Book of Days Tales

In Act 1 Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet we learn:

“Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.”

Tomorrow is Lammas, so today is Lammas eve – Juliet’s birthday.  The fact that she was still only 13 years old when the play takes place is not often reflected in the age of the actress playing her. Although Zeffirelli got close in his casting of Olivia Hussey when she was 15.  Her age also shocked Elizabethan audiences who thought that 16 was soon enough for marriage for a girl/woman, but Italian custom of the time, which Shakespeare is following, would find 14 an acceptable age for betrothal – certainly for the nobility.

Because of the opening up of the Americas to European trade in the sixteenth century, many new ingredients, such as potatoes and tomatoes, were finding their way to English kitchens, but they did not catch on immediately despite Sir John Falstaff’s appeal in The Merry Wives of Windsor – “Let the sky rain potatoes.”  He is talking about sweet potatoes which were considered an aphrodisiac at the time.  Otherwise, most vegetables from Mesoamerica were avoided.  It is said that when queen Elizabeth’s cooks were presented with potatoes, they cooked the greens and threw away the tubers because they looked ugly.  In consequence everyone got stomach ache because the leaves contain poisonous alkaloids, and potatoes were banned. 

Meanwhile here is a recipe for a gooseberry fool from The Queen-like Closet, Or, Rich Cabinet  published in 1670 by Hannah Woolley(1622 – c.1675). It’s outside our period but is probably representative of earlier recipes, and is worth experimenting with.

To make a Goosberry Fool

Take a Pint and an half of Goosberries clean picked from the stalks, put them into a Skillet with a Pint and half of fair Water, scald them till they be very tender, then bruise them well in the Water, and boil them with a Pound and half of fine Sugar till it be of a good thickness, then put to it the Yolks of six Eggs and a Pint of Cream, with a Nutmeg quartered, stir these well together till you think they be enough, over a slow fire, and put it into a Dish, and when it is cold, eat it.