about this sort kind of things being thrown together in the kitchen and I think because we've got food blenders things that can just cut out all the hardware we kind of take it for granted because the Tudor period I see things really fine and having everything processed over such a long period but so many people that's where the status is so that's one thing I that's really kind of torn them this was a dynamic time for England the merchant classes in the towns were flourishing the old aristocracy found themselves under increasing pressure from families with newfound wealth at Haddon Hall the level of detail that went into every aspect of a feast was part of a deliberate attempt to send specific messages to its guests this is the top table the two side tables are laid quite simply but this one we're gonna invest some time on it's all part of this imagery of the Great Hall everyone dining here literally knows their place the one sat at the far ends are going to realize how far not just in space but in money they are from the man's in the middle sat on this fantastic tapestry on a table isn't on the same level as everyone else's his tables lifted up on stones on something called the dais so he's elevated already just by sitting higher than you're looking down on the rest of you he's got the best light it's going to think what an all real window to the one side so the light comes Cades down on his table the rest of you might do what you can and this time he's going to get three tablecloth the Judah version of Arne don't let's try down the middle with the same the Lord's table would be adorned with as much fine linen as possible this was an easy one quality napery was highly desired by the tudor gentry seam down the front its cloth cloth cloth you're an Italian went off his money and the nicer cloth you have the more money you have and the amount of cloth you have must show how much money you have so it might just look like a white tablecloth as we walk into the room but your tutor you've got a really flash car here with the presentation of food as important as its taste the staff in the kitchen face a daunting challenge if they're to reach the high standards of upmarket Elizabethan cuisine not on now we'll be looking at a couple of hours is it well at the moment I'm just trying to knock up a.m. it's a trickle of salad with salmon mushy peas and onions but even that requiring so much work to dice the carrots alex is doing me some onions I'm currently up to my elbows and peas and uh oh dear every time I see if you have your hands in sort of something gooey before anything can be sent to table each individual dish has to be carefully arranged I'm just starting to dress Bulls head for the table we lost a little bit of the skin off his nose when he came out of the cauldron so I think I've got a bit of gelatine still might just have painted over the gelatine and then sticked something burn to hide it over at the main fire the venison and boar meat has been roasting for the last two hours slightly burned on slide was a little bit charred of the day I think is forceful nowadays we stick this napkin on our lap to catch any food with droplets that's not going to happen tonight because my diners know how to eat tudor-style so they're going to put it up here on the left hand shoulder looks a bit odd at first until you think about eating with your hands it's perfect just there for wiping and keeping the mouth clean the term etiquette had yet to be invented the Tudor equivalent was courtesy a belief that a well-mannered lady or gentleman should behave in a way that demonstrated their superior upbringing anyone able to eat in a Great Hall like this will have grown up with good manners and luckily for us the manners book still survives to teach us what those good manners were sat here at the high table before the meal even starts I'm going to have my hands washed servants are going to bring me bowl of warm water maybe some soap and I'll put my hands out and have my hands actually washed for me part of status anything that can't be eaten with a spoon another gorgeous gold one here for his lordship you can need your knife because you're supposed to cut it up into what they call fair gobbets it's lovely word it just means mouth size pieces so a piece of lovely roasted meat is picked up with fingers and the knife put onto this tiny little plate the trencher and cut up into pieces so that you can then put a knife down clean everything with a napkin so if we get our meal just how it should be tonight it should be the height of good manners not all tudor dishes took hours to produce with the feast fast approaching the team are creating syllabub a simple dessert containing spiced wine and cream to mix the two ingredients together alex has found the highest point in the kitchen to pour the cream into bowls of wine below this wood wine curdles cream a little bit it's sort of semi set so you get sort of like flavoured creamy wine with a sort of bubbly texture that nice there's still loads of cream in here it's four o'clock in the afternoon and guests are arriving for the feast the tutors at early by modern standards making best use of the available daylight the team need to be ready to serve in only an hour's time they're busy taking the finished dishes to the pantry to be organized and arranged we got a few things that aren't finished quite the degree we would write but not bad not bad perhaps if we got together more often you know got practice together then we get slicker to Lynch Oh long wait for the litchi and back right so far so good drink pretty much everything's gone to plan yeah only better problem with this with the spit-roast yeah bring on it could have done with a couple more hours ooh through maybe or maybe another hour and we've just run out time now and we've just got floating what we've got but to be honest living we've just got so many chickens and Gammons I'm really we're not gonna miss it but the venison worked fine so that's good news so we got special soon we've got salads of artichokes we've got gammon dr. gaman marchpane I've got some cheese made into small balls and I've got fried black pudding with fried chicken is there another one down there no no there should be a child camera after three days of hard graft the team are finally ready to start serving the food but before any dishes are sent to the Great Hall the men must change into their livery uniforms throw that over your right shoulder and like that hmm yeah and don't bury something like that yeah much doesn't stand around doing nothing for a while okay oops wicket should get dishing up then female servants weren't permitted to serve food to guests male staff on the other hand were expected to be well presented I'm just trying to get everything together here in poetry so that it goes out in order and all together it has bonk bonk bonk bonk bonk on the table evenly correctly spaced so I need to get the numbers right so I'm trying to do things in threes all sixes I've got a couple of twos which I'm going to have to divide and the singles are basically centerpieces as the centerpiece for the Lord's table Ruth's peacock pie is the first dish served to add to the spectacle the original recipe suggests the bird should be spitting fire from its beak the hosts table is the first to be filled with the expensive labor-intensive dishes causes as such didn't really exist at this point you have removes so you fill the table with food and then when you've everybody's finished eating it you remove it and that's when remove and then you fill all the tables again and usually it's no more than two room loops it's very unusual to go for three the side tables are the next to be served they're given a cheaper more basic selection once the tables are filled with as much food as they can hold the feast can finally begin it is taken our team three long days to prepare all the food and dishes in the style of the period now all their hard work in the kitchen is disappearing in front of them for Ruth it is a brief yet satisfying glimpse into a distant past I don't think we done to really I think it's it's something quite like I imagined a to deface to be it's pretty gutsy stuff with this real powerful understanding and use of good meat and good vegetables I think there was a lot of prudery in the 1590s I think people were fairly living life to the full you know it might might go like that life is short you make most of it as the final dish roofs iced and gilded marchpane is presented at the Lord's table for our team employment at Hatton Hall has come to an end as the revelries continue long into the evening for the first time in over four centuries this Great Hall is once again alive to the sights and sounds of a tudor feast

Channel: Tudor Monastery

Views: 97,602

Keywords: tudor monastery farm, tudor monastery farm episode 2, tudor monastery farm episode 3, tudor monastery farm episode 5, tudor monastery farm episode 4, tudor monastery farm christmas special, tudor monastery farm episode 6, tudor monastery farm christmas, tudor monastery farm 07, tudor monastery

Id: Y5mAexY-HPs

Length: 59min 5sec (3545 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 19 2015