We’re getting a historic house ready for a Stuart Christmas. Our period is the early part of the 17th Century (before Oliver Cromwell and his parliamentary party put the dampers on most kinds of fun for a few years).
Decorations
Greenery was free and so houses would have
been decorated with holly, ivy, bay, rosemary and mistletoe regardless of income. A
holy or kissing bough would have been hung at the entrance; it would be blessed by a priest and guests would be
hugged under it as they entered as a gesture to get rid of any hard feelings
that may have built up over the year. We've done some (authorized!) foraging to recreate the 17th Century look.Food and Drink
The Stuarts were big on sweet foods – a banquet at the time would have been a table full of desserts (straight to the good stuff - no wasting effort on nutrition). We took our ideas from historicfoods.com who cooked the food in this picture for real. Ours will be made from salt dough.
We’ll put in links to the images and recipes we're
following - you might be able to make edible versions. If you do, please let us
know how they tasted!
We’ve learned lots along the way, including that it’s best
not to mess about with salt dough the day after wrestling with holly. In the next few posts we'll show you how we're getting on and hopefully have the finished result next week!
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