Foreign Infusion: Overseas Foods and Drugs in Seventeenth Century England

During the seventeenth century, the English were integrating foreign foods into their lives at an unprecedented, and previously unacknowledged, rate. This is apparent in both English homes and popular culture, as foreign foods were featured in contemporary recipe books, medical manuals, treatises, travel narratives, and even in plays performed during the period. Their inclusion in the English home and in popular culture is important; it illustrates that there was a general fascination with these foods that went beyond just eating them. When written about in travel narratives or incorporated into plays, the English were able to mentally consume such products. In this manner, they could think about, contemplate, and imagine foreign foods they may or may not have had access to, whether because of high costs or an inability to grow the product domestically. When featured in contemporary recipe books, medicinal manuals, or treatises describing their virtues, there is an indication that foreign foods were available to the public and were being integrated into English culinary culture. Although it is impossible to discern from recipe books and medicinal texts whether foreign foods were actually being consumed and not simply written about by "armchair chefs," the fact that they are featured in other aspects of English culture buoys the notion that they were physically being consumed. This unique relationship presents a duality of foreign food consumption, as the English were consuming foreign foods in both body and in mind