This isn't a commercial, but we have a gift shop here at the Folger Shakespeare Library in the front near our exhibition space.

You'll find a lot of things there that you'd expect. There are copies of the plays, coffee mugs with famous quotes, a Shakespeare bobblehead.

But you know what sells really, really surprisingly well at the Folger gift shop?

Cookbooks.

From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.

I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folcher's Director.

It actually makes sense when you think about it that we sell a lot of cookbooks here.

There's so much that's different between Shakespeare's world in our own,

but something that humans have had to do for as long as we've been on earth is cook and eat food.

Habits of diet, food preparation, and especially the way food

is served can give us a real window into a time-long go. A window that anecdotal evidence

suggests people are clearly interested in opening. So, in this podcast, we're going to

take a look at how and what the Elizabethans ate.

Francine Seaghan is a noted food historian. She's also a James Beard-nominated author of six books.

We thought it would be fun and enlightening to get together with her in her kitchen to learn what people in Shakespeare's time ate, how they prepared it, and how they served it.

We call this podcast, What Say You to a Piece of Beef and Mustard?

Francine is interviewed by Neva Grant.

Music Francine is interviewed by Neva Grant. So we're standing here in your very modern American kitchen in New York City, and it's fun to just look around and see all the appliances and all the other conveniences that a typical

Elizabethan chef just would not have had at their disposal.

Definitely there are the obvious things like there certainly wouldn't be a microwave.

There were also no kitchen clocks.

See the wonderful dial on my stove? No dials.

...