Compare And Contrast Renaissance Diets

Some of the foods they ate in the Renaissance we still eat today. They ate soups, roasts, salads, pastas, bread, desserts, fruits and pastries. Majority of the people in the Renaissance ate bread. They ate bread with everything. It didn’t really matter of what they eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. People in the Renaissance loved eating food and they really enjoyed it.

A major part of society, ranging from the beginning of time until present day, has been the aspect of social classes and the distinguishing features between the different levels. In Giuseppe Di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard, through the use of different characters to symbolize the different social classes and the relationships between them, the author successfully distinguished and defined the different groups in nineteenth century Italian society. A special spotlight is shown on the aristocracy as that is the class the main character, Prince Fabrizio, belongs to. It is seen through the novel quite clearly the distinction between the different social classes ,the relationships between them, and why characters in the different classes behave as they do.

In the times of the Renaissance there were distinct social levels throughout the hierarchy of the Roman culture. Through this hierarchy there were dukes, serfs, peasants, aristocrats, and one specific group called “courtiers”. The book written by, Baldesar Castiglione, The Courtier helps define exactly what this social class consisted of. This book highlights many of the areas in which one would need to excel at to be considered better than an average man, and on his way to becoming a courtier. The main idea that being a courtier stems from is that of a universal man, or known during the Renaissance, “unos universal”. This was the idea of a man who was able to be proficient

The food that the people of the Renaissance ate differed from how much money you had. The rich usually nobles or merchants ate soups and broths that were usually sweetened with sugar and contained many exotic spices that were very expensive. The rich consumed more meat than peasants because according to the article Renaissance Food It states,” The rich also ate more meat. They would have large roasts of beef, stag, or pig”(Ducksters). They cooked these meats in a large vat which is a large pot and put a lot of juice like rose water to give the meat more flavor. During weddings or festivals, they had large feasts that usually contained many large game birds like peacocks, swans, and cranes which were only for the wealthy. On the flip side, the peasants didn’t have such an extreme diet like the rich so they usually had three meals a day. This contained eggs or manchet in the morning, which was a round loaf and a bit darker than bread and they also put butter in their manchet to give flavor. Sometimes during Sundays, they had pancakes as a treat

Summary: This website tells the history of food at the time of the Elizabethan Era.Poor people had unvaried diets consisting largely of bread, fish, cheese and ale, but the rich of Elizabethan England ate well.All kinds of meats were served to the rich people of Elizabethan England.Vegetables and fruits were regarded with some suspicion and was far more common for roasted and boiled meat to be accompanied with bread.Tudors were fond of desserts.Sometimes wine glasses, dishes, playing cards and trenchers were made out of a crisp modeled sugar called sugar-plate which would be elaborately decorated.

Eating in the Middle Ages was not as simple a process as it is in modern times. Whereas we are free to eat what we want, when we want, the medieval diet was restricted by many factors. The inhabitants of medieval Europe were bound by the constraints of social standing, wealth, location and religious beliefs. The nobility controlled the land, and the game that was on it became their property alone; poaching could be punishable by death. The majority of other foods produced upon their land were also under their control, leaving only a fraction to the serfs who worked the land.

The average person during the Renaissance was a peasant. Peasants would eat soup or mush for food just about every meal. They would also generally have some black bread. The soup would be made of scraps of food, usually vegetables such as carrots or eggs. Mush was made from some kind of grain like oats or wheat and then cooked in water. Sort of like oatmeal today.

Food of the Elizabethan Time People’s food of the Elizabethan time period depended on their social status and their financial abilities while malnutrition, diseases, and deficiencies made it harder for them to find food. The rich and the poor both had high risks of deficiencies because of the lack of sanitary foods and places and lack of nutrients. The food consumed varied depending on wealth and social class. In the Medieval period meat was a sign of wealth which carried over into the Elizabethan era. New inventions and the rapidly growing industries contributed into the new food of this time.

Although the central themes of the Italian Renaissance and Northern Renaissance varied, there was a shared common ground, and each reflected worldliness in unique ways. Firstly, the Italian Renaissance placed a higher emphasis on the enjoyment of and indulging in worldly goods. Famous Italian humanist, Leon Battista Alberti, claimed that money is “the root of all things” and that while it is great to know how to make money, “it is even better to know how to spend it sensibly and in the right place” (102, 580).

The Western Diet mainly consists of fried foods, refined grains, sugar, high carbohydrate and fats, and meats (3). It has been hypothesized that having a Western Diet increases one’s chances for developing depression. There has been a great deal of research into why the western diet increase’s one chance of having depression. A common sense reason maybe that the Western Diet consisted of large amounts carbohydrates, fats and sugars which promotes obesity and then causes depression (1). More scientific evidence suggest that having a improper diet like the Western Diet negatively affects peripheral and central dopamine, which are neurotransmitters (chemical which transmit signals across the synapse from the nerve cell to the target cell)

The idea of Renaissance Self-Fashioning introduced by Stephen Greenblatt, permeated the Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries by outlining the process in which sophisticated high class citizens fashioned their image to fit the acceptable standards of the public. Baldassare Castiglione’s literary work, The Book of the Courtier is the epitome of this idea and recites the specific qualities and actions a courtier should do at court to be well respected amongst his peers and succeed in his craft. Castiglione connects the idea of Self-Fashioning directly to the everyday ordeal of court courtiership by specifically illustrating the actions and qualities that make a perfect courtier.

This study would help this separation be noticed and possibly changed.The impact of the food during the renaissance era was the expression of this idea was shown in the arts of theatre, art, and novels. A fifteenth-century novella by Sabadino degli Arienti relates the mockery played by the Marchese Nicolò III d’Este on his waiter Bondeno, a son of a peasant, who asks to be made a knight. The Marchese refuses his request because Bondeno has not demonstrated the virtù required of a knight, but he promises nonetheless to give his waiter a coat of arms. When the Marchese presents Bondeno with his coat of arms to the knowing laughter of the whole court, Bondeno sees that at its center instead of the noble eagle he had hoped for there is figured a humble head of

The kind or type of food a person ate depended on if they were rich or if they were a peasant. The average person during the Renaissance was a peasant, pretty much for every meal they ate they would eat either mush or soup. The soup was made of scraps of food that they could find like vegetables. The mush they ate

Merchants and bankers were the most socially mobile group in the renaissance. The often started from humble beginnings- as peddlers or craftsmen, for example- and exploited new commercial opportunities to become very wealthy. Once they were rich, they tried to behave like the nobility. Many became patrons and leaders of society (“Social Order” pp.58).

The Elizabethan Era was very ironic in terms of status and nutrition of the rich and poor as the rich were known to have worse health than the poor and common people. Which asks the question, what are the differences between the nutrition health, and table/food manners between the poor/common people and rich? Since the rich has more money which leads to a bigger variety of selections and the poor and common peoples did not, what are the reasons for this outcome?