In Stuart times, food took up to four-fifths of an ordinary family's budget. The diet of the poor remained rather basic:
Most people drank beer as their normal drink, as the water sold could not be trusted to be clean. Rich people began to enjoy new foods imported from other countries and newly founded colonies, including: bananas, pineapples, coffee beans and sugar (so popular that it was nicknamed ‘white gold’ by the plantation owners who farmed it in the Caribbean). Table manners also improved as many people began eating with forks and using metal pewter for plates (instead of wood). |
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