the pacing of a Tudor Christmas was very different to our own, celebrations lasted for 12 days but, king or commoner, you'd start the day hungry, the weeks before Christmas were a time of fasting and on Christmas Eve you ate fish, not meat, We have a lot of mistaken ideas about how the Tudors ate, they didn't gnaw chicken greedily and throw bones on the floor, and there were no dogs fighting over scraps under trestle tables, in a well-conducted house, the dogs - except for little spaniels - were exiled to kennels, table manners were strict and refined, knowing how to cut your bread and what to do with your napkin was an infallible social signal that separated a gentleman from an oik, and every young noble learned to serve at table and to carve,
turkey was introduced to England in the 1520s, but it was not a Christmas food - it was regarded as nutritious for invalids, goose was the popular Christmas meat, and the gilded, decorated head and forequarters of a boar were a fine display of a kitchen's skill, there are no eye-witnesses to 'four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie', but a cold pie crust popped at the last minute over live birds would be the kind of joke that Tudor diners liked, but for a full run down on a Tudor Christmas go no further than look here, Merry Christmas!
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