is the Digital Research Fellow for the Before 'Farm to Table': Early Modern Foodways and Culture project, a Mellon-funded initiative at the Folger Shakespeare Library. She recently completed her PhD in English and Book History & Print Culture at the University of Toronto, where she specialized in women's writing of the English Reformation.
Before the Thanksgiving turkey came the banquet peacock
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Author
Elisa Tersigni
Lavish dinners—and the cookbooks and instruction manuals for how to execute them—were popular during the Renaissance, and they emphasized the art of food, in addition to—and at times, over—its taste. Peacocks were thus an ideal banquet food because their colorful plumage made for artful display. But over the early modern period, turkeys came to replace peacocks as the customary food of ceremonies and holidays.
Photo credit: Brittany Diliberto, Bee Two Sweet Today, turkey and stuffing are central fare on the holiday table. But turkeys weren’t even known in England until the 1520s, when they were introduced by explorers returning from the Americas. Turkey was…
Not Shakespeare’s cup of tea: Consuming caffeine in early modern England
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Author
Elisa Tersigni
In Shakespeare’s plays, we find scenes that take place in taverns and alehouses – but no coffee shops – and characters who drink ale and wine – but not what we now think of as the quintessential English beverage: tea.…
Tastes of the Mediterranean: Italian food before Italy
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Author
Elisa Tersigni
Italian regions share a culinary history that is rooted in the ingredients, tastes, and techniques that came out of early-modern innovations, explorations, and cultural movements.
Interested in adding variety to your Thanksgiving dinner? Try this modernized 17th-century recipe for savory biscuits based on a manuscript in the Folger collection.
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