Food and drink

See a 17th-century recipe for seed cake inspired by the farmer poet Thomas Tusser. Ingredients include rosewater, caraway seeds, and sherry.

Hannah Woolley’s 17-century recipe for marmalade captures the flavors of exotic citrus with the preservative power of sugar, which had only recently been made widely available to upper- and middle-class British people.

Learn more about black-eyed peas’ place in the early modern world and enjoy this akara recipe inspired by Hercules, a chef enslaved by George Washington.

British beef cooked in a French style: Marissa Nicosia shares an early modern recipe for brisket from “The Accomplisht Cook,” by 17th-century English chef Robert May.

The perfect post for a winter’s day: Marissa Nicosia shares an early modern recipe for hot chocolate, associated with 17th-century author, botanist, and pirate William Hughes.

Want to add variety to your Thanksgiving? Try this modernized 17th-century recipe from the Folger collection for savory biscuits, fluffy and sweet and savory and firm and spiced all at the same time, recorded around 1672 in Constance Hall’s recipe book.

As October comes to an end, we celebrate food, drink, and culture in the German cities of Shakespeare’s day, including the creation of beer and wine and the harvest festivals each fall, marked by our modern-day tradition of Oktoberfest.

Shakespeare’s witches, like nearly all witches of Shakespeare’s time, have their roots in the kitchen more than in the study.

Mince pies and a honey-spiced drink called mirth are just two of hundreds of recipes found in a 17th-century handwritten recipe book once owned by Leticia Cromwell.

One of the earliest recipes for pumpkin pie can be found in the Folger vaults: “To make a Pumpion Pie,” which appears in a 17th-century cookbook by Hannah Woolley, one of the first women in early modern Britain to earn a living by her writing.

Salmon, oysters, asparagus, and grapes are all ingredients in this unusual pie recipe from Francine Segan’s cookbook “Shakespeare’s Kitchen.”

Francine Segan, a food historian with a taste for the Renaissance, adapts a 1610 handwritten recipe for rose cakes from a recipe book that’s part of the Folger collection.