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Shakespeare: The strange way people looked at food in the 16th Century
It may seem a peculiarly 21st Century preoccupation, but people in Shakespeare's England were also obsessed with food, writes Dr Joan Fitzpatrick.
The 16th Century had plenty of diet books.
Andrew Boorde's Compendious Regiment (1542) warns against eating and drinking to excess and often remarks upon the behaviour and diet of English people, noting that the English spend too long sitting at dinner and supper, feeding on heavy meats before lighter ones, which isn't good for their digestion.
William Bullein's Government of Health (1558) takes the form of a dialogue between John, a self-confessed glutton, and Humphrey, a man of moderate habits.
In Sir John Falstaff, Shakespeare's notorious glutton, we're presented with a character who defies both dietary and religious authorities by eating and drinking to excess whenever he pleases. Moar
