What Did the Tudors Eat for Christmas?
Historic Royal Palaces Podcast
Historic Royal Palaces
4.7 • 701 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What was on the table for a Tudor Christmas dinner? From the lavish feasts of Henry VIII to the sugar delicacies gifted to Elizabeth I, Christmas at court was a spectacle to behold and to taste! But for ordinary people, the preservation of meats, cheese, fruit and vegetables was essential to even last the winter.
In this episode, Hampton Court Palace's Historic Kitchens Team discuss the culture and festivities of the Christmas period in 16th Century England, and share their experimental approaches to researching Tudor life through food.
Watch the team recreate the traditional Boar's Head as a desert on our YouTube channel!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this year's festive episode on the Historic Royal Palaces podcast. |
| 0:10.0 | My name is Isaac Sword and I'm one of the Historic Kitchens team based at Hampton Court Palace. |
| 0:15.0 | What do we do in the Historic Kitchens team? Well, we practice experimental history. |
| 0:19.0 | That means we investigate the lives of people from the past |
| 0:22.0 | through the ordinary, everyday tasks they had to undertake. |
| 0:25.1 | We recreate these tasks along with the tools and equipment |
| 0:27.7 | to study a whole host of subjects, such as cleaning and laundry, |
| 0:30.7 | makeup and beauty products, and of course, food. |
| 0:34.7 | Around this time of year, though, we shift fully into Christmas mode |
| 0:37.4 | and we're very busy |
| 0:38.4 | recreating festive recipes from history for our visitors. Hampton Court is famous for being |
| 0:43.2 | Henry the 8th's Pleasure Palace and it's one of the great palaces of the Tudor dynasty. So in today's |
| 0:48.1 | episode we're going to discuss how people in 16th century England prepared to celebrate the season |
| 0:52.2 | and what delightful and delicious delicacies might have been on their Christmas tables. |
| 0:57.1 | We're in the studio today and I'm joined by two of my colleagues from the Historic |
| 1:00.4 | Kitchens team. We have team head, Historic Kitchens Manager Richard Fitch and Tudor historian Dr. |
| 1:05.9 | Natalie Williams. Welcome both. Hi. Hello. My first question for you is do you like Christmas? Shall I answer it first? Probably best, I think. I love Christmas. I'm in the spirit already. The tree's up. I got my Christmas jumper on. I am so ready. And I have my first mince pie on Monday, so I'm there for it. Is there such a thing as too early for a mince pie? |
| 1:28.5 | Yes. |
| 1:29.1 | Yes. |
| 1:45.7 | When is too early for a mince pie? November. First of December, mince pie's out. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Full swing. Done. What about you, Richard? Oh, it's difficult. Ho, ho, no, I think. I'm not a massive Christmas person, but I think that's just because of too much work. |
| 1:45.7 | Yeah. No, I think I'm not a massive Christmas person, but I think that's just because of too much work. |
| 1:47.9 | Yeah, no, I think that's fair enough. |
... |
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