Our kin beyond sea have always been stout eaters of solid food, and in Elizabeth’s time their tables were more plentifully laden than those of any other nation.  Harrison scientifically accounts for their inordinate appetite.  “The situation of our region,” he says, “lying near unto the north, does cause the heat of our stomachs to be of somewhat greater force; therefore our bodies do crave a little more ample nourishment than the inhabitants of the hotter regions are accustomed withal, whose digestive force is not altogether so vehement, because their internal heat is not so strong as ours, which is kept in by the coldness of the air, that from time to time (specially in winter) doth environ our bodies.”  The north Britons in old times were accustomed often to great abstinence, and lived when in the woods on roots and herbs.  They used sometimes a confection, “whereof so much as a bean would qualify their hunger above common expectation”; but when they had nothing to qualify it with, they crept into the marsh water up to their chins, and there remained a long time, “only to qualify the heat of their stomachs by violence.”

In Harrison’s day the abstemious Welsh had learned to eat like the English, and the Scotch exceeded the latter in “over much and distemperate gormandize.”  The English eat all they can buy, there being no restraint of any meat for religion’s sake or for public order.  The white meats—­milk, butter, and cheese—­though very dear, are reputed as good for inferior people, but the more wealthy feed upon the flesh of all sorts of cattle and all kinds of fish.  The nobility ("whose cooks are for the most part musical-headed Frenchmen and strangers “) exceed in number of dishes and change of meat.  Every day at dinner there is beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, conie, capon, pig, or as many of these as the season yielded, besides deer and wildfowl, and fish, and sundry delicacies “wherein the sweet hand of the seafaring Portingale is not wanting.”  The food was brought in commonly in silver vessels at tables of the degree of barons, bishops, and upwards, and referred first to the principal personage, from whom it passed to the lower end of the table, the guests not eating of all, but choosing what each liked; and nobody stuffed himself.  The dishes were then sent to the servants, and the remains of the feast went to the poor, who lay waiting at the gates in great numbers.

Drink was served in pots, goblets, jugs, and bowls of silver in noblemen’s houses, and also in Venice glasses.  It was not set upon the table, but the cup was brought to each one who thirsted; he called for such a cup of drink as he wished, and delivered it again to one of the by-standers, who made it clean by pouring out what remained, and restored it to the sideboard.  This device was to prevent great drinking, which might ensue if the full pot stood always at the elbow.  But this order was not used in noblemen’s halls, nor in any order under the degree of knight