The Reformation of salad: eating and drinking with immigrants in Elizabethan London

Writing about English food in 1614, the elderly Italian exile Giacomo Castelvetro observed:

The vast influx of so many refugees from the evils and cruelties of the Roman Inquisition has led to the introduction of delights previously considered inedible, worthless or even poisonous.

This article takes Castelvetro’s reflections as a prompt to explore eating and drinking among the ‘strangers’ of early modern England. Using letters and consistory records, it goes beyond the banqueting tables of England’s elite to consider how experiences of migration were shaped by food and drink. Through stereotypes, sociability, and confessional conflict, this article argues that paying attention to everyday practices of eating and drinking offers new insights into stereotypes and solidarities, confessional conflict and social control in Elizabethan England.