Kitchen Trivia circa 1500s

A lot of cooking was done in a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day the fire was lit and things added to the pot - mostly vegetables, not much meat. Leftovers stayed in the pot to get cold overnight to be started over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been in there for a month. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.

Pork in the house was a special event. Bacon was hung out to show it off. It was a sign of wealth - that a man "could really bring home the bacon." Hosts would cut off a little to share with guests and all sat around to "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food. This happened most often with tomatoes, so they stopped eating tomatoes ... for 400 years.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper crust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock a person out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

More on that subject - a bit gruesome or should I say morbidly fascinating ...

When England started running out of places to bury people, coffins were dug up to reuse and the bones were taken to a house (source did not specify which house.) When reopening coffins, one out of 25 were found to have scratch marks on the inside - ooops - buried alive. Prevention: Strings were tied on the wrist, lead through the coffin, up through the ground and tied to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" someone could be "saved by the bell."