My guest on The British Food History Podcast today food historian and friend of the show Sam Bilton, podcaster and author of Much Ado About Cooking Delicious Shakespearean Feasts for Every Occasion, published by Headline and commissioned by Shakespeare’s Globe.

It was, of course,  a great opportunity to talk about the food of Shakespearean England as well as the food and drink references in Shakespeare’s plays, and what they meant to those watching the plays at the time they were first performed.

We talked about lots of cookery manuscripts, the importance of keeping historical recipes relevant, capons, Early Modern bread and greedy Falstaff’s sack, amongst many other things.

Those listening to the secret podcast can hear about horrible, sweet spinach tarts, Early Modern cakes, possets and more!

Much Ado About Cooking by Sam Bilton

Sam’s website

Follow Sam on BlueSky, Insta and Threads @mrssbilton

Comfortably Hungry

Ais for Apple: An Encyclopaedia of Food & Drink

Remember: Fruit Pig are sponsoring the 9th season of the podcast. Visit their website www.fruitpig.co.uk to learn more about them, their journey, to find your local stockist and access their online shop.

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This episode was mixed and engineered by Thomas Ntinas of the Delicious Legacy podcast.

Things mentioned in today’s episode

The Globe Theatre

Who is Falstaff?

Books discussed or mentioned and further reading

First Catch Your Gingerbread by Sam Bilton

Knead to Know: A History of Baking by Neil Buttery

A Dark History of Sugar by Neil Buttery

English Bread & Yeast Cookery by Elizabeth David

The Good Housewife’s Jewel by Thomas Dawson

The English Housewife by Gervase Markham

The Scot’s Kitchen by F. Marion McNeill

Delightes for ladies by Sir High Platt

Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book by Hilary Spurling

Previous pertinent blog posts

Boiled Capon with Sugar Peas

Tudor Salmon en Croute

Manchets and Payndemayn

Previous pertinent podcast episodes

A Rare Early Modern Cheese Manuscript with Alex Bamji

A Tudor Christmas with Brigitte Webster

Tudor Cooking & Cuisine with Brigitte Webster

Neil’s blogs and YouTube channel:

‘British Food: a History’

The British Food History Channel

‘Neil Cooks Grigson’

Neil’s books:

Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper

A Dark History of Sugar

Knead to Know: a History of Baking

The Philosophy of Puddings

Don’t forget, there will be postbag episodes in the future, so if you have any questions or queries about today’s episode, or indeed any episode, or have a question about the history of British food please email me at [email protected], or on twitter and BlueSky @neilbuttery, or Instagram and Threads dr_neil_buttery. My DMs are open.

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